Are you going through a storm right now? Something so difficult or traumatic that you aren't sure you'll make it to tomorrow?

Don't give up hope. It often takes a storm to get our minds off our own plans and ways and onto God's greater plan—to realize there's a purpose for our life that is far better than our own. Our storms help draw us closer to God than anything else. So when we're facing a storm, let's remember three things as we learn to ride it with God, instead of letting it control and overwhelm us.

1) Nothing that happens to us happens by chance. Everything comes by way of a plan and purpose, no matter how chaotic or random it may appear to us at the moment. God is God and we aren't. It means he's in charge of the universe and has a purpose and a will that far exceeds our own. God uses both good and evil to accomplish his will. Whatever it is, good or bad, it has to pass first by the Creator of all things. We may never have an adequate answer in this life to our questions, “Why does God permit evil?” or “Why did this happen to me?,” but we do know that God intends to exploit evil to the full, to bring about his good purposes in a world of tornadoes, cancer, genocide, violence, human foolishness, financial reversal, divorce, and all the rest.

2) No matter how utterly our hopes and dreams have been devastated by a life storm, in the midst of the ruins we can see the foundation for hope and recovery. In the aftermath of a tornado or hurricane, it appears that nothing is left to salvage. But right there under the shards of glass, piles of rubble, and splinters of wood, is the foundation. Similarly, if we look closely enough at the crumbling ruins of our life, there in the destruction is the most obvious evidence of hope to rebuild—our foundation. Our immovable foundation is Jesus Christ and the ever-reliable mercy and grace of God. It isn't our faith that's so great, but God's loving kindness, which created our faith and brings it back again when it seems to have blown away. The foundation, the character of God, always remains the same.

3) Even though nothing in our lives is so secure it can't be taken away, there is nothing that can be taken that God can't restore to us. This really does sound impossible when taking into account the loss of a loved one, but this truth is at the heart of the Christian faith. It's called the resurrection. It means that even our life on this earth—which we know absolutely will end one day—can be restored. We come to believe in the reality of resurrection of our bodies and all of creation based on our daily life experiences. God knows that it's very hard for us to believe in what we can't see, so he gives us many little resurrections (the God-incidences) in our present life. He rescues us time after time in the most obvious ways. We can't possibly fail to recognize it as the work of some invisible, intelligent force, and can expect the same at the end of life.

So let's be a Storm Rider. Let us be absolutely confident that God will do what he loves to do and has done since the very beginning: to create for us a rescue ex nihilo (out of nothing). When there is no way out, no exit, no human hope for survival, God speaks into existence a way out and a way in—a way out of our plight and a way into a real, joyful life of fulfillment. This is the meaning of an exodus. As Pastor Chris Linzey says in his article, I'm Broken Inside, "May we all have that kind of faith that holds us close to God no matter what the situation or consequence."

And pray, even when your faith seems to have vanished. Wait for a full, God-designed exodus, not merely an exit from your problem. Keep on asking until something happens. If you don't know what to say, try this: My faith is at very low tide, Lord. I don't know how to trust you right now. I'm too weary and wounded even to believe that you're there. I really don't know if you are. And if you are, I'm not able to believe that you know my name or care about me. I'm sorry for all this, but right now it's the best I can do. Help me when I can't believe anything.

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28

Why me?

Life seems to offer us many opportunities for resentment, bitterness, disillusionment, or anger designed to turn us quickly self-centered as we compare ourselves to others:

• We didn’t get what we thought we deserved—that promotion, job, relationship, or vacation to the Bahamas!
• We don’t like the way we look.
• We feel cheated, duped, discarded.
• We broke up with our loved one.
• We didn’t get healed.

Built into us is a button, a self-destruct button that we automatically press whenever things don’t go our way.

It all comes down to blame. We are blamers—they, them, and, ultimately, we blame God for all our grief and problems. It all boils down to his fault. The most difficult thing in life for us is to let go of our wills and let God rule. There is a script to our life whether we realize it or not. It was written before we were even born. The very day of our birth and the last hour of our life were created in the mind of God before the foundation of the world. The Psalmist said, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15). In other words, our dates from beginning to end are within the governing power of our God.

Avoiding the Blame Game

This means avoiding the blame game.

“Whose fault is this? Why did God (or someone else) allow this to happen to me?” This is one of the most worthless, energy-draining, self-deluding exercises we can engage in. Don't do it.

Resentment toward our neighbor or our God will not help us. The one and only one result of this sort of bitterness is destructive—mostly to the one who gives in to it. In his article, "Cancer of the Soul: Negative Nelly Meets Bitter Betty," Dr. Fraser Ryan writes, "These spiritual sicknesses cause us to think and behave in unhealthy and unholy ways. Moreover, these detrimental and destructive attitudes are responsible for injuring others. But, sadly enough, in the end they ultimately hurt us more than anyone else."

So it really doesn't matter who or what got us into the jam we're in. It may be someone else's fault, or it may be our own, or it simply may be due to the weather.

Whoever is directly responsible for our plight, we can say at the very minimum that it was God who oversaw it. What happens to us can never be the product of “just accident” or pure “chance.” If we believe in the God of the Bible, such things are not even a possibility. God is the God of order and purpose and whatever occurs in this life must first pass his inspection. It may be good or evil, but it doesn't happen while he's looking the other way. Whatever you do, don't fall for any of the popular views of God that make him anything less than totally sovereign and in complete control of the entire course of history.

God's Ultimate Good

In truth, God blesses us by means of his will—he chooses to bless us with his ultimate good. He wills our highest good in the form of his perfect will for us. The best that we can envision for ourselves is paltry and pathetic in comparison to what our Father in heaven can envision for us. The most exciting, most fulfilling, most spectacular career or success we can secure for ourselves is nothing compared to what God can bring to us in the center of his will. That's why we're taught by Jesus to pray for the perfect will of God.

When we understand this, there is no longer any place for resentment or blame. Everything we are and have comes by God's design, and it's all part of a greater plan that involves not only our lives, but also the lives of others in ways we might not even be able to imagine.

