So as the sun sets on each day, how is it with your soul? Have you been fixated on yourself, or on the Lord? Most certainly we must be about our earthly business in various ways, but it’s extremely important that we follow in the footprints of Jesus. He says in Luke 2:49, “I must be about My Father’s business.” We can do no less. We’re not called to self-indulgence, as so much of the world is preoccupied with, but to be diligent to His mighty Word in prayer and action.  Therein is the comfort and the power for each day’s ‘stuff,’ no matter what that may entail.  Cling to His Word in the Holy Scriptures. Devour it daily in increments of 5 minutes or 5 hours, whatever your schedule allows. But if we eat earthly food every day, how much more do we need to eat of His holy Words? Without His Living Breath, His Word, dwelling within us, we can become a wreck all too soon in so many ways. Most of us ‘have been there, done that,’ knowing all too well that we just can’t make it on our own in these trials of life. We need He who is larger than life. We need He who is our all-in-all as Colossians 3:11d tells us.

Having been in the battle of my life fighting pancreatic cancer for over two years, I have to say, I’ve been learning these things in a deeper and more profound way than ever before. It’s been a precarious journey with ups and downs. Sound familiar? Has your life been a seesaw of sorts?  How does one stay stable? I don’t have all the answers, but one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the Lord is my daily, hourly and oftentimes, my minute by minute keeper!  And He’ll be that for you too!

Too Heavy

There are just some battles in life that are too heavy to bear alone. Did you know we weren’t created to carry any one of them? But the enemy of our souls would try to make us think otherwise. Believe me I’ve had my moments of questions, doubts, anxieties, fears and tears.  It’s just human emotion, to be sure. But in God’s Divine Breath, His Living Word in scripture which is ‘God breathed,’ according to 2 Timothy 3:16, we can find life - abundant life. We are constantly encouraged by His written Word as we navigate all the ‘stuff’ life puts us through. 2 Corinthians 6:6-7 speaks of this journey of life saying, “Therefore…” Let’s just stop right there.   I’m so glad the Word of God has a ‘therefore,’ because it means something good is coming!  Continuing with that verse… “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord — for we walk by faith, not by sight.”   That verse causes an ‘ah-hah’ moment in our lives! Looking at our circumstances will surely get us into trouble. But walking by faith IN GOD, trusting what HE SAYS instead of worldly opinions, impressions, or doubters, etc., we can be wonderfully assured of Samson-like strength that goes beyond any human norm. There are divine ‘hallelujah’ moments in the Lord that swing way past anything of this world. I find it amazingly so time and time again. How wonderful can it be that you and I can walk in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit?! It goes beyond anything of this world! 

Relationship

I’ve learned to quickly give up ‘my stuff,’ and run to the Cross of Christ, leaving my burdens there. The journey I have been on has made me look deeper into the Cross of Christ, which I have loved and cherished for many years. I’ve had to run to it, cling to it, surrender to it again and again as human trials try to overwhelm me and take me out. I pray its power over my life daily.  It’s either look at your own self, which can cause even greater weakness, or look to Him who was sinless, and yet bore all our sins and diseases for us in the most brutal way unimaginable! We aren’t big enough, smart enough or strong enough to carry anything of this world that tries to weigh us down. His holy, divine, powerful breath declares these amazing words in 1 Peter 2:24: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” Take that and run with it!  Go higher, deeper, and wider into your relationship with your Lord and Savior, Jesus. Spend time with Him. Oh how He loves being with you! The benefits are life-giving in so many ways.  You’ll see blue skies instead of clouds and storms. You’ll see light and life, and you’ll be amazed at how you can walk through those hard things. You’ll be like Peter who walked on the stormy seas because Jesus said he could! (Matt. 14:29) It’s not our strength at all. It’s Him in us as we surrender to His glorious Presence, power, majesty and splendor. 

Revelation 12:11 is what the Lord gave me the morning of my big cancer surgery, and I cling to it like glue. It says — “And they overcame him [the devil] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” Our testimony is all about the Savior’s blood.  It’s what makes us winners and not whiners. Believe me, I’m prone to whining when I don’t feel well. Nevertheless, it’s God’s Word that gives you and I strength throughout the day, and from day to day. Psalm 118:4 says that the Lord is my strength and my song. You can count on it!

The Burden Bearer

What are your wounds? Are they a broken relationship? A lost job? An addiction? A falsehood spoken against you? A devastating disease? Whatever it might be, Jesus took it all on Calvary. He did. He certainly did. But what you and I need to do is to apply His holy blood to our circumstances so that those things are washed away and we can walk in daily victory. Mark 9:22b-23 shows how we make it all too hard on ourselves when it says, “But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us. And Jesus said to him, ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”

The world tells us we have to endure this, or we have to endure that.  No we don’t!  But what we do have to do is stop looking at our circumstances and look further than just this week’s impediments, or this moment filled with frustration, anxiety and fear.  We need to look to the Cross of Christ who has already lifted these things from us.   It’s already been taken care of!   Let’s not keep trying to bear them. Let go and let God! Speak to Him. Seek Him. Have a relationship with Him that goes off the charts taking you from glory to glory! I tell you, it is possible. Not by any efforts of your own, but simply by gazing and grazing in the finished work of the Cross of Christ and all He’s done for you and I – the whole world in fact, for all those who will believe.  Just believe!  It’s a daily process no doubt, but a joyful one even in the midst of some of the most difficult times of our lives. Take to heart Psalm 68:19-20 when it says, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation. God is to us a God of deliverances.”  

Your sins, sickness, trials, tribulations, fights, disasters, can all turn in your heart from one that’s a sharp knife of sadness, to a cutting away of those things by the power of the Blood of Jesus.   Jesus has borne our burdens.  That a ‘hallejah’ to the King of kings and Lord of lords!