Success Over Setbacks: February 12th Devotional

Success Over Setbacks

Romans 5:3

February 12th Devotional

      On this day in 1915, the iconic hymn writer Fanny Crosby entered into glory at the age of 94.  Crosby is a household name in Christianity.  She composed over 8000 hymns and gospel songs.  She was hailed as the Queen of Gospel music.  Not only that but she was also an accomplished poet.  Crosby’s childhood was mired with tragedy and heartache.  At six weeks old Frances contracted a simple cold, but it caused an infection in her eyes.  The local doctor was out of town and another man masquerading as a doctor treated her with a  hot mustard poultice.  This treatment left Fanny blind for the rest of her life.  A few months later her dad passed away, leaving her mother to work many hours toiling as a maid just to make ends meet.  One would have assumed that the multitude of tragedies would have destroyed Fanny, but it was quite the opposite.  She was labeled as a happy child.  She was faithful to church and loved Jesus.  She had a passion for the Bible.  She had memorized the four Gospels, the Pentateuch, Proverbs, and countless other books of the Bible before she turned 15!  She attended a school in New York City for the blind.  She excelled while she was there.  She wrote countless poems which were considered masterpieces at her time.  But her greatest love started in 1864.  She started to pen hymns.  Her songs revolutionized church singing during that era.  Most songs were evangelistic in nature, pleading with people to come to Jesus Christ for salvation.  Writing thousands of hymns that are still used today seems like quite an accomplishment, but Fanny found her greatest satisfaction in working alongside the poor in New York City.  Fanny purposefully choose to live in a poor area of town so she could minister to hurting people in rescue missions.  She would regularly speak and serve the hardest of people in places like Hell’s Kitchen and ‘the tenderloin.’ Her song “Rescue the Perishing” was written while working alongside the lost living in the slums.  She continued to reach the perishing until her death in 1915.  

      Fanny didn’t allow the setbacks in her life to unravel the plans that God had set before her.  She even saw God’s providential hand in her blindness.  Fanny once said, “when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.”  Think of that word setback for a moment.  It’s defined as a reversal of progress, or when your life goes much differently than you originally planned.  Each of us has experienced them multiple times in our life.  We’ve experienced setbacks when we didn’t get the raise we wanted, when we lost our job, when a tragedy strikes our homes, when we have an unexpected result at a doctor’s office, etc.  Setbacks are hard because they seemingly cause us to rearrange our life.  But what if our setbacks are only comebacks?  That setback isn’t meant to derail our faith, but instead, it should cause us to intensely follow after Christ.  The words of the Apostle Paul give us clear direction on how to navigate this area of life.  In Romans 5:3 and 5 Paul writes “we triumph even in our troubles, knowing that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope….a hope which never disappoints us since God’s love floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”  We can triumph over life’s setbacks knowing that God is in control and everything that comes our way can be viewed through eyes of hope.  Don’t allow the setbacks to set you back spiritually.  Instead, look at it and ask, what is God doing in the midst of this?

Finding Security: October 2nd Devotional

Finding Security

October 2nd Devotional

Romans 8:38-39

 

     On this day in 1950, the comic strip Peanuts was introduced to the world.  Peanuts was the creation of Charles Schultz.  Charles was born in Minnesota and was an only child.  His uncle gave him the nickname Sparky, a name that would live with him his whole life.  Schultz developed a love of drawing at a young age.  He would spend hours drawing the family dog, Spike.   He would go on to serve faithfully during WW II.  After the war, he moved into a small apartment with his father.  Charles was struggling with depression and loneliness which stemmed from his mother’s death shortly before he left for the military.  It was during this time that he started to draw a weekly cartoon for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.  The comic strip was called Li’l Folks.  It only earned him $10 a week but he found great joy and fulfillment in it.  He drew that cartoon from 1947 until 1950.  This comic strip would be the one that introduced the world to Charlie Brown and it had a dog that looked very similar to Snoopy.  Finally, in 1950 a large newspaper syndicate signed a contract with Schulz to produce cartoons under the name “Peanuts.”  Schulz originally bulked at the offer because he wasn’t allowed to name the new comic strip and he despised the name of the strip throughout the remainder of his life.  Peanuts first appeared in seven national papers and took a while until it gained traction.  Soon names like Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Linus, and countless others became household names.  At its height Peanuts was published in 2600 papers in over 75 countries.  Charles would draw nearly 18,000 Peanut comic strips over the course of its 50-year run.  During that time, he only took one vacation.

      My personal favorite character in the comic strip was Linus van Pelt, the brother of the brutish Lucy who often tormented poor Charlie Brown.  Linus was Charlie Brown’s best friend.  He would often serve as Charlie’s own personal sage, philosopher, and resident theologian.  Linus was extremely wise and intelligent for his youth.  Charlie Brown’s life was fraught with anxiety and failure.  Linus would often be that anchor of advice and good counsel.  But despite all of his confidence Linus always clung to his blue blanket.  Almost every depiction of Linus in the series has him totting his security blanket.  The blanket is often a target of attack by Snoopy.  Snoopy engages in some entertaining, albeit crazy schemes to relieve Linus of his blanket….to take his security.  We also have an enemy who is constantly trying to steal the confidence of our security in Christ; his name is Satan.  The Bible gives overwhelming evidence that once we are saved we are secure.  Our salvation isn’t a trifle that can be lost nor can it be stolen or forfeited.  But that doesn’t mean that Satan won’t bring us to moments when we doubt if we truly are saved.  It’s good at times to reflect and be grounded in the reality of our salvation.  Indeed we have to be sure that we are saved by grace through faith.  We want to know that we are saved, but once we know, we can’t afford to allow the assaults of despair and doubt to strike us.  In our defeat and failure Satan will whisper in our ear that God has rejected us, that we aren’t truly saved, and that we are not a child of God.  He will scheme to try to pry us away from the assurance that we have in Jesus’ finished work for us.  How can we respond?  Paul gives us a solid reminder in Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Paul says he is convinced that NOTHING will ever be able to separate him from God’s love.  Satan will shoot fiery dart after fiery dart attempting to get us to question our salvation.  Respond with the truth of the Scripture,  NOTHING can separate me from my God’s deep and endless love for me!