God blesses us through his will because his will is the very best thing available to us anywhere at any time. Our plans must be in line with his purposes.

Thanks be to God for his love and grace.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. -Psalm 46:1-3,11

"By mid-afternoon it was clear even to Frank Dye that the summer cruise was not going to plan. The storm had been building in the northeast Atlantic since noon and by 5.30pm had reached what the Met Office described as a "severe gale", force nine on the Beaufort scale. Banshees were screaming round Dye's boat at close to 50 knots, and the sea had been whipped into a deafening grey-green mountainscape whose waves stood four storeys high. It was the sort of day on which fishermen drowned, but Dye and his crewman Bill Brockbank were out in it, in the middle of the Norwegian Sea, in a little sailing boat called Wanderer." To find out how this story ends, click here.

The overwhelming force of the green water wave fills with dread those out at sea. This enormous, destructive force washes over the deck of the ship and sweeps away almost everything in its path. Even on modern warships, I am told, large pieces of firmly attached iron can disappear in an instant with a giant green wave.

John Newton, the composer of Amazing Grace, described the moment he finally gave his will over to God. One of the worst human beings of the 18th century (a slave trader), he had fought hard and long against God’s stubborn grace. Returning repeatedly to his selfish and sinful life, he was once caught up in a tremendous sea storm in the Atlantic where he witnessed the awesome power of the grey-green wave as, in a split second, it washed a man into eternity.

One day during a long voyage, a fierce storm struck. The ship lurched and rocked as the violent storm raged. Climbing the huge waves, the boat plunged time after time, crashing into the ocean on the other side. With each fall, more and more of the ship's contents spilled into the raging water. As an experienced sailor, John Newton had ridden out many a fierce storm before, but never had he come this close to death. As the ship began to break into pieces and water rushed in everywhere, one sailor washed overboard. A few hours later when John faced certain death, he began to recall Bible verses his mother had taught him. John, who couldn't swim, heard himself cry, "Lord, have mercy on us." But then he thought, "What mercy can there be for a wretch like me"? As John began to tell God he was sorry for turning away from Him and for doing so much wrong, he began to feel peace in his soul. (To read more, click here).

The green wave is a graphic image that captures the state of the soul when a sudden heartbreak sweeps through your life. Its force takes you off guard with its total, life altering power to reverse everything you had thought before, and turn upside down all that you believed about God, the Christian faith, and the world in general.

What’s the antidote to the fear and dread that arises in the heart at such a wave of destruction? John Wesley discovered it when he experienced a similar sea storm in the same century and in the same ocean. When his ship was tossing and turning, climbing up, and then sliding down the mountainous waves before him, he looked over and saw a group of people on deck who just sat together calmly, praying, and seeming utterly unmoved by the terrors filling the hearts of others. He called them “the Germans,” Christians who appeared utterly fearless in the face of the deadly grey-green water rising all around them. He asked God what was in them that wasn’t in him. What had God put into their hearts that he hadn’t in his? The question haunted him long after the storm had passed and he had arrived safely in England. One evening while attending a prayer meeting, he felt “strangely warmed,” something entered the core of his being that changed things for him—forever.

It was an inexplicable, unshakable confidence that Jesus Christ was his Savior and that all the fears of this life were unfounded. He carried this trust with him throughout the forty years and a quarter-million miles on horseback as he took the Gospel to the dark and fearful souls of England and America.

What’s the solution to life’s many grey-green waves? It’s the faith only God can give. It’s his unmerited gift to every one of his elect, those who are to obtain salvation. God seems to parcel it out when it’s needed, and usually not before. It comes with the storm.

In the words of Dutch evangelist Corrie Ten Boom, this faith is like the train ticket her father gave to her just prior to the train’s arrival. When it’s the right time for it, it’s granted, and only God can know exactly when that time is. What we can do is want it, ask for it, and wait for it.

I burst into tears, “I need you!” I sobbed. “You can't die! You can't!” “Corrie,” he began gently. “When you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket?” “Why, just before we get on the train.” “Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too. Don't run out ahead of him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need – just in time.” -Corrie Ten Boom

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
-1 Corinthians 13

Now notice an interesting phenomenon. When you start to read this chapter—one nods in agreement, particularly when there is everything to love. But what if things don't go one's way? What then? If one really gets the point of Paul’s chapter, they probably wouldn’t be agreeing so much.

Love is patient, kind, never jealous, boastful, arrogant, or rude. It never insists on its own way, is not irritable, pouty, or peevish. Love is never resentful, and on and on.

Think about it: at first the call to love appears simple. But usually by the time we get to the end of the catalogue of what love implies it becomes pretty obvious that whatever we intend and promise to be toward others never really gets very high off the ground. The kind of radical love God requires of us is far beyond us. The way just gets too steep and the air too thin at those high altitudes.

So what’s the solution to the love problem? How do we get from how we really are to how we ought to be? How do we ever reach the higher levels of what love requires?

First, we come to recognize in all humility that we can’t really pull it off—we’re just not all that good. It’s not in us to be so loving. We want to be, but we’re not. That’s an enormous realization, and it requires brutal honesty. The person who reads the love chapter and says, “Yep, that’s me alright!” has completely missed the point.

Second, we come to realize that in our insufficiency is God’s sufficiency. In our weakness, God’s strength is manifest. What we can’t do, God can. So we join with St. Augustine when he said that all the great commands of God are impossible for us to keep in our own strength and pray: “Lord, give what you command.” In other words, “I can’t do it, you can, so empower me to do what you want me to do.” This is the key to the life of faith, the life in the Spirit. Chapters 12 and 14 are about the Holy Spirit and his power to transform all of life. In other words, Paul is telling us, don’t even think about producing a Spirit-empowered life without the Spirit. It can’t be done. But with the Spirit of Christ at the center of everything, anything is possible.

