​I felt inspired today to write about something that we all regularly fight against:  Anxiety. Or at least we should be fighting against it. Most of us are innately wired to care. And because we care, we have to fight the urge to be anxious when presented with a potentially unsettling circumstance that may affect people we care about. I know that for me it will be a lifelong challenge to remain peaceful when confronted with potential calamity. But it is what God wants for us and because of that it is possible. It is so easy to fall prey to anxiety. Satan is so clever. He ensures that it happens so subtly that we don’t know it has crept in and before we know it we’re in a full-blown panic. Our default is to go with the flow and this flows toward a toilet and ends up in a swirly.

Here's the thing: God’s love is absolutely unconditional, but his promises, aren’t. In order to defeat fear and anxiety and receive the supernatural peace Jesus offers, we have to obey what He tells us to do. The following verses have been foundational for many people. They are Philippians 4:6-8:

“Do not let your hearts be anxious, but in everything, with prayer and supplication present your requests to God. And the peace that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds, as you trust in Christ Jesus.”

I can hear what you’re thinking. It’s too simple, right? Yes, easy to say, but harder to do. Yet God will never ask us to do anything we are not able to do without his help. We partner with God where there are things that we must do that He will not do for us, just as He will do for us what we cannot do.

Firstly: “Do not let your hearts be anxious.”  Okay, just how am I to do this? Our minds are Satan’s playground. He sets us up, to get us upset. The second we begin to worry, we’re letting the anxiety in. You can choose what you think. You don’t have to go with whatever worry drops into your head. We need to consciously have a chat with ourselves and say, (preferably out loud so our own ears can hear it) “no way devil. I’m not letting you ruin even one minute of my day.” We are to put a stop to the anxious thought and kick it out.  This is not letting your heart become anxious. You replace the worry, with faith.

Secondly: “but in everything…”  Not for everything, but in everything. In every single circumstance we find ourselves in, we are to pray with thanksgiving (supplication) and bring our request to God. In even the worst circumstances we can say “thank you Jesus that you’re here with me. Please help me.”
For e.g.: We’re at work and the boss wants to see us for a meeting. We don’t know what it’s about, but there have been some layoffs recently. Obviously the first temptation is to wonder “Am I next on the chopping block? What am I going to do if I am? How will I make my mortgage? How will I buy the things we need?” The thoughts cascade from there.
Now let’s take a look at how we can react with God’s help: After the initial first thought, we can say: “No. I am not jumping to conclusions. I’m not taking that thought. God has given me this job and I do good work here. Lord, I thank you for this job and for this meeting. I trust you with its outcome. Even if I am about to lose my job, I know this avenue has been road-tested by you. You go before me and will take care of me no matter what. I cast this anxiety on You, because You care for me.” (1 Peter 5:7)

Our part is to believe and trust in Jesus. Full stop. It does mean leaving worrying ground where we think we have control, and stepping off the cliff trusting Jesus will catch us, because He will! Does this mean that 100% of the time things will turn out the way we want? Perhaps not. Jesus sees our future beyond the present and will only do what’s best for us. Even when we can’t understand and want to know why, it’s better to know God than to know why.

Finally, “and the peace that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds, as you trust in Christ Jesus.” What “understanding” was Paul talking about? It’s our imperfect understanding of the situation; it’s what is happening right now with imperfect knowledge. The peace from Jesus will dominate and will guard your heart and mind if you choose to let it. I once heard a Christian Psychologist on TV say this pertaining to anxiety: “Any time you are no longer peaceful, you are no longer in faith.” The minute we stop believing that Jesus has this (whatever “this” is for you) we start dropping like a stone.

Jesus said in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” If we truly believe that Jesus is directing our lives we don’t have to be troubled or afraid. “Fear not!” is the most repeated command in the Bible. In fact, it's been said that there are 365 “Fear nots” in the Bible — one “Fear not” for every day of the year!

He’s got this. Only the Son of God can offer supernatural peace when our world is turning upside down. It sure beats anxiety any day.

​I felt led to share today one of Satan’s tactics he uses to destroy our lives. It addresses the situation between married couples today where one spouse is in a situation where they are considering leaving or separating because they’ve become attracted to someone else. I believe in today's terms they call it an emotional affair. Nothing has happened as yet, but they feel stuck. Should they leave? Or stay? How exactly does this happen? The mind is the battlefield and God says Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy us. We must acknowledge his involvement to avoid being deceived and wrecking our lives.

