The Ties That Bind

By Richard Gammill –

“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (II Corinthians 6:18).

Strong family connections create strong—and sometimes surprising—emotions.

“Grandpa!” shouted little Noah as he threw open the door and ran toward me arms opened wide. He jumped into my arms and squeezed my neck.

“Grandpa, let’s go see trains.” His Paul Newman-blue eyes held my attention.

How could I resist? We climbed the stairs—I climbed, Noah ran—to my study and turned on the computer. Noah loves trains. We spent the next hour on the Internet with him on my lap as we looked at videos and pictures of trains.

“Grandpa, we’re best buddies. Can we go swimming now?”

By the time I got to the bedroom, Noah had his clothes off and his swimsuit on. In the pool, he found the water cannon, pumped it full, aimed it at me, and began firing.

“Noah, you are a rascal,” I said, as I stood there dripping wet.

“Grandpa, when do I get to start playing soccer like my sisters?”

“Pretty soon, Noah. And you will probably play baseball and football like your uncles did. I can hardly wait to watch you play. Won’t that be fun?”

“Will you come to my games, Grandpa?”

“Noah, nothing could keep me away!”

That night while I was trying to get to sleep, my thoughts drifted from my day with Noah to my friend Harold and his grandson, Bart. A shadow crept over me and filled me with sadness.

By the time Bart graduated from high school, Harold and his wife, Elaine, had driven thousands of miles crisscrossing the state of Kansas attending every baseball game Bart played in. They traveled even more miles attending performances of his choral group and marching band.

Following his graduation, Bart was accepted into a chiropractic college and prepared to move that fall to Kansas City. Then his girlfriend left him, plunging Bart into a pit of despair. A few days later, his body was found next to his pickup on a lonely Kansas road.

He had taken his own life.

My day with Noah gave me fresh insight into Harold’s devastating loss. The pain of Harold’s daily visits to his grandson’s gravesite gripped me. What could be harder than losing a child or grandchild?

The next morning the news on my computer reported the tragedy met by a group of Ohio high school students during their mission trip to Costa Rica. Five students swimming in the Pacific Ocean at a dangerous beach were caught by a riptide and swept out to sea. Two were rescued, but three drowned. Their bodies were found later. I turned to the ABC news report and made an emotional connection with one of the young students, her family, and mine. Her father teaches at her private high school and her grandfather is a retired Nazarene minister like me. She had planned to attend a Nazarene college. My two oldest granddaughters are students at a sister Nazarene college.

That family’s tragic loss shook me. I experienced a moment of terror as I imagined my reaction if my granddaughter had met a similar fate during her trips to China and Uganda.

Close family ties establish our priorities and give meaning to our lives. The phrase, “Family, first, last, and always,” describes an affair of the heart. It is a heart affair that connects our Heavenly Father with his earthly children. The crucifixion of His “only begotten Son” unites us with God’s heart forever. When our heart responds in faith to His sacrifice it brings us into a family relationship with Him.

Heavenly Father, thank You for making me Your child and giving me the assurance of having a Friend who sticks with me closer than a brother.

Stepping Stones

By Elaine James –

“I don’t know why I am telling you this,” whispered the college professor.

I know exactly why he said what he said.

My son and I prepared to visit a prospective college that day. Before we left we prayed, “Lord, please, with absolutely clarity let us know if he should attend this college.”

As a group session ended and the room emptied my son and I sat talking. The professor came to us and asked if we had any questions. I told him about my son’s situation. That is when the professor came out with the unusual response. He was referring us back to a local community college to pick up some core classes. He even said, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you to go to another school.”

I jumped for joy because I had just witnessed the clear message the Lord sent my son, and he could not deny it. You know how teenagers don’t want to hear things from their mothers. I look back at that moment and smile. It is a story that is embossed on my “shield of faith.” I have a picture in my mind of my shield; it has marks that represent the captured moments of God’s faithfulness that He has used to build my own faith. Like the Israelites having their stones piled to remember what provision and clear direction they got from the Lord.

“So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you.” (Joshua 4:4-6 NIV).

God used stones to mark significant statements to Israel, like the Ten Commandments. He ordered special stones to make the temple. He commanded that stones be used to serve as a sign of His provision at important locations. Jesus was referred to as the cornerstone (the living stone), and we who are believers also are referred to as living stones chosen by God. They reveal God’s redemption and restoration for us all.

One time my family prayed for guidance about whether to purchase a home. The Holy Spirit led us to go through with the purchase. As our thanksgiving offering to God, we set up a pile of bricks in the yard, read the Scripture passage from Joshua 4 and dedicated our new home to Him.

PRAYER: Father in heaven, thank You for the times that You have made things clear to me. Help me to learn and remember what they mean. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Declaration of Dependence

By Elaine James –

I was dusting my shelves where the knick-knacks are displayed and the framed document entitled “Our Declaration of Dependence” caught my eye. I got choked up with tears thinking, Where has the time gone? Oh! Look at the precious signatures of my then eight and ten year-old sons.

Sixteen years ago when my husband lost his job, I was nursing a baby, homeschooling for the first time, my mom had left me, my relationship with my dad had become estranged and my best friend moved to Tennessee. Life was spinning out of control. A psychologist told me “Just losing your mom in the destructive way she left could put someone over the top.” How did I survive these six life changing events at once?

