Sitting On A Hill

By Cheri Cowell –

I just heard a news report that parents and young children are not getting enough sleep. I hope they didn’t pay a lot for that bit of research because you and I could have told them that.

My husband and I require different amounts of sleep. I need so much more than he does, but both of us need our down time. We spend that time in different ways, but just like this sleep study suggested, all of us need renewal time. For us, as Christians, we also need God time. Time we spend alone with Him is precious time. Yes, we are to study and pray, but we also need to just sit and be still. We need to listen, and be renewed. Jesus needed that same thing.

I never paid much attention to this passage until this week when it jumped off the page at me. It is not often used at Easter, and is easy to overlook. Just like our need for quiet time with God is easy to overlook, it would have been easy for Jesus to keep preaching, knowing He only had a few days left. How many times have I said, “I have so much to do before I can rest tonight?” Even Jesus, the Son of God, the Holy One Himself, knew He needed to renew each night.

It’s true. Parents, children, and everyone else in America are not getting enough rest. And every Christian can probably use more time to sit on a hill and be still with God.

PRAYER: I praise You today for the example Jesus gave of what I need to do when feeling overworked, overburdened, and overtired. Help me set aside the big to-do list each night, and to spend a few minutes with You sitting on a hill in stillness.

“Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives, and all the people came early in the morning to hear him at the temple” (Luke 21:37-38 NIV).

Hope for the Hopeless

By Cheri Cowell –

Several years ago, a New Living translation of select scripture verses was compiled in a booklet called The Book of Hope, and given free of charge to anyone calling in response to a series of commercials aimed at those who may have lost all hope. With the days following Christmas and New Years being the ones with the highest numbers of suicides, these commercials were created to reach the millions who are without hope and may choose this way of escape. There are many reasons psychologists have given for this yearly phenomenon, but depression seems to be the common denominator.

In Webster’s dictionary, one of the definitions given for depression is hopelessness. Without hope there is no reason to go on, no purpose in life; without hope that things will change, improve, move towards some goal or purpose, there is no future. And without a future there is no reason for a now. So what is in this booklet? It contains the words and promises of God.

The writer of this psalm calls on God to deliver him from death and famine. We know, however, that God does not deliver all who trust in Him from these horrors of life, yet we can still place our trust in Him because…well, because His is the only one big enough to hear our cries, to be there with us in the midst of our struggles, and to deliver us “home” to heaven when our time has come. Without hope in someone bigger than you or I, life can become too much to handle.

Our hope is indeed in Him whose unfailing love is our greatest promise from His Word: The Book of Hope.

PRAYER: God as I bow my head, I trust You sense my fears, understand my struggles, and know my need for a life raft of hope. Help me cling to Your Word as an assurance of the hope available to me. I rest in that hope and rejoice in the promises of Your unfailing love.

“Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His lovingkindness. To deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, because we trust in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O LORD, be upon us,
according as we have hoped in You” (Psalm 33:18-22 NASB).

Weak, and Proud of It

By Cheri Cowell –

“I just can’t go on,” the cry for help rises as a chorus from thousands of counseling rooms around the country.

There are many reasons for this cry, but one of the most common is despair and depression. I’m not talking about clinical depression, and if you have been feeling this way for a long time and it is affecting your ability to function, please see a counselor, for no one should have to suffer when help is available.

The kind of despair and depression I am referring to is a sense that the world’s problems are just too big, and we see ourselves as powerless and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the demands on our time and ability.

But God has an answer for our despair. It is called grace.

God’s grace is His unearned and undeserved favor. It is God, withholding what we deserve and instead giving us His acceptance and love. When He says His grace is sufficient, He is saying that when we fully realize He is giving us His love instead of what we deserve, that should be enough for us. If we were sufficient in ourselves and did not need His grace, then we could handle all of life’s problems on our own and we wouldn’t need Him.

However, since we are not sufficient and are instead weak and powerless, we need Him. It is only because we need Him, because we are weak, that He can be strong for us. His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses. When we see our weaknesses as opportunities for God to show His power, we can join Paul in saying, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

PRAYER: I praise You, God, for Your unmerited favor, for Your sufficient grace. Help me when I am feeling weak, to see my weakness as an opportunity for You to show Your power through me.

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV).

 

Bug Eyes

By Cheri Cowell –

In the opening scene of the movie It’s a Bug’s Life, Flick and the other ants are in a long line walking single-file in a begrudging task. They are carrying “heavy” crumbs to the mound when a giant leaf comes barreling toward them. Flick is paralyzed with fear as this “giant” obstacle blocks his sight. As he stands there, knees knocking, the lead ant comes to his rescue by saying, “Keep your eyes on me, walk toward me, and don’t panic.” He then guides him and those who are following him around the obstacle so they can rejoin the safety of the line.

Even though we can laugh at the humor, it touches a place in our hearts because, at some point, we have all become paralyzed with fear.

God comes to our rescue by saying ‘keep your eyes on me.’

Paul is writing to Timothy, a young student of the faith, and he is telling him not to allow his youth to make him to be fearful. He is told to be bold and confident, not in his own strength and knowledge, but in Jesus.

When we take our eyes off Jesus, the obstacles that seem to float from the skies and threaten to block out the sun, seem bigger than our ability to handle them. When all we see is the obstacle, we cannot find a way around it and we stand paralyzed in fear. We are like Flick, with knees knocking.

But God is saying to us, “Keep your eyes on me, I know the way, walk towards me, and don’t panic because in me you have enough power, love, and self-discipline to handle anything.”

“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7 NIV).

PRAYER: Thank You, Lord, for walking with me on my faith journey. Help me learn to keep my eyes fixed on You, and not the obstacles. Please give me Your eyes to replace my ‘bug eyes.’ I praise You for giving me the power, strength, love, and self-discipline to say to any obstacle, “I am not afraid.”

Rules for the Road

By Cheri Cowell –

Have you ever spent time with someone who criticizes and finds fault with everything and everyone around them? It is tiring being with these people.

Perhaps I should say it is tiring if we are working hard to not join them. It is easy if we just chime in, for all of us have a critical spirit by nature.

While walking by someone who is dressed inappropriately, a comment can be made about dressing to attract the wrong kind of attention, then the conversation quickly moves to how the morals of society are going down the drain, and how your mother never would have let you out of the house dressed that way. How easily we use our superior yardstick to judge others. I have often heard it said that we should be careful when pointing a finger at someone because when we do, there are four pointing back at us. Though we may not dress that way, we do many other things that in God’s eyes are just as wrong.

When studying Romans 8:1, it dawned on me I had heard this verse referred to when people were feeling guilt-ridden and needed relief, but I hadn’t really looked at what preceded the ‘therefore.’

Paul has just written his famous words, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” He explains that his body is still a slave to the human desires he was born with (including a critical nature), yet he is now a member of a new kingdom with different rules. Jesus came along and said He knew we couldn’t keep all the rules, and that keeping rules was not the point. The new rule is to love others as yourself and love Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls.

When we do this, we desire to do what is right, and we have the power within us in the form of the Holy Spirit to do it – most of the time.

PRAYER: Thank You, God, for Your new kingdom with the new way of seeing the old rules. Help keep my heart, mind, and soul focused on You so I may give others the grace that has been freely given to me.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2 NIV).

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