​This is how it sometimes begins. Your relationship with your spouse is strained for one reason or another and as a result you are unhappy and unfulfilled. He or she doesn’t support you anymore; complains about your conduct in that you do too much of this, or not enough of that. It’s one criticism after another.  A common phrase begins with: “You never da ta da ta da ta da.”  The response often is “Oh yeah? Well you never da ta da ta da ta da.” What happens next is an innocent encounter with someone at work of the opposite sex that detects your unhappiness. Over coffee, you share your struggle with them. They empathize with you and it feels so good to have someone on your side who understands you for a change. The next thing that happens, is that they bring you donuts and a special coffee and that feels even better! Finally, someone who is actually thoughtful and mindful of my pain. You may even thank God for the emotional lift they provide. Before you know it, you’ve been invited out to lunch with this individual. Oh how wonderful it is to have someone in your life that you can have a meal with, with no tension, stress, or bad feelings.  

Can you see what is happening? Satan is laying the groundwork. He’s planting harmless encounters but they are anything but harmless.  As your appreciation for this person grows, your dissatisfaction with your mate grows too. Finally, this person asks you out to dinner. Now you have to lie to your spouse about why you are out at the dinner hour. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
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Satan is the king of lies and deceit. He made the fruit on the tree that was forbidden to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden look so good and fooled Eve into thinking that God didn’t really mean what he said when he said that they would die if they partook of the fruit. But God meant what he said, and he still means what he says today, too. I’ve been happily married now for over 40 years but many years ago I experienced a temptation like what is described above, but under different circumstances. Now looking back, I can see exactly why I was being drawn away from my devotion to my husband, but here’s the thing that saved me, and if you’re in this situation it can and will save you, too. If you are stuck right now in the place where you don’t know if you want to stay with your spouse because your feelings for them have drifted away, and you don’t know if you should go because your feelings for this other person who so understands you has blossomed, there is a way out. 

You see, God has given us free choice. To obey him, or not. To choose life, not death. But he will not force us to do either. It is our choice. But what he will do, is support your choice to do what is right.  I believe that God has his angels poised, surrounding those about to make a life-altering decision for or against God’s best plan for their life. They’re just waiting, ready to jump in with God’s miraculous help, the second you think or say: “God, please help me. Help me, help me, help me; I won’t do this. I will honour my vows. I will go back and together with your help, make my marriage shine.” The second you do this, the tide begins to flow the other way. Do you immediately feel better? Chances are, no, you won’t. You won’t immediately feel better because it may have taken you 6 months to get to this place, and it will take more than 6 minutes for God to work the miracle in your heart to restore the devotion you need for your spouse. But here’s the thing: He will do it. I can personally attest to this: What you go back to can be more wonderful than you ever imagined, because you passed the test. You’ve gained a great victory. You chose what is right—you chose obedience over disobedience; life and not death. The marriage that was yours before is no more, because God can and will make it better than you thought possible. He can restore the love in your heart to bursting, for the same person you almost left.

​Psalm 19:13 says this, and I remember relying on this verse. I actually said it out loud, as I prayed it: “Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me; then will I be blameless and innocent of great transgression.” If you are in this place watch and see what God will do with a right choice. You will not regret it. With God all things are possible. 

A very interesting thought popped into my head this morning.  It took me to a deeper level of understanding God’s incomprehensible love for us.  I say incomprehensible because I don’t think anyone currently living can really and fully understand just how much He loves us, especially after considering what I’m about to share.
 
Here’s my thought, but first I need to frame it up as best I can from a human perspective. Taking a huge liberty, imagine for a moment that you are God before anything that relates to humankind was created—before the universe, the galaxies, the earth, and all mankind. You (as God) are in Heaven with God the Son – Jesus and the Holy Spirit, forming the Trinity.  You are tremendously excited because you have it in your heart to create something so immense, so epic, so significant, and of such great consequence and magnitude that it defies description. You share it with the other two. You say: “I want to create a new being; someone like us; someone who will have a living immortal spirit; someone who will have free will and will have the right of choice; someone who will have the ability to love and be loved by us and will have tremendous value to us!” Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are overjoyed at this prospect. So, the Trinity begin to plan what this amazing being will look like as a triune being—with a body, soul and spirit.
 
And so, they created, man.

