June 17, 2014
“…for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and i know what it is to have plenty…” (Philippians 4:11-12)
Throughout the history of the church, patience has always been considered a great virtue by spiritual heavyweights like Augustine, Thomas a Kempis and Francis of Assisi. Why is patience such an important virtue? For starters, patience is one of the nine fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23.)
In our relationship with God, we might call patience “faith-waiting.” In the Bible we are exhorted to “wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14.) It takes more faith to wait than most of the real life situations that challenge our walk with God. There are few spiritual disciplines that will focus our faith like those times when all we can do is wait on the Lord. When we are praying for something and receiving no answer, God may be teaching us that there are times when faith waits.
In our relationships with people, patience could be called, “love-waiting.” I had no idea how selfish I am until I got married. I had no idea how impatient I am until I became a father and found myself waiting for teenage children to grow up. The Lord wants to grow two dimensions of patience in my life: vertical patience by teaching me to have a faith that waits on Him; and horizontal patience by teaching me that in relationships, love waits…
We all eventually find ourselves facing circumstances which are beyond our control. Imagine Paul chained in that awful prison in Rome. Would he find and maintain the peace of God if his formula for peace was to rattle his chains and ‘force it?’ Patience is the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit that gives us the grace to accept the things we cannot control.
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Peace
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 13, 2014
“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on You.” (2 Chronicles 20:12)
No matter how gifted we may be, sooner or later we will hit a wall of crisis where we simply do not know what to do. The Scripture from Chronicles is taken from an historical context when the people of God were overwhelmingly outnumbered and they simply did not know what to do.
James later wrote that when we do not know what to do we should ask God for the wisdom we confess we do not have (James 1:5). He promises us that God will not hold back but dump a truckload of wisdom on us.
Years ago I received a telephone call from my youngest daughter when she was a first year student at the University of Virginia. With many tears she informed me that she had fallen down a flight of stairs and was sure she had broken her back. At the hospital they had discovered mononucleosis and seriously infected tonsils that needed to be removed. She concluded her “organ recital” litany: “Finals begin tomorrow and I just don’t know what to do, Daddy!”
Frankly, I was touched that my very intelligent young daughter believed that if she could just share her litany of woes and tap into the vast resources of my wisdom I could tell her what to do when she did not know what to do.
According to James that is the way we make our heavenly Father feel when we come to Him overwhelmed with problems and tell Him we just don’t know what to do. That’s why a good way to begin some days is:
“Lord, I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on YOU!”
Dick Woodward, 04 April 2013
Editors Note: Blessings to all the fathers out there as we in America celebrate Father’s Day this weekend. As that ‘young daughter’ who continued tapping into her Papa’s wisdom until the day he died, these words comforted my heart. Our Heavenly Father is always here when we don’t know what to do.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 6, 2014
“The Lord is my Shepherd…(Psalm 23)
These are some of the most familiar words in the Bible loved by devout people everywhere. According to this Shepherd Psalm of David, the key to the real blessings of this life and the next is a relationship with God. The green pastures, the still waters, the table of provision, the blessing of God described as anointing oil and the cup that runs over all the time are all conditioned on that relationship. David tells us how that relationship is established in the second verse when he writes, “He makes me to lie down”.
However, the spirit in which these words are often recalled can be something like this: “The Lord is my Shepherd —but, I have a health problem.” Or, the Lord is my Shepherd — but, I have marriage problems!” Or, “The Lord is my Shepherd — but, I cannot control my children.”
When we say “The Lord is my Shepherd — but” we are putting our “but” in the wrong place. We need to get our “but” in the right place and recall the precious promise of these words this way: “I have a health problem, BUT the Lord is my Shepherd! I have marriage problems, BUT the Lord is my Shepherd! I cannot control my children, BUT the Lord is my Shepherd!”
The Lord often makes us lie down by using problems with our health, marriage, children, finances, careers and all sorts of other challenges to teach us about the relationship which is the key to the blessings profiled in this beautiful Psalm.
Will you let the Great Shepherd use the problems and challenges you are currently facing to strengthen the relationship David described so beautifully three thousand years ago? Can you put your ‘but’ in the right place?
Dick Woodward, 14 August 2008
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 28, 2014
“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)
The Apostle Peter is the only man besides Jesus Christ who ever walked on water. Yet millions only remember that he took his eyes off the Lord and would have drowned if the Lord had not saved him.
