#FAITH: Reality Contact

November 1, 2019

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16)

A long time ago I lunched every week with a friend on Mondays. I’d always ask him, “How are you, Skip?”

“Great, wonderful, marvelous and tremendous!” he’d answer. Always!

On many Mondays I’d not had a good weekend and life was not great, wonderful, marvelous and tremendous for me. But this guy was always emphatically optimistic. After this pattern continued for some time, one Monday I asked him, “Tell me something. If everything wasn’t great, wonderful, marvelous and tremendous, how would you answer my question?”

“Oh, I’d probably lie to you,” he responded.

I then decided to rephrase my question. I asked, “How are you, really, Skip?” He worked with a group of people who emphasized memorizing a Scripture verse of the week. “Frankly, if you really want to know,” he said, “My verse of the week is, ‘Hang it on your beak, freak!’”

We then had some honest conversation, what I call “Reality Contact.”

What James had in mind is that if we are honest with each other we will be burdened to pray for each other. As a result of mutual prayers for one another we will be healed. If when we meet together we are not honest, we will not pray for each other and the mutual healing will not happen.

One translation reads that our honest prayers will explode with power!

We should have this kind of relationship with a believer we trust, but we are missing something important if we do not have “Reality Contact” with someone.

Do you have that kind of relationship with anyone?

Dick Woodward, 01 November 2011

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#FAITH: God’s Unconditional Love

October 29, 2019

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)

After writing his prophecy that moved scholars to label him “The Weeping Prophet,” Jeremiah adds a short postscript to fifty-two chapters of weeping. That postscript is called “Lamentations,” which means “Weepings.”

You need to know why Jeremiah is weeping to appreciate his writings. He is weeping about the Babylonian massacre and captivity of God’s chosen people. For years he warned the people of God that unless they repented this awful tragedy would happen. As he writes Lamentations he has been permitted to remain in the land of Judah.

Sitting in his grotto he laments all the tragic things that have now happened.

In the midst of his deepest expressions of sorrow and sadness he suddenly breaks forth with the verses quoted above. These verses tell us clearly that what God revealed to Jeremiah in his darkest hour was that God never stopped loving His chosen people.

A providential wonder of prophecy is that Jeremiah’s grotto where he wrote these Lamentations was on top of a hill called “Golgatha.” This means that God gave Jeremiah this wonderful prophecy of God’s unconditional love for God’s chosen people throughout the tragedy Jeremiah was lamenting on the very spot where centuries later God would pour out God’s unconditional love for the whole world.

Dick Woodward, 28 October 2009

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#FAITH : God’s Strength in Our Weakness

October 25, 2019

“The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years… Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:10-12)

When I was 25 years old I attended a conference for pastors. Our speaker was a famous pastor who had snowy white hair. I felt sorry for him because he was so very old. As he started to speak his first words to us were: “I’m old. I’m gloriously old, but I wouldn’t be as young and ignorant as you are for anything in the world!”

I was feeling sorry for him because he was so old, while he was feeling sorry for me because I was so young.

In many cultures age is considered a plus because wisdom comes with age. Psalm 90 makes the statement we reach 80 years of age “by reason of strength.” I have had a debilitating disease since 1978. By God’s grace, I have found the strength which comes from the Lord and is exhibited in the showcase of my physical weakness.

I was born eighty years ago today (25 Oct), so these verses resonate with me in a personal way. Two of the ways Moses exhorts us to apply this psalm is to number and value our days to gain a heart of wisdom about how we should spend them.

He then concludes his psalm asking God to show us the work God wants us to do, so that God’s glory might appear to our children. His last words invite God to anoint the work God reveals to us.

Dick Woodward, 25 October 2010

Editor’s Note: October 25th is Dick Woodward’s birthday. The fact that he was 83 when he died as a bedfast quadriplegic in 2014 is miraculous. But everyone who knew Dick Woodward can probably still hear his voice saying, “I can’t, but God can… I didn’t but God did.” (In other words, even when Papa couldn’t do anything but nod his head, God did miraculous things in and through him.) After 28 years as a quadriplegic, today his spiritual legs are running along Heavenly pavements, basking in the everlasting love of Jesus.