The Great Turtle Rescue

The Great Turtle Rescue

     One of my wife's favorite things to do is to go for a drive in the country.  She loves seeing the blue skies, the green grass, and near our home are orchards that are in full bloom (check out Butlers or Orrs in Martinsburg)!  What an amazing sight as we behold the creation of God.  Needless to say, my kids (and at times me) are not always thrilled with the prospect of drives.  They tend to think they are boring (as a matter of fact I hear the word at verbatim on some drives).  But this particular day offered us a great adventure.  While were driving I noticed what I thought was a rock in the road but as we got closer I realized that it was a box turtle crossing the road!  This poor little guy was in some major trouble.  This was a pretty busy road and needless to say he wasn't moving at breakneck speed.  I pulled off, put my four ways on, and got out of the van to rescue Mister Turtle.  Mister Turtle wasn't really thrilled to see me at first.  He pulled his head and hid from me.  Now let me be the first one to admit that I'm not an outdoors kind of guy.  I never played with frogs, I didn't get dirty, and I was the classic over-protected only child.  I had never touched a turtle before!  I reached down, grabbed the little guy, showed him to my kids, and put him in a safe spot.  As we drove away my kids exclaimed that I was a turtle superhero (ironically I'm wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle shirt as I'm typing this), super dad, and countless other cool terms that I will never be able to use on a resume.  

     So, now that I'm branded as the great turtle rescuer I think of someone who rescued me in the past.  There was a time when I was in danger, more danger than I was aware of.  My turtle friend had no idea he was in trouble until I came along...and I was in the same spot.  I had no idea that I was in trouble.  I was living my life carefree.  My top priority was myself and making 'me' happy.  On the outside of my life I looked happy but on the inside, I was miserable, empty, and darkness encompassed my heart.  Nothing in my life made me complete, there was a void that I tried everything under the sun to fill, and yet none of it completed me.  At that time in my life I would have probably been considered an agnostic (I knew something was bigger than me but I didn't think that thing bigger than me cared for me, I surely didn't care for it).  I was as far away from faith as you can imagine.  That is until August 2003.  I sat at a church in my home town and a preacher clearly stated I was in trouble, eternal trouble.  At first this thought offended me.  This guy didn't know me, he couldn't pick me out of a police lineup, but he introduced me to somebody who did know me, Jesus.  He told the congregation that day that we were all sinners (Romans 3:23).  That also offended me.  He was telling me that I wasn't the good guy that I thought I was.  In my mind, I didn't kill anybody and I wasn't a thief.  My life was not destined for jail.  I knew I wasn't the best person, but I knew I wasn't the worst either.  I was a pretty good guy.  He then pointed his finger declaring that sinners were destined for hell (Romans 6:23).  If I wasn't offended prior to this I was now.  This stranger tells me I'm a bad person and I was going to hell....but for some odd reason I didn't shut this pastor out.  

      At this time conviction started to wash over me.  I began to examine my life and found that I was indeed a sinner in my heart.  I had done things that were obviously not good and I started to feel bad for them, I was revolted by them.  I also understood that since I sinned I was indeed in danger.  I gave up hope at that time because I was trying my best (or at least I thought) and it wasn't enough.  God wasn't going to accept my best...I despaired for a moment.  The pastor made it clear that God won't accept my best effort to rescue my soul, but instead, He sent someone to rescue me.  That was a strange thought.  I was raised in a works-related religion, and the concept of working for my salvation had been ingrained in me from children's church.  It was a constant battle of balancing the scale of good more than evil.  Now I heard that someone didn't just come to balance the scale, but outweighed all my sin and evil.  The preacher shared the simplicity of John 3:16.  I heard that someone came to save me and loved me.  In my mind, I thought that God would only love me if I loved Him and did good things.  Instead I heard clearly that God loved me, period, end of story.  He loved me so much that He sent His only Son to die on the cross to rescue me from my sin.  To take away my sin (past, present, and future sins).  And friend, not just rescue me...but to rescue you.  The passage in John 3:16 says God loves the whole world, which means you.  You could replace your name with the term world because you are inferred.  God loves you, He is "crazy" about you.  He is the great people rescuer.  

      Let me close up with this thought, my little turtle friend was in tremendous danger on one of those country roads in West Virginia that John Denver sings about (you know you want to sing it with me).  He needed someone to rescue him.  Let me put it in perspective, you are an immobile turtle trying to cross I-95 in DC during rush hour (see picture).

You are doomed.  Fathom someone stopping their car along I-95 and crossing multiple lanes of traffic to rescue that turtle.  You would call that crazy.  That person would really have to love turtles to put himself in such danger.  The truth is someone loves you so much that they laid down their life to rescue you, to take away your sin.  Have you trusted in that great rescuer?  Have you called out to Him to save you?  Don't be like the turtle and hide in your shell trying to hide from the one that came to save you, instead come out of your shell asking Him to save you!