Morning Meditation: Our God is Able

Our church has been going through the book of Daniel on Sunday mornings. This week, Dr. Cooper preached on Daniel 3, and it's been on my mind ever since. It's one of those stories that those of us who were raised in the church have heard 100 times. You know it. Let me set the scene.

Israel has been sacked by the Babylonians, and the people have been dragged away from their homes and brought to Babylon, where they can be kept under the king's thumb. It's not a good time for the people of Israel. They've lost their homes, their land, and their temple, and the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, seems hell-bent on ripping away their faith as well.

In chapter 3, he has an enormous golden statue constructed and declares that everyone, even the freshly imported Jews, is required to bow before it. Anyone who refused would be put to death. Well. That made things a little difficult for the Jews. Worshiping idols is clearly against The Rules (aka the Ten Commandments) that God gave Moses. 

So the Jews had a choice. They could either bow down to the statue and live, or they could refuse and die. Enter Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three Jewish youths who had already caused the king a bit of trouble. They refused to bow down. And for their insolence, the king sentenced them to death by fire. But before he had them tossed into the blazing furnace, he asked them who could possibly save them from their fiery fate.

And their answer. Y'all. It stops me in my tracks. Every. Single. Time. Standing before a king who had just ordered their death, the three boys answered: 

O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. (Daniel 3:17-18)

Did you catch that? Faced with certain death, their faith in God was unwavering. They declared that He is able to rescue his people from the most dire of situations, but even if he does not, he is still a God who is worth believing in. 

God is able. Period. He is always able to rescue his people from the plights of the world. The hard part to swallow is that sometimes he chooses not to. Or at least, that's what it seems like. The cancer gets worse, despite our fervent prayers for healing. The marriage falls apart, despite our desperate cries for reconciliation. The miscarriages keep coming, despite our pleas to the contrary. 

And those problems, as serious as they are, are nothing compared to what our brothers and sisters are facing in the Middle East. ISIS continues to target believers and execute them for their refusal to stand down. Being a Christian in Syria is a death sentence. Literally. It's almost as if nothing has changed since Daniel's day.

And yet, God is still able. If there's one thing you cling to when you're facing the fire, let it be this: God is who he says he is. He will do what he says he will do. And his word promises deliverance for his people. We must be the kind of people who say, "My God can do anything. He is my deliverer. My very present help in trouble. My stronghold. My shield. My salvation. But even if he chooses not to act in this moment, I will still be faithful. I will still serve him. I will still believe." 

Because here's the thing. Sometimes God allows profound suffering because he has something greater in store. We don't have to look any further than the cross to know this is true. He isn't asking us to do anything He hasn't already done. He himself suffered. He himself died a brutal death, a death that was a necessary prequel to the Resurrection. Without the cross, there is no victory over death. There's no new life. There's no happy ending. There's no hope. 

So you see, God's story is bigger than ours. He knows what he's doing, even when we don't understand it. And he is mighty to save. Always. No matter the circumstances. He is able. How do I know that? Well, as it turns out, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't alone in that fire. There was a fourth man in the furnace with them, and the three boys emerged unscathed.

That fourth man was Jesus. He was in the fire with those boys, and he's in the fire with us today. We may or may not emerge unscathed, but either way, we know that salvation has already come. Death no longer gets the last word because Jesus rose and conquered the grave. It has no hold on us who believe. And that's what gives us the confidence to stand before the world and refuse to bow down.

It's easy to say we believe these things outside the fire. To stand apart from the flames and declare our faith in God, but it's an altogether different thing to hold fast to that faith while the flames are licking at our toes. May we have the strength to stand firm when the flames flicker in the edges of our vision. And through it all, may the God of our salvation be glorified now and forever. Amen.

Until next time, grace and peace.

FREE Verse Card + New Collection Updates

Hello friend! How are you?? We're busy, busy, busy, but that's just the way of things when you've got a couple of little ones who are always on the move. Those two little ones are the reason it's been so long since you heard from me. I spent the summer chasing them all over the South (literally) and squeezing in some design time in the cracks and crevices that were left over.