We read that Peter’s magnificent faith was flawed. He saw the wind. Since we cannot see wind this actually means when he saw what the wind was doing, he lost sight of what Jesus was doing and he became afraid. The remarkable thing here is that when he kept his eyes on Jesus, he walked on water!
It was not until he was beginning to sink that Peter cried out this prayer. Two thousand years later, this remains a go-to prayer for us all through the many storms of life. Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long and we should never think we will generate grace with God by our many words. If Peter had prayed a longer prayer, the words beyond the third would have been glub, glub glub! When Jesus caught Peter by the hand He gave him the nickname, “Little Faith.” (I believe our Lord was smiling when He did.) He literally asked Peter: “Why did you think twice?”
While very ill the past two weeks many people have been recruited to pray for me. Yesterday it occurred to me that I had not prayed for myself. I then fervently pleaded this prayer that the Lord always answers: Lord, save me!
In your spiritual walk, don’t think twice and don’t be a “Little Faith.” Instead, learn to plead this prayer…and soon you will find your way through the stormy waves of life walking on water.
(Editor’s Note: As he recovers from a severe bronchial infection, Dick Woodward had a wee bit of extra assistance from his Blog Posting Elf getting his words online. Prayers appreciated!)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
December 27, 2013
“Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good.” (Romans 8:28, J.B. Phillips)
“God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill
He fashions up His bright designs and works His sovereign will.
You fearful saints fresh courage take; the clouds you so much dread
Are rich with mercy and will break in blessings on your heads.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain;
God is His own Interpreter, and He will make it plain.”
If you ask me for my favorite hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” by William Cowper is my answer. If you ask me for my favorite verse of Scripture I will point you to Romans 8:28 which summarizes my faith journey with Christ. As we approach the end of 2013 and cross the threshold into 2014 the combination of this verse of Scripture and the lines of this hymn express the thoughts of my head as I lay in my bed.
At this time of the year I like to look back with reflection, look in with a time of confession, and look ahead with resolution. Applying the three perspectives these words can reveal what God has done, what God is doing, and what God wants to do in our lives and in our world through us.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
December 24, 2013
“There are three things that will last — faith, hope, and love…” (1Corinthians 13:13)
When Paul tells us there are three things that will endure, have you ever wondered why one of them is hope? The other two are love and faith: love will last because God is love, and faith is the way we know God. But why is hope one of the three?
Hope is the conviction that something good exists in this world and we are going to experience it. God plants hope in the hearts of people and it keeps them going. While studying psychology in college we analyzed the 25,000 suicides in 1952. Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and sociologists determined that those people committed suicide because they lost hope. That same year a man committed suicide by jumping off the top of my dormitory which was located where Hope Street ended in front of the Los Angeles Public Library. The newspaper reported that he jumped to his death at the end of Hope Street. That accentuated what we learned in the classroom, big time!
Tonight is Christmas Eve. Millions of people will gather in families and extended families to celebrate, but many millions more will be alone. Pastors and those who work with people know that life is unspeakably sad and millions are hope-challenged because they have experienced nothing good.
In his famous carol Philips Brooks wrote that the hopes and fears of all the years were met in Bethlehem when Christ was born. God intersected human history that night but what the Bible calls the blessed hope of the church and the only hope for the world is that God is going to do that again when Christ returns.
Are you guilty of criminal negligence because you are not sharing that hope with hope-challenged people?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
December 14, 2013
“Whoever touches the body of anyone who has died… that person shall be cut off from Israel.” (Numbers 19:13)
In 1970 a medical doctor named S. I. McMillen wrote a book entitled None of These Diseases. In his book Dr. McMillen highlighted practices Moses mandated like quarantines and sterilization of medical instruments. As quoted above, if a person had contact with a dead body (and in other verses someone who was sick), they were considered unclean for seven days and quarantined from the rest of the population.
Dr. McMillen referenced the discovery of a low percentage of ovarian cancer at Mount Sinai hospital in New York City, which research traced to the fact that Jewish husbands were circumcised as mandated by Moses. This led to the common practice of circumcising male babies. At the end of each chapter this doctor raises the question: did Moses scoop medical science by thousands of years, or did he have a revelation from God as he claimed?
