Peace

Imagine you are in the woods in the winter time.  It is still and quiet.  The lack of noise heightens your senses and you can hear the falling snow hit the earth, like soft breath escaping.  All you see is the dark wood of the trees against the white of the snow and small footprints where animals have been busy during the day, but have long since gone to their homes for the night. It is calm and you are at peace.

I can see this scene so clearly in my mind it is as if it were a memory from my past.  This is what I think of when I think of peace.

This world is so chaotic and some days it feels like I am being bombarded from all sides.  I get knocked down and get up only to be knocked down again.  Do you ever feel that way?  

God has promised us in Psalm 29:11 that He will give strength to his people and will bless them with peace.  Peace that is not of this world but beyond our understanding. Peace that satisfies and calms our exhausted heart and souls.  How do we get this peace?  Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you”.  Our peace is shattered when our gaze shifts from God to our circumstances.  We get knocked down and our eyes immediately look to see what hit us.  That’s normal.  That’s O.K.  It is when we keep our gaze on the object of our pain that it becomes a problem.  We lose sight of God and who he is and we lose our peace.  

In high school I was in a music ministry with a young man named Scott.  He was an accomplished concert pianist by the time he was in Jr. High and I was in awe of his concentration when he played one of his pieces.  Scott was so focused and tuned in to the nuances, notes, and phrases of the music, everything around him faded away.  To test this, I would try to distract him and see if I could get him flustered and lose focus.  I couldn’t do it.  I am convinced the building could fall down around us and he would not miss a note or beat as our bodies lay crushed under the debris.  That is the kind of dedicated, building-fall-down-around-me-and-not-lose-sight type of focus I want to have on God.

When the temptation to focus on the darkness, struggle, pain, and uncertainty comes, cling to the Word of God that remind us that He is Light, Provider, Healer, and never changes; good Father, Rock, Promise Keeper.  Darkness, struggles, pain, and uncertainty don’t stand a chance with our Almighty God, even when it seems the building has fallen down around us.

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.” 2 Thessalonians 3:16

Lisa

Abounding in Hope

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

When you believe strongly in something you have confidence in it.  You are not easily swayed.  You build your life around it. It makes me think of Linus, from the Peanuts cartoon, and his strong belief in the Great Pumpkin. He was so confident that the Great Pumpkin would appear that he gave up parties, trick-or-treating, and endured a lot of ridicule from his friends as he spent a long, lonely, cold, night in the pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately for Linus, he put his trust and confidence in something that was not real, but that is not the same for us.

2 Corinthians 3:4-5 says, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,” God is sufficient and we can believe Him to be who He says he is for God is not only the object of our hope but He is also the author.  In Strong’s Greek concordance, the Greek word for hope is elpis which means, expectation, trust, and confidence. The product of that belief in God as our hope is joy and peace.  This is not the type of peace and joy that is determined by our circumstances, but is filling, satisfying, and ever-lasting.  As the Holy Spirit directs our gaze to the perfect One the result is not just a little bit of hope, joy, and peace, but an abundance of it!

Ask the Holy Spirit to shift your focus from the circumstances around you to the One who gives you hope that is satisfying and abundant.

Abounding in hope with you today,

Lisa

Count it ALL Joy?

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,” James 1:2

Count it all joy? Surely there must be exceptions, right?

Have you heard the phrase, “Choose Joy!”?  Maybe, like me, you’ve said it countless times especially in trying circumstances.  With fists held high, voices raised, we smile and say through gritted teeth, “I’m choosing joy today!” as someone has spilled their third glass of milk on top of the unpaid bills that you can’t pay while the dog runs through the house with muddy paws. You summon all your will power and positivity to produce a feeling that is just not present in the moment. So, is it possible to do that? Choose joy?  It’s an emotion, right?  I can’t control how I feel.  Can you? And, what is joy anyway? John Piper defines it this way, “Christian joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.”  I love this definition. I think one of the key phrases in that definition is “produced by the Holy Spirit”.  Galatians 5:22 says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”.  Produced not by us, but by the Spirit.

The Spirit produces this joy in us as he causes us to see the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ through the Word of God.  My joy, my feelings, are the movements of a soul in awe of my Creator Father.  So, in a sense, I can choose joy.  I may be feeling frustrated, worried, and angry, and I can’t control those feelings when they hit me, but I can control the action that will ensue.   I can steer my thoughts to Father and who He is, and when I do, I can’t help but see things through His perspective.  I am thankful to have milk to spill and bills to pay because I am reminded of Father’s provision in all things even when that provision seems slow.  Why? Because Philippians 4:19 says my God will supply my every need. I am thankful for the child God has entrusted to me even though it seems that blessed one can’t keep liquids in a cup if their little life depended on it.  What a privilege to help shape a life toward a relationship to Father! And, muddy paws?  Nope.  I’ve got nothing.  It just is what it is.  A big muddy mess.  However, when the Holy Spirit steers my thoughts toward the beauty of Christ, even mud takes on a whole new perspective because when I look at that mess in comparison to what Christ has done for me, it becomes less, He becomes more, and joy is produced in my heart. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13)

Choosing joy with the help of the Spirit today,

Lisa Ruffenach

Worship Director at Faith Baptist Church

dynamicworshipexperiences@blogspot.com

Who's Going My Way?

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’ But you were unwilling,” Isaiah 30:15

I like doing things my own way.  Sometimes that is good, but most of the time if I had just followed the counsel of others or the directions on the box, things would have turned out so much better.  Many times, I hear God’s voice speak to my heart, “Lisa.  We can do this my way or your way.  The outcome is going to be the same, because my will is still going to be accomplished regardless.  So what's it going to be?”  There is implication in this conversation with Father that my way is just going to make things harder, drag things out longer, and more pain than necessary may be involved.  In spite of all the warnings, I still have a tendency to go my way.  Just like Israel, I am unwilling. How about you?

Israel, after being set free and in process of being led to the Promise Land, decided they wanted to do things their way.  What did that look like? They made plans to go back to slavery and bondage because the way God was leading them seemed scary, painful, and they were sure they were going to die.  I feel like God was saying to them, “Listen up.  We can do this my way which leads to life and promise or your way which will certainly lead to slavery and death.  What are you going to choose?’ He lovingly reassures them in Isaiah 30:15, by saying (my paraphrase), “Forget about your plans and rest in mine.  That is what is going to save you.  Depend on me and my power and goodness.  Quiet your fears and scary thoughts and keep peace in your minds.  You can have confidence that I will do what is best for you.  And when you do this, it will give you strength.  You will not be shaken.” Wow. Seems like a no-brainer, right? 

Now Israel, did decide to trust in God’s plan and continue on, but throughout the whole journey it was a forty-year battle of the wills that sometimes reminds me of my own journey with the Lord.  

So, whose way are you going to choose?  Yours, where you return to pain and misery because that seems safer than an unknown path? Yours, where you stubbornly stay where you are, refusing to move forward, because you are sure where you are at is safer than the other option? Yours, where you are certain there is a short-cut to the promised land which, in reality, may end up taking you an allegorical forty-years? Or God’s way which will be perfect no matter what the road looks like?  

I am so thankful we have a God that when we choose to linger in the desert longer than necessary because of our stubbornness and self-reliance, He walks it with us.

Choosing His way today, 

Lisa Ruffenach