How Do You Exit the Wormhole of Challenge?

Traveling through space, amazed by the magnificence of it all and then without warning you find yourself in a wormhole. The space is dark and unfamiliar. Suffering and anxiety prevail, unless, you call on the Lord.

~ Lisa Blair

Popular Mechanics

Have you ever found yourself in a position where all was going well, and then, a health, career, financial, or other personal issue comes out of nowhere? Well that recently happened to me. Life is funny that way. We spend time at the top of the mountain in complacency and then the sky shifts. So, I ask, in the midst of the unknown, do we rely on our own thoughts and plans to escape, or do we go to the Lord in prayer? In the darkness, did you stop to ponder that there are lessons that we can gleam from these experiences? The Bible is replete with people and societies that experienced the travails of life, and through the harshness of the tribulations, challenges and trials, they, over time recognized the lessons presented through the tough times. Reflecting on the concept of the wormhole, we can either implode or we can process what is happening and seek understanding about how to navigate and exit better than when we entered the darkness of the wormhole.

As Christians, our purpose on earth is two-fold. The first is to take the journey the Lord has laid before us which includes challenges, trials and tribulations and mature in our Christian walk, and the second is to be ambassadors of Christ and spread the Good News, and loving all of humanity friends and foes. What better way to spread the Good News than through life’s challenges, how we approached challenges, and the victory of coming out of the wormhole in one piece.

One piece? Did you think that once you accepted Christ as you Lord and Savior it would be ‘smooth sailing’ from that day forward? The reality is, the Lord did not say the path would be easy. On the contrary, he said it would be difficult. The thing we must remember is that we will come out on the other side. The wormhole will close behind us and your challenges will lead to your testimony. You are the author of your story. Ask yourself, how will others interpret my story, will they see only the struggles and failures, or a story of walking with the Lord and overcoming the challenges, trials, and tribulations? Will your story be a testimony for others to cherish when they enter tough times, reflecting on your story as the path out of darkness? Or, will your story leave them defeated wallowing in failure and defeat?

As we walk with Christ through the challenging times, acknowledge that you are never alone. The Lord will never leave you or forsake and like the Footsteps poem, He will carry you when you can no longer walk on your own. Let these times become your testimony.

I am attaching scriptural resources to help you through the difficult times. Begin writing your testimony as you journey through challenges, trials, and tribulations, it will encourage you to stay the course and come out of the wormhole in one piece. You will come out with a closer relationship with our Lord. You will come out more mature and able to help others navigate life. You will come out stronger.

Resources:

What Does the Bible Say About Difficult Times. Openbible.info

Bible Verses About Having Strength During Hard Times. Biblemoneymatters.com

~ 10 Bible Verses To Help You Through A Difficult Time. Heartandsoulhomeschooling.com

~ 3 S ruptured to Pray When You Just Don’t Know What to Do.  Jenniferrothschild.com

~ 33 Powerful Bible Verses About Healing and Overcoming Sickness. Testimon.io

~ 20 PsalmsTo Read When Life is Miserable. Crosswalk.com

~ 31 Spiritual Warfare Scriptures: Help for Facing Life’s Battles. Crosswalk.com

Baptized in the Greek means—

When we read the word baptized, what does it mean to you? How does it impact your life? Do you categorize it as an intellectual thought, or spiritual delivery?

~ Lisa Blair

To be baptized means you are immersed, dipped, or submerged, to become cleansed of impurity. The truth is you are renewed the moment you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior. The act of baptismal is sharing your conviction with the world. The two are linked and create the new creature in Christ and changes how we represent ourselves. As Christians, we enter as sinners, and arise renewed with a change of mind and heart. (Holman Bible Dictionary, Studylight.org) Once baptized we take on a new perspective on life. We become guided by the Spirit who is in, by, and with us. We take on the characteristics of Christ, stripping our own self-motivated, self-determined nature to exude Christ in our breath, actions, and deeds.When we intentionally stay connected with the Holy Spirit, our actions take on the love of Christ. We are no longer isolated, we become one with the body of Christ. Our intentionality in demonstrating the characteristics of Christ is spelled out in Galatians 5.

