December 31

“The soul that ‘mounts up with wings’ (Isaiah 40:31) looks at everything from the divine standpoint not from the human. In forming a judgment about any matter everything depends on our point of view.  Things appear very different when looked down on from above than when viewed on their own level.  What seems like an impassable wall on its own level, becomes an insignificant line to the eyes that sees it from the top of a mountain.  The faults in others which assume such immense proportions while we look at them on the earthly plane, become insignifant little motes in the sunshine when the soul has mounted on wings to the heavenly place above them.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 12/10

So, I come to the end of this fantastic journey this year and can say I now know what it means to have freedom in Christ.  This journey has brought me through some trying times and I did not always feel so good in the midst of them.  But I can honestly say I never felt as though God had left me bereft.  In the moment I finally cried out to Him I received His comfort.  Now He has brought me up to His mountaintop and shown me His world from His viewpoint and I understand.  Like the eagle who trusts his life to the wind, I spread my wings and trust that God will sustain me as I am lifted from the ledge and soar with God.  Lord, make me a blessing today.

“Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.  Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  Isaiah 40:28-31

December 23

“Self-examination is sometimes extolled among Christians as a most commendable and necessary duty; but in my view it is often a great evil.  It leads either to self-justification and self-commiseration, or else to discouragement and despair.....The soul that looks away from self, and examines the Lord instead, finds its mouth filled with his name, and his praises, and his glorious power.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 12/14

My first thought when I read the first sentence was how would I know, then, when I needed to confess a sin?  But as I read on it became clear.  Once I give my life to Christ and receive the Holy Spirit I can trust that He will bring these sins to mind--I don’t need to continue with the self-examination as I had been accustomed to doing before.  I spent my 20’s in this intense self-examination because I was a perfectionist.  I needed to be one step ahead of others in finding fault with myself so I could correct it before someone else pointed it out to me.  I did not know about the Holy Spirit, even though I was saved at age eight.  In my early 30’s I discovered that the Holy Spirit, whom I’d received those many years ago was just waiting for me to let Him have control.  Now in my early 50’s I’m finally waking up to the ways my old habits have continued to get in the way of the Holy Spirit doing His job.  I’m finally coming to understand that I must keep my eyes on the solution and not the problem.  When I focus on the problem (myself) I get sucked back into the ways of the flesh.  Being freed from this self-examination is part of Freedom in Christ.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”  Psalm 139:23, 24

November 26

“The psalmist said he responded to the Lord’s call to ‘seek My face’ (Psalm 27:8).  It’s the idea of God longing for fellowship with me that now draws me into His presence.  My quiet times with God are no longer a dreary duty, but a response to my Father who yearns to spend time with me.”  David Roper, Our Daily Bread, 11/3

This is a most heartening thought for me.  I immediately identified with the feeling Mr. Roper has captured--how I feel when I can tell someone wants to be with me.  For me, that is what being “in love” is all about.  We all have plenty of people we love, but it’s only when you are made aware that the other person wants to spend time with you as much as you want to spend time with them that you can say you are “in love”.   It’s the feeling you get when you first discover a friend who shares your same interests, when you and your boy/girlfriend first declare your love for each other, when your newborn child is first laid in your arms.  Unfortunately, life always gets in the way and those feelings of being “in love” turn into duty.  Love calls us to put up with being excluded, ignored, or fed and changed on demand!  God, on the other hand never excludes us, ignores us, or demands anything from us that He doesn’t provide to begin with.  Being “in love” with God is never a risk. It is always a win/win situation.  True freedom is to wake up each morning declaring, “I am in love with You, Lord!”

