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The Puzzle of Prayer

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments

Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Genesis 50:19-20

While I was out on my Saturday morning walk, I stopped at a neighborhood yard-sale. Usually I try to avoid picking up other people’s junk (or treasure) but I was intrigued by a 1,000 piece puzzle that reminded me a bit of a Thomas Kincaid painting. After returning home with it, I carefully taped together a cardboard piece big enough so I could move the puzzle around and then excitedly dumped out the pieces. First I assembled

20190401_062321_Film4.jpgthe edges and then grouped the rest of the pieces by color. But as I worked I discovered that I had a serious problem. The puzzle pieces were not from the puzzle displayed on the box! 

 Joseph’s life must have seemed a lot like my puzzle. His dreams of greatness and success must have seemed far off during his years of slavery and jail. Have you ever felt that way? My own hopes and dreams; like the photo on the box-top are decidedly different from the jumble of the pieces of my life. Some days or even years it feels as if nothing fits together no matter how hard I try.

But rather than give up I determined to find out just what kind of picture I would see if I kept at it. So as I worked piece by piece I began to see a cottage very different from the one on the box and yet still breathtaking in its complexity and beauty.

That is how the Christian life is. Our puzzle box dilemma is not an accident. On the outside things are never as they appear. God has chosen for us to walk by faith just like Joseph. When we trust God no matter what we see; it frees us from the tyranny of  expectations; both our own and those of others. Faith frees us to forgive and then live in confidence that whatever the final picture looks like; it has been designed by God. As we trust Him to fit together the pieces we will little by little begin to see and a perfect reflection of His love for us all!

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A Tiny Seed

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.                   Luke 17:6 ESV

If you are a little like me, you probably find yourself sometimes praying “Lord please, give me more faith!” When we feel like we are drowning in a sea of fear and we try grasping at straws floating on the water’s surface. But our good news for today is that Jesus did not require us to have a large quantity of faith. In fact during His time on earth,

Jesus seemed to take special delight in people who struggled to believe. After watching the Lord multiply bread for five thousand men the disciples got worried when they ran out of bread in their boat. He sat and talked to a woman by a well who probably never darkened the doors of her synagogue. He healed a man’s son after the father confessed his unbelief and made a special appearance for Thomas when he refused to believe the others about the resurrection. Imported from phone 065

So on nights when it feels like you are going under for the third time remember that our Lord loves to walk out on the water in the middle of storms. He came for the widow, the orphan and the poor. Jesus is moved when we pray with even a tiny seed of faith. When we trust the heart of God we will discover that He is ready to move anything blocking our path and help our faith to flower no matter where we are planted!

 

Super Hero or Super Weakling?

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As a kid I had my choice of maybe 10-12 super-heroes from my comic book collection. My all time favorite was Spider-man followed closely by Thor. Today the movie landscape seems littered with super-heroes, villains and some in between (I’m still not sure if Wolverine or Green Arrow are good or bad) 1553824974533_image.jpg

In the Bible there were some pretty amazing things done by some folks, like, raising the dead and calling fire down from heaven. But none of those guys did anything by their own power. Moses who parted the Red Sea, was a fugitive from the law. Samson who defeated thousands of his enemies in battle was a long-haired party-boy.  Even the Apostle Paul was so unpopular that he was stoned, beaten and whipped more often than applauded. But  in the middle of his trials Paul learned something that shed a whole new light on things for all of us in this not so super world. He discovered that the only real super hero was God; and that the way He loved to operate was through our super weakness: not our super strength.

To the Flat broke – Jesus promised His kingdom

To the Meek – Control of the planet

To the orphan – a Father and a family

To the Widow – the best husband in the universe

For lost sheep – a shepherd

For the criminal – Restoration

For the rejected – a Friend even closer than a brother

And for fallen sparrows – a loving creator who never forgets

And all of these things can be summed up in the one super power never once mentioned in films. The power of the grace of God. That one and only super power was released on the day when God was weakest of all – on the cross of Jesus Christ!

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9