Finally, the truest and most noticeable mark of the Spirit’s presence in someone is not their spiritual vocabulary, the way they look, or their Sunday behavior, but their love—their daily interactions and caring ways.

If resentment, anger, or hatred has replaced love and joy in your life, do a heart-check and see if you can determine the root cause of your problem. If someone hurt you, keep a heart of love ready to forgive them the minute they ask for your forgiveness. If you've hurt someone, reach out to them and ask them to forgive you. Not in some fake doing the Christian thing way, but in total, genuine humility, setting aside your pride and rancor. As Christians, we are called to a higher path.

Make love your aim—today, tomorrow, and always.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” -1 Corinthians 15:51–55

If the message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection mean anything, it’s this: in Jesus, death has died.

The one power that has held sway over every single human being since the beginning of time has now been completely routed in Jesus. There is no final victory of death over the believer.

So why do we have such respect and fear of death? Why do we lavish such honor upon it at our funerals and memorial services? We speak in low voices or don’t know what to say at all in the presence of it. We think it so final and so decisive that we use the word “death” to mean the ultimate end of things.

This shouldn’t be. For the believer in Jesus, death is a defeated enemy. No, it’s not a friend or “a natural part of life,” it’s always an enemy, but one that’s been utterly overpowered by Jesus’ resurrection. We certainly recoil at its threat and the ways it can come to us, and we clearly suffer when our loved ones are taken by it, but it’s not the final word or the greatest power over us. Its victory and sting have been neutralized.

This is true not only in the personal, physical realm (death of the body), but it’s also true in the realm of our professions, broken relationships, and life dreams.

Our jobs can be lost, our careers can take a downward turn, our dreams may come crashing down in a single afternoon, but there is nothing that can be lost in this world that is beyond recovery.

If our very bodies can be brought back to life (even greater life than before), then the lesser things of life are equally open to restoration and transformation.

This is the hope that is available now, in this present life, to the believer in Jesus.

And, fortunately, it is something that God demonstrates in the nitty-gritty of our daily lives. It’s all the “little resurrections” (the rescues, healings, and answers to prayer) that give us a solid reason to expect a great resurrection at the end.

This Easter, let us move forward in joy and utmost confidence knowing “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Today’s Prayer

Lord God, reveal to me the true meaning of the resurrection, and may its power fill me with your hope and everlasting joy, I pray in the strong name of the resurrected Christ, Amen.

My Easter Commitment

Yes. I do believe this.

After these eight days of walking through the Easter story—the events of Holy Week, which are the turning point of all of history—I recommit myself and everything I have to…

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20

How are we supposed to view our present life of faith?

This passage tells us to look at our present lives as servants of the Lord Jesus. Just as Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, and then raised to new life, so we are in a sense crucified with Jesus, dead with him, buried with him, and then raised with him.

This is what it really means to be a believer, a disciple, a Christian. This, and nothing less, is what the Christian life means. When we come to Jesus and ask him to forgive us, dwell in us, and transform us for his purposes, what we’re really asking is this: for the old selfish life story, with its private, “me-centered” goals and dreams, to be taken up into the Great Story and transformed for God’s eternal purposes.

It’s not just “making Jesus our personal savior,” then skipping happily on our way as if nothing had happened. It’s being totally aware that our life prior to faith in Jesus is dead and buried. Gone—nine feet underground.

From now on, since Jesus is our Lord, Master, Ruler, Guide, Commander, and all the rest, we live to and for him.

No, there isn’t any split-level discipleship available, as if some people can choose “First Class” Christian life of total commitment and others can opt out for “Business Class” or “Main Cabin.” Jesus is either Ruler of everything or Ruler of nothing. Either Jesus’ spirit is going to dwell inside us (the biblical definition of a Christian life—see Rom. 8:9–10; 2 Cor. 13:5), or he isn’t. We’re his disciples or we aren’t.

So we live each and every day of this earthly life by faith in and dependence on the Son of God. Our lives no longer belong to us to do with just as we wish.

Remember, the “old guy” is dead. Now Jesus lives out his life in us, daily transforming us into his likeness and doing through us the will of the Father.

How this affects our prayer is obvious: We pray for and about everything, always conscious of the fact that our life has been thrust into the main stream of another higher will and purpose.

Today’s Prayer
Lord God, let me not forget that my life belongs to you and that you have a plan and purpose that far exceed my own selfish desires. Thank you for your compassion and grace to us all. Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I recognize once again that I am fallen. I acknowledge my need to submit completely to Christ and surrender…

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. -Isaiah 53:5–6

Our human minds can’t even begin to grasp the enormity of the price Jesus paid for us on the cross. If we did, our hearts would ache knowing of his supreme sacrifice on our behalf and love for us.

Although we don’t know exactly whom the prophet Isaiah was referring to in his own day, this passage was very early applied to Jesus. The church recognized that it perfectly (and prophetically) described his mission on our behalf—he’s the one who bore the full weight of our sins and folly, he is the one who paid for our transgressions, and he is the only reason we are healed of our alienation from God.

How can someone else take upon himself the punishment due for our crimes against God and his holiness? We don’t really know how this all works. We’re told only that this is what happened. God could have rescued us in some other way, but this is the way he chose, carefully planned, and carried out. And there was nothing irrational or arbitrary about it.

Figure it this way: Jesus came into the world in perfect holiness and sinlessness. He led the perfect human life without the slightest flaw. Then, like the prophets of the Old Testament, he was persecuted and killed for telling people the unpleasant truth about themselves. In their rage, they murdered him.

But in a way, God said of all this, “Alright, since in your misguided religious fervor you insist on violence and murder of everyone I send to you, and now even my beloved Son, then I’ll decree this act of murder, the lowest point to which you can sink, to be the very thing that saves you.”

In other words, God says to us that it’s not our righteousness, goodness, or religious performance that leads us to his kingdom, but his total mercy and grace. If he used the raw material of our sin and turned it into the building blocks of our salvation, then there isn’t the slightest ground for claiming that we control (or in any way deserve) our salvation. It’s his work from beginning to end and has nothing to do with us, except for each one of us to reach out and receive from his hand the gift he offers.