Let’s hit the pause button here. If you know what happens next, you know what this amazing person and his wife with immortal living spirits along with free wills with the right of choice, ability to love and be loved by The Trinity did. With their right to choose between sin and obedience, they chose to disobey God and therefore sinned. As a result, God confronted them and responded with (among other things) that Jesus (the offspring of the woman) will crush Satan’s head, and that Satan would strike or bruise his (Jesus’) heel.
 
Fast forward a few thousand years. We now know how this panned out. Jesus would come, be crucified and be raised from the dead. This was Satan striking Jesus’ heel. In turn as a result of this, Jesus would crush Satan’s head in defeating spiritual death as now mankind could come freely to God through a new open way through accepting Jesus as their Saviour for the forgiveness of all their sin.

Let’s hit another pause button. All my life I was inclined to think that when Adam and Eve sinned, God had to come up with Plan B. But here’s the thing: God never has to come up with plan B when He orchestrates something. He would have known all ramifications well before the event. Let’s go back to the beginning to hopefully tie this all together. Here’s the question: Do you think that when the Trinity got together at our beginning to plan mankind, that they would have thought of this contingency? Or do you think that when Adam and Eve sinned, God said “Oops. What are we going to do now? How are we going to fix this?” This of course sounds and is ridiculous. Of course, God would have known, right? And as such God would already have had a plan in place well before this.
 
Here’s where the incomprehensible love of God comes in. I believe that even before mankind was created, when he was in the developmental stages of planning by The Trinity if you will, that God the Father, Jesus the Son and The Holy Spirit contended with the possibility that man could (not would, but did) sin, and were that to be the case, they knew that the only way to save him from eternal death and redeem him, would be for Jesus to take man's place, pay the penalty for man's sin by dying for him, and the Father would raise his Son from the dead and be seated at God's right hand.

​In considering my little tale I’m quite sure it did not occur this way, but let’s not discount this reality: That God, His Son and Spirit would have had to have known what could occur giving humankind these significant attributes that would have enormous far-reaching consequences. And, that their love for these beings was so immeasurable, they were willing to give them to mankind anyways, risking the possibility of Jesus going to the cross.
 
And so, they did. And man fell. God the Father sent His one and only begotten Son to be crucified for you and me, and Jesus went for you and me.  Not only that, Jesus sent The Holy Spirit to help us here and now, until He comes back. The next time you feel worthless, small or insignificant, never ever say you are nothing, you are far too valuable. Jesus didn’t die for nothing, he died for you and me.
 
So great is their love, that in the planning stages they thought of you and me, and thought we were worth it. 

​Because we believe that God will intervene on our behalf and others because of prayer, we are super blessed, because He will! When we pray, we give earthly permission for heavenly interference in our lives and the lives of others in ways that we cannot even imagine. In fact, if we could see behind the curtain at the effects our prayers have on the smallest things right up to the biggest things, we’d be astounded.  It is why Jesus advocated and promoted prayer so much. He is our example. He only did what his Father told him to do. How’d he know? By praying. He said that prayer could move mountains. 

​Every single time we pray, Heaven responds. Do you believe that? Well, I do. God answers each and every prayer with:  YES. NO. or WAIT A WHILE. Sometimes God grants our requests right away. Other times you sense a definite “no, this will not be good for you” or you have no peace about what you’ve asked for. Lastly, do you realize that everything good in your life usually requires waiting? When we ask God into the situations we’re praying about, hope should be the first thing that springs up inside because we’re asking the Maker of the Universe to have his way as we surrender our way because he won’t violate our will.  When I consider what he has made and that the universe is still expanding,  is anything too hard for him?  How many celestial bodies are out there? Trillions. It is estimated that there are trillions of planets and that's only true for the observable universe. Just imagine, there are already hundreds of billions planets in a single galaxy and for the whole universe consisting of billions of galaxies, that number is almost incomprehensible. At last count, we have 7.9 billion bodies on the earth. If we place that number beside all the celestial bodies that God has created, he is well able to look after each and every person on the planet.

Psalm 19:1-4 says:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.

​ The world is in such a terrible mess. Everywhere we look evil, immorality, deception and sin seem to be dominating. As Christians we simply cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand with the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. If we won’t intercede for the world, who will? We have been put on this Earth to be salt and a light for all to see; the vessel that God wants to work through to bring His will on earth as it is in Heaven. We know that God will not violate man’s will even if we pray, but I believe God brings much pressure on someone because we’re praying. There are people out there that we are praying for that are constantly battling God because of yours and my prayers. So don’t give up on your wayward loved one! Even if there is no evidence God is moving, you can be sure He is!  

