Holiday Presence

We are upon that time of year when everything goes completely schizophrenic around us and we are undoubtedly drawn into the certain chaos of the Holiday season. Darkness surrounds as early as 4PM, traffic gets crazier, families are scrambling, and retailers are desperately clinging to the hope that “god” will perform the miracle of transforming red ink to black. Even Starbucks is banking on all things cinnamon and spice to daily draw you in.

Moms are busying themselves with Turkey dinners, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, while dads are hanging lights and inflatable snowmen. Kids have lost all touch with reality other than telling you what they want under the tree. It seems our lives begin moving at such an increased pace that we rarely have time to just sit down and soak up the true treasures in our lives. I'm writing this to remind us, that if there's ever been a time to stop and savor the moment, that time is now.

"Let us come before (or into) His presence with THANKSGIVING; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He IS our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion." - Psalm 95:2-8

Read the full blog, featured on Ransom.tv, here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I recorded a very simple (and short) video to just say thank you and to pray over all the families getting together tomorrow and this weekend. Check out the video here. Apologies for the poor quality, please don't tell Andy Reale that I shot this using my laptop.

I'm so thankful for everything the Lord has done in my life. He's blessed me beyond what I deserve. Lately, in the midst of serious financial trial, He has been increasing my faith, my hope, and my joy. I feel as though I'm learning daily how to grow into more of the man that God has called me to be, and I'm forever grateful for the lessons.

Praying that you all have an incredible time with friends and family.

Blessings and love,

chad

Fire

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:6-9)

"What makes this set of china so much more expensive than that?" asked the customer. "It has more work on it. It has been put through the fire twice. See, in this one the flowers are in a yellow band; in that one they are on the white background. This had to be put through the fire a second time to get the design on it."

"Why is the pattern on this vessel so blurred and marred - the design not brought out clearly?" "That one was not burned enough. Had it remained in the furnace longer the dark background would have become gold - dazzling gold, and the pattern would have stood out clear and distinct."

Perhaps some of those who seem to have more than their share of suffering and disappointment are, like the costly china, being doubly tried in the fire, that they may be more valuable in the Master's service.

"The potter never sees his clay take on rich shades of silver, or red, or cream, or brown, or yellow, until after the darkness and the burning of the furnace. These colors come - after the burning and darkness. The clay is beautiful - after the burning and darkness. The vase is made possible - after the burning and darkness."

How universal is this law of life! Where did the bravest man and the purest woman you know get their whitened characters? Did they not get them as the clay gets its beauty - after the darkness and the burning of the furnace? Where did Savonarola get his eloquence? In the darkness and burning of the furnace wherein God discovered deep things to him. Where did Stradavari get his violins? Where did Titian get his color? Where did Angelo get his marble? Where did Mozart get his music, and Chatterton his poetry, and Jeremiah his sermons? They got them where the clay gets its glory and it shimmer - in the darkness and the burning of the furnace." - Robert G. Lee

My prayer has been shaped (through this same fiery furnace) from a previous plea of, "Lord, please finish this process as quickly as possible and let me on my way" to a more desperate cry, "Lord, I want the purest of refinement. Please take as much time as you need to rework and reshape my heart. Whatever you do, please finish the process fully and completely - just allow me to endure it."

God help us not rebel at the second breath of the flame if (and when) You send it.

Prayer: Power of all powers

“Up in a little town in Maine,things were pretty dead some years ago. The churches were not accomplishing anything. There were a few Godly men in the churches, and they said: 'Here we are, only uneducated laymen; but something must be done in this town. Let us form a praying band. We will all center our prayers on one man. Who shall it be?' They picked out one of the hardest men in town, a hopeless drunkard, and centered all their prayers upon him. In a week, he was converted. They centered their prayers upon the next hardest man in town, and soon he was converted. Then they took up another and another, until within a year, two or three hundred were brought to God, and the fire spread out into all the surrounding country. Definite prayer for those in the prison house of sin is the need of the hour.” - Dr. R.A. Torrey

Do we believe in the power of prayer to alter our circumstances, especially those of which no other power could alter?

Where is God when His Provision Dries up?

"And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up." (1 Kings 17:7)


God sent Elijah to the brook and it dried up. It did not prove equal to the need of the prophet. It failed; God knew it would; He made it to fail. "The brook dried up." This is an aspect of the Divine providence that sorely perplexes our minds and tries our faith. God knows that there are heavenly whispers that men cannot hear until the drought of trouble and perhaps weariness has silenced the babbling brooks of joy. And He is not satisfied until we have learned to depend, not upon His gifts, but upon He Himself. - Rev. Percy Ainsworth

It's incredibly easy to experience a full range of earthly emotions when we can no longer see God's outstretched hand of provision before us. How do we respond when God gives us a clear directive and yet the brook of His provision seems to dry up on us? We all know that He is supposed to provide for all our needs. And, if the God of the Bible is true, why would He fail to care for us? The Israelites (post miraculous deliverance from Egypt) experienced this very thing. A wilderness wandering for 40 years before they received the fulfillment of the promise. In this story of the prophet Elijah, the Lord Himself had called forth a drought on the land and then instructed the prophet to head for the wilderness and be supplied by the flow of a small brook. The same God who supplied was the same God who declined. This is the God we serve. If we could perfectly understand His will in every circumstance we would have no need for the mediator in Jesus and no help from the Spirit that guides us into all truth.