How much clearer could he make it that he alone is the Author of our salvation? In this act of God lies our total security.

Today’s Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for giving your life for me and for paying the price for my sins that I could never pay. I pray that just as you lived and died for me, I may live and die for others. Help me, O Lord. Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I thank God for…

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. -1 John 4:10–12

The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin “mandatum,” meaning commandment. This is in reference to the new commandment of love Jesus gave to his disciples: “Love one another.”

And we love because God loved us first. It’s not that we loved God and therefore searched him out and discovered that he loved us too. No, long before we ever had any interest in him, he had his eye on us and loved us with an everlasting love.

And it wasn’t because we were so irresistibly lovable either.

If God had waited for us to become lovable enough before he loved us, he’d still be waiting. From the beginning till this day, his love was and is based upon his character, not ours. What John is saying is that since this is true, we ought to love one another even if “they” aren’t so warm and fuzzy.

It’s this love for one another that signals to the world around us that something real is happening in our midst. People know that others aren’t always so easy to love, and usually we treat them just as they deserve. So when the Christian does something so astounding as to show love to the unlovely, it gets attention.

In fact, this is probably the principal way people learn that God’s people have something you can’t find anywhere else. When they see us loving one another, they know from their own experience that the unusual is taking place.

It wasn’t the church’s doctrines that first gained the attention of the Roman world, but the love found among the Christians—not just for one another, but for others as well. The first Christians loved even the ones who mistreated and persecuted them.

Such love isn’t optional. It’s not just something we can be doing while we’re waiting around—it’s the central requirement and identifying characteristic of the real church. With it our lives will make a lasting impact, and without it nothing else we do will make the slightest difference.

With love, God’s love is made complete in us. So when we’re praying, let’s ask for the impossible: real, tangible, measurable love for one another.

Today’s Prayer

Father, I cannot love the way you want me to love unless you grant me the power to do so. Fill me with your Spirit and power every day for the rest of my life. I pray in the name of Jesus who loved us first, Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I let go of any anger or bitterness and commit to love by…

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! -2 Corinthians 5:17

What is one of the main themes that keeps recurring in the faiths and literature of the world? What is that longing in the human heart that never goes away regardless of the time or place?

It’s the desire that the old, the worn out, and the temporary pass away and the new, the fresh, and the lasting appear!

This is what the Gospel promises—but in a modified form. The new life in Christ is in principle the beginning of the new and the lasting, but not in fact. The current life we live on this present earth is not the final end, nor is it perfect and complete in every sense.

What Paul is saying in this passage is very real.

It means that when we come to faith in Jesus, God has staked his claim on us, he has driven his flag into the soil of our lives, yet we still await the final fulfillment of the whole process of salvation. The first signs of eternal life appear in our lives and the tokens of his future kingdom are present in and among us, but the promise has yet to take on its full dimensions.

But this is more than enough to proceed through this life with joy and enthusiasm!

We still continue to stumble and fall, we still continue to age and experience the pains of decay (in both body and mind), but as our outer form wastes away, our inner person is renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).

So rather than responding grimly the way most around us do, let’s see each new sign of aging as just another signpost along the way marking our journey toward the eternal kingdom, the city of God, the New Heaven, and the New Earth—and the new body!

Every new wrinkle or disability is nothing more than another page of the book leading toward the stunning conclusion, the wonderful, incomparable finale.

If we really believe this, then let’s live it out to the end so that our neighbors can see and join us.

Today’s Prayer

Lord God, teach me to laugh at all the many forms of aging and disintegration that occupy my concerns. Teach me to focus on the wondrous resurrection and restoration you have prepared for us. Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I make a decision to let go of all that is temporary in my life that distracts me from God’s highest and best…

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. –Ephesians 1:7

The apostle Paul reiterates here the essence of the Gospel message: It is only through the sacrificial death of Jesus (“his blood”) on our behalf that we can say we’re forgiven of every sin.

The word he uses here for this transaction is “redemption.” This comes from the realm of the slave trade, where slaves were redeemed or purchased by someone else and brought into the household of the owner.

In a sense, we could say that once we were slaves to sin and selfishness, but now are slaves (servants) of Jesus. He bought us with a price (his death) and is now our new owner. We live from now on with an obligation to serve and love him, not in grinding servitude to a cruel master, but in joy and gratefulness to a kind and giving Lord.

This is not good news at all to many people in our day. We don’t want to become slaves to anyone. We like to think of ourselves as free and independent agents, obligated to no one and certainly not servants of anyone or anything besides our own will.

But that’s not the way things are.

This life just doesn’t give us the option of total independence of all authorities. By nature we’ll either become servants of God in joyful service to him and his kingdom, or we’ll become slaves to our own selfishness or the selfishness and tyranny of someone else.

We are hard-wired to function in joyful fulfillment of the divine purpose, and if that isn’t happening we’ll find that we are living in joyless servitude to the wrong master. Just take a close look at the life of anyone around you and you’ll see that either one of the two options is evident.

It’s God’s intention that when our lives are set free from slavery to a sinful life and its unexpected addictions and disillusionments, we will realize that life lived in his service is the only way to the joy and fulfillment we ever really wanted by being independent.

All this is in accordance with the riches of his grace, namely the first-class benefits and privileges of being first redeemed from slavery, and then adopted into his family. So we start out in life as slaves, and then through Jesus end up as children of God and heirs to all that God has.

Today’s Prayer

Lord Jesus, take away anything that enslaves and entraps my heart and leads me away from you. Help and rescue me, I ask in your name. Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I turn over to God all that enslaves me:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. –Hebrews 12:2

If Jesus did for us what we couldn’t possibly do for ourselves, what keeps us from fixing our eyes on him and keeping them fixed where they belong? As believers through the centuries have discovered, the problems arise when we take our eyes off Jesus and fix them on someone or something else—some theologian, philosopher, a political ideology, a religious movement, even ourselves.