My husband has always been keen to know what’s going on in the world and likes to watch the news each morning. The amount of information of what is happening world-wide is at our fingertips today for anyone with a cell phone. It has however been a challenge for me personally to not let it bring me down until I realized something:  Instead of glorifying what Satan is doing, why don’t I begin praying about what’s going on in the world? It is one sure-fire way to stomp on Satan’s head and do damage to the kingdom of darkness. Like I said before, we inject hope into the most hopeless of situations when we pray. Just because it’s impossible for us does not mean it is for God. Matthew 19:26 spells it out: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Do we think we are made aware of the world’s problems and are not expected to respond? (This list could be much longer.)
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Do we think that the people in the recent earthquake that have lost loved ones, don’t desperately need our prayers?

Do we think that the people in war-torn countries don’t need our prayers?

Do we think that the person who lost their life in an accident last night reported by the news that God isn’t involved, and doesn’t need us to pray for their families?

Do we think that the gang conflict in our cities don’t need God to intervene so these people can wake up before they themselves are murdered before they discover the truth?

Do we think the people perishing through the drug overdose crisis don’t need our prayers?

Do we think that those young girls involved in sex-trafficking don’t need our prayers?

GOD IS THEIR ULTIMATE ANSWER, AND WE ARE MEANT TO INTERCEDE FOR THEM THROUGH PRAYER!

I realize that we are also the hands and feet of Jesus and action is needed as well, but many times it is impossible to get there. I have therefore decided that the News is a means for me to pray against all the specific tactics the enemy is using among us, and to pray for the individuals who are affected. We may never know the impact we’ve had until we step into glory but it would be a crying shame if we arrived there and only  then found out what beautiful effects our Holy Spirit-led prayers could have had while on earth but we let the enemy persuade us to forego praying.  It is what Jesus has led me to do.  I pray that He moves you to do so, as well. Together, we will have world-wide impact.

​Did you know that when something bad happens in your life, God has not fallen asleep; He isn’t too busy to attend to you; He’s not purposely ignoring you to teach you a lesson; He hasn’t stopped loving you because of your sinful (or not) actions. In fact Jesus said that He wants to not only give us life, but give us abundant life.  (John 10:10)  What we often don’t like to hear, is that as a good, loving Father, God will also allow affliction in our lives.  This is not a great selling point of the Gospel, yet it is a truth just as tangible as God’s promise of abundant life.  They don’t cancel each other out.  They are both equally true. It is vitally important that we understand that God’s love for us will not spare us from all affliction during our time on earth.  If we believe that as a child of God nothing bad will ever touch us we may shipwreck our faith.  I’ve seen it happen in new Christians, who have not been given the whole picture.  They’ve been promised this great life, and then something bad happens, and they turn away from God saying:  “God is supposed to be good.  How could a good God let this happen to me?”  

The answer to that question lies in the question.  God is, good.  Not the mediocre meaning of today’s “good”, as in “He’s good enough”, but good through and through.  Only good.  Not good some of the time, but good all of the time.  Anything and everything he allows in our lives can be used for our good.  We as humans can’t possibly fathom all the reasons why God allows affliction in our lives.  He sees things in light of eternity, not our mere 100 years.  God is a God of generations and legacy.  The example you set in your affliction may affect the destiny of many.  Yes God wants to bless you and give you a great life, no question—Jesus said it himself. But in the actual journey itself, God may afflict us to give us, just that.  He uses affliction to transform us into the image of his Son.  

​Psalm 119:67 says: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word; v71: It was good for me to be afflicted, so that I might learn your decrees; v75:  I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”  Are you seeing what I’m seeing?  The Psalmist is seeing the value that his affliction is obtaining for him; he wasn’t concentrating on the affliction itself, but what that affliction was achieving in his life.  God afflicts or disciplines us in faithfulness.  God’s faithfulness refers to his “absolute reliability, firm constancy, and complete freedom from waffling back and forth, and also to his steadfast love toward his people and his loyalty.  He is faithful in keeping his promises and is therefore worthy of trust and unchangeable in his ethical nature. God himself does not allow pain in our lives without very good reason. That means that even when we are in the midst of pain and suffering and in great distress, God is, and remains, ever faithful.  He hasn’t fallen off the throne; he hasn’t forgotten you; he’s not punishing you with hate, but disciplining or shaping you with love and faithfulness. Sometimes there are things in our lives that need to die in order for us to change into something more beautiful. Sometimes God needs to reshape us into a more useful vessel for his purposes and our benefit.

