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?

Struggles Teach Us to Fly

No one is without struggles in this life, and sometimes it can get so wearisome that we wish we could just find an easy way out.  But easy isn't better.

I struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and I often get bronchial infections.  Last week it was to the point that I ended up in the ER with a breathing treatment and IV fluids and meds.  I had picked up a stomach and a bronchial virus.  I felt so sick I asked Jesus to take me.  I was so weary of coughing and chest aches and pains.

One morning I read a devotion from Streams in the Desert.  A man observe an emperor moth emerge from its funnel-shaped cocoon.  As the moth struggled to squeeze through the small opening, the man felt sorry for it and thought he'd make it easier for the moth.  With a scissors he clipped the sides of the opening allowing the moth to slip out more easily.  The moth walked around with a big body and shriveled up wings, was never able to fly, and eventually died.

For that poor moth, easier was not better.  The tight squeeze pressures the fluid into a moth's wings.  Without that struggle, the moth will never have the privilege of flying.

What an encouraging analogy from God's creation!  The struggles in our lives are just tight squeezes that will prepare our wings.  The greater the struggle, the greater the energy in our wings to fly for Jesus. 

Jesus, there are so many in this world who struggle.  You know the plights of each and every person.  You know their weariness.  Strengthen each and every one with the energy juice of Your love so they can better fly for You and Your honor in this life.  All things are possible through You!  Thank You, Jesus, for your indescribable suffering in our place.

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."