I know God loves me BECAUSE He put me into the fire.

A few weeks ago, a friend said, "You seem to really believe God loves you." He has seen me at moments of faith crisis in the past three years... So, coming from him, this is a pretty weighty statement. During my wife's health struggles, I had at times felt that God did not love me. I felt that he loved my wife and cared nothing for me. It felt that my dreams, desires, etc didn't matter to God... He threw me under the bus to take care of my wife. She was valuable to Him... I was expendable. Or so I felt.

My friend followed up his statement with a question, "How did you come to know and FEEL that God loves you?"  I had a bit of a hard time formulating this into a cohesive thought... but it came about through the health trial that my wife and I were battling. Later, it became really clear.

I know that God loves me BECAUSE he sent me into the desert... into a place of trial and testing... so that I would reach the end of my strength, and then turn to him alone who could save me. He has accomplished so much good through this journey. He has purged me of sins. He has transformed my heart. He has made his true loving nature known to me in a way that I could experience. He has shown me that I can truly trust him with everything. He has helped me to see what really matters in life, and to be excited to submit to his will... to journey where he desires to lead.

I know God loves me because he didn't give me what I wanted... he gave me what I needed... to grow... to become more lovely and more like his son. I am a work in progress. God is the potter and I am the clay.

David

Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna... to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."

Zechariah 13:8-9 "In the whole land,"declares the lord, "two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it. This third I [God] will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God.'"

Jesus IS.

I feel that 98% of "Christians" do NOT really get how mind blowing Jesus really is.

He is not "my homeboy"... he is the author of everything. He is master of everything, who humbled himself to enter his creation to redeem his creation. He was not created. He has never not been. He has ALWAYS been. he exists outside of time and matter. He loves an lives within me.

A few years ago, I was exhausted emotionally and spiritually. Life, harder than ever fathomed it could be. I was ready to leave this world. Flying to vacations, I secretly hoped the plane would crash. From this place of exhaustion, pain, and destitution came help from a Jesus I claimed to know since I was a child... Claimed to follow. I claimed him to be Lord of my life. But he was not. I had not chosen to follow him. Not whole heartedly. My will opposed submission to his... Whatever it might be.

When I reached a low point of personal exhaustion, I threw my hands up and said, "okay, I'll do it your way."

He has redeemed me... He is transforming me. He has saved me. He has saved my marriage. He has made life worth living. He had given me a purpose. He has given me hope. He has given me joy.

Truly... Without Christ I am nothing. He has saved my everything. I owe him all. To stand up against God's will and say "I will do this an that, not what you want," is to take a stand against God the way Lucifer took a stand when he exalted his own will above that of God's will.

Jesus is not an initial on a bracelet... He is not a dashboard bobble head. He is not a catchy slogan. He is not a watered down "prophet" or a "good man" who lived thousands of years ago.

He is the author of life. He is your only way to life... He is my Lord. My savior. Without him, I have nothing.

My heart breaks for everyone who has not realized this. They are missing out on the greatest gift ever given to mankind. Jesus Christ is Lord of lords... King of kings.

David

Spiritual Warfare (Again) Preemptive This Time.

What made today different? I don't know. But instead of moving through the day with hope and peace... I just felt angry and hopeless. I hurt. I felt like saying "Screw you God! What are you waiting on?! I'm just going to gratify myself in whatever the hell I want because you obviously aren't going to do anything for me!"

After this tantrum passed, I resolved to not do all the crap my sinful nature wanted to do. I love my wife and I want to honor her. I love my God... the very one who I was blaming for not showing up. So, I diverted my evil and prayed.

Then I basically just fell into some self-pity and depression. I sent out a text asking for some prayer. God seemed so silent and distant.

My wife felt the same. She felt resolved to a belief that God had bad plans for her... And was taunting her with hopes and dreams... So he could defeat her. It made no logical sense, but the feelings were overwhelming.

So, I acknowledge her feelings. I empathized with her. But I affirmed my unconditional love for her. My commitment forever. I told her how I was incapable of that apart from a God who first loved her.

A little later, we then found ourselves pitted against one another. Both she and I so easily irritated. We couldn't even communicate. We both hated the way we were feeling and we came together with a repentant attitude and really listened to one another.

