Mission Faithwalk

           If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!   They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you,  Lord , and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.   See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting . (Psalm 139:19-24)           Steam of consciousness thinking. As a literary art form, it supposedly began with Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs in 1915. Therapists had been using it for at least a couple decades before that, but it’s supposedly been around for 150 years. Like so much else about modernism, what’s new isn’t really new. David seems to have composed his songs using stream of consciousness. “God i...

          I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. (Job 19:25)           Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.   For we live by faith, not by sight.   We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.   So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.   For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (II Corinthians 5:6-10)              If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!   I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by fa...

          For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.   I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you   when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God!   How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—   when I awake, I am still with you. (Psalm 139:13-18)           The first thought that comes to mind is that David was a poet. He composed songs, and in poetry and music, figurative speech is often used. He probably knew that babies aren’t formed in the depths of the earth, except in the sense that God formed...

          Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?   If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,   even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”   even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)           And my God will meet  all   your   needs  according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus . (Philippians 4:19)           Today’s passage is one of the sort we need to focus on a lot more during these crises. It’s fairly common to hear people ask, “Where was/is God when bad things happen(ed)?” An...

          You have searched me,  Lord , and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.   Before a word is on my tongue you,  Lord , know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain . (Psalm 139:1-6)           Can you imagine someone being so intimately connected to your life that they can be said to have searched you? What comes to mind when you think of someone who knows you well enough to know when you’re likely to sit or stand? How often do we want people to know us well enough to not have to be told what we want or need them to do? While we aren’t fond of people who speak for us, don’t we love having someone who seems to be on the same wavelength with our thoughts...

         Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.   Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.   This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.   This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.   Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.     No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us . (I John 4:7-12)           The subject of God’s love came up yesterday. In a discussion of why God created angels and man, he said that love desires to share itself with others. [1] Some people think that God created man because God had no opportunity to love without...

          He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is used as fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows d own to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”            From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me! You are my god!” They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, “Half of it I u...

           if   my   people , who are called by  my  name, will humble themselves and pray and seek  my  face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.   (II Chronicles 7:14)                          A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of their mouths.   The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. ...

          Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the  Lord forever. ( Psalm 23:6)         Can you believe the Twenty-Third Psalm is only six verses long? If it were longer, or shorter, we might not find it so comforting. But if you read through the psalm as a whole, you’ll find that one verse (this one, obviously) is not like the others. The Lord is my shephard…He makes me lie down…He leads me… He prepares . It’s almost all present tense, except “I shall not want” and “I will dwell.”          For some, these snippets of action on our part are not present tense. It’s all “in the sweet by and by.” That’s not necessary. If I will, then I will just as much right now as I will will in the future. “I will lose weight” doesn’t happen until you’re doing something in that direction. It requires a present tense action. So “I will dwell” in...

        You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil;   my cup overflows . (Psalm 23:5)           In the introduction to Life Without Lack, Dallas Willard says the following about this passage:             Since I love my enemies, I would not feast upon a delicious meal in their presence and let them stand there hungry. The abundance of God’s provision and safety in my life is so great, I would invite them to enjoy what God has prepared for me . [1]            I have some vague notions about my visualization of this verse as I grew up. One was what you might call a “Nya, Nya, God likes me and He doesn’t like you ” idea. God’s preparation of a table in the presence of my enemies meant that He would grant me victory because I was a good girl. The table represented my victory (even if it was given to me.)  ...

          Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)          Most of us fear the valley of the shadow of death, to use the King James Version description. As a woman, I’ve been taught that I need to be afraid to walk down the street at night all alone. Around the globe, we’re being told to fear the Wuhan virus, and every person we meet because he/she might have it and not know. According to The Coddling of the American Mind , our I-Gen (the generation after the Millennials) kids are being taught to fear anything that makes them uncomfortable. There’s a whole lot of shaking goin’ on.            And it seems that a large part of our population has the idea that we should not have to go through darkest valleys. God and/or the government should protect us from darkest valleys, and make everything all b...

                 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship   and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The  Lord  gave and the  Lord  has taken away; may the name of the  Lord  be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:20-22)            “We are all alone, born alone, die alone ..."   (Hunter S. Thompson)           It’s not unusual for people to disagree with me – even people I consider friends. So in that sense, tonight is not unusual. Some people find it highly offensive that I am not devastated by those suffering from COVID-19. And they’re right. I wish I were more moved by their plights – but those who are in the hospital are unknown to me, and a hundred...

The Lord is My Shepherd…    he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. (Psalm 23:3) Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.              ...