It’s always going to be true: Jesus is the author of our faith and it’s he who will bring it to perfection (or completion). He endured the shame and agony of the cross for us, in our place, taking upon himself the punishment for our sins and rebellion so that we never have to experience it.

For the believer in Jesus, the final judgment for sin is past. It’s a done deal.

The author of Hebrews isn’t just trying to tell us what Jesus did, as if it’s merely a classroom lecture on theology. He wants us to contemplate what Jesus did, then to emulate it in our struggles with sin, temptation, and suffering.

With God’s help, Jesus endured the terrible time of crucifixion because of the exceedingly great joy set before him—the resurrection from the dead, the total vindication of his ministry, and the glorious position as the risen Lord.

Remember, Jesus came to live the perfect human life, to do what the first humans failed to do and fulfill the divinely appointed human job description.

He became the pioneer who beat a path through the jungle for us, so that we can follow him not only through the suffering of this present life, but out of the grave and through the great doorway into unending life and joy.

In your prayers, as you wait upon God for deliverance, rescue, healing, vindication, or whatever it is that’s filling up the screen of your life right now, remember that just as Jesus (who suffered far more than we ever do) was ushered into eternal joy and permanent glory, so he intends to share it all with us. Whatever we lose in this life is regained a hundredfold in the next.

Today’s Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that you are the author and finisher of my life in faith. I am trusting that you will bring to completion what you have started, in your name, I pray. Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I fix my eyes on Jesus to...

An Introduction

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
–John 11:25–26

Most of us are familiar with the verses above, but think about the last part of the Scripture—do you believe this? This is the heart of our discussions about our faith, and something we should continue to ask ourselves daily. Do we really believe this? Because if we do, it should affect every single part of our lives.

What happened on Easter morning is the center of the Christian faith; without it we have nothing to tell others about or personally hope for. The resurrection and what it implies for us and also for the whole creation transforms all of life’s struggles, sorrows, and joys.

Join many across the world in prayer during this great week of celebration, and then allow yourself to be renewed as the meaning of God’s visitation penetrates everything we do in this life.

May the power of the resurrection become a reality to you as you fill your mind with Jesus’ incomparable sacrifice and his gift of joy-filled, eternal life.

Day 1

The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

–Matthew 21:9–10

As we begin the first day of our Holy Week prayer journey, we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, joining his people with shouts of “Hosanna!”

We’re all familiar with this unusual word “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday, with the songs of celebration as children walk down the aisles of the church waving palm branches. It’s a joyful word! But strangely, the “Hosanna” we now know, used in this passage of Matthew, was originally a plea for help turned into an expression of praise.

How did it take on this meaning?

The simplest explanation is that in the history of Israel, whenever God’s people cried out for deliverance and salvation, he was faithful in coming to rescue them. It was because of this connection that “Hosanna” naturally developed into thanksgiving and praise for all God had done.

So why would this word be connected to Jesus himself? That question is answered by Jesus’ unique identity.

Jesus Christ is the incomparable Son of God who came into the world to reveal both who God is and what, by God’s grace, a human being should be and one day will be. He calls people everywhere to be his disciples and follow him into the eternal kingdom of his Father.

He paid the penalty for all our sins by his death on the cross and offers the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life to those who come to him in simple humility and repentance. His identity, authority, and ministry were validated and vindicated by his physical resurrection from the dead.

The clear meaning of the Gospel is that God offers to us the most extravagant grace and mercy the world has ever known. Let us enter this Holy Week confidently trusting in his boundless mercy, love, and grace that are the same today as they have been for thousands of years.

Today’s Prayer

Hosanna Lord God! We praise you for your rescuing and delivering power. We thank you for sending your Son to give his life for us and to do everything necessary to save us. Amen.

Today’s Commitment

Today I’ll lift up my hands to receive all the love God has offered to me and…

Lies, false witness, denial, slander, scheming, injustice, rejection of truth, hypocrisy—human sin and daily life are played out vividly in the events of Holy Week. I recommend reading Matthew, chapters 26 to 28, either by yourself, together as a family, or with your friends.

In Matthew 26:1-5, we read: When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples,

As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. "But not during the festival,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.

With this, we watch as Jesus begins his walk to Calvary. Jesus saw clearly into Judas' heart and his betrayal of his Master, predicted his beloved disciple Peter's denial, and he prayed,

My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.

Jesus stood before the high priests and Sanhedrin and watched as countless false witnesses came forward. He faced their mocking and malice:

Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?

He stood before Pilate and was condemned. Instead, "The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed." Barabbas, the insurrectionary, was released on the basis of the crowd's lies and screaming shouts of "Crucify him!"

Jesus carries his cross and bears the mocking of the Roman soldiers. On the cross, we hear his anguished cry,

"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?).

As they say, the rest is history—resurrection! The glorious rescue and final delivering event for all those who call on him.

What does this all mean for us today? Freedom and deliverance!

It would be difficult to calculate the number of times in the Bible we find the theme that someone felt abandoned, cried out to God, and was delivered and set free. This freedom is a gift from God from all that oppresses, all that harms, all that sends us into despair, disillusionment, or final destruction.



So this Easter cry out to the Lord about your pain, your frustration, your anguish, your sorrow, and trust in him to deliver and comfort you. Express to God your grateful confidence that whatever oppression or captivity you face today, freedom is on the way. Take heart in the fact that nothing can stop it.

Whatever you’re facing—divorce, death, the loss of a loved one, foreclosure, bankruptcy, credit card debt, betrayal, loneliness, illness—God is with you and he is trustworthy.

Alleluia! He is risen.

May you and yours have a very blessed and hope-filled Easter season.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
 he turned to me and heard my cry.
 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
 out of the mud and mire; 
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. 
Many will see and fear the Lord
 and put their trust in him. -Psalm 40:1-3

Is your heartbreak so great that the idea of a song in your heart might be too remote even to imagine? You’re wondering and asking yourself, “Will I ever sing again? Will I ever even want to?”