I cried out to God, "deliver me!" Don't you want to deliver me and use my story to give someone else hope that you will show up in their darkest hour? Don't you work good from bad?

God... What? What do you want me to do? God, I do not have what it takes in and of myself... I need you. I need your grace. I need you to strengthen me with faith. I need you to deliver me to joy. I need more of you!

Sincerely.

David


UPDATE: Not all that long after I wrote the above... Unexpectedly, a four year old prayer request was answered!

"Why today?" I wondered. It was such a rough and faithless day on my part. Then it dawned on me. God had this break through answer to prayer on the schedule. Satan wanted to thwart this amazing plan and was full on attacking us.

It wasn't pretty but we survived the attack and made it through to God's great blessing.

Next time I have a day similar... I need to acknowledge I'm under spiritual attack and not be so bewildered. I need to fight back, invoking the powerful name of Christ to protect me and to defeat the enemy. I need to have open eyes looking for the amazing thing God is about to do.

God is real. Satan is real. Spiritual warfare is real. Be prepared for battle.

David.

Lightning "Crashes"

We were flying back from California... Climbing in altitude. Passing through dense clouds. Visibility five feet. Peaceful. I love the ascent. I love the feeling of sinking back into the seat from the G-force. 

Suddenly a loud crack. Flash of light right out of the engine! My heart races. The first thought through my mind, "ENGINE IS OUT! WE'RE GOING DOWN! This is it... I'm going to die!"

A few seconds, it dawned on me. It was lighting. I am alive.

David

"I Miss You" is a Four Letter Word

True love is what you have for another person.  1 Corinthians 13:5 says, “[love] is not self-seeking.” 

When most people say, “I miss you,” I feel like they are actually saying, “I feel lonely, and I want you here so you can make me feel better.” That is NOT true love. That is self-seeking.

 If I were to tell you that I miss you, it could be conveying that I feel lonely, unloved, abandoned, bored, unfulfilled… and it’s your responsibility to make me feel better. You can even take it a step further and assume that I am blaming your absence for my negative feelings. This would be a guilt tactic and it is the opposite of love.

I plan on trying to avoid that phrase. Instead, I will say, “I look forward to seeing you.” It takes the negativity out of the communication.

If I have “true love” for you… I look forward to seeing you so that I can love ON YOU, serve YOU, make YOU feel better. That is the opposite of self-seeking. That is serving, much the way Jesus served the people he loved.

 God IS love. He loves us when we have given him nothing. He even loves us even when we blame him for evils, or even when mankind crucified his innocent son. He does not "miss us"… He is looking forward to seeing us, so that He can love us.

 David

This was fun for me.

I made this with the infamous Brian Franklin. It was a lot of fun, and I think it turned out pretty well.

The Pour-Over Coffee Brewing Method (pourover) from DoubleShot Coffee Company on Vimeo.

The point of pain. Ask "What?" not "Why?"

It had been a difficult few weeks for my wife. First a really potent upper respiratory virus. After that finally cleared, there was what seemed to be a recurrence of C. diff and with it, an increase in abdominal pain and nausea. Couple that with pretty bad migraines almost daily. Oh, and for no apparent reason her left wrist swelled up and was exquisitely painful to the point she couldn't use her left arm at all!

She felt "why me?!" But I saw her holding on to faith that God still has a good plan... for a little while. The final blow came in the form of good news of a friend becoming pregnant. While this is good, it was like a spotlight on my wife's fear that God did not have a family in the plans for her.

With the news she felt defeated. Unloved by God. The lingering doubts about God's love for her just blossomed into something crushingly large. I lovingly tried to confront this quick change of belief, but she confirmed. She no longer believed God loved her.

I can't blame her. She has been through so much. It's exceedingly difficult to hang on to hope and faith when you see so little progress. I have felt the same way at times in the past. It's a terrible place to be. My heart ached for her deeply.

If; however, we look at the evidence we can see how silly it is to change our position on God's love for us. Both my wife and I can easily see God's hand bringing us together in marriage, delivering us from difficulty in the past, showing up and bringing the right people into our lives to help take care of our needs during this trial. (Her neurologist was found by a personal connection from 10 years before V was even born!) We have seen God transform me from a dark place near my breaking point to a new place of hope. All of these things point to a God who loves. Is it really possible that after all that, he would withdraw his love at the moment that my wife found out a friend was pregnant? A resounding "No".

