- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. (Colossians 3:15) (NIV)
Through the seasons, I sat on the veranda in Africa and admired the lake’s stability. Summer grassfires ravaged the land, only to run into the shoreline and lie down simpering. In winter, gusty blasts moaned and dug, and, for all their efforts, merely scratched at the surface. The lake was immovable.
The lake was an elegant diamond necklace on the throat of bare land. As I stared into its twilight reflection, it whispered to my soul.
“I’m not troubled by events around me. I don’t wander, or follow trends. My only occupation, indeed my truest joy, is to mirror the light from above.”
Then the lake went silent. From its surface shown a periwinkle sky of peace.
Peace is not the absence of trouble. It’s the sure knowledge that I’m reflecting the light of Jesus in every circumstance. Even in the midst of turmoil, I’m meant to enjoy voluminous peace. Peace is my born-again birthright. To peace I’m called, and by peace I’m ruled.
Peace is a simple governor. While I’m obedient to Christ, peace comes. When I’m disobedient, it leaves. This rule, and therefore peace itself, transcends every circumstance, pleasant or painful. Obedience, and not my situation, makes for true peace.
One cannot live near a lake without learning something of the ways of peace. What I learned was that a deep and liquid stillness flows over those who’s sole ambition is to reflect the light of Jesus.
Prayer: Jehovah Shalom (The Lord Our Peace), rule in my heart.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
For indeed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen. (Acts 4:27, 28)
“Ready or not, here I come,” I said.
Five-year-old Emily hid behind a door watching me through the hinge gap. I pretended to look elsewhere.
“Hmm, I wonder where she is. Let’s see, nope, not in the bathtub.”
Emily giggled. I knew her hideouts and how long her attention lasted. At the right time, I jumped behind her door, and we burst into a fit of laughing and tickling.
I sometimes feel the powers of evil play hide-and-seek from God’s justice. I was dismayed when I saw gypsies hatefully forced out of a store in Eastern Europe, and distraught when refugees in Africa lost a baby to starvation. And if my own rights are trampled, I suffer truly massive indignation.
The reality I miss is God’s sovereignty in every situation. It is not like the Devil catches him unaware every now and then. It was God’s sovereignty at work when Jesus was decimated on the cross. God saw through the ploys of those who thought they were winning against his Christ.
God is infinitely more sovereign over life than I was over hide-and-seek with Emily. She thought she was invisible, even though I saw her peek out and heard her titter. I chose to draw the game out for a more explosive reunion.
Father God does the same for me. Evil can’t hide from him, not my evil or the world’s. He’s waiting for the perfect time in history, then in an explosive moment, he’ll jump out from behind life and swoop me into his arms. He’ll finally remove all sin from my heart and the world, and welcome me home. Then maybe we’ll tickle each other.
Prayer: Holy Father, help me rest in your sovereignty.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
And this is the confidence that we have before him: that whenever we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask, then we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. (1 John 5:14, 15)
I performed a gospel sleight of hand trick before wide-eyed children at an evangelistic day club in Slovakia. An eight-year-old volunteer assisted me to slice a one meter length of rope in half.
“Satan uses sin to cut our innocence in two,” I said. “But Jesus can make us whole again.” We tied the ends back together.
I wound the repaired rope around my hand and reached in a pocket for some invisible Holy Spirit dust.
“When we wrap our life around him, he makes our sin disappear.” I sprinkled on the dust, unwrapped the cord with a flourish, and, voila, it was in one piece without a knot in sight.
Oohs and aahs rippled through the young audience.
I wanted the Slovakians to know I wasn't using magic, so I revealed the secret trick. The loop that was sliced and retied was actually at one end of the cord. I hid that fake end in my pocket as I pretended to retrieve dust. The kids were no longer amazed.
The Bible promises that if we ask and have faith, miracles will be done for us. I read these statements and shake my head. The supernatural seems impossible. But maybe it’s time to reveal the mystery shrouding answered prayer.
I’ve known prayer warriors who regularly ask for, and receive, God’s intervention. They’ve learned the secret that faith to access God’s power must accompany an understanding of his heart. They don’t believe in miracles so much as they believe in the the Father.
That’s what I want from my prayers—to be so entwined with the heart of Father, that I see what he is doing, and I’m used of him to call it into the natural.
Prayer: Father, help me ask for what you want.