​Perhaps the choices of a loved one have caused your affliction.  Even in the midst of affliction due to other people’s choices totally beyond our control, God can use this affliction to bring us to a place where we can experience peace and joy while God works in us, and them.  This is life abundant.  When you can be at peace and at rest in the eye of the hurricane, safe in his arms, no matter what is happening around you.  In times of great pain and distress in my life, it is then that I have most tangibly felt the presence of my dear Saviour.  When I have said: “Lord, I just can’t cope anymore,” he’s responded with:  “Let me cope for you.” And I’ve found the gold lining is this:  As I have pressed deeper into his provision when I have been completely broken, that deeper and closer walk with him didn’t leave when the crises passed.  I had gained something extremely valuable—a closer connection with God and a refined area of my life.
 
To close, Psalm 119:92:  “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”  David knew full well what it was like to be afflicted.  Although He loved God with all his heart and God loved him, he still experienced extremely trying times.  He leaned heavily on the fact that he obeyed and knew God’s law, and clearly saw God’s love for him through it despite what he was going through.  God’s covenant with Israel was his saving grace so much that he says he would have died in his affliction, had he not delighted in it.  The same is true for us.

God’s words and promises literally sustain us and bring life during times of extreme pressure while we’re being afflicted.  You may not know what is going on or why, but because you know and cherish God’s law, his covenant of love through Jesus, you can be assured you’ll come out alright. You make the choice to believe a promise by faith, and then that promise becomes real in your life as you grow in experiencing that promise. That will only happen if you’re surrendered and hungry for more of Him and you feed off His Word.  Basically if you don’t delight in his word and it has no place of priority in your life and you doubt that word, it won’t bring relief then, will it.  You can’t draw comfort from promises you don’t believe.

​Barnes comments:  “I should have sunk a thousand times,” said a most excellent, but much afflicted man to me, “if it had not been for one declaration in the Word of God, “The Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” 
 
I quite agree.  God will always be there carrying us through.

​Here’s something that you may have heard many times before: With God we have the victory in every situation we face on earth. If you’re like me and have heard this time and again, the tendency may be to say to yourself, “yes, yes. I know that, and I do believe that. But it sure doesn’t look like it, or feel like it right now". I’m hoping by the end of this blog you’ll experience a deeper joy and confidence in God in going forward through your trial or circumstance.

Imagine an Olympic Sprint athlete, preparing for the Summer Games 6 months away. How do you think the following information would affect their daily mental state and stress level as they train 6 months out: That they will win under any circumstance.  That it is a done deal. That it is a foregone conclusion. That as long as they keep up their regimen of training and don’t let up, give up, or doubt the outcome, the medal will be theirs. If this truly would be the case I would imagine that: The stress of losing would be eliminated; the doubts of whether they were good enough to win would be eliminated; any and all obstacles would be overcome; the joy of winning would begin right now instead of 6 months from now. All they’d have to do is to continue the tough job of going through their training till the end of the race.

Now of course we know we cannot determine the future no matter how much we’d like to. We live life in reverse; hindsight is 20/20 vision but the future needs to unfold as we go forward. But what I want to encourage you with today, is that there is someone who knows 100% what our future holds and his name is Jesus. And not only does he know what the outcome to our current circumstance, trial, grief, heartache, pain, anguish, unhappiness, set-back, loss, condition, or situation will be, he has the solution and the way through it. Remember how Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat while a violent storm threatened to sink the boat he was in with his disciples? The disciples cried out to him saying “Teacher, do you not care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38) Perhaps they had tried to have faith and believe; perhaps they thought they could beat the storm or go around it trying in their own effort. They basically did not believe he would or could save them. You see, the fear of what the storm could do was in the disciples; but the storm was not in Jesus. He knew whose he was and that his Father had all things under control.  He said to his disciples in V40, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” I’m sure he might be saying the same thing to you and I when we’re going through stuff.

​ We simply (but not always easy, just like the Olympian) have to continue our training in having full and complete confidence in faith that Jesus will despite all circumstances ensure that we endure until we cross the finish line. We do not need to worry. He will never ask us to do anything that he has not already equipped us to do in the first place. Whatever you are facing He is the One who will give you exactly what you need to finish the race.

​And with Jesus we are all winners.  

