You have a choice!

Choices matter. Decisions have consequences. Seemingly random encounters have life-long impacts. This is the subject of my newest Bible study, Choices: Decisions that made a difference. Encounters that made an impact. Walk with me through the lives of Eve, Joshua, Samson, Ruth, David and Jesus as we examine temptation, leadership, power over oppression, humility and social justice, seduction and repentance, and forgiveness and redemption. Together we explore choices made, lives destroyed and lives redeemed. 

Through it all, we also see God's defining grace. While our choices sometimes have devastating consequences, Jesus' death on the cross saves, covers and redeems us. The power of His resurrection empowers us to live forgiven and free. "By his stripes we are healed."

It's taken me 14 years to write this study. I've taught it countless times in Asia and the U.S., and I've written, sought feedback and rewritten it more times than I can count. This book is a reflection of my attempts to grasp how God can love such a messed-up people and still use us to make His name known. Wow! What a Savior!

So, I hope you'll read it. Study it. Enjoy it. And let me know what you think of it. We're all in this journey together.

Travel light!

Ann

When your world is destroyed

God's love never ceases. Aren't you thankful for that promise? And isn't it interesting that such a statement of God's faithfulness and love is in the book of Lamentations, a book that records Jeremiah's great sorrow and mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem?

Even as Jeremiah's world was being destroyed, Jeremiah knew God's love would not fail. He knew God's faithfulness to Israel would never end.

What about you? How has your world been rocked this year, this month, this week? How are you responding? Are you relying on God's faithfulness or are you tempted to give up in despair?

Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost for His Highest, "God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, 'Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?' No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy."

No one likes to have their world rocked, much less destroyed. And it takes a special kind of courage -- the kind only the Holy Spirit can give -- to look up when the world is crashing down. Yet, God's promised faithfulness is real, even when, especially when, we are crawling through those teeth-gritting, mind-numbing circumstances that threaten to destroy us.

What a promise! What a God! What a Savior!

Travel light: Blaming God

“Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,” she answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter.” Ruth 1:20, HCSB

Sometimes life is hard. Naomi knew this. She had been forced to leave her homeland or face starvation. Her husband died soon after moving to their new home; her sons, whose names mean “sickly,” also died after several years of poor health. Now she had two widowed “foreign women,” in addition to herself, for whom she was responsible.

It’s no surprise she felt bitter and angry at God as she returned to Judah. Her difficulties may have been etched in her hair, her face and her stature. “Can this be Naomi?” the women of Judah exclaimed. Trouble had aged her.

“Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,” Naomi answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter.” Rather than put on a happy face and spew spiritual platitudes, Naomi was honest about her struggles. She blamed God.

Yet still, her daughter-in-law Ruth proclaimed, “Your God will be my God.”

Why?

Ruth’s god, the god of the Moabites, was called “Chemosh” whose name means, “to subdue.” He was a god who crushed. By choosing to follow Yahweh, though, Ruth was not necessarily looking for a “quick fix” to her problems. Naomi had been suffering for more than 10 years, but based on Naomi's example, Ruth was willing to abandon the god she had known all her life to follow Yahweh. Through Naomi’s struggle, Ruth saw a personal, authentic faith — a faith that questioned but also one that surrendered. 

Can we be transparent with our struggles and still set an example of faith for others? 

The biblical record seems to offer a resounding YES! In addition to Naomi, consider the stories of Job and John the Baptist. Job spent 39 chapters of a 42-chapter book hurling questions at God in anger and frustration and listening to the pat answers and theologically accepted explanations of his friends. But, when all was said and done, God said to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7, HCSB).

In prison, John the Baptist expressed doubts about Jesus. He sent a message asking, “Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus told John’s disciples to report to him all that they had seen. Then, to the crowd Jesus said of John, “Among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist has appeared.” (See Matthew 11:1-11).

God is not offended by our questions. He welcomes the opportunity to grow our faith when we honestly question Him from a position of surrender. 

“Why?” we may ask in one breath, while whispering in the next, “Your will be done.”  

Of course, God may not answer our “whys” in this lifetime. We may have to wait until heaven to understand the reasons behind some of our challenges. In the meantime, though, be assured of this: God responds with compassion to an honest, questioning heart that is reaching out to Him.

This week’s reading: Judges 8-21, Ruth 1-4, 1 Samuel 1-3
Post #14: Discovering how to live missionally through a chronological reading of God’s Word.

#travellight

Travel light: A story from the mountain

“As you see, the LORD has kept me alive these 45 years as He promised, since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel was journeying in the wilderness. Here I am today, 85 years old. I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My strength for battle and for daily tasks is now as it was then.” 

Joshua 14:10-11 

I am running behind this week. I’m trying to recoup after a week-long trip to Guatemala and Honduras. It was my first international coverage in two years. Of the members of the media team, I was the oldest. 

At age 50, I was a little worried about keeping up with a team younger than me. I knew it would be a physically demanding coverage that would involve at least some hiking. The team leader had assured the worker there that we were all “reasonably fit” and capable of hiking. When I heard this, I had flashbacks of our family’s summer hike in the Smokies — the one where I thought they were going to have to carry me out on a stretcher. 

So, when the hiking began in Guatemala on the second day, I simply told myself, “Take it slowly.” As it turned out, everyone else was taking it slowly, too. Traveling with a photographer, a producer and a videographer, we stopped enough times throughout the week for scenic shots and b-roll that I always had time to catch my breath. Whew! 

My point is this: Regardless of our age, God equips us to do the jobs He’s given us to do. Caleb knew this when, at age 85, he asked permission to drive out the inhabitants from the land the Lord had promised him. Even as an old man, Caleb was ready to do whatever it took to claim the promise of God. 

Although I’m still not sure at what point I physically switched from young and energetic to senior and sluggish, in my heart I’m still 35. Granted, I hope I’m wise enough at 50 to realize I won’t be changing the world anytime soon. But, I’m grateful for opportunities to hear and share stories of how God is changing the world one life at a time through those willing to take the gospel to hard places. 

Here's one of those stories: 

On top of the mountain in eastern Guatemala, I met villagers who had never heard stories from the Bible until missionaries came to their village three years ago. 

One woman told me, “I’m grateful (the missionaries) came. Without them, my children would not know the Bible. Now, my children tell the Bible story to each other every night, and they can’t wait until (the missionaries) come again.” 

As the missionary translated the story, she cried. She had no idea of the impact she was making among this family until I asked the question. 

These kinds of stories make the hike worth it. 

Travel light! 

This week’s reading: Joshua 12-24, Judges 1-7 Post #13: Discovering how to live missionally through a chronological reading of God’s Word.

#travellight