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More from the Add-on Eskimo

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 16, 2021
 
“Come tonight to the teacher’s house, Okfagit, and you will learn more about the great Creator God,” Kolawi said. “And if you’d like, you can stay now and listen to what I am going to teach Ayit.”
 
Okfagit grunted and settled back to listen. Kolawi turned to Ayit and said, “I want to teach you now about how Apa loves us, cares for us and provides for us. The teacher, Mr. Campbell, says the name of this portion of the Bible is Psalm 23. It was a song and it paints pictures to help us understand. Listen as I speak it.
“‘The Lord is our boat captain. He gives us all that we need.
“‘He makes me stay in a good place. He leads me to drink from clear water springs. He refreshes my being. He leads me in the right ways, for this brings honor to his name.
 
“‘When I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, even there I will not fear, for Jesus is with me. His spear, his hunting stick, they comfort me. He prepares a meal for me in the presence of my enemies. He blesses me with much seal oil, my cup overflows.
 
“Certainly goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of Jesus forever.’”
 
Kalowi was silent for a moment. “This song will help you to get to know Jesus, to see how he provides, and will protect you as you obey him. Memorizing this means you will be adding knowledge to your faith. As you have surrendered to Jesus, now you can learn more about his character. He is, as you said, the good creator God who is glad to have you as his son.”
 
Ayit smiled, “That won’t be hard to memorize, it’s mostly pictures.”
 
Okfagit looked at his son in surprise, “You have accepted this New Way? You have accepted this Jesus? You have surrendered to him when you know so little about him!?” he exclaimed. “What will happen when the spirits know this? What about the elders when they learn you have left our traditions, which may bring evil upon us?”
 
Ayit was startled, “I hadn’t thought about that,” he said. “I was thinking about this good creator God who has power over life and death, who loves us and wants us to come to Him. This is Apa, the God we have always believed in and sometimes pray to. What could be wrong with surrendering to him?”
 
Okfagit looked down. “We must think about how this will affect our community, our family, our hunting, our future,” he said.
 
All were silent for a while. Then Kalowi spoke, “I have not only thought about these issues, but I have lived them. After seeing Apa heal my son when Mr. Campbell prayed in the name of Jesus, I knew that I had gotten more than the healing of my son.
The great longing of my heart had come to pass.
 
“I always feared the spirits and performed all the ceremonies I should. But it was so hopeless. I never could do everything the spirits wanted. We had to guess most of the time what they wanted and then if we got it wrong the spirits would be angry and bring disaster on us.
 
“And then in the end when we die, our physical bodies will decay, our spirits will wander desolate over the tundra, and then what? No one knows.
 
“But here is Apa and his son, Jesus, the God who loves us, who promises to provide for us, who can protect us with his great power, who offers us eternal life!”
 
Okfagit, bowed his head. “What you say about the spirits is true. What you say about Apa and Jesus sounds wonderful. But it is hard to leave the old way, and we will be rejected by our community if we follow Jesus.”
 
“That is true,” replied Kolawi, “but it is better to have eternal life than have this hopeless life go on as it has always has for our people, hard and brief, followed by an unhappy death.”
 
“Father,” said Ayit, “you said there was no hope, but now there is. I want to embrace it, to follow Jesus. Will you let me?”
 
Okfagit hesitated, thinking, evaluating like a hunter faced with a surprising and challenging situation. Then Kolawi spoke, “Think about this Okfagit, remember what we heard from this Psalm 23. See what it says about this new Apa. Ayit, recite it for us again.” And he did.
 
Then Kalowi led him in prayer. “O great God, Jesus, I thank you for my new brother, Ayit. Help him to follow you well, to add on each of the things you have given him. May he be a light to his family, his village, this island. Amen.”

Picture: hunting boat frame at sunset on the island

May be an image of twilight and sky

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Beauty Everywhere!

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 15, 2021
From Edified! some edifying thoughts.
 
“For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy. How great are your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep!”
Psalm 92:4,5 ESV
 
O Lord God, you are marvelous and we see this in your creation, with the dizzying array of size, shape, variety, color and texture in plants, animals and landscapes. You have shared with us your love of beauty, your graceful shaping, your wisdom in practicality, your intelligence in complexity.
 
