The Secret Things

July 26, 2012

“The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that He has revealed to us that we may obey…” (Deuteronomy 29:29 NLT)

According to Moses, there are secrets God has determined to keep secret.  (Perhaps these secrets are on a need to know basis.)  However, the things God wants us to do, He has made very plain through His Word, especially the Living Word, His beloved Son.  But, if God has willed to remain silent about His secrets, it would be pompous arrogance for us to say we can answer all the “why” questions regarding our suffering.

Where did we ever get the idea that we should expect to understand everything that happens to us?  Where did we ever get the absurd notion that God owes us an explanation for everything He has done and is doing in our world and in our lives?  If God gave us an explanation for everything and the answers to all of our “why” questions, the very essence of faith and the need for faith would be eliminated.

Almighty God has willed that without faith we cannot please Him, or come to Him (Hebrews 11:6).  God is pleased when we echo these words of Job: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15 NKJV).  In my own words, God is pleased when we come to Him in our crucibles of suffering and cry, “If you heal me, that’s all right.  But, if you don’t heal me, that’s all right, too, because You are all right!”

Can you say you are all right because He is all right? Can you leave the secret things with Him?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

A Formula for Faithfulness

June 20, 2012

“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”  (1 Corinthians 4:2)

Paul declared that the greatest virtue of a servant of the Lord is faithfulness.

The story is told of a man who was told by God to push against a huge rock as his primary work for a lifetime.  The man did that and exhausted, burned out and discouraged told the Lord that rock had not moved a centimeter.  The Lord responded that He had not told the man to move the rock, but to push against it.  He made the observation that pushing against the rock had given him a strong healthy and muscular body.  God knew all along that only He could move that rock.

This leads to an acrostic based on the word push.  It goes like this:

P- Pray

U– Until

S– Something

H– Happens

I am now living in by 82nd year of life.  One of the observations I have made in my long life is that God is our Mentor.  He is always teaching us and He is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually and in every other way.  He deliberately assigns us tasks that are not only difficult but impossible knowing that those tasks will grow and mature us into a faithful servant He can use to do through us what only He can do in this world.

Another observation without which I could not function as a human being or especially as a pastor is what I call four spiritual secrets.  They are that I’m not, I can’t, I don’t even want to but He is He can He wants to and He does.

So push and pray until He does work through you.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

Still Waters

April 20, 2012

“He leads me beside the still waters.”  (Psalm 23:2)

Most people associate the still waters of David’s Shepherd Psalm with peace.  However, if you do some research you will find that when a sheep drinks from a stream of water that stream must be as flat and still as a mirror or the water will go up the snout of the sheep.  The authentic application of this metaphor is therefore that the still waters mean our great Shepherd leads us to the places just suited for us.

In 1979 I resigned from a large church and accepted a call to a small church that had just begun.  After being in the small church for a year I went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota because of weird symptoms I was experiencing.  After nearly a month of studies, the doctor who directed my program misread my file.  Thinking I was still in the large church, when he gave me the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis he told me I needed to go to a small church in a small town.    I told him that I had already been in a small church for a year.  I was to learn to be fulfilled with doing less and doing it better.

As my symptoms persisted and I was confined to a wheelchair a group of men helped me build a house that accommodated my physical challenges.  One of them made a stained glass window with two words on it.  Near the entrance for 26 years those two words have been “Still Waters.” Those two words are not just a label for my home but also my ministry – in this location I have accomplished the most fruitful work of my life.

Can you write those two words across what God is doing in your life right now?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

A Do Right Prescription

March 2, 2012

“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?’”  (Psalm 4:5)

David cannot sleep.  He is uptight and anxious.  From the context of the psalm we know he cannot sleep because he is under great stress.  He decides to meditate within his own heart and be still.  (He has a little “board meeting” with himself in the middle of the night).  If he does the right thing, he believes he cannot survive.  He is therefore thinking about doing the expedient thing.  But since he is a man of great spiritual integrity he finds himself awake and uptight.

As a result of his meditation he resolves his dilemma.  He makes the decision that he is going to make whatever sacrifices he has to make to do what is right and then trust the Lord for his survival.  He knows there are many people who are looking for someone who will do what is right even though it costs them everything to do right.

Have you ever found yourself awake, uptight and stressed out in the middle of the night because you are in a crisis?  If you do what you believe God wants you to do you don’t see how you can survive.  But your spiritual integrity won’t let you sleep if you don’t do what you believe God wants you to do.  David models here a prescription for resolving that kind of dilemma.

His prescription is simply to do right.  Whatever it costs you, do right and trust God for the consequences.  Many people will be blessed, God will be glorified, you will have great peace, and get some sleep.

 

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Posted by Dick Woodward

Who Are You?

January 9, 2012

“…  The Jewish leaders sent priests and Temple assistants from Jerusalem to ask John, “Who are you?”  He came right out and said, “I am not the Messiah.” “Well then, who are you?” they asked. “We need an answer for those who sent us. What do you have to say about yourself?”   (John 1: 19-22 NLT)

According to the Bible there is somebody God wants us to be, there is some place we are to be, and there is something we are to be.  We will therefore never be fulfilled or happy until we have the right answers to questions like “Who are you?  What are you?”  and “Where are you?”

God confronts us with these questions because He loves us and wants us to be fulfilled and happy.  The priests and religious leaders asked John: “What do you have to say about yourself?” Perhaps a better way to ask the question would be to ask you what God has to say about yourself.  Then that question should be followed by the question: “Do you and God agree on what you say about yourself?”

It would be foolish to want and try to be more than God wants us to be.  But, life is too precious to be less than who and what and where God wants and has equipped us to be. Jesus said John the Baptist was the greatest man ever born of woman.  I’m convinced that was because John the Baptist had the right answers to these questions.

You can also have the right answers to these great questions.  I challenge you to pursue God until He finds you and shows you who and what and where He wants you to be.  This the best way to have a truly happy New Year.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

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