What we can see from Scripture is that the Lord is constantly good and even when He dries up the brook - He also brings instruction and opens wide another way. Had the Lord not dried up the brook, here is what the prophet Elijah would have missed out on:

1. He never would have met a widow who on their introduction said, "I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."

2. Elijah met the widow to not only be provided for but to be the provision for them. The Lord used him to save both the widow and her son.

3. Not just once, but on two occasions does the Lord use Elijah to spare the widow's son.

4. He may not have gone back to seek King Ahab (who had turned his back on God and began worshiping Baal)

5. It's likely that Elijah would not have called out the 450 "prophets of Baal" and experienced one of the more incredible miracles in Scripture where he strikes a deal with these prophets saying, "Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

6. Drought may not have ended and the rain may not have come.

So, if you are anything like I am, the first place you run when it becomes clear that the brook of the Lord's provision seems to be drying is a place of complaining, a place of grumbling, a place of hardening the heart. I pray the Lord would give us the vision to see what He has planned far beyond our stay out at the wilderness brook. Maybe he plans to touch some orphans and widows through you. It's possible that His good will is to release you to influence even the Kings and Presidents of the nations. Could it even be that He would work such miracles through your hands that even a whole nation would be turned back? Highly unlikely for the skeptics in us. Praise God that He is never skeptical of His work.

I pray that Jesus would soften our hearts, setting straight our unbelief/grumbling/hardness/whatever-it-is-we-deal-with and move us into the glory of His perfect will, even in the midst of a drying brook.

When the Silence of God is the Answer

“So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” (John 11:6)



And so the silence of God was itself an answer. It is not merely said that there was no audible response to the cry from Bethany; it is distinctly stated that the absence of an audible response was itself the answer to the cry – it was when the Lord heard that Lazarus was sick that therefore He stayed two days still in the same place where He was. I have often heard the outward silence. A hundred times have I sent up aspirations whose only answer has seemed to be the echo of my own voice, and I have cried out in the night of my despair. “Why art Thou so far from helping me?” But I never thought that the seeming farness was itself the nearness of God – that the very silence was an answer.

It was a very grand answer to the household of Bethany. They had asked not too much, but too little. They had asked only the life of Lazarus. They were to get the life of Lazarus and a revelation of eternal life as well.

There are some prayers that are followed by a Divine silence because we are not yet ripe for all we have asked; there are others which are so followed because we are ripe for more. We do not always know the full strength of our own capacity; we have to be prepared for receiving greater blessings than we have ever dreamed of. We come to the door of the sepulcher and beg with tears the dead body of Jesus; we are answered by silence because we are to get something better – a living Lord!

My soul, be not afraid of God’s silence; it is another form of His voice. God’s silence is more than man’s speech. God’s negative is better than the world’s affirmative. Have thy prayers been followed by a calm stillness? Well! Is not that God’s voice – a voice that will suffice thee in the meantime till the full disclosure comes? Has He moved not from His place to help thee? Well, but His stillness makes thee still, and He has something better than help to give thee.

Wait for Him in the silence, and before long it shall become vocal; death shall be swallowed up in victory!

Think not that God’s silence is coldness or indifference. When birds are on the nest preparing to bring forth life, they never sing. God’s stillness is full of brooding. Be not impatient with God!

When the Lord is to lead a soul to great faith, He for a time leaves his prayer unanswered.

- George Matheson “The Blind Preacher”

A Native Psalm

"The Lord is my Sphepherd" (Psalm 23:1)

The great Father above is a Shepherd Chief. I am his and with him. I want not. He throws out to me a rope, and the name of the rope is love, and he draws me to where the grass is green and the water is not dangerous.

Sometimes my heart is very weak, and falls down, but he lifts it up again and draws me into a good road. Sometime, it may be very soon, it may be longer, it may be a long, long time, he will draw me into a place between mountains. It is dark there, but I'll draw back not. I'll be afraid not, for it is in there between the mountains that the Shepherd Chief will meet me, and the hunger I have felt in my heart all through this life will be satisfied. Sometimes he makes the love rope into a whip, but afterward he gives me a staff to lean on.

He spreads a table before me with all kinds of food. He puts his hands upon my head, and all the "tired" is gone.

My cup he fills, till it runs over.

What I tell you is true, I lie not. The roads that are "away ahead" will stay with me through this life, and afterward I will go to live in the "Big Tepee" and sit down with the Shepherd Chief forver.

- An American Indian's Version of the Twenty-Third Psalm.