I think about the million optic nerve cells in a developing baby in the womb; at one point, two sets of nerves grow simultaneously, one set from the eye and one set from the brain, joining at the right place, with each individual nerve finding and joining with its corresponding partner. This perfect weaving brings to our brains an exact image of what is before us. And all this is done in the way you designed.
 
You made our bodies to be so effective, so compact, so efficient, creating some parts to be amazingly multifunctional: mouths for speaking, tasting, eating, breathing, smiling and kissing. Legs for locomotion, lounging, lifting, lugging and loving.
 
You build into our being the ability to enjoy a wide range of experiences. You give us the joy of running, of relaxing, of sleeping, of walking in a snowfall, of feeling the warm sun, the crisp cold air, the tingle of frost, the drumming of rain.
 
You have given us the delight of flowers with colors vivid and gentle, deep and pastel, having tiny beautiful details within, gorgeous shapes without. I think of the rich red and yellow of a tulip’s petals, sheltering the white stem within, like a lady wearing her three-pointed crown, surrounded by her deep brown guards—a tiny world of beauty, waiting to be discovered.
 
You have made joy available everywhere. Think of the joy of a new born colt, staggering to his feet, shaking off the surprise of birth, running at his mother’s side. Think of the exuberance of a shooting star, streaking across the night sky. Or the contentment of a crescent moon in winter, cradled low in the West in the bare arms of upstretched winter tree branches. Think of the happy croak of frogs on a warm spring night. Or the joy of a dog, greeting his master in the morning, tail wagging, tongue hanging out, smiling with anticipation of the day.
 
Your works give us joy, O Lord, they are marvelous, revealing to us your greatness, wisdom and beauty. And this is only a dim reflection of what it will be like with you in Heaven, where all will be more of everything: more beautiful, more vivid, more delightful, more tasty, more varied, more vibrant—for there will be no twisting of sin to mar our vision or your creation.
 
I exalt you, Lord God for your thoughts from which creation flowed, I glorify you for your marvelous and meticulous works. You are worthy, Lord Jesus, of eternal exaltation, of endless adoration, of timeless, whole-hearted worship. To you be glory in my life today and forever.
 
Prayer: “Lord, I stand in awe of you. May my thoughts, actions and words reflect this awe today to all those around me. Amen.”
 
 
May be an image of outdoors and tree
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Psalm 39:9-10

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 14, 2021
Psalm 32:9 “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
[Lord, help us to be the opposite of this. Help us to move in quick and joyful obedience to your Word and Spirit, with the desire to honor you and bless those around us. Help us to act out of kindness, care and love for others.
I thank you, Lord, for your provision in every way, meaning I can trust you fully. May I never need the bit and bridle and instead obey out of understanding and desire.]
Psalm 32:10 “Many are the woes of the wicked, but the LORD’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him.”
[I praise you for your never-ending Love, O Triune God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I praise you that your love is eternal, infinite, unquenchable and powerful, always surrounding and protecting us:
 
As your Word says “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore” (Ps. 125:2),
 
and, “The angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him and delivers them” (Ps. 34:7).
Help us all to trust in you, to fear you (care deeply what you think and obey you, to fear the consequences of disobeying you) and to find refuge in you. Today I will say “of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust” (Ps. 91:3).]
May be an image of nature, twilight and tree
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Big Steps Ahead

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 13, 2021
The leader of the local Connecticut Youth for Christ chapter, Peter Lyons, invited me to join him in his work. As part of this he began to take me through a study on the book of Ephesians. I was powerfully impacted by the first chapter with its strong emphasis on who we are in Christ.
 
We were working in the King James Version, focusing on verses 3-6. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:”
 
Wow! That much spiritual blessing: endless, immeasurable, heavenly, with and in Jesus!
 
“According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,”
 
Another wow! These blessings were prepared before the world began, when God chose me to be His son; and He chose me because He wanted me (as He does each person who is willing to believe) and worked the out circumstances that would draw me to Himself.
 
And His gift for us: “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:”
 
In His eyes we are holy and pure in His love right now! He sees our record as washed clean in the blood of Christ and sees us standing before Him justified in Jesus. This is a wonderful truth for a person like me who tends to be perfectionistic in evaluating myself. For Jesus I don’t have to perform; He has made me clean, holy and pure!
 
“Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself…”
 
Our Heavenly Father made sure this happened, working out all the details so we could believe, be saved and be transformed into a new creature.
 
“according to the good pleasure of His will….”
 
This was a very significant point for me. It was His good pleasure to adopt me as His son, not an “OK, you can come, too” attitude, but a “Wow, have I been waiting for you! I’m so glad you came! I’ve been looking forward to your becoming my child!” kind of attitude.
 
Then the passage continues, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
 
He has made me accepted. He has made each believer accepted as we are in Christ. I don’t have to do anything for this acceptance! It is a gift! I am dearly loved because He is love. I am fully, eternally, eagerly accepted.
 
That makes me want to obey Him–not to earn His approval, but in response to His wonderful, warm, transforming love. So I memorized and meditated on this passage, and continue to do so to the present, soaking in, reveling in and basking in these great contra-conditional truths of God’s marvelous, mighty love for all His children.
 
This passage in Ephesians 1 became the incubator for cultivating a greater understanding of God, His character, His ways and how He wanted to have me join Him in His great plan for the universe.
 
This was the beginning of a new level of freedom, one that included my whole being, my whole soul: mind, will and emotions. It brought me into the light of God’s presence, gave me a sense of belonging, of worth and a certain knowledge that He was making me competent in His power.
 
Picture Dad working in the tire shop with a helper, Harry
May be an image of 2 people
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More on Psalm 86:15

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 12, 2021
More on Psalm 86:15: “…you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
You are abounding in love: you are an overflowing spring of grace with an endless stream of goodness that pours out of your rich person, for you are agape love itself.
 
I praise you that your love is unaffected by any of my failures, that your love flows deeply, widely and powerfully forever. It evokes from me an answering love, a desire to do what is pleasing to your heart. Your love transforms, cleanses, equips and leads us on, consistently, abundantly and graciously.
You are abounding in faithfulness: you are perfectly, unchangingly, unwaveringly consistent. You are faithful to your Character, to your Word, to your Wisdom, to your Promises, to your Plan. We can trust you wholly, wholeheartedly, totally and eternally. You are faithful when we are not; you are faithful when it costs you. You are faithful forever.
Glory be to you, Lord God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You are totally worthy of worship, of honor, of exaltation. I bow before you today in awe, I rise up in surrender, to obey in praise and thanksgiving. May you be lifted up, glorified and honored in my life today, in my motives, thoughts, words and deeds.
May be an image of tree, grass, nature, sky and road
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Psalm 86:15

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 11, 2021
I praise you, Lord God, for the beauty of your Character as shown in Psalm 86:15 “…you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
You lean over the side of Heaven and in compassion follow carefully every aspect of my life, preparing each day in detail, providing protection, chastening, guiding and blessing.
 
In compassion you take me through difficulties to break, shape and transform me. You are wholehearted and full-orbed in your compassion.
You are gracious: kind and good in your dealings with me. You are richly generous, pouring out upon me blessing after blessing: you have given me health, strength, the ability to see, hear, walk and talk; you have given me a fine family, good friends, meaningful work, constant protection and many belongings. And even if I had none of these, I have you! I lack nothing because you are my Shepherd.
You are slow to anger. You are deeply, graciously, perfectly patient and therefore persistent in our relationship. I so often fail, especially in my thought life and in my motives, and in each sin I grieve you, giving you pain. Yet you do not respond in anger, but instead kindly correct me over and over.
 
You start with very small alerts and if I don’t respond, slowly work your way up to larger rebukes, patiently giving me chance after chance to see, confess and repent of one sin after another. I praise you for your great, rich, comforting, healing patience.
Thank you for your consistent, wise and continuous work in my life. Help me to join you in this work so you may be honored.
May be an image of sky, nature, tree and snow
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Psalm 32:5-6

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 10, 2021
Psalm 32:5b-6 “you forgave the guilt of my sin…Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found;”
[In every situation, this is what we have the privilege of doing: running to you in prayer, Lord, seeking you and your help. Prayer is not our last resort, nor the least we can do; it is our first resort and the most we can do for anyone.
 