The answer is, “Yes, absolutely.”

Why? Because it’s the kind of God we serve. He is the Source of the grateful song, and it’s his character to lead you out of whatever slimy pit you’re trapped in, and bring you out with a strong hand.

The psalmist waited patiently for the Lord, and the Lord turned to him and heard his cry. Now he who suffered so long waited around long enough to see what would come of it (he didn’t throw in the towel!), and his waiting was rewarded with a hymn of praise to God. That’s really what the Psalms are all about: songs sung to, and about, God for his incomparable goodness.

It’s natural to look into the Bible to read of God’s faithfulness and rescuing power. Believers do it everyday. But we tend to overlook the fact that the church’s hymnal is also a powerful witness to the healing, delivering, and restoring power freely given to God’s people throughout the centuries.

Just think about it: page after page of almost any hymnal (or praise book) is a testimony to the fact that God has arrived on the scene, at just the right moment, in order to save from us every kind of sorrow and disaster known to man. It is a record of God’s family reminding us that he never sleeps, that he is ever mindful of our plight, and that at the right time a new joyful song is ready to be written—perhaps even by you.

The predictable result of God’s saving and healing action is the overwhelming desire to sing, to give voice and music to what emerges from the pain-ridden human heart that experiences the deliverance of God. The hymnal or praise chorus book should always be right next to the Bible. These are the perennial complements to each other. Trust that isn’t disappointed can’t help but sing.

We can add a third book to this powerful witness—the personal biographies of God’s people, all the innumerable stories of human experience, ancient and modern, that tell of his greatness in taking his servants out of the slimy pits of grief, disappointment, disillusionment, and heartbreak. You can’t even read them all.

This triple witness has no parallel in all the history of religion. Scrawled on the walls of caves, ruins of building, and on ancient papyrus scrolls are the bitter words of people utterly disillusioned with the gods of their own making and their failure to help in time of need. Read history—any history, in any era, by anyone. The sad story is the same.

But this isn’t you. Your trust is in the one and only God, the One who appears regularly on the scene of history to comfort and restore. If it isn’t happening to you right now, just keep waiting and you’ll see. Then you can write your own new song and sing it out to him.

It has to happen.

It is promised.

Prayer:

Dear God, my Father in heaven, even though I may not be able to sing a song to you right now, I look forward to the day I can. Maybe soon. But soon or late, I hope and wait for that day to arrive. Until that time, please grant me the unwavering confidence that a new, happy song will one day be mine. Amen.

Are you going through a storm right now? Something so difficult or traumatic that you aren't sure you'll make it to tomorrow?

Don't give up hope.

It often takes a storm to get our minds off our own plans and ways and onto God's greater plan—to realize there's a purpose for our life that is far better than our own. Our storms help draw us closer to God than anything else.

So when we're facing a storm, let's remember three things as we learn to ride it with God, instead of letting it control and overwhelm us.

1) Nothing that happens to us happens by chance. Everything comes by way of a plan and purpose, no matter how chaotic or random it may appear to us at the moment.

God is God and we aren't. It means he's in charge of the universe and has a purpose and a will that far exceeds our own. God uses both good and evil to accomplish his will. Whatever it is, good or bad, it has to pass first by the Creator of all things. We may never have an adequate answer in this life to our questions, “Why does God permit evil?” or “Why did this happen to me?,” but we do know that God intends to exploit evil to the full, to bring about his good purposes in a world of tornadoes, cancer, genocide, violence, human foolishness, financial reversal, divorce, and all the rest.

2) No matter how utterly our hopes and dreams have been devastated by a life storm, in the midst of the ruins we can see the foundation for hope and recovery.

In the aftermath of a tornado or hurricane, it appears that nothing is left to salvage. But right there under the shards of glass, piles of rubble, and splinters of wood, is the foundation. Similarly, if we look closely enough at the crumbling ruins of our life, there in the destruction is the most obvious evidence of hope to rebuild—our foundation.

Our immovable foundation is Jesus Christ and the ever-reliable mercy and grace of God. It isn't our faith that's so great, but God's loving kindness, which created our faith and brings it back again when it seems to have blown away. The foundation, the character of God, always remains the same.

3) Even though nothing in our lives is so secure it can't be taken away, there is nothing that can be taken that God can't restore to us.

This really does sound impossible when taking into account the loss of a loved one, but this truth is at the heart of the Christian faith. It's called the resurrection. It means that even our life on this earth—which we know absolutely will end one day—can be restored. We come to believe in the reality of resurrection of our bodies and all of creation based on our daily life experiences.

God knows that it's very hard for us to believe in what we can't see, so he gives us many little resurrections (the God-incidences) in our present life. He rescues us time after time in the most obvious ways. We can't possibly fail to recognize it as the work of some invisible, intelligent force, and can expect the same at the end of life.

So let's be a Storm Rider.

Let us be absolutely confident that God will do what he loves to do and has done since the very beginning: to create for us a rescue ex nihilo (out of nothing). When there is no way out, no exit, no human hope for survival, God speaks into existence a way out and a way in—a way out of our plight and a way into a real, joyful life of fulfillment. This is the meaning of an exodus. So pray, even when your faith seems to have vanished, and wait for a full, God-designed exodus, not merely an exit from your problem.

Keep on asking until something happens.

If you don't know what to say, try this:

My faith is at very low tide, Lord. I don't know how to trust you right now. I'm too weary and wounded even to believe that you're there. I really don't know if you are. And if you are, I'm not able to believe that you know my name or care about me. I'm sorry for all this, but right now it's the best I can do. Help me when I can't believe anything.

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28

I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. -Isaiah 43:25

From the Bible’s point of view, guilt, real guilt, is first and foremost not a feeling. It’s a state of being. It's the position of being out of line with our God by virtue of our sin. It can be fixed only by being placed into a right relationship with him, a solution that’s brought about only by God himself, not by us. It is his specialty to fix this problem. Resorting to our own measures only makes things worse.