“Because he cleaves to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.  When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will rescue him and honor him.  With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my salvation.”  Psalm 91:14-16

November 22

“Satan is the father of lies and a master deceiver (John 8:44).  If he can convince you that God has not defeated him, then you will not experience Jesus’ victory.  You will find yourself fighting battles that Christ has already won!  You will fear Satan though he has already been utterly and humiliatingly defeated.  Your responsibility is to resist Satan, and he will flee from you (James 4:7).”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 10/31

My struggle with my “ego”--that part of me that does not want what God has planned for me--feels exactly like what Blackaby ascribes to our struggle with Satan.  My ego engages me in battles just like Satan does, trying to convince me that no one loves me nor cares about me so that I’d better take rather than give.  It lies to me, making me think it’s looking after my best interest, then deserts me the moment I feel lost and confused.  I’m sure anyone who has tried to rely on their ego has experienced the same problems.  Because I was born with my ego and relied on it for so many years I feel as though I’m betraying myself when I try to ignore it.  Because I now have the Holy Spirit I no longer “need” my ego, but it continues to make me feel guilty only because I allow it to. If I give it some sympathy, I’m immediately reengaged in a battle to keep it from taking control back.  This is what Satan does.  Give him an inch and he takes over.  This is why we must realize that Satan is dead to us.  We only bring him back to life when our thoughts try to convince us that he’s not dead.  This is what we must resist.  God has given us all the tools we need.

“Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you.”  Luke 10:19

November 7

“Because oppression, or the lack of universal justice, is so insidious, we must labor constantly to bring about our great hope, the commonwealth of God.  We do this not only because oppression limits the ability of the disinherited to use their talents but also because it can easily make them doubt the goodness, if not the very existence of God.  Finally, in due time oppression will almost invariably lead the victims to resort to violence and many of the superficial to blame the victims because they could no longer bear a pain not experienced by their critics....” Dwight Spann Wilson, 1981, Daily Readings from Quaker Writings, 10/16

This is why Christ’s message of freedom is universal and therefore for everyone.  I really don’t understand what the resistance is to receiving this message.  If we strip away all false pretenses we are left with a basic human need to be loved.  If you are being oppressed you are experiencing the antithesis of love.  Love is the ultimate freedom of expression.  To be freed to love and to be loved is what life is suppose to be all about.  Along the way we have to take care of business--like food and shelter--and this is where we get into trouble.  Our ego wants more than its share or wants something someone else has and justice becomes distorted.  We begin to define it by our own desires and not by the common good.  To get what we want we oppress.  This can be done quite subtly within our own families and move outward to friends, places of business, the community, and ultimately between nations.  Christ leveled the playing field, freed us from all that greediness, and elevated us to children belonging to God.

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”  John 8:36

October 31

“The literal translation of ‘an horrible pit’ (“He brought me up also out of an horrible pit...” Psalm 40:2) is an horrible pit of noise.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S. 10/12

Eugenia goes on to talk about the noise around us, but what I thought about immediately was the noise within me.  All the noise of my old thoughts running through my head.  In fact, one night this past week I woke up suddenly and “heard” my thoughts.  I wasn’t dreaming, I was thinking in my sleep.  It rather startled me because in a sense I was “talking” to myself like I often do during the day, only now I wasn’t aware of what I was saying.  What if it was all negative?  Who knows what I was telling myself in my sleep!  It made me realize just how important it is to relinquish all control in my life to God--to no longer resist Him.  I may be able to delude myself into thinking I have control over my thoughts, but as soon as I go unconscious there is a whole other realm of my mind that has it’s own free will!  I can only imagine the effect it has on my life after spending 7 hours or so indoctrinating my mind with whatever it wishes!  None of us can ever have perfect control over our lives and at this point in my life I realize I don’t want that kind of control anyway.  I’ve not always made the best decisions for myself it turns out.  Instead, as I quit resisting God, my thoughts will be God’s thoughts.  This is true freedom.

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”  John 15:15

October 28

“If you feel strong in an area of your life, beware!  Often your strength, rather than your weakness, hinders you from trusting God.  God will bring you to a point of weakness if that is what it takes to bring you to trust in Him.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 10/9

What are my strengths and the resulting weakness?  I was born with physical beauty and I have a progressing curvature of the spine.  I am intelligent and I my mind creates anxiety for me.  I am a survivor of an abusive childhood and I suffer from bouts of depression.  Each of the above resulting weaknesses has been instrumental in bringing me to where I am in my ability to trust God.  If I had not had these afflictions to deal with I am sure my beauty, intelligence, and survivor mentality would have led me down a path of self-sufficiency that I may never have been able to exit.  Why would I have needed to?  This world rewards each of those qualities, and I would have more than likely created a world for myself that suited me just fine.  Instead I’ve used my survivor skills to dig deeper into God’s word and His plan for me.  I’ve been tenacious about not settling for less than God’s best for me, which is freedom in Christ.  I thank God for loving me so much that He refuses to abandon me when I’m struggling the most.  This includes those times I am rebelling against His loving instruction.

