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- Written by: Don Goulding
When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and discovered that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)
I get recharged by spending time among green, brown, fur, and feather. I’ll choose an hour in the woods over electronic entertainment every time. The energy and serenity of the outdoors changes who I am.
The same is true about time with Jesus. The most beautiful personalities I’ve met, like Dawn Christmas, were made that way by spending time in the presence of Jesus. Self-help schemes, and even formal learning, are paint over rust and rot. They don’t reach the core person.
Dawn Christmas was an elderly believer with a dead husband and a deranged son. She had every reason for bitterness, yet, true to her name, she was one of the most festive, Christlike people I ever met.
When Dawn wasn't reading her Bible, she was shuffling down the street toward another gathering of the saints at nearby churches. She had no interests except more time with Jesus and his people.
Dawn taught me that the only agent for real improvement is when I sit close enough to the Master to absorb his ways. With my head on his shoulder, I hear him whisper corrections and congratulations. The more of his direction I can get inside me, the more I effervesce with his beauty.
When a flower is visited by a bee it leaves pollen that changes the bloom into fruit. I need my encounters with Jesus to leave me changed, fruit bearing. Time with him is not about more knowledge or emotional sparkles, it’s about fertilizing my character for new growth.
Prayer: Holy King, may I change until others know I’ve been with you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
“Indeed, my plans are not like your plans,
and my deeds are not like your deeds,
for just as the sky is higher than the earth,
so my deeds are superior to your deeds
and my plans superior to your plans.” (Isaiah 55:8, 9)
“Go ahead, son, let go. You can trust me,” Dad said.
My feet dangled from a bright-green walnut tree, just beyond his reach. I shook my head and clutched the branches. A skinny six-year-old would’ve been an easy catch, but I wouldn’t make the leap. Something in my juvenile reasoning concluded that if I couldn’t catch a falling person, nobody else could either, not even my strong father.
Now it’s my heavenly Father I’m disappointing with my lack of trust. As when I was six years old, my mistrust grows out of a failure to acknowledge the differences between me and my Father.
There are two responses to the dissimilarities between God and me. The one I commonly adopt is to humanize God. I do the same thing to my pets. “Hey old girl, you look like you want to go for a walk.” I project my thoughts onto my dog. Just so, I make God into an aloof being with limited insight like me.
The other response is to be awed into trusting humility. Moses, Isaiah, Peter, and John all had common reactions when they encountered God up close—they hid their faces and stumbled over what to say. That’s where I need to exist, not contriving how God is, not limiting him by my understanding, but blown facedown by a majesty to which I cannot find the edges.
The gargantuan immenseness of God’s knowledge and love should leave me cured of trying to climb the tree of life by my strength, and willing to fall limp into his arms.
Prayer: Holy One, I trust your wisdom for my life.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven… (Matthew 5:44, 45)
Alley was the most lovable, huggable, happy tail wagger of a golden retriever I ever met. In her fourteen years, she never so much as growled at the children who sat on her, or tugged her velvety ears.
If I had bound Alley with a chain when she was a puppy, and every passerby kicked her or threw stones, it would have changed her temperament. She would have snapped at humans, or become a shaking heap of fear.
Many of us are like abused dogs. We are mistreated for most of our lives. Before children have their permanent teeth, they have callouses on their hearts from rejection and unfaithfulness. Then the victim grows into a perpetrator.
Only mercy and love have any hope of making a rescue. Mercy heals wounds and love restores hearts to newborn innocence. Sometimes violence can only be stopped with force. But punitive action merely interrupts the outburst, it doesn’t resolve the root problem. The only way to cure a traumatized heart is with undeserved grace and unwavering love.
The next time someone barks at me, I hope I remember they are an abused puppy. They were born joyful, but others beat them until they only knew how to snarl. I want to show mercy and extend love. To do less, to reply to hostility with aggression, is to concede the battle. I’m called to live heroically, stop the cycle, and respond with the same mercy and love that Jesus showed me.
That’s what Alley would do.
Prayer: Father, send an abused puppy that needs mercy and love today.