God solved our estrangement with him by absorbing all our guilt and shame in the life, sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus his only Son. In humble obedience, Jesus paid the price that we couldn’t pay and paved the way for us to return home to our Creator.

Through the death of his Son we are able to approach the Father in freedom and boldness. We are free because Jesus bore the weight and penalty of our sins and offenses against God.

It’s done.

Nothing more can be—or needs to be—added to it. We can’t make it better or earn it.

The practical result of this transaction in the spiritual realm is this: the heavenly Judge removes our guilt and shame and we are declared free to go. Through confession of our sins, repentance (turning away from them), and forgiveness, we are released to live a life without guilt or condemnation. The apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Romans, those who abide in Jesus Christ live a pardoned and guilt-free life.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
-Romans 8:1

All this is referred to as grace and mercy. Essentially, grace is getting what we don’t deserve and mercy is not getting what we do deserve. It attests to the loving character of God who decrees our salvation just because he is merciful and gracious. He aims all this goodness our way out of his free choice. It’s been called “amazing grace” because it’s supposed to amaze us—it always astounds us when we realize that God’s pardon is far out of proportion to our expectations. His forgiveness is too extravagant to measure and humbles us into joyful and grateful service to Him.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
-Psalm 51:1-3

Being aware of our guilt is a very good thing. King David was very aware of his guilt and turned to God for his help. A sense of guilt lets us know that something is wrong and needs attention, like the pain receptors in our skin that tell us that a stove is hot. Guilt feelings are designed to serve as a warning. As such they aren’t intended for more than a few minutes, just enough time to bring us to God for confession. They’re not supposed to last any longer than that. Not to deal with true guilt as quickly as possible can threaten our emotional and physical health.

If you feel guilty much of the time, or if you make mistakes and keep thinking about or continuously apologizing for them, get them off your back immediately. You aren’t designed to carry guilt or guilt feelings long term. If you do, you could end up with various debilitating traits—low self-esteem, inability to let go of anger against yourself or to forgive others, anxiety, obsession for perfection, and so forth. Remember, there is no sin too perverse for our God to forgive or mistake too great for him to fix.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!
-2 Corinthians 5:17

If you’ve already confessed offenses against God and forsaken them, but still carry guilt feelings, then there’s something else that’s wrong. Don’t think that having guilt feelings necessarily means that you’re guilty. See your pastoral counselor right away to get at the reasons. It may be due to poor advise you’ve received in the past, or it may be that you don’t really have a clear grasp yet of what Jesus has done for you. But don’t carry the guilt-load an inch father than you need to. Believers in Jesus are supposed to be the least guilt ridden and most emotionally free people on the earth. Face and ride out the storm of guilt and shame with faith!

To God be the glory!

Do you feel that whatever is going on in your life is just too great or too much for you to handle?

When the ancient Hebrews faced a big problem, it was customary for them to look up into the night sky and to contemplate the immense size of the universe and the unimaginable power of its Maker. Then they compared all that with their problem and realized that it was nothing at all in the eyes of God.

So if you're facing a big problem today, then ask a few practical God-questions:

1) Is God too big to care?

God made the atom and its electrons as well as the planets and stars. They're too small for our imaginations to grasp. Now remember, Jesus told us that his Father is very concerned about all the small stuff. So God is never too big to consider or get involved in our problems.

2) But then is God too small to rescue us?

The Psalmist says that he rules over the surging sea. In creating the world he brought order out of chaos and still does, every day. He creates a way out of calamity ex nihilo (out of nothing). That means that he makes an exit out of any situation where one did not exist before. If you don't believe all the examples of this in the Bible, then just ask people you know who've seen it happen in real life. History (and the evening news) is full of true stories of it.

3) Is God too small to heal and restore?

If the Psalmist is right that God's arm is endued with great power, and he can do anything he wants at any time, then why can't he rescue your marriage? Or your career? Or your addiction? Or heal your disease? He can and he will, if it is his best plan for us. God has our good in mind always—that means things may not turn out the way we think they should, but they will always be the result of God's mercy and grace.

4) Is God too small to help you succeed?

Did he fail at his own works? Did he fumble the ball with our galaxy? Is he unable to give us more opportunities if we've bungled the ones we've already had? If we're putting God and his kingdom first, then let's not shrink back in fear if we've failed at something. Instead, let's step out and take a risk again knowing that he's in charge of everything anyway.

5) Is God too small to handle the problem of death?

It may be that we won't get the rescue or the healing we want. But if God allows us to go all the way to the grave, then we know that his providence doesn't end at our funeral. We'll be with him—some sooner, some later.

If that's his plan for us, then we know absolutely that we're still in the center of his hands and that our rescue will be in the presence of God. That can't be any loss. We will have gained the best there is. Let's not forget that this earthly place we're in at the moment isn't our permanent home, it's just a campsite along the way. And there really is something much, much better on the way.

So whether in life or death, holding on to our merciful and loving Father, we have everything we need for the problem or the plight we face this day. C.S. Lewis said it best:

When you have nothing left but God, then you become aware that God is enough.

He who has God and many other things has no more than he who has God alone.

The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.
-Daniel 9:9
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?
-Romans 2:4

There’s no other place except in God’s character where both perfect justice and perfect mercy are balanced. We can’t try to measure his grace and mercy, or any other part of his personality, by our standards or experience—there is no other example on earth of such fairness!

A holy and perfect God doesn’t have to be merciful. He could administer his justice every day according to his laws and be perfect and holy. Did you ever wonder what it would be like if this really were the case? Imagine this: Put together a perfect God, a fallen and imperfect humanity, and nothing but justice (getting what we deserve for our crimes) every minute of every day. Doesn’t that sound like misery and bondage? It is.

We learn from the Bible that God’s mercy goes beyond any of our expectations. His compassion and forgiveness is over the top. We can’t view God’s mercy as the kind we parcel out ever so modestly and self-righteously to others. When we humans are merciful, it comes with all kinds of warnings, qualifications, and conditions. Our generosity never goes beyond the limits of our goodness (which is usually rather limited to begin with).