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”  Romans 8:7, 8

September 8

“We easily assume a sense of ownership of our possessions, as if they were things we earned ourselves, thereby giving us a right to them.  Jesus reminds us to be prepared to give our possessions as freely and joyfully as we received them.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 9/5

I still struggle with this, but when I was younger I was thoroughly entrenched in this way of thinking.  I’m sure it had everything to do with having a work environment I did not like.  I felt I earned every penny I made.  To freely give my money to a “needy” person was not even a thought for me.  I believed that if people needed money they should work like I did.  They’d have to prove to me they were not able to earn their own money in some way.  After all, the paper was always full of help-wanted ads.  As I’ve grown older I still believe that, but now I understand that my giving has nothing to do with the other person.   It has everything to do with me--am I capable of giving freely? Until I understand that all I have comes from God, I’m never going to fully appreciate God’s grace towards me.  I’m going to feel as though I’ve earned it in some way, which only serves to keep my ego engaged.  And as long as my ego has any control over me, I am not fully God’s.

“And Jesus said, ‘You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  The young man said to him, ‘All these I have observed; what do I still lack?’  Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’  When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”  Matthew 19:18b-22

August 12

“Hebrews tells us that the things that are shaken are the ‘things that are made’.  This is true of the things that are manufactured by our own efforts, the feelings that we get up, doctrines that we elaborate, good works that we perform.  These are not bad things in themselves.  But when the soul begins to rest on them instead of upon the Lord, he is compelled to ‘shake’ us from them.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 8/12

There must be something about the idealism of youth that makes it perfectly natural, and therefore seemingly right, to “manufacture” the things we want in our lives.  How often do young couples make up qualities about the person they’re dating so that can marry them, only to find out later when the relationship begins to be shaken that they really should have waited for the real thing.  But perhaps the most catastrophic manufacturing that we do involves ourselves--we either think too highly of ourselves or not highly enough.  This is the shaking that can be the most painful yet the most healing for it is here that we find God.  It is here that we release the self-image we created and begin to see ourselves as God sees us.  We can then accept His love and begin sharing it.  But we mustn’t stop there.  We must also build the foundation of our newfound relationship on the rock of Jesus Christ Himself.  Then our new life in Christ can never be shaken and we will grow strong in the Lord.

“His voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’  This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken, as of what has been made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain."  Hebrews 12:26, 27 

July 29

“The tragedy now is not the Cross of Christ.  That has become victory.  The tragedy now is that those of us who receive this peace He made there, walk away from the Cross and forget it.  We forget we have no right to resent...to be bitter...to be afraid.  We have no rights if we follow Christ.  This is the freedom.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 7/29

I’ve always known that we have no rights if we follow Christ, but I’d never thought of it in terms of “no right to resent...to be bitter...to be afraid.”  Put that way it sounds as though they are things I should want!  But now that I take a step back and look at it I can understand what Eugenia is saying.  How often do I demand “my right” to be respected and cared for.  And how often when I don’t receive that “right” do I feel justified in being resentful and bitter?  And when I take a risk of any kind, whether it be financially or in personal relationships, do I feel it’s my "right" to have things go my way and when they don’t I become afraid I’m going to lose something?  Am I not demanding my “right” to be afraid?  To be free in Christ means, in a sense, I have no expectations other than to be loved by God.  God’s love gives me everything I need--I have no need of “rights” anymore.  When we have “rights” we must protect them.  By having no “rights” we are set free from this impossible task. 