​Do you wake up to another day facing a long day of work—be that out of the home or in the home; working from home, or working in the home raising human beings (which is a job that never seems to end); taking care of the family and sometimes doing all 3 and felt: “There’s just not enough hours in the day to get it all done!” Yet with today’s advancements in the electronic age we’re supposed to be saving mountains of time but where exactly is all this saved time? By my reckoning I can’t seem to ever find it.  Truth is, we have programmed ourselves to be productive to the point just shy of burn out, be that with all our time saving electronics or by using an abacus and a ruler. It doesn’t matter what age we live in; the problem is our giving ourselves unrealistic goals for the day. It could be in developing software or chopping wood. It reminds me of that video of someone cleaning up their house in time lapse; 2 hours of work seen in a 1-minute video.  We laugh because it looks funny seeing this person racing around the house back and forth and sometimes in circles, but this is just how I feel inside approaching an entire day of tasks. This tends to stress me and depress me. Every time I come home from a vacation, I vow to take things slower and not get ramped up but before I know it I’ve fallen into the same old pattern. Until God showed me something.

Here’s the deal. God never stresses us out and overloads us. We do that ourselves. Work as we know is a part of life. Even God works. Jesus told the religious leaders that “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17.) Jesus was referring to doing the work God required of him and so too should we. In the past whenever I came upon the scripture (John 6:28,29) where Jesus is asked what work God requires us to do, I inwardly groaned. I thought great. There’s more work.  But his answer always surprised and soothed me. He simply said: “This is the work that God requires: To believe in the One He has sent.” They were asking how to work the “works of God” as in operating in the supernatural, but the application can be the same. We are intended to live naturally supernatural and supernaturally natural as we believe in Jesus throughout daily life. Well, I thought, that’s easy. Yay. When I realized this for myself, it just took so much pressure off me. But there’s more to it than that.

​And it’s super simple.

If we obey this verse it changes absolutely everything about our day and ultimately our lives, even if bad things happen. If you believe in the One God sent (Jesus) you trust him for this minute, correct? What would happen if you’d trust him with the next minute? And the next? What would happen if you’d start your day with: “Jesus, I believe in you. Please order my day” and really decided to believe it? If you don’t think he’s interested in every minute of every day of your life, you’re greatly mistaken. God’s word says: “And now, just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust him too with each day’s problems. Live in vital union with him.” (Col 2:6) It’s easy to believe in Jesus when everything is coming up roses, but how about when things start coming up thorns? You get in your car in the morning and it doesn’t start. Do you believe Jesus is involved? Your kid comes home sick from school and you have to rearrange everything. Do you believe Jesus ordered your day? Do you believe he knew this was going to happen? You go to work and lose your job. Do you believe God has a plan? You break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Do you believe He has someone better in the future for you? Your kid comes home stoned and drunk. Do you believe His arm is too short to save?  You have marital problems. Do you believe that God can fix or change a heart? 

Truth is, if we will simply decide to daily have faith and agree with God’s truths, all things are possible with God.  I personally need to say I believe you Jesus out loud. It encourages me to hear myself agree with God.
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When life is fabulous and even when our lives are full of challenging circumstances, to “believe in the One God has sent” will give us more peace, more joy, and more fulfillment for each and every day even before it starts. Your life is about to get easier as you partner with God. Try it.
You'll see...

70 years ago, the family dynamic was so much simpler than it is now. To quote Stella in the movie Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, meeting your future mate was as simple as “when a man and a woman see each other, like each other, they get together like two taxis hitting each other on Broadway.”  They get married, have some kids, and live happily ever after.  I know that’s the Disney version but people back then had traditional views about their roles in marriage which served them well. Today Statistics Canada tells us that 285,486 people got divorces between 2016 and 2020, and that’s what brings me to today’s blog. My prayer is to hopefully save a marriage or at least get people to think.

Please note that I’m not here to lay blame on anyone whose gone through a divorce; there are valid reasons to be sure and I’m not going there. However, after living for more than a few decades and having people close to me get divorced, I have deduced more than just a few things. I’ve seen the collateral damage it does and to me, some of these divorces could have been avoided and this is why I’m writing this. Satan has targeted marriages making divorce look like the only option, but it isn’t.
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For the sake of argument, I’m addressing people who haven’t lived together before getting married, but the concept is the same. When a man or woman gets married they have expectations from their mate along with their version of what constitutes a happy marriage. But what if your mate’s expectations and version of what constitutes a happy marriage differs vastly from yours? What becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly: Friction. Disagreement. Argument. Fighting. Dysfunction. Pain. Throw a couple of kids in the mix and the tension level rises exponentially.

