FreeTruth

Just a brief word for today.

This morning I serve at a funeral for a dear old saint who passed away this past Saturday evening. She was the kind of person whom one could not visit or see in church without walking away smiling. How she brightened a room with her zest for life and her growing faith!

Now she's gone home, much happier still.

This world is filled with sorrows--illness, family griefs, financial losses and crosses, deep loneliness, death, and taunting and rejection for one's faith in Jesus. Indeed, this morning I am called to care for the griefs of others having a good share of my own griefs.

But God lives. And in all that I have been called to endure myself, this is what I have found: trials are not so much about God testing us as they are about God proving Himself.

It's about God proving His sufficiency in our deficiency.

It's about God allowing us to find out that He Himself is our enough.

Have you discovered that yet?

Labels: Comfort, Faith, Grief, Hope

Along with the tinsel, lights, and blow-up Santas comes the endless number of "how tos" for beating the holiday blues. At just about every checkout line one can find magazines with tips for a more "enjoyable holiday." This I can understand. Christmas can be a stressful time; especially if finances are tight, or relationships are strained, or if one is spending the holidays in a hospital room or funeral parlor. I know.

In recent years I have found myself wondering what's around the corner when I turn the calendar to December. December hasn't always been "happy in a million ways" as the song "Home for the Holidays" promises. One year we celebrated Christmas in a back bedroom because of a house fire. Another year we took gifts into the hospital to our son who'd been diagnosed with cancer on Christmas Eve. Another year as the family sat around the table on Christmas night a phone call told us to scramble to get to NH before my much loved father-in-law stepped into eternity, which he did when we were still en route. The next December we had to make a repeat trip for my dear mother-in-law, arriving just a few hours before she went home to Jesus. And with many other Christmases including a burden for distressed loved ones in need of love and care, I've often had to fight for joy at Christmas.

But my fight is not my own. It was fought by Another. In Luke 4:18, 19 we see that the very Person we celebrate with parties and gift-giving is the very Person who came to fight for those who have no parties, no gifts, no cheer. He came to give joy to those who mourn, who are poor, who are sick and in captivity.

Jesus. He came for me. He came for me!! He was sent to proclaim liberty to the captives (we were/are all captive to something), and recovering of sight to the blind (physical and spiritual) and to set at liberty those who are oppressed (and depressed).

Though I've had many reasons to feel less than fully celebratory at Christmas, I can't help thinking of those who have even greater reasons for feeling "down" during this season. I'm thinking of those who have lost a child this year, or in years past. A loss such as this must feel like a gaping wound, especially around the holidays. I'm also thinking of those who are presently suffering for their faith in Christ. To mention a few, there are are families of martyred pastors, jailed youth in China, and women set on fire by gasoline who live to continue to share the good news of their Liberator.

If you are struggling with joy this Christmas and if you are feeling weighed down by your circumstances, there is Good News. It isn't found in the magazines, or in the talk shows, in a bottle, or at the doctor's office. It isn't found in watching a Hallmark movie.

True joy is found in the manger where we meet a baby who is good news for the poor, and who is the liberator of captives and who is the giver of sight to the blind and who is freedom for the oppressed.

This the only real and lasting remedy to beat those holiday blues. Look to Him and live in the liberty of his grace!!

Gayline Shorey

Labels: Advent, Christmas, Comfort, Guest Post

It's been my priviledge to contribute to this blog each Monday. This is an especially good slot because I get to reflect on Sunday's preaching while it is still fresh in my mind.

Yesterday's message was taken from the life and example of the great apostle Paul. There's no one quite like Paul! It's no wonder or Lord chose him to be the one who would unveil the mystery of the ages... salvation to the Gentiles, a righteousness that comes by faith, and "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Brian skillfully preached about a man, (Paul) who lived a holy and joyful life inspite of sufferings, privation, persecutions, overwhelming responsibilities, and imprisonment-- and who managed to do all this without complaining!

The wonderful and practical conclusion we collectively drew from Paul's example was this: That we, like Paul, could live holy and joyful lives today! There was this almost palpable sense of relief as the point of the sermon began to hit home. It was a message that took a profoundly important truth, and managed to crystallize it in a simple, practical, and believable way.

We were reminded, through Paul's example, that that no matter what difficulties come our way, we (like Paul) can obediently rejoice our way through life, because of a confident faith that tells us our loving and sovereign God is in absolute control, working out all things in us, for his good pleasure.

Brothers and sisters, this is liberating! This means there is never a time for me to worry, or fret, or fear, or doubt, or be dismayed by circumstances. God is always at work! My sole responsibility is to walk with him, trust in him, and obey him.

God grant that as we reflect on what Brian preached this week, we may enter into a new rest, and that our hearts and minds would remain guarded by the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding... a Pauline peace!

Labels: christian life, Comfort, Guest Post

Over these past few days I have felt the pain of a fallen and broken world.

I spent time visiting with a man who has had MS for 32 years. He's blind, bedridden, and unable now even to push the button to hear the sound from his TV. I spent time praying with another man only just recently diagnosed with MS. On his countenance was written a fear of the unknown.

A couple approached me Sunday in the church where I preached, asking me to pray for their relationship. They could hardly look at each other; unhappiness with each other being written all over their faces. I reflected on two other couples I love whose marriages are in great peril; whose hope is nearly dashed.

I stayed with a couple who just recently lost their two year old grand-daughter. I sent an email to try to connect again to a man I dearly love; a man who some time ago left his faith, his wife and his many children.

And I came home to hear about, and then care for, a couple in our church--a dad and a mom--who this Sunday found their young son, dead.

It is a sad world full of weeping and troubled people who face griefs and burdens too deep for words. Not even sobbing tears are adequate to express the multiplied griefs of human experience in a broken world.

As a brother who loves and a pastor who cares, I wonder what love and comfort should look like in times like these. Can I offer a few suggestions to help you help others? These may be good for you to keep in mind as you respond to human grief in hard times:

1. Pray. Pray for the abounding mercies of God to sweep over the grieving in such measure that they will know that God is real, and that God is there. And pray that you will have great wisdom and exquisite skill to provide just the right mix of silence and hugs, along with still, quiet words to channel grace into their lives.
2. Stay. Stay near. Always be as close as you can be--not with words or noise; just with yourself, as a living and breathing and quiet presence of Christ to them. And stay empathetic. Consider what they may well be feeling. Think about the emotional, spiritual, relational, and physical implications of their trial and sorrow. Labor in your soul to enter into their grief and to feel it enough to have at least a whisper of awareness as to what they are feeling right now. Don't pretend to know what they are feeling (unless you've been right where they are), but do labor to feel what they're feeling as much as you can.
3. Display. Display the love of Jesus in real and tangible ways. Think over any possible needs the grieving may have, that you are able to meet, and make sure to provide for them. Consider what simple kindnesses can be offered over the next few days or weeks or even months, and extend them to the hurting as you're able. Meals, visits, cards, gifts, child care, phone and email reminders that you are thinking of them; whatever might display sincere affection and care, send it their way.
4. Say. After you've been there and loved them and cared for them and listened to them and treated them with kind compassion, be sure to say, to speak whatever truth from God that their souls need, and their spirits crave. Don't push this, or preach or hammer truth home. And certainly do not scold their grief or rebuke their doubts. But do encourage or comfort one another with words (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

I close with a prayer that I, that we, can be water of grace in people's lives today. There are many who thirst for comfort. May they find us to be streams of comfort flowing from the One who is the very River of Life.

Labels: Comfort, Grief