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#FAITH : An Attitude of Gratitude

October 22, 2019

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

In the last chapter of the letter to the Church at Philippi Paul gives them, and us, a prescription for peace. The peace of God is a state of personal peace in which God can keep us if we meet certain conditions. (Isaiah 26:3)

As I seek to maintain the peace of God I get the most mileage out of the prescription listed above. I have discovered that when I begin to thank God for all the good things in my life it is as if a switch is thrown and I find my mind automatically moving from the negative to the positive.

To use a metaphor, if I were to place all the bad stuff in my life on the left side of a scale – like a scale of justice – and all the good stuff on the right side of that scale, the right side will far outweigh the left side.

That’s what happens when I implement what I call, “The Therapy of Thanksgiving.”

An old hymn writer put it this way:

“When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed.

When you are discouraged thinking all is lost.

Count your many blessings, name them one by one

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”

(Johnson Oatman, Jr.; 1856-1926)

That’s why Paul’s prescription is that when we pray, in everything (not for everything), we should pray thankful prayers. He promises that when we do so the peace of God will stand guard over our hearts and minds.

Dick Woodward, 22 October 2010

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Walking By #FAITH

October 18, 2019

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8, 9)

“A person’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way?” (Proverbs 20:24)

When God spoke through the prophet Isaiah God told us there is as much difference between the way God thinks and does things and the way we think and do things as the heavens are high above the earth. Building on that revelation the wisest man who ever lived proposed a logical question: if God is directing the steps of a person how can that person always expect to understand the way they are going?

As a God-passionate person, doing your best to follow the guidance of the Lord, have you ever found yourself completely baffled and blown away by inexplicable happenings like the sudden death of a loved one or other tragedies? When we put the two Scriptures quoted above side by side we should expect there to be times when we simply do not understand what God is up to.

Moses explained that what he called the “secret things” belong to the Lord but the things God wants us to do God has made very clear. (Deuteronomy 29:29) That means there are secret things God is keeping secret, so nobody can explain them.

These verses considered together are telling us that while we walk with God we should not expect to understand everything. If we understood everything we would eliminate the need for faith.

We walk by faith.

Dick Woodward, 19 October 2010

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#FAITH : Praying to Glorify God

October 11, 2019

“…For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”  (Matthew 6:13)

(In the Our Father prayer) Jesus teaches us to begin our prayer with a God first mindset and conclude our prayer with that same focus. We begin our prayer looking through the grid: “Your name be reverenced, Your Kingdom come,” and “Your will be done on earth, just as it is willed and done in heaven.”

We are to conclude our prayer the same way.

Jesus wants us to conclude our prayer by making this commitment to our Heavenly Father: “Yours is the Kingdom.” By this confession, He means for us to pledge to God that the results of our Heavenly Father’s continuously answering our prayers will always belong to Him.

As we face challenges of life every day, we should be poor in spirit enough to confess that we need the power of God: “Yours is the power.” When I enter into a challenging day, I have confessed this hundreds of times in my journey of faith and ministry by saying, “I can’t, but He can.”

Finally, we are to conclude our prayers by confessing: “Yours is the glory.” When we apply this third providential benediction, we are simply confessing, “Because I didn’t but God did, all the glory goes to Him.”

Jesus prescribes that we conclude our prayers every time we pray by making this solemn commitment to God: The glory for everything that happens in my life because You have answered my prayer(s), will always go to You.”

The essence of this benediction is: “Because the power always comes from You, the result will always belong to You, and the glory will always go to You.”

“Amen” simply means, “So be it.”

Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Prayer

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#FAITH : Gods Agenda vs. Our Agenda

October 1, 2019

“…All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16)

I find it intriguing to know that in little genes that cannot be seen with the naked eye the genetic heritage of a human being is determined: how high our heads will be from the sidewalk, the color of our eyes, our hair, the capacity of our intellectual gifts, our athleticism and even mannerisms are all wrapped up in microscopic genes.

