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- Written by: Don Goulding
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the one against whom the Lord will never count sin. (Romans 4:7, 8)
My life is broken. It cycles like this—sin, languish, repent, back to sin. To say I never backslide is to expose my misunderstanding of the definition of sin.
The truly dangerous part of the cycle is languishing. That’s where sin multiplies. Wallowing in the swamp of self defeat, thick with guilt and disappointment, I’m disgusted with myself, and figure God must be repulsed too. The mud sucks at my feet, holding me from repentance. My thoughts run to, I may as well stay and give in.
A bridge gleams with rays of gold over the mire. Its name is Grace. It was the most expensive bridge ever constructed, and also the most useful. I’m invited to skip directly from sin to repentance. I don’t have to spend another minute in the bog of languish.
The bridge is proof that I was wrong about God hating me. Even at the height of my rebellion, Father God loved me. As I still love my two-year-old child when she misbehaves, God, too, never pulls his love back. He wants me near him, even after I sin. That’s why he paid for the bridge—to carry me from sin to himself as fast as possible.
The rules of the bridge are simple. After I cross over, stop condemning myself and start thanking God. Stop acting self-sufficient, and start expecting Jesus to get me out of sin. Stop living for temporal pleasure, and start living for eternal love.
Above all, when I sin—and I will sin—be an adult about it. Get up, dust myself off, and run across the bridge to repentance. Bypass languish altogether.
Prayer: Father, when I sin, help me return to you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalms 27:14) (NIV)
Wind and time carve a canyon of layered sandstone into blended earth colors. Ribbons of pink run between courses of rust-red, then beige. My fingertips long to run over the grainy scallops of whipped cream cut from stone.
Water and time are at work in a basalt gorge. The rock is slick and dense. A sheen of inky slate flows over the dark folds. At the bottom of the ravine, enormous hands of iron rock coddle a wild creek.
Ice and time chisel into the meat of granite boulders lying at the foot of a mountain. Frozen veins split flicks of quartz and black mica. The landscape is littered with the decomposing blocks of a naughty giant who failed to return his toys to the box.
My face has been forced against the sandstone of stress, my growth slammed into the basalt of sin, and my dreams shattered on the granite of failure. But no matter what stones compose my trials, there is power to cut them apart. Like wind, water, and ice, prayer unleashes forces of epic power. The awesome might of God works in the heavenly realms to grind, melt, and fracture my spiritual boulders. I may not understand the means or the timing, yet it happens.
2 Peter says, “… a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day.” If a thousand years is a day by God’s clock, then the years of the average human lifetime would equate to one hour and forty minutes of celestial time. Some of the stone in my life may not yield until paradise, but even if I have to wait until then, is waiting one hour and forty minutes too long?
Assured of what’s coming soon, I can be strong, take heart, and wait on the Stonebreaker.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, grant me peace as I wait on your sure deliverance.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17)
“Tell them for me. Tell people what happened,” ten-year-old Tanaka rasped out her dying wish.
At age four, Tanaka was sold by her mother as a prostitute. When she was eight, she was rescued to a Zimbabwean orphanage. The fair skinned girl died of AIDS two years later.
My dog had a better earthly life than precious, beautiful Tanaka. So how do I reconcile the hell infested existence of a four-year-old daily rape victim to my soft life of ease? To pretend suffering is not real, or to think God ignores it, is to misunderstand reality. Pain is not initiated by God, nor is it permitted in his ordained future for his followers. It’s a aberration conjured by Satan and fallen humans working in collusion.
God is not bested. He transforms our brief earthly misery into opportunities for eternal glory. Jesus experienced both the pain of suffering, and the glory of paradise, and the two did not compare. Crucifixion pushed him down an inch, resurrection lifted him up a mile. The same exchange is planned for us.
Our God deals in justice and equity. Tanaka suffered in the strength of Jesus and now she is rewarded a thousandfold. God never forgot her torment. Instead, he used it for her glory, and his.
Prayer: Merciful Father, honor the downtrodden throughout eternity.