I praise you that you can always be found by your children, for you are consistently with us, always watching, always ready to help: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1).
Praise you, that you have called us to a partnership where we must seek you, come to you in prayer, and then you will answer. It is a relationship: wonderful, positive and powerful. It is a responsibility: we must reject the desire to fix things ourselves and instead come first to you, acknowledging and rejoicing in our weakness.
 
Praise you for the possibility of entering into your presence at each moment and finding help. “In the day of my trouble I will call upon you, for you will answer me” (Ps. 86:7).]
“surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him.”
[This danger is not an “if” but a “when.” Floods of trouble will come, but you will set us high upon a rock and keep us safe.
 
“God is our refuge and strength…. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and foam, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof” (Ps. 46:1-3).
This is true today—as the tide of culture now is flowing against you, Lord, against your Word and your children–and it’s true that tas we rest in you he flood will not overcome us. I praise you, Lord, and give you glory and honor, joy and exaltation, because, whatever might come, you are there in power, love and grace. “My soul, find rest in God alone; my hope comes from Him” (Ps. 62:5).
Help us to rest in you and your greatness today, Lord Jesus, rejecting worry, fear and anxiety, instead embracing love, joy and peace, trusting in you, living in your desire: “May the God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace AS YOU TRUST IN HIM, so that your lives may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).
May be an image of 2 people, people sitting, outdoors and text that says 'DI ESSER'
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The Add-on Eskimo and freedom from the evil spirits.

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 9, 2021
 
As Ayit walked with his father to the next visit he asked, “Father, is there no way to protect ourselves from these evil spirits?”
“None that I know of,” replied Okfagit, “we can only do what the shaman tells us and hope that this will be enough to defend us. We have no other power.”
 
“What if the prophecy you told me about came true?” Ayit asked. “You know, that an outsider would come to the island with a message of hope?”
 
“Yes, I remember,” his father replied, “but many, many seasons have passed since then, and no such person has come. True, whalers have stopped by, but they brought no message, only goods along with troubles from whisky and disease.”
 
“What would you think if I said I’d met someone who knows the outsider who brought a message of hope?”
 
Okfagit stopped and looked at his son in astonishment. “Why, I would first wonder if that was true. And then I’d want to know what the message was! Why do you think this?”
 
Ayit told of his thoughts about all the evil the spirits did and that they could not have created a beautiful word. Then he shared about his conclusion that there must be a good creator God, who was as beautiful as what he had made. Then he told about meeting Kolawi and how he told him about Jesus, the son of Apa who sent him into the world to save all who would believe.
 
“But Kolawi is from this island, he is not an outsider,” Okfagit objected.
 
“It was the teacher, Mr. Campbell, who came to the island and brought the message of hope,” Ayit explained. “He brought this thing called a book which has stories and wisdom Apa wants to share with us. Kalowi has taught me some of it. Come with me, father, let us talk with Kalowi about it.”
 
When they were seated on the floor of Kalowi’s house, they were served tea and after a time of respectful silence, Okfagit began to ask Kalowi about this “New Way” and how he had entered it.
 
“My child was sick,” began Kalowi. “We tried all the ways of our people, including having the shaman come to play his drum and sing. But my boy only got worse.
 
“Then Mr. Campbell came and prayed for my son in the name of Jesus, the powerful creator God. My son got well, and I believe it was in answer to Mr. Campbell’s prayers.
 
“So, I began to ask Mr. Campbell about this New Way, about Jesus, the son of Apa. He explained to me that Apa wanted to have a relationship with each person, but our wrongdoing keeps him distant.
“So Apa sent Jesus to the world to open the way by taking on himself our punishment for what we have done wrong. As I have told Ayit, Jesus died in our place buying for us forgiveness, and then rose from the dead to buy eternal life for us. And because of this, we can now come close to Apa.”
 
Okfagit shook his head. “How can a man die and rise again?” he asked.
 
“Jesus was a man, but he was also God who created all we see here. He had the power to give his life and to take it up again. This is the power he can and wants to use in our lives. It is the power with which Jesus healed my son.”
 
Okfagit was quiet, again shaking his head. “This is so different from our way,” he finally said. “I will have to think about this.”
 