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”  John 8:36

July 21

“The ‘anger of God’ is only another name for the inevitable results of our own bad actions.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 7/21

Hannah says God’s anger is not an arbitrary condition of God’s mind but the necessary result of our breaking His laws.  She likens it to the inevitable indigestion that comes from unhealthy eating.  If people understood this, I think they’d quit blaming God altogether for the things that happen to us.  It makes me think of the parenting book I read when my boys were little.  It stressed the need for natural consequences to their misbehavior so that they could eventually discipline themselves.  If I were always setting up contrived consequences they would become dependent on my being there to police them all the time.  If they learned that their behavior caused their unpleasant consequences they’d be more likely to adjust their behavior in the future.  Unfortunately, this did not work for my strong-willed child.  And just like my strong-willed child I too am finding myself to be so strong-willed that I continue to stay in my prison while the door is flung wide open.  I’m beginning to conclude that the only way out is to be carried out!  So while I can be glad that I know God won’t leave me there, I am very sad about the fact that I just might waste the rest of my life in a prison.  Lord, it is my heart’s desire to walk out of that prison on my own accord.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”  Luke 1: 37

July 18

“The law-abiding citizen who has no thought of breaking the laws of his country is as free from those laws as though there were none.  The law is dead as far as he is concerned because it demands only that which he himself thinks is best and right, and which, therefore, he wants to give, and for him in effect there is no law.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, Daily Secrets, 7/18

This is what scripture is talking about when we are told we are freed from the law in Christ Jesus.  Because we’ve been forgiven of our sins and Christ is our substitute for the penalty of sin, we have been reconciled with God.  And because we’ve been reconciled God is able now to provide all that we need if we will just trust Him to do so.  The only reason we sin in the first place is so we can get our needs met ourselves.  This “freedom in Christ” is what is so elusive to many Christians.  It seems too simple.  But it is simple, just not easy.  It’s not easy because we must contend with our flesh which is continually tempting us to be lazy and go with the flow--the old comfortable rut we lived in for so long.  On the one hand, coming to Christ at a young age helps to reduce the depth of that rut, but at the same time, an adult who has been saved out of a life of degradation may be more appreciative of what Jesus has done for them.  In both cases, though, we must continue to be diligent in our worship of God so that we never lose sight of Who we belong to!

“Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”  Galatians 6:7, 8

July 12

“Humanity held captive by its own rebellion at being set free!...We are not asking God to let us out of prison just so we can praise His name.  We are merely facing the fact that until we have been willing to come out, we cannot praise Him...You feel you are a victim.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 7/12

In thinking about why we rebel at being set free, I think it must be, as Eugenia points out, that we feel we are victims.  The whole point of being a “victim” is to insist on your utter helplessness--not the kind of helpless that God calls us to so that He can give us what we need, but the kind that seems to gloat in it because of all the attention it garners.  Yes, we are only victims so that we can get attention.  I’ve watched formerly unknown people be interviewed on national television because the news media thought their victim story was news worthy and vowed I’d never consent to an interview if I were in their situation.  It would serve no good purpose.  It would either cause people to feel sorry for me or reinforce my own temptation to feel sorry for myself.   I’m sure many people receive letters or money from the strangers that hear their story, but this only serves to identify them as victims even more so.  How much better for us if we would accept God’s keys to the prison we place ourselves in when we refuse His comfort and supply.  The only way we can do this is to give Him the praise in all things and thereby refuse the victim status.

“But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and every one’s fetters were unfastened.”  Acts 16:25, 26

March 16

“Our Lord could say with the psalmist David, ‘I delight to do thy will, O my God’ (Ps. 40:8), because he was dead to everything that was contrary to His Father’s will.  Until our affections are similarly so set on the will of God as to delight in it, we have not ‘taken up the cross’ (Matt. 16:24) in the Scripture sense at all.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 3/16

Hannah illustrates this with how a child becomes “dead” to the things of her childhood and no longer finds pleasure in them.  I can attest to this.  I was eager to grow up and take on adult responsibilities.  But why do some young adults drag their feet into adulthood?  Why do they set their affections on things in the past instead of what lies ahead?  Becoming an adult brings greater responsibilities but it also brings greater freedoms.  Perhaps this is what I really longed for--the freedom.  I did not have a comfortable childhood like so many of today’s children have, so I looked forward to the day that I would be free from being under the control of parents who could not even manage their own lives properly.  This is why when I still did not find the freedom I longed for I was diligent in my spiritual search when I learned that true freedom was only found in Christ.  I can see now why children should not be given freedom without responsibilities.  They will never want to grow up--not in the worldly sense nor in the spiritual sense.  Freedom in Christ brings the responsibility of never leaving God’s will.

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.”  Galatians 5:13, 14