Because life is so busy, sometimes it's hard to push the pause button and focus for just a few minutes on what God has to say. And yet, spending time in His presence is absolutely crucial to my well-being. It's not something I can afford to neglect. That's why I created the Dwell Collection. Each product has been specifically designed to help us draw near to the heart of God. There are journals and verse cards, and, God willing, there will also a handful of fun items like jewelry and mugs.

I'm so excited to share the results with you! If you follow me on Instagram (which, if you don't, you should), you've gotten a few peeks of the Dwell Journal, which is the heart and soul of the new line. At this point, I'm deep in the process of having the new collection produced, and I have my fingers crossed for a launch sometime in October. I'll keep you updated on the progress. 

In the meantime, I want to share a little freebie with you, my faithful readers. This print is actually one of the verse cards in the new collection. You can print it out on cardstock and frame it (as I did above), or write a message on the back and send it as a postcard. Print several and give them to friends, or tack one to your bulletin board as a reminder to praise the Lord. I pray that as you see the verse day in and day out, it will seep into your heart and mind, and before you know it, you'll have it memorized. Click here to download your free Psalm 150:6 art print.

I'll be in touch soon with more updates! Until then, grace and peace.

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do

A little over a week ago, I woke up to the news that a massive earthquake had hit Nepal. I'm ashamed to admit that for days, I avoided the stories and pictures. I didn't want to know how bad it was. I didn't want to know how many people were trapped or how many lives were ended. I didn't want to hear about homes destroyed or people in desperate need of relief. Because once you now something, you can't un-know it.

Knowledge brings with it responsibility. I didn't want to hear the news because I knew I would feel compelled to do something, ANYTHING, to help, but when there's a problem as big as the one in Nepal, I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do. It seems that I've felt this way a lot in the past year. Every time a natural disaster decimates an area, Boko Haram steals another batch of little girls, or ISIS slaughters innocent people, something inside me cries out at the injustice of it all.

As a believer, I'm more than a little uncomfortable with the notion of going on with my same old everyday life as if nothing had happened. And yet, in the face of such massive problems, I can't help but feel small and insignificant. As if anything I do will be like trying to bail water out of a sinking ship with only a teaspoon at my disposal, but y'all, that's simply not true. I'm here to tell you that it's a lie, and sadly, it's a lie that I've fallen for more than once. So I'm writing this to remind us both that when we don't know what to do, there are at least two things we can do that matter.

We can pray. And I mean, really pray—not just in passing, but in earnest. We may be small, but the God we serve is anything but. When we come face to face with devastation, tragedy, and injustice, even when it's half a world away, we should cry out for mercy. Instead of just reading the headlines, we should pray over them. And when we finish, we should pray over them some more. We should pray for God's action and justice, for his mercy and compassion, for needs to be met and broken hearts to be mended, for homes and health to be restored. And when the news outlets have moved on and people stop posting links about it on twitter, we should pray even more fervently. We should pray for our brothers and sisters across the world to have perseverance for the long haul, and more than anything, we should pray that somehow, some way, God's name would be magnified. Prayer matters.

We can also give. And I'm not just talking about money, although that's always helpful. We can give our time, our efforts, and at the very least, our voices. We can use our own little circles of influence to make as much of a difference as possible. As much as I would like to haul off to Nepal and hand out bottles of water to refugees, I can't. I've got a couple of busy little girls to take care of. But there are other people who can go, and I can give so that they can buy the bottles of water to hand out. I can also call attention to their efforts (see video from the Baptist Global Response below). It may not be much, but it's better than nothing. And if all of us band together and give what we can, we'll be able to really make a difference. This, by the way, is just as biblical a response as prayer. When famine struck Judea in the days of the early church, the disciples took up a collection to send relief (Acts 11:27-30), and in his letters to Corinth, Paul talks of collecting money to meet the needs of believers. It's not a new idea. It's an old one that's tried and true. Giving matters too

I say all of this because I know how overwhelming it can be to see the problems of the world. It's easy to get caught up in all that we can't do, but it's far better to do the things that we can. My prayer for you (and for me) is that the next time the headlines are clogged with news of unspeakable tragedy, we'll do what we can to make a difference.

Until next time, grace and peace.