Prior to the year these things happened my family had come to know Jesus, but not to the full extent that we know Him now. We could not stay the way we were and go with God. The unanimous decision to declare our dependence on God for everything required us to look to scripture and be led by the Holy Spirit. That would necessitate us asking God to increase our faith and help us to live out WWJD. WWJD became our personal motto that stood as a reminder of our belief in a moral necessity to act in a manner that would demonstrate the love of Jesus through the actions of our lives. We gave God permission to do anything He pleases with our ordinary selves fully dedicated to Him. We would commit regularly to worship, thanksgiving and giving back to the Lord what He so graciously blessed us with. Looking back I would not change a thing. I felt so close to God. This experience taught me the same thing Paul learned from his trials. He stated “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12 NIV).

I made it through panic attacks and other health issues that arose from stress. Every step of my healing became a lesson to learn. I began to journal the healing process. Today I am known as “The Recycle Girl” meaning that the trials that I have experienced in my life and how God has taught me and helped me get through them has never been wasted. It has all been reused to help comfort others with the comfort I have received.

I want to ask you, have you made your “Declaration of Dependence”? Do you go through life barely getting by and learning nothing from your hard times or do you have a take–away that is recyclable for others?

PRAYER: Father in heaven I need an attitude adjustment. Help me to see trials from Your perspective. I realize I cannot stay the way I am and go with You. Thank You for showing me this. Forgive me for the times I do not ask you for help. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Hold On for Dear Life

By Rhonda Rhea –

Maybe I mentioned before that I always keep dried fruit in my desk drawer so I’ll have a healthy snack handy when I’m working. Except the fruits are so dry that all that’s left of them is these nacho cheesy Doritos.

Somehow that makes it an even sadder snack situation when I reach for my fruit and all I find in the bottom of the Dorito bag is a bunch of orange powder. I hate that. Some people would suggest that whenever that happens, I would do well to take the hint and go get an apple. Those are the people who just don’t get me at all.

Then there are others who say the nacho-powder is the best part. They’re closer to getting me than the apple group. Still, they would no doubt think it wasteful of me if they saw me throwing away a perfectly good bag of Dorito-dust. I’m sorry, but once I find anything in my snack stash in ash form, I toss it. Definitely time for a new bag of Dor-fruit-os. Holding on to the bag when its contents are practically an aerosol just doesn’t work for me. Spray-on Doritos? No, I say give the bag a decent burial and let it go. Stashes to ashes, Doritos to dust.

Sort of relatedly, our walk with Christ can be either wonderfully encouraged or it can be sadly thwarted by what we choose to hang on to. And what we don’t. Hang on to wealth or material things, success or power, popularity or fame, comfort or entertainment—or a gazillion other things that promise to satisfy but don’t deliver—and there’s going to be disappointment. If we hang on to pride or unforgiveness or any other sin, we inevitably find there’s not only disappointment, but devastation. And we usually also find that as we hang on to those sins, they also begin to hang on to us. It’s scary-amazing how easily sin can get a hold on you, isn’t it?

Even hanging on to good things can sidetrack our lives in a fruitless direction. Jesus said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it,” (Matthew 16:25, NLT). Holding onto anything in this life is letting go of too much of Jesus. That leads to a dead-end life with no fruit. None. Not even the dried up fruit of the Dorito variety.

So much of the victorious life in Christ is about knowing when to let go and when to hold on. We’re told in Deuteronomy 13:4, “Follow the Lord your God and fear Him. Keep His Laws, and listen to His voice. Work for Him, and hold on to Him,” (NLV). As we hold on to Him and passionately embrace all He calls us to be and to do, life becomes exactly what it’s meant to be. It becomes sweet. It becomes dear. So you could rightly say that holding on to the Father is very surely holding on for dear life.

Head Talk

By Elaine James –

Ever wake up thinking of a conversation you had with someone yesterday and your mind starts to rehash it? You wish you would have said this… You should have said that….

The day continues, and the conversation keeps playing in your mind. If I were to ask you how many hours you wasted on that “head talk,” what would your answer be? Come on, be honest. One hour? Two hours? Maybe 6 hours? You have no energy at the end of the day, and it was not caused from any physical work. It was all mental.

I have been there, so I have learned to say this to myself over and over: Jesus has the power to help me when I cannot help myself. Just this week, God gently whispered this verse to my heart:
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41 NIV).

Jesus was getting ready to go to the cross. He reminded the apostles that, no matter how much He prepared them, they would still be weak. He assured them that He knew their hearts were willing, so He told them to pray for His strength. After that scripture came to me, this one followed:

“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:2-3 NIV).

Thanking God for the cross lifted my spirits and restored my strength to carry on. Just as quickly, though, shame tried to settle in; but God rescued me from shame with yet another verse: “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29 NASB).

Irrevocable – ahh! IT’S FINAL! No changing His mind! Love that! God loves us so much. He really does have a plan for each one of us. Let Him fight the fight for you.

When you need to change negative thoughts, ask God to reveal a psalm, hymn or song. For me, songs seem to appear out of nowhere, but I know God’s Spirit gives them to me. When they come, I just keep singing in my heart until the “head talk” stops.

“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Colossians 3:16 NIV).

Prayer: Dear Father, I was tempted to jump into the pit of despair. You caught me before I leaped! Your word never returns void. Please give me a psalm or scripture each time I need You. You are faithful. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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