The week or so prior to Sunday night had been very difficult physically for V. I sent out a text asking for prayers to several comrades. They prayed, I prayed... The Holy Spirit began to move.

In this place of physical pain and emotional destitution. The Holy Spirit opened V's eyes in a new way. She saw me and the love I had for her that stood even without hope of what I might get in return. She saw the unconditional pure love for her... She expressed how beyond grateful she was for me loving her. I quickly ran through all the ways I used to be terrible at loving her... how God had been transforming me so that I could love her better. And that none of what I have to offer is solely of myself... but it is directly from her heavenly father.

God reached through all of the pain, doubt, self-pity, and fear... and wrapped his arms around her! He helped her to feel deeply loved... by him! Loved, simply because she is. Tears of joy ran down my angel's face. She believed God loved her. She even felt loved by him. As she always was and will be.

God wants us all to know that he never stops loving us. He loves us when life is good. He loves us just as much when life is very difficult and painful. He loves us when we are committing egregious sins. He loves us when we are performing great acts of love. He never stops loving us! You can't earn it. You can't sin it away. All you can do is either run towards it, or reject it.

Run toward the love of God.

During this week of intense pain, I asked God, "Don't waste this, God. My wife is hurting. Use this for something good. That's what you do, right? Genesis 50:20 'You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done...' Come on God! Do something good!!"

He did.

I wonder, could we speed up passage through the painful valley's we must travel if we stop asking "why poor me?" and start asking, "Okay, you've got my attention... What are you trying to accomplish? What do I need to see or change?" Because when there is pain... there is something God wants to accomplish that is bigger and more important that just relieving the pain.

God is good.... ALL the time.

David

Marriage: Cultural Misconception Exposed.

Recently I had a single person ask me if marriage was difficult. I'm not sure I can make a statement that rings true in all and for all marriages. 

My experience of marriage has been intertwined with my wife's difficult health problems. Thus my perspective has been colored. Facing life in the midst of these health problems has been the most difficult experience of my life.

What I can say about marriage is that I was lied to almost my entire life. God did not invent marriage to "make us happy"... The lie propagated by nearly every facet of American society as a whole. A lie left largely un-refuted by church, or so it seemed to me.

"Oh, he makes me so happy!" and then when he doesn't make you happy any longer... "I just don't love him anymore". Divorce then follows. The now single person starts looking for another source of happiness. The cycle repeats, as the broken and imperfect person seeks the wrong remedy.

I do not mean to say that you won't find happiness within marriage. I hope I do and I think I have.  But note, I said "within" not "from" marriage. Your happiness is not your spouse's responsibility. It is something that comes and goes, ebbs and flows with the seasons of life. It is not marriage's constant companion. It isn't the purpose of marriage... AND It's not even the purpose of life.

Marriage was invented by God. It is a mirror he holds in front of us. It helps us see our flaws and scars. Marriage exposes the dark matter of our hearts. We either take responsibility for what is exposed and deal with it, grow and heal... Or we point fingers and blame, "you're not making me happy!" as we slowly plummet... crash and burn.

Before I was married, I was quite successful at "happiness" and life. Then slowly as life happened God's mirror of marriage exposed my rough edges. I didn't even know they existed, but they had been there since I was young.  Unbeknown to me. Rough and unlovely. These edges HAD to be smoothed out. It proves a laborious and difficult process... But a necessary one. If these edges were allowed to remain, they would surely kill marriage... They were trying to kill me.

There is no need to fear. The process is a sure one, if you welcome God into the process. When you actively seek, you can be confident that you will find. God wants to heal your old scars. Transforming both heart and mind. And as he does, you find something better than mere happiness... You find meaning, love, intimacy, and joy... with your spouse and your heavenly father. 

Marriage can be tragically hard... full of a terrible and magnificent beauty. So cling to God, for we are to be refined like gold in the fire. Be confident, be assured.  Have a joyous anticipation... For the best in life has yet to come. 



David