[Image, Galatians 5:16, Bible.knowing-Jesus.com]

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5:13-14, 22-23‬ ‭NLT‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/116/gal.5.13-23.NLT

This post is extracted from today’s (10/27/2021) LECTIO (app) devotional. I strongly encourage you to download the app. I take no credit, I did not write the devotional, but do plan to apply it to my walk today.

This is a great way to begin and end your day with, in, and by in the Word of God

Yield

As I return to the passage, I listen for a particular word or phrase that the Holy Spirit is highlighting to me today…

[Image, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Faithandhealthconnection.org]

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. And so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
1 Corinthians‬ 12:12-14‬

What word or phrase jumped out at me from these verses?

I noticed the phrase ‘baptised by one Spirit’. The Greek word translated as ‘by’ can also be translated as ‘in’ or ‘with’.

I become part of the Body of Christ by the Spirit, I live each day in the Spirit, and I face every challenge, as well as every celebration with the Spirit. 

Closing Prayer

Father, help me to live this day to the full,
 being true to You, in every way.
Jesus, help me to give myself away to others,
 being kind to everyone I meet.
Spirit, help me to love the lost,
 proclaiming Christ in all I do and say.
Amen.

Join us this weekend at The Gathering Online. Book your free ticket to pray with people from the 24-7 movement around the world: https://www.24-7prayer.com/events/GatheringOnline21

What does Serenity mean to you?

Where there is peace and meditation, there is either anxiety nor doubt.

~ St. Frances of Assisi

Serenity is defined as being calm, peaceful, unruffled. Peace is defined as harmony, stillness, silence. They are inextricably woven. When I experience serenity, I am experiencing a peaceful, silence. A calm engulfs me, I experience the peace that is greater than our understanding. It is beautiful. The best way I can describe it is like floating in space, no worries, no thoughts trying to anchor me to earth (the problems of the day). It is creative to some degree. But most of all, it is experiencing God’s love. It is though faith that we can experience His love and His peace.

We experience God’s love through faith. We have been justified by faith. Faith offers a number of attributes to Christians if we choose to ascribe to His will and His way. Romans 5:1 tells us that because we have faith, we have peace. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Bible refers to serenity as inner peace, the term serenity does not appear in the Bible, the Bible refers to inner peace. I use them interchangeably. When I experience serenity, I experience inner peace. My favorite scripture is John 14:27. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

The Holy Spirit who dwells in us informs us that we should not worry. When do we worry most, when does it seem to intensify to the point of keeping us awake all night? For most it is just before bedtime when we should let go of the anxiety, and deadlines of the day’s events or hardships and focus on rest, instead we focus on the upheaval of the day’s events. Psalm 4:8 is our instruction to let go, to find peace and serenity in the Lord. It reads, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

God emphasizes the need to identify His peace in our lives. Daniel 10:19 expresses this in his writings when he stated His command to Daniel and all of His children. “And He said, ‘O man greatly loved fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.’ And as He spoke to me (Daniel) I was strengthened and said, ‘Let my Lord speak, for you have strengthened me.’ We are all members of Daniel’s family, what God told Daniel is the same thing He is telling us. ’O man greatly loved fear not, peace be with you…’ Let serenity reign in your life, seek the peace that God provides to all of His children. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given to you.

Saint Padre Pio Pietrelcina of the Philippines (1887-1968) wrote – “Peace is the simplicity of the heart, serenity of mind, tranquility of soul, the bond of love.”

”For me, it is essential to have the inner peace and serenity of prayer in order to listen to the silence of God, which speaks to us, in our personal life and the history of our times, of the power of love.” ~ Adolfo Perez Esquivel

References: Online Dictionary; Scriptures-Good Housekeeping Magazine; everyday power.com/serenity-quotes

Surrendering Looks Like…

Surrendering is not an act of attrition, it is a deliberate act of contrition.

~ Lisa Blair

‘Looks like’ is a common idiom of our time. What does surrendering look like, you ask?