But true mercy takes seriously the gravity of sin and failure. It isn’t just turning a blind eye to evil. That isn’t mercy anyway, that’s moral indifference. Mercy is the deep and abiding love and patience of God toward the creatures he made. It can be partly understood by loving parents who fully realize the rebelliousness of their child, but who still envision their loved one’s (ever so slowly) coming to maturity.

Just like petulant children, we complain that God should give us a break, or do this or that for us, only because we’ve been conditioned by generations of Christian culture and theology to know him as merciful. This is one more example that we’re pretty well spoiled. The gods of the ancient civilizations were considered not merciful by nature. So no one could complain that they were acting out of character when people believed them to be capricious, cruel, or unconcerned.

There is a huge difference between a culture built on God’s grace and mercy and one that is not. This truth hits home when we in our travels have the unfortunate experience of seeing someone hit by a speeding car and left there for hours, bleeding to death. It suddenly dawns on us that we can’t take mercy for granted. It doesn’t just automatically pop into existence out of nothing. People tend to behave like the gods they worship.

And what a relief for us! God is merciful.

Do we have a right to demand mercy from God?

Absolutely not.

If all we ever got were his perfect justice (the worst anyone will ever get), we still would have no grounds for complaining that God was unfair. What isn’t obligatory of a perfect God, just so happens to be part of his character.

He doesn’t have to be, but he is. And that means we can live life with the confidence that whatever we get ourselves into, there really is a court of appeals in session twenty-four hours a day where mercy is not the exception, but the main order of the day. God’s favorite (but never required) function as judge is to say, “I’ve chosen to show mercy. You’re totally forgiven, your list of offenses has been expunged from the record, and you’re free to go.”

This Lent rather than just giving up something (you can if you want to), open wide your arms to receive grace upon grace—the mercy, forgiveness, and healing power of your loving Father.

Luke 11:5-13: A Friend at Night

And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 18:1-8: The Parable of the Persistent Widow

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Think about this: You’re stranded at a lonely diner, alongside the road, not far from the town where you live. It’s Saturday morning at 3:00 a.m. You know you have to call someone to pick you up, but you can’t think of just the right person. Your mind runs quickly through your database searching for a friend close enough to be awakened in the middle of the night and not be really annoyed.

Question: Do you have such a friend?

The two parables of Jesus in Luke 11 and 18 teach us some things about God that we need to know:

1) God is our friend in the middle of the night. He’s the only one in the universe who’s on duty 24/7, and who is tuned into our voice. It’s he who listens with the care of our closest friend.

2) Jesus teaches us to ask things of God with our whole heart, concern, and energy. We are to ask boldly, to keep on asking, and to never give up.

3) Prayer is the serious vocation of the Christian, and when we find it hard to pray God helps us by putting us in situations where there is no way out except God’s faithfulness and deliverance.

4) Our relationship with God is much like a child’s relationship with the parent. If a loving parent enjoys giving good things to their child, so much more does God enjoy giving us the things we really need.

5) God answers pray according to purpose—his! And when we find our will more and more in line with his purpose and will, we’ll discover that more of our prayers are being answered.

So where’s the good news and what are we to do?

First, start asking, praying to, God for the things you want and need. He’s listening—any hour of the day or night. And find your purpose and fulfillment in life by doing the will of God as he reveals it to you. He doesn’t guarantee everything you want, but he can guarantee that in the discipline of daily prayer, you’ll learn submission, faith, and in the end God’s great, out of proportion generosity.

Thanks be to God!

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. -Mark 10:45

This saying of Jesus comes close to giving us our job description for earthly life. It occurs in a context of some wanting special standing and privilege. Jesus responds by pointing out that if the Son of Man himself came into the world to be a servant of all—in other words, to be a person living and dying for others—then his followers must see that as their vocation as well. The apostle Paul makes much the same point in Philippians 2:9-11.

Jesus, the Man for others, gave his life for us. He died in our place for our sins; he paid the price that we couldn’t pay. In doing so, he lived out his teaching that this is the key to human life in general. And this is exactly what millions have discovered over the centuries: true joy and fulfillment on this earth lie not in doing our own will and accumulating more and more things for ourselves, but in giving them and ourselves away to others.

Who are those who come to the end of life with a sense of really having lived well and to the fullest? Who among us have the fewest hang-ups and neuroses, the least guilt, and fewest regrets? It’s those who have willingly and joyfully given up the heavy burden of trying to fulfill themselves first and moved full steam ahead into the task of helping, feeding, sheltering, rescuing, and loving others. This fact is the easiest thing in the world to prove.

Some of the happiest people you will ever meet are those whose lives are spent in some form of sacrifice for others, who give their time and energies to the Gospel and to the work of lifting up those on the bottom rung of the ladder—physically, materially, or emotionally. More and greater joy is found in giving rather than taking. This is one of life’s greatest secrets. This truth gives us a key to how we are actually built. This may seem to most people upside down, because it goes against everything our culture tells us about the key to happiness and success, but it is the consistent testimony of all who’ve tried it.

This is also a good guide to our practice of prayer. Perhaps we would receive more answers to prayer if we spent more time interceding for the needs and welfare of others and less on ourselves. What many have found is that if we live this type of cheerful, God-dependent, self-forgetfulness many of our needs and desires will be met in the process, even without asking.

So if you're grieving or in pain, how does this help you? It’s counter-intuitive, but true: our pain starts to heal when we invest our lives in the pain of others. When all our instincts tell us to hide somewhere and nurse our sorrow in solitude, the best medicine is to turn outward toward the brokenhearted around us and assist in helping them with their suffering. Try it—it works. And what enables us to get close to them and to truly care for (and feel) their pain is what we’re now going through.

Father, I’m unable to turn from my own pain to that of others unless you grant me the grace and power to do it. It’s not in me, so you must do it through me. Amen.