hearing god’s voice

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Don’t Be Afraid, I’m With You

“He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Very early in the morning he came toward them walking on the sea and wanted to pass by them. When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke with them and said, ‘Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.“

Mark 6:48-50

I’m not a very good swimmer. I can admit that, and while I don’t shy away from it, I also don’t usually plan any long distance swims in open water, just for fun, either! Like a lot of people, there’s something about deep water that just scares the bajebers out of me. It’s unsettling, and when the water is rough as well and I’m struggling to stay afloat, the survival instinct kicks into high gear, creating an emotional state of sheer panic. I think that’s what the disciples must have felt as the wind kicked up and they began to struggle. I can relate to the fear they felt as they struggled with their task. There have been times that I have struggled, too, and to make things worse, right in the middle of it all a storm pops up to add yet another layer of fear and anxiety.

Earlier in the chapter (v. 45) Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he went up to the mountain to pray. He set them to their undertaking. God does this sometimes. He puts us to a task, watching and praying over us from afar as we struggle with it, trying to figure it out on our own, saying “I got this” while He waits for us to realize that the task is given to us so that He may work through us. His purposes are not at all clear to us, catching only small glimpses at times, but His simple request of us is that we yoke ourselves to Him and trust that He’s got this.

This whole tale, as Mark tells it, is a metaphor, an observation about just how difficult it can be to follow Jesus. He sets us in our boat (life) and sends us out into the deep (the world) to accomplish his will. It’s not easy. We push against the oars, struggling with the prevailing winds of popular opinion and “consensus” that surround us with doubt and uncertainty. We become mired in the moment, following fear rather than faith.

Similarly, this same story in Matthew, where Peter tries to walk on water, is also a commentary about how we handle the tasks that God gives us to do. It goes further by illustrating how hard it can be to keep our faith during times of turmoil, even when we know that Jesus is right there in front of us, ready to help as we call out to Him. We still stumble, lose our focus and let the fear of the unknown control our actions as He stands by with outstretched hand. He simply asks us to not only believe in Him, to also believe Him, to keep our faith, to trust, to let Him take control of the yoke that guides us to where He would have us go, all the while telling us, “have courage! Don’t be afraid. I am with you.”

A Prayer: Heavenly Father, Help me to know beyond all doubt that you are there, beside me as I struggle through this life. Give me Your strength, Your courage to move forward without fear. Give me eyes to see Your will for my life and ears to hear Your voice as you whisper, “I am with you.” Amen

~SLM

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Our Daily Bread

“Give us this day our daily bread…” (Matt 6:11)

Flat Breads
When I was a kid, I could tell when my mom was baking from halfway down the block. Even today, the smell of goodies fresh from the oven evokes a certain sense of comfort, abundance, blessing and love. There’s just something about bread that speaks to the human psyche. It’s something we share with each other in the spirit of fellowship, something for which many people around the world will stand in line for hours hoping to get, and something we long for in our daily lives.

Sometimes, we are forgetful about how lucky we are to have “daily bread” in our lives and how thoroughly God provides for us. I’m reminded of Exodus 16, which tells the story of the manna, and how the Israelites, who had been liberated from their oppression for just a little over 2 months, began grumbling and complaining. All they could think about was food, not how they had been miraculously saved from oppression, but how hungry they were, even telling themselves how much better it was in Egypt, because there, at least, they had their “daily bread.”

The Israelites were indeed hungry, and in a way that went far beyond their physical need for food, they just didn’t know it. Daily bread is more than mere sustenance. It’s a yearning to recover what was lost at the fall of Eden, an unconscious desire to hear the voice of God. In Matthew 4, after he had fasted for forty days, Christ was confronted by the “tempter,” who said, “If you are the son of God, order these stones to become bread.” Jesus replies by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, stating, “it is written, that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Today, we’re not so unlike the Israelites of Moses’ day. We, too, are hungry, to the point of starving. We pine for our youth, for that time when every word from the mouth of God seemed far simpler to believe, and far less complicated to hear. We search for it in churches that seem to be more like social clubs, than sacred spaces to “tabernacle” with the Lord. We listen to preachers who are more interested in teaching us “political correctness” rather than God’s righteousness. When we pray for daily bread, we’re asking God to provide us with more than a marble rye to fill our bellies, or a good story with some anecdotal truth attached, we’re asking Him to fill us with the everlasting bread of His holy spirit, His presence in our daily lives so that we may be counted among the blessed.

How blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness! For they will be filled. (Matt 5:6)

~SLM

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Thy Will Be Done

“Your will be done, on Earth as it is [done] in Heaven.” (Matt 6:10)

Sometimes, it’s really hard to conceive of the many ways in which God’s divine intention present in our lives, and this portion of The Lord’s Prayer is a reminder to us that no matter what, He’s in control. Many times in life, actually most times, things don’t go exactly the way we would have had them go, and when they don’t, we are quick to attribute the outcome to anything but God. After all, aren’t we told in Romans 8:28 that “all things work together for good to those who love God?” We charge forward, convinced of our own righteousness, sure we know exaclty what God wants, and eager to prove that he is indeed on our side. We get so mired down in the outcomes we’ve imagined, so caught up in how we think things ought to go, that we forget to wait on God’s will to unfold.

Romans 8:28 goes on to say “to those who are the called according to His purpose.” It’s His intension that is at work here, not ours. Revelation 17:17 says that God puts it into the hearts of people to do what will fulfill his objectives, which means he plants a thought into their heads or lays something upon their hearts, which they are unaware has atually come from him. That’s why Caiaphas acted as he did. He was convinced that putting one man to death, rather than an entire nation was what God wanted, and he was right. It was the direction in which God was leading him, just not in the way he had imagined, and certainly not in the way he had convinced himself and the rest of the Sanhedrin to believe. In his view, that man was a blasphemer, and God would judge him [Caiaphas] righteous for his actions, right?

When we pray this, it’s not because we’re giving God permission to direct our lives, or the events that surround us, but in recognition of the fact that God is most certainly in the driver’s seat. Whether we’re intenionally aligned with it through humble submission as Christ was, or through stubborn self-righteousness like Caiaphas, it’s still God’s plan, still his will being done on earth as it is also done in Heaven.

~SLM