“Come tonight to the teacher’s house and you will learn more,” Kolawi said.
Picture: Grave yard where the little children killed by the evil spirits were buried
May be an image of outdoors
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Disappointment

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 8, 2021
This devotional is very needed by me. I have had two days full of frustrations, the final one being a big disappointment with an event I’ve been waiting for for 7 months suddenly being postponed for another month! OOOOO! Was I angry!
 
But, of course, the Holy Spirit immediately convicted me of thinking in human terms and that I’d set my heart on this event, making it my idol. It took gut-wrenching, teeth gritting obedience (through lifting my soul to God) to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving for this painful happening.
 
The bottom line, of course, is that God knows best. Who knows what He is protecting me from, what doors he is opening with this delay. And certainly he is putting his finger on my idol worship, calling me instead to join Him in what He is doing.
 
So here’s the devotional.
 
Lately the Lord has been reminding me of two familiar and important truths. The first is stated in Psalm 62:1, “My soul finds rest in God alone.” It is so easy to try and find my rest in other things, especially in seeking situations without tension, getting my way right now.
 
The second truth is stated in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Give thanks in all circumstances….” I often forget that the thrust of my life should be to glorify God, primarily by thanking Him in and for all things.
 
He is using whatever circumstances surround me both for my good, and to bring about His will in the universe. Praising and thanking the Lord Jesus is such a freeing and empowering activity: “let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Heb. 13:15) “so that the power of Christ may rest on me (2 Cor. 12:9).
 
Praise is one very practical way of taking “up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16).
So I want to continually live in the rest that only God can give and to honor Him by giving thanks in all circumstances. These are what God calls us to. Are we joining Him in His great plan, offering the sacrifice of thanksgiving and thereby fulfilling our part in the restoration of the universe?
 
No I haven’t but I’m going to.
 
Prayer: “Father, help me to remember these basic truths and to live them each day, resting in who you are and thanking you in and for all things. Amen.”
 
May be an image of outdoors and tree
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Psalm 91:14

Published by S.M. Wibberley on March 7, 2021
“’Because he loves me,’ says the LORD, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.’” Psalm 91:14
 
You, Lord Jesus, are a wonder, able in your incarnation to combine the unimaginable: you were both God and man, heavenly and earthly, infinite and finite, all-knowing and in need of teaching as a child, perfect and yet learning obedience.
 
No one else could have united these mutually exclusive opposites! I exalt you for your wisdom, your insight, your ability to put together things that we cannot unite even in our farthest imagination. You are the complete One, the perfect One, the holy One, the worthy One.
 
You also put together things in our lives that seem opposites. Psalm 91 says, “Because You have made the LORD Your dwelling place—the Most High, who is my refuge— no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent” (Ps. 91:9-10 ESV).
 
But then I think of Job, a man who made you his refuge, yet he suffered great tragedy, heartache, sickness, pain and problems both with his wife and his “friends.”
 
This is hard for us to understand. We must turn to you, Lord Jesus, as you have a bigger and better view of things. Your understanding of harm or evil is different than ours.
 
According to Him, evil or harm is not what makes us uncomfortable or disappointed or in pain–but evil and harm are what damage us spiritually, what drive us away from you. As we make you our refuge, you are always there to protect us from spiritual harm.
 
“Because he holds fast 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” (Ps. 91:14,15 ESV). And so you did for Abraham, Joseph, David, Daniel and Paul.
 
Praise be to You, Lord Jesus, that you reveal to us wisdom, understanding and knowledge so we may join you in what you are doing by offering the sacrifice of thanksgiving in each happening, no matter how painful or problematical it may be.
 
Praise you that you have given us the armor to wear so that we may avoid spiritual harm in whatever you bring us through. You are faithful to deal with evil, to protect us, to give needed grace, to carry us along, to deliver us at the right time, to work out your purposes in our lives. Glory be to you.
 
You are worthy of worship, honor, praise and exaltation. I bow before you in amazed worship, and I rise up in wholehearted praise to live in joyful obedience to you throughout today.
 
Prayer: “Lord, help me to think as you do, to view difficulties with your eyes, as opportunities to join you in what you are doing, to honor you, to demonstrate your grace to those around me. Help me to take up your grace, to move into and through suffering and pain with endurance, to learn from it the lessons you have for me. May I honor you in trust demonstrated through praise. Amen.”
May be an image of road, nature and tree
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