Psalm 146:7b “The LORD sets prisoners free….”

[Right from the beginning of our lives we are all imprisoned by sin in the web of Satan. Everyone is ensnared in the devil’s sticky strands of lies, fear and violence.

Just being born into a broken and twisted world results in quirks and knots in our personalities that bring problems, difficulties, and oppression.

Then our upbringing and family culture with fallen parents instill further dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and desires into us. And our culture’s worldview, with its unhealthy internalized values of materialism, selfishness and pride lock us into destructive feelings, desires and goals.

All these lead us to emotional pitfalls, to accepting false answers to the great human thirst for love and approval, for significance and security, for fulfillment and belonging. These wrong answers then produce fear: fear of man, fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of pain, loss and hurt. Satan uses all of these to oppress, control, and in the end, he wants to crush us, killing all he can.

Yes, we are born into the land of the dying, living in the kingdom of darkness where we were blind, deaf and cut off from God.

But Jesus, in His great love, came into the kingdom of darkness and shone the light of truth, grace and mercy. He by His death and resurrection opened a door in the wall of evil, making it possible to move into the Kingdom of light.

For those sinners who choose to enter, he qualifies them to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the Kingdom of light! (Col. 1:12-13)

He has called us to freedom through truth and He himself is Truth. What a gift! Let us use it wisely and with thankfulness.

The Gift of Beauty

Praise the LORD, for another sunny day with pleasant weather and a beautiful countryside: rich, warm morning sunshine streaming over the hills, casting long, deep shadows from the trees and buildings, bringing out every dip and rise in the land.

The trees are silver with dew, the river is clothed in shimmering wreathes of fog, flowers are peeking out from bushes, gardens and graveyards, the birds are joyfully flitting about and singing in the new day’s light.

You, O Lord God, are a lover of beauty, and are so gracious to share this visual feast with us, a breakfast for the eyes, a refreshment to the soul.

I praise you for your marvelous creativity, making all so practical and yet so beautiful. You could have made everything black and white, ugly and efficient—but you have chosen to clothe usefulness in gracefulness, practicality in loveliness, efficiency in beauty. You cover fruit trees with fragrant and colorful blossoms; you make water sparkling and pure; you give the hills and trees many shades of green.

Praise you that you do the same in our lives, making food festive, procreation pleasurable, worship wonderful.

Help us to note these gifts which come every day, things we often gloss over, failing to appreciate all that you’ve given us. Praise be to you, The God who loves Beauty, the God who loves to share.

Our Net Team was initially made up of three couples. The other two couples were in their thirties with small children, a different generation than us, with different perspectives on how to do things.

We are from the first year of the “baby boomers” and also have a lot of the traits of the former generation “the builders.” For me, to get things done quickly, efficiently and inexpensively was very fulfilling.

Our teammates had exactly the opposite values: doing things slowly, carefully and with excellence was very important to them. As you can imagine, a team comprised of people with opposite approaches to getting things done was a prescription for a collision.

Our differences came to a head when we decided to rent the apartment across the hall from the bookstore. This would give us a meeting room, a storage area and a second bathroom. The place had originally been wallpapered and then repainted at some time in the distant past. “Great!” I thought, “All we have to do is put a fresh coat of paint over what’s already there and we are ready to go.”

My teammates, however, wanted to have the wallpaper stripped, the walls re-plastered and then painted. This, we found, would cost about $1500.

They were also not happy with the black metal bookshelves we had inherited. They wanted white ones. And, no, painting the ones we had would not do! New white bookshelves would cost another $1500.

Not only did I consider this outrageously expensive, but the money they wanted to spend would be coming out of my own work fund!

The team meeting where we discussed this was an increasingly “hot” one. As our interaction went on, I got more and more red in the face and talked louder and faster. We ended, at least, on a civil note, agreeing to pray about these proposals, but I was not a happy camper.

And pray I did, a lot. “Lord, help them to see where they are off base, help them to see that we need to be more careful with the money you’ve entrusted to us!”

The Lord listened patiently until I wound down. Then, clear as a bell, the thought came, “Let them have their way.”
“But Lord! Their ideas aren’t right!”
“Let them have their way.”

After a long silence on my part, I finally responded, “Ok, Lord, I will follow your lead. After all, the money is yours.”

The next team meeting went much better as I agreed to all their proposals. On the way home one of our teammates rode with us.

“That was a good team meeting,” he commented, “it went really well.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “Did you notice that it went well because I changed my position on every point to support your ideas?”

“Oh….yes, yes, you did, didn’t you?”

The anguish I had experienced in going against my desires had not even registered on his radar screen! But then again, it did not matter. Doing what the Lord wants is what is important. And valuing relationships above procedures, policies or money is very important.

After that incident, it was evident that my teammates were more willing to listen to my input. By laying down my desires on certain points important to me but unimportant from an eternal perspective, the Lord magnified my influence in the lives of others. That is certainly more valuable than any thing money could buy. And for me, it was stepping out of the trap of selfishness into the freedom of servanthood.

Picture: a book store like ours

Psalm 19:14 “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight,”

Yes, Lord, may both my inner and outer speech please you. May they be as beautiful as the flowers in this picture. Lord, bring the continual transformation of my heart so I will please you in my thought life, so my public life may honor you before others, remembering that out of the heart flow the words of my mouth.

May my impatience, selfishness, pride and ambition be replaced with patience, Christ-centeredness, humility and contentment.

Help me to consistently meditate on your Word, to think your thoughts, to respond with your wisdom and to speak your Truth. And may you be greatly pleased with that obedience growing in my being, which is the result of your good work.]

Psalm 19:12 “Who can discern his errors?”

[My inner being, below my consciousness, is largely inscrutable and opaque to me. In there I unknowingly sin with wrong motives, wrong attitudes and wrong desires.

These sins are from my flesh, from the inherited residue of sin from past generations, from the subtle working of the devil, from input from the world–and from my giving in to them.

These sins are there—but their penalty has been paid in Christ’s death and resurrection, praise be to you. So we can pray, along with David, “Forgive my hidden faults” and know that we are forgiven.

As I spend time in worship (giving you, Lord, honor for who you are), you are slowly increasing the depth of understanding of what’s in my inner being–showing me more and more of these hidden faults. Then I can knowingly confess and reject them and instead obey you in these areas.

Praise you for your persistent, patient and powerful work in my life.]