​If these issues be they yours or your mate’s aren’t addressed they will cause a marriage to begin to weaken. You owe it to yourself to find out if the problem is you and take responsibility for it. Your mate owes it to her/himself to find out if the problem is theirs, and take responsibility for it. Acknowledge the difference between “can’t” and “won’t:” “I can’t stay with this person any longer.” I don’t know who it was, but I once said I couldn’t do something and the other person said to me: “Tell me, if your life depended on it, could you do it?” Of course I had to agree, well, if my life depended on it, then yes, I could do it. They responded with, “Then what you’re really saying is, you won’t do it; not that you can’t do it.” “I just can’t” puts the onus of responsibility on someone else; I’m off the hook. “I just won’t” puts the onus of responsibility back on me. This is what two people who once cherished each other, need to do. They both need to take responsibility for their own actions or lack thereof.

How do we do begin? Absolutely first: Go to God who created marriage in the first place and ask for His help. Ask Him to reveal to you those things that are your hidden faults, even to you yourself. Psalm 19 vs 12,13 say David acknowledged this: “Who could possibly know all that he (himself) has done wrong? Forgive my hidden and unknown faults. As I am Your servant, protect me from my bent toward pride, and keep sin from ruling my life.” That’s pretty plain. Blindness, pride and sin was ruling his life. I wonder how many marriages could be saved if we’d simply acknowledge these 3 things in our own lives. Pride is an absolute relationship killer. It is so important for us to humble ourselves and do an honest evaluation of ourselves. If you’re still not persuaded the fault is yours despite opposing opinions, go to people who truly love you and want what’s best for you and ask them what they think. If that’s not doable, go to a solid godly leader or counsellor; a respected family member known to have some wisdom. Ask them what they think. These people don’t want to hurt you, they want to help you. Good Christian Counselling is also a great way to go. If two people who consistently want a relationship to work, and will do whatever it takes, surrender their self-will, I believe that marriage will not only survive but thrive.

But what if they will not humble themselves? The person who resolutely refuses to budge on the issues killing the marriage. Someone who has a distorted view of their role in the marriage and despite repeated efforts and attempts, including counselling, simply won’t make changes. They believe that their behaviour is correct and that it’s the only way a marriage should be structured. People around them, family members, the wife/husband who is continually in the line of fire of their issues all have tried to help them see, to no avail. There will be a new reality for them to contend with. They will need to carefully consider picking their pain because pain will be involved regardless: Getting divorced is painful; it’s the rending apart of two tender hearts that used to be one; it’s that process that started with promises to love one another ending up with two hard hearts. For the primary breadwinner, splitting everything up, providing alimony and child support will be painful and for a long, long time, or until the youngest child is 18; and, if that child desires to go to post secondary education, they will be paying for that also. On the other side the care-giver has to now manage the job of two people raising children, but as one. Yes, there can be joint custody, but not two parents living together.  Anyone who has had kids knows how hard this is with two parents, let alone one. Last but certainly not least:  The pain of owning up to the potential new reality of the former two and repairing the marriage, is still the best bet.  Do we really fully know what’s about to happen, and if we did, would it not be better to change our perception of what our marriage currently looks like? 

 It is then that the other mate has to do a lot of praying and weighing. They have to decide to either continue living in these conditions and the damage it may be doing to themselves or their children and decide if God has directed her/him to hang in there, or if God is releasing her/him from a hostile environment.

Even then God will be reaching out to both parties. His love is unconditional and I’m sure it pains Him to see this happen, (God hates divorce – Mal 2:16) but our wrong choices and actions will cause consequences. The husband or wife who will not budge will one day come to their senses, because we take ourselves with us into the next relationship. What was wrong before will continue to be wrong later. Satan will keep you blind to your own faults until you’re past the point of no return and then let you see. His job description after all is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10.) Don’t let this be you: “If only I’d listened to the Holy Spirit; to people who love and loved me back then. I could have changed, but for my stubborn pride. This, what I have now, is far more difficult.”  But thankfully John 10:10 doesn’t end there. The latter part of the verse says Jesus came that we might enjoy our life and have it more abundantly.

