Weighed and Found Wanting

The World English Dictionary defines "diagnosis" as a "thorough analysis of facts or problems in order to gain understanding and aid future planning."  Without a correct diagnosis, there can be no understanding as to how best to treat a disease.  Without an adequate understanding, there can be little or no progress forward.

Recently I have been diagnosed with sarcoidosis and sleep apnea.  Now that a diagnosis has been reached through extensive laboratory testing and analysis, I can move forward to a more functional life as proper treatments are administered with God's blessing.

However, this morning I woke not with a physical diagnosis, but with a crucial diagnosis of my heart. I "have been weighed in the scales and found wanting." (Daniel 5:27)
So often I start my morning with "God, please help me through this day."  So often I pray that God will satisfy my needs.  I focus on my comfort.  I want the time to be filled with my agenda.  I even want the day to be filled with my praise as I seek for approval or affirmation from others.

No, I don't have idols of gold and silver clutched in my hands like Belshazzar did in Daniel 5, but I certainly have stinking idols of selfishness in my heart.  Like him, I do "not honor the God who holds in His hand my life and all my ways." (Daniel 5:23)  I fear my life is about me, me, me...

As I search my heart further, I can see how it's my selfishness also that is road-blocking my writing.  Often I am afraid to publish what I write.  Why?  I fear I will say the wrong thing and hurt someone.  Now I really do hate to hurt anyone's feelings and I hate confrontation, but is that really what is deflating my tires, or is it that I'm afraid someone will turn against me if I speak the truth?  Me again...

This diagnosis I received this morning is far more difficult to accept than physical diagnoses, but now I ask myself: What will I do with it?  I can say I wept before God this morning and again asked His forgiveness, but that sounds like me again.  So I will just say God is faithful and forgiving.  He stands firm no matter how much we fail.  In Jesus and His totally unselfish sacrifice, my selfishness can be washed away again and again.  The 100% pure and sure treatment for a correct diagnosis.

In Jesus, I can move forward.  Because of JESUS and HIS LOVE, my wake-up prayer can become, "God, please let YOUR NAME be glorified today. Not my will and way, but YOURS. Not my praise, but YOURS forever!"

Read Daniel 5.

Dig into your heart.  What idols are hidden there?

How has God shown you His complete forgiveness in and through the blood of Jesus?

Negative Thoughts Begone!

Have you ever had days when negative thoughts rampage your mind?  Some days it can be tough to kick those stuck records out of sight and out of mind: "I'm not good enough," "I'm fat and ugly," "I'm stupid," and many more.

Satan has a heyday with negative thoughts.  He gets a thrill out of driving us into despondency.  As Kay Arthur says in her Lord, Heal My Hurts: A Devotional Study on God's Care and Deliverance, "Satan desires to sift us as wheat, to make us weak and ineffectual servants in the kingdom of God.  Having lost us to God, he knows that we are God's forever, yet the reality of that truth does not stop him."

When we are saved, the battle does not end.  Where God builds His church, Satan builds a chapel. Once Jesus has gathered another lamb to His fold, Satan will try whatever wily way he can to turn that heart from living for Jesus.  He is enraged that his power is broken by Jesus' blood and he prods us to doubt who we are in Jesus.

In Jesus, we are good enough.  In Jesus, we are beautiful.  In Jesus, we are intelligent and brave.  In Jesus, we are pure and undefiled.

Let's remember that the weapons we fight with have divine power to demolish every argument Satan sets up against the knowledge of God.  Let us boldly confront Satan and all those negative thoughts with the blood of Jesus Christ.

II Corinthians 10: 4-5
"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Lord, Save Me!

Matthew 14

One of my favorite Bible passages is when Jesus walked on water to the disciples in the boat and Peter said, "Lord, if it's You, tell me to come to You on the water." 

Jesus said, "Come."  Peter did walk on the water until he lost sight of Jesus.  When he looked around and saw the boisterous waves swirling around him, he began to sink.

"Lord, save me!"  Peter cried as the sea threatened to swallow him and fear and desperation choked him. 

Did Jesus let him drown?  No, Jesus immediately reached out His hand and caught Peter.  Amazing love and faithfulness!

I can almost imagine the sorrow in Jesus' eyes as He said, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

I, too, am of such little faith.  As I look back on my life, there were so many times when wave after wave crashed over me and the undercurrent of doubt and despair sucked me under.  There were even times when I wanted to just give up.  Not even God cared, I thought.  I once was so near to swallowing a full bottle of aspirin.  Several times I was sorely tempted to drive my car off a cliff. 

It's a miracle that I didn't take my life.  Relief from my troubles and despair didn't always come immediately, but in hindsight I see how God's grace did spare me again and again.

Jesus is available 24/7 to lend a helping hand.  It was my focus that was off.  I concentrated on the storm raging within me instead of looking to Jesus and His power to save.

Reader, if you are in despair for some reason or another, take heart.  There is nothing too impossible for God.  I pray that Jesus will again and again open our eyes to His hand reaching out and our ears to His invitation, "Come to Me, my precious child.  I will be with you no matter how dark the valley.  I will never leave you or forsake you."