This should convince us that the Bible is in fact the Word of God. And it should inspire us to follow the wise counsels of the Bible ourselves and then share them with others. As a young pastor I was mentored by Dr. Henry Brandt, a Christian clinical psychologist. He encouraged me to use the wise counsels in the Bible as I helped those in my congregation who had many problems.
As I did I found the Bible to be filled with counseling for the problems people had with worry, stress, personal peace, prayer, guidance, love, marriage, the dynamic to cope and other issues. The best marriage counseling in the world is in the Bible.
Do you believe you can trust the counseling you find in the Bible?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 27, 2013
“There we saw the giants … and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight…” (Numbers 13: 33)
The book of Numbers records the death of an entire generation. Twelve spies were sent to do reconnaissance in the land of Canaan. Ten of the spies gave the report quoted above. Only two told how great the land was and exhorted the people to invade Canaan. While Joshua and Caleb were men of great faith, the other ten were experts in “Giantology.”
The entire generation who listened to the ten perished in the wilderness and only two people survived the most tragic judgment of God recorded in the Bible. An old spiritual put it this way: “Others saw the giants. Caleb (and Joshua) saw the Lord!” We read that they wholly followed the Lord because they believed Him well able to conquer those giants.
I have spent most of my adult life as a pastor. I cannot help but allow the thought that the twelve spies resemble a board of Elders, a Session, a Vestry, or a board of Stewards. Sometimes when a church is facing a huge challenge two will have the faith of Caleb and Joshua and ten will be giantologists.
We all have “giants” in our lives. As a bedfast quadriplegic with a wife in a wheelchair I certainly have mine. I’m sure you have yours. We also have choices. We can choose to see the giants and spend much time talking about how big they are. Or we can choose to see the Lord conquering our giants. We might call this “Two people in a pew — which one are you?”
Are you a Caleb with a conquering-the-giants faith, or are you getting your Ph.D. in Giantology?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 15, 2013
“… Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress…” (Psalm 4:1 KJV)
Just about every emotional challenge we experience today was faced by the psalmist many years ago. If we will observe what he did when he struggled, and receive from God the grace to respond as the hymn writer responded, we can often overcome our emotional challenges.
In Psalm 4 the psalmist faces the emotional challenge of distress. If you drop the first two letters, the word becomes stress. We all have stress. If we do not have stress we atrophy. I have not put stress on my legs for 30 years. Consequently, my legs are the size of your arms. “If you don’t use it you lose it” is the way the physical therapists describe atrophy.
Our loving Father God knows that what is true for our bodies is also true in our spiritual life. God is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually. If we have no spiritual stress we will experience spiritual atrophy. He therefore will not only permit, but direct into our lives any stress that will grow us as He gives us the grace to cope with that stress.
God tells us through the prophet Isaiah: “I create calamity” (Isaiah 45:7). Many of us can trust God for the good things that comfort and sustain us. But do we have the faith and the knowledge of God to see Him in the challenges that make the difference for us between spiritual growth and atrophy?
The Greek compound word hupomone, translated as “perseverance” in our English Bibles, literally means “to abide under.” To apply hupomone, we should ask God for the grace to abide under stress, grow spiritually, and not atrophy.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 18, 2013
“We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.” (2Chronicles 20:12 NLT)
Have you ever faced problems that confronted you with the intolerable, the undeniable, the unthinkable and the impossible? Throughout Hebrew and church history the people of God have often been confronted with these overwhelming realities. Scripture supports the thought that God sometimes not only permits but creates these circumstances (Isaiah 45: 7). According to Isaiah He does this because He wants us to learn that He is our only hope and our only help as we live for Him in this world.
The Word of God teaches that God is our Mentor and He does His most effective mentoring when we are coping with calamities and trials of every possible description. The confession quoted above is proclaiming that the people of God have two problems. They do not know what to do and they do not have the power to do it when they know it.
Scripture tells us God will give us all the wisdom we need when we confess that we do not know what to do (James 1:5). And Scripture teaches that God will give us the power to do what He wants us to do because He is God and He always completes what He begins in us (Philippians 1:6; 2:13).
There are times when it is wrong for us to put God to the test. Then there are times when God invites us to prove Him. God wants to give us the gift of faith. He also wants to give us immeasurable degrees of the grace to overcome the greatest possible obstacles. That’s why He permits and designs calamities or trials that force us to access His all sufficient grace.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