 Please, husband, love your wife as Christ loved the church and died for Her.  Please, wife, submit to your husband and love him; help him become the very best version of himself as he loves you. God himself will equip you both. Choose today whom you and your family will serve: Jesus, not you, and the rest will fall into place. It is never too late to begin to do things God’s way. He’s specialized in restoration since the Garden of Eden…

The other day I was thinking about prayer and I began to wonder about something. We know that prayer is communicating with God. Say a negative circumstance comes up in our lives that only God can fix. We go to God and ask Him to intervene; we beg Him to fix this thing; we plead for answers. Our prayer seems to come from a place of desperation.  I believe there are times in all our lives when we’ve prayed this way and we are not alone. King David often prayed this way. He prayed in Psalm  4:1: “Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.” Or Psalm 5:1: “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help.” Then there’s Psalm 10:1: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” How about when we’ve brought the trouble on ourselves through messing up just as David did in Psalm 6:1: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.” These prayers were coming from a place of desperation and David shows us how he felt at that time.

On the flip side, people who receive from God what they want, often say: “God answered my prayer!” This gives the impression that God only answers us when we get what we want and He doesn’t answer us if we don’t. I don’t believe that’s true. Would you as a good parent, simply ignore your child if they were truly distressed? Just walk away and let them suffer? No, you’d start comforting them. Maybe you couldn’t give them what they want for good reasons, but you would immediately try to help them see that through one avenue or another.

The truth I firmly believe is this:  Every single time you or I pray, Heaven responds. Not necessarily right away (although that does happen too), not in our timetable, not the way we think the response should be, not even the way we’d like the response to be. Perhaps the answer will be a no.  But, God does respond to us every time we pray, and every response is just full of His love for us, and our good just like the good parent He is.
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Our process for prayer is to often ask God for things. Then wait for these things to happen. When they do, our joy overflows and we thank God. But, do we only thank and praise Him after we receive the thing we wanted? Imagine if you will, if you could look behind the curtain while you are earnestly praying like David did. I believe the moment he prayed, Heaven was on it; God was putting in place the answers; the way; the timetable; other facets of orchestrating His kid’s future whom He loved so very much. And David wasn’t perfect either; he royally messed up during his life.  But he didn’t stay in that place of desperation above. Look at how he ended his prayers: Psalm 4: 7,8: “You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their (his enemies) grain and new wine abound. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 5:12: “For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.” Psalm 10:17 says: “You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.” Even when he’d messed up, Psalm 6:8,9: “…for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.

My point in saying all this, is that we should be thanking the Lord for everything that is happening behind the curtain before our situation is resolved, not just when it is. But if it isn't, we still need to thank Him for the things that He is putting in place that we  cannot see at the time, but will end up for our best future yet. When we see what He was doing for us later, there will be no end to our gratitude and praise.

What did Jesus mean when He said these words in Mark 11:22-24?

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

​There are five things expected of us in these 3 verses of instruction that may make us feel uncomfortable, but they are far too valuable to ignore and have the potential to abundantly bless us:

Having faith; commanding; asking; believing and not doubting.

They have to be understood in light of the context of the fig tree Jesus cursed the day before and had now withered from the roots a day later.  Right after Peter marvels at the withered tree, Jesus launches into "Have faith in God." The two are directly related. Jesus had no problem believing that the moment He cursed the fig tree it would begin to die but there would be no evidence until the next day. What Jesus said, happened. Jesus didn't just think about the fig tree either; He commanded it.

This tells me too, that when we stand in faith we too have to command our mountains to move even though we might not see any results until later. Here’s where the temptation to doubt presents itself. We must not! He used the analogy of a mountain to tell us that size doesn't matter when it comes to having faith in God for our mountainous challenges. I also believe that when He said "this" mountain, and not "a" mountain, He was being specific. This has to be something the Holy Spirit has led one to, to contend with. You will know, because it will be standing right in front of you!

In verse 23 the word "believes" is not a one-time event, but a continual process of faith even if there is no evidence to support that our mountain has moved. Secondly, this is the hard part: We must believe that we have received what we asked for, and it will be ours. We have already received it in the supernatural and it will be realized in the natural later. This is wonderful news! Be aware however, this is where many think this is a formula, and it is not one. Jesus is the manifester of His own hand; we do not command Jesus to do anything. However, we are to operate in this confidently as it is being obedient to what Jesus told us to do. Whether our mountain moves or not, Jesus is pleased by our faith in Him and His Word. There is much we will not know on this side of eternity but that doesn't excuse us to quit believing.

​He is with us and will help us in our mountainous challenges no matter what.