Surrendering is not a one-time event. It requires constant attention. “Until Jesus returns and takes His rightful place as the final authority and ruler overall, we have to make the decision over and over to surrender our minds, wills, and actions to Him (Romans 8:20–22; 12:1–2). Our first stage of surrender is the surrender of our lives to God when we are saved. www.compellingtruth.org/surrender-to-God.html

My thought for the day. There are many quotes of what people in the Bible have said when they surrendered their will to God’s will for their lives. The two that stand out to me today are:

1. The angel came to Mary to inform her that God was pleased with her and chose her to give birth to His son. Mary, a young girl of marrying age, was betrothed to Joseph. Wouldn’t you imagine her first thinking, I cannot become pregnant until I marry, what will people think of me in particular and Joseph if I carry a child before the ceremony ends. However, Mary responded to the angel saying, “I am the Lord’s servant,” “May your word to me be fulfilled.” ~ Luke 1:38 NIV
2. Jesus, the, was in deep prayer about the circumstances that would result in his death, He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; this is the human condition, to ask God to remove the situation so we do not feel the pain. However, the second part of the prayer is one of submission – Jesus then prayed, “yet not my will, but yours be done.” ~ Luke 22:42 NIV

So, what does surrendering look like? Surrendering looks like the person who moves out of the way to submit to another’s wishes. In this case surrendering is looking to God for direction and following His path for our lives rather than forging ahead blindly satisfying our own urges and direction for our lives. If Mary had not accepted God’s will over her own, Jesus may not have been born to her and the story of Abraham may not have been written as we know it. Our decisions not only affect us but many others in our immediate and future sphere of influence. Our decisions affect our descendants. *

If Jesus, the man, chose to run from his purpose, again, the story would have differed, and the Son of God, Immanuel-the God with us, would have led to a different story. Thinking back, how many times has God instructed, or better said, invited you to do something His way, to follow Him, not turn to the left or the right, and you did just what you were instructed not to do, waiver to the left or right and not stay on the path He designed for us, how did that turn out for you? Ask yourself, what happened when you listened and surrendered to God? I am certain the latter set you on a path you couldn’t imagine you could ever attain.

Surrendering looks like victory. It feels like love. Surrendering lifts the burdens of life off of your shoulders and places it on Christs’ shoulders. In Jeremiah 38:17-18, the scripture reads, Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: If you will surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. 18 But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.” (Je 38.17-18)

Jeremiah presents him with a choice – Surrender Babylon, or Don’t surrender to Babylon. The writing is on the wall. (https://thescripturesays.org/2014/08/22/jeremiah-38-41-if-you-will-surrender-to-babylon-then-your-life-shall-be-spared/)

Surrendering looks like victory. The writing is on the wall. God does not promise it will look like success, sometimes the direction is pain staking, but looking deeper we reflect that it was part of the path we must take to become more like Christ, when he said, but your will be done. Surrendering looks like, choosing the path of righteousness over the path of selfishness. Surrendering to God looks like and feels like love, a connection greater than anything this life could afford you.

Surrendering is the establishment of your lineage to God the Father, Christ the Son-our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Surrendering is the act of no longer resisting God’s love and is the state of acceptance and no longer defiance. It looks like victory when we spread our arms over our head and jump up and down in joy, no longer relying on our own focus for our lives but rather God’s plan for our lives that is often unseen and unexpected. Surrendering is the act of faith. Surrendering looks like and feels like – Victory over our carnal state of being. It is the act of intentionally becoming part of God’s family.

* The Book of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Christ. It is a look at the descendants of Jesus. In the Jewish faith and many others, the lineage is important, it defines who you belong to, it expresses your values and character. 

Just between us.org

Resources: Bible.com; the scripturesays.org; compellingtruth.org

Images: google images

Mercy and Merciful

All too often we understand the term mercy and assume that we apply it in our lives. But having mercy and being merciful are two different things, one is a descriptor or a noun, the other an adjective, the way in which we apply mercy.

~ Lisa Blair

Mercy and Merciful Defined

Mercy  according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary (free app) defines mercy as: compassion for the miserable. It’s object is misery. By the atoning sacrifice of Christ a way is open for the exercise of mercy towards the son of men, in harmony with the demands of truth and righteousness. In Christ mercy and truth met together. Mercy is also a Christian grace.

Merciful is the act of expressing mercy, according to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. This is accomplished through the act of compassion, and tenderness. When you are merciful you become predisposed to forgive offenses, and are unwilling to allow the human, get-back nature to thrive. In short, you become unwilling to retaliate and instead forgive. When we are merciful and forgive as Christ forgave, it frees you from the restrictions of hate, anger, and  fear.

https://www.sacredspace.ie/scripture/luke-636-38

Resources: YouVersion.com; Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Bible Dictionary App