In this inspired Psalm, David – a great warrior, king, man after the heart of God and hymn writer – tells us that before we existed as genes God determined the days we would live on this earth. The Living Bible Paraphrase reads that before we existed God had an agenda for every day we are to live on this earth.

One day my wife and I woke up and prayed together that if our agenda for that day did not agree with God’s agenda we were willing to be preempted. Later that day while having lunch with our pastor son, I realized I was having a heart attack. As the 911 people rolled me out the door I said to my wife, “Looks like we’re being preempted big time!”

At the hospital they were able to turn things around before it became a full blown heart attack. However, that experience gave my wife and me a perspective we will never forget. There is God’s agenda and there is our agenda for every day we live.

How should that truth impact the way we plan our agendas each day?

Are we willing to be preempted by God’s agenda every day?

Dick Woodward, 01 October 2010

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#FAITH : Mastering Our Spoken Word(s)

September 27, 2019

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19)

I once heard a quote that has haunted me for many years. Since misery loves company, I will afflict you with this statement:

“You are the master of the unspoken word. The spoken word is master of you.”

There are many such exhortations in the Proverbs, like this one: “Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.” (Proverbs 17:28) And this one: “Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.” (Proverbs 10:19)

The first stanza of the hymn “May the Mind of Christ My Savior” is my prayer every day. The prayer petition is this: “May the mind of Christ my savior live in me from day to day, by His love and power controlling, all I do and say.” (Lyrics, Katie Barclay Wilkinson)

One of my favorite mentors offended 1,500 people in 20 minutes when he spoke in the chapel service of his college. He decided that if he could make that many people mad in twenty minutes, maybe he could also do a lot of good with his mouth.

The hymn “Take My Life and Let it Be” (by Frances Ridley Havergal) prays, “Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee.”

Obviously another great prayer to ask God every day when we are tempted to run our mouth before our brain is in gear. We certainly don’t want to have constipation of the mind and diarrhea of the mouth!

Dick Woodward, (email, 06 February 2003)

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#FAITH: Knowing God, Being Love

September 20, 2019

“… for anyone who comes to God must believe that He is…” (Hebrews 11:6)

Do you know God? I do not mean do you know a lot about God, but do you know God? Do you want to know God? In the verse quoted above we find a prescription that can help us know God.

The prescription is that we must believe that God is, and we must believe that God rewards those who diligently seek Him.  My passion to know God led me to confess:  “I believe that God is.”

But what is God and where is God?

A helpful answer came through a verse in the first letter of the Apostle John: “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” (1 John 4:16)

After studying the quality of love God is, the prescription above led me to ask another question: “If God is this quality of love, where is God likely to be doing His love thing?”

At that time I was a social worker. Responding to a call in the middle of the night, I prayed something like this: “God, I have an idea that You are love where people are hurting. That’s where I’m going, so when I get there please pass this love You are through me and address their pain.”

As the love of God passed through me to them I touched God and God touched me. That night I found out where God is and where I wanted to be for the rest of my life.

If you want to know God, place yourself as a conduit between God’s love and the pain of hurting people.

Dick Woodward, 22 September 2011

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#FAITH: God At Work (in our lives!)

September 17, 2019

“In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the children of God coming into their own.” (Romans 8:18-19)

As you know the view from the finish line has me fixating on the Providence of God, which like a Hebrew word can easily be read backwards. It is easy for me to see what I considered random chaos was really the loving hand of God leading me by making me offers I could not refuse.

When events roll out over which you have no control, you will see how the hand of God is showing you what to do.

A friend put this new needlepoint on his wall: “Never do what somebody else can do when you could be doing what only you can do.” All our lives God has been shaping us in miraculous ways to make a unique contribution to God’s work.

Praying about next steps, reflect on this thought: “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God before ordained that we should do for Him.” (Ephesians 2:10)

This means we are all works in progress.

Over our lives you can write: “Caution, God at work!” God wants to point to you and say, “She is my workmanship!” There is verse in Romans 8 which tells us that all nature is on tiptoe in awe of the children of God coming into their full potential.

The issue now is what is God doing in your present circumstances to point you to what God wants to do next in your life?

Dick Woodward, (email 20 July 2005)

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