Treasures in the Word

Category

October 29, 2020

Grace for This Moment One recurring hard we grapple with is staying in the moment; being present in the present. Fully investing our emotions, our mind, and our spirit in the very minute and circumstance we are living. Our tendency leans toward missing this moment because we’re focused on another; often a future situation, which quickly can become all consuming in our minds. Our path looks precarious as we ponder upcoming events, probable predicaments, overwhelming deadlines, life milestones, and endless unknowns....

July 16, 2020

“I’ve Been Waiting For You. Stay Awhile” – God

When a hard hits, we flee to the arms of God or fall on our knees before Him, anxious and longing for His presence and promise to be with us and help us. However, as God brings resolution and healing to the situation, we tend to brush ourselves off, take a few steps back, thank Him, then meander away, smiling over our shoulder as we go.  God desires something different; a continual relationship. He wants a growing, vital relationship where...

July 9, 2020

One Action Linked to Love

Christ-followers strongly embrace love because our God is love. John 3:16, the epitome of true love, shows the measure of God’s passion for mankind in the sacrifice of His only Son. No greater love exists. God stands as the author and source of love.  We hear a lot about the proof of love being tolerance and acceptance. However, scripture points a different direction. The companion word linked to love, interestingly enough, is obedience. Wait. What? Jesus talks about love and forgiveness...

February 20, 2020

Is God as Sick and Tired of My Weakness as I Am?

“God, are You annoyed by my wavering? Fed up with my struggling? Do You tire of my wrestling the same beast over and over, never getting full victory? Do You shake your head at my weakness?”  This conversation with God comes and goes along our journey. We ourselves become jaded with an ongoing battle or shortcoming. And then wonder if God too grows weary. Is He tired of us bringing our issues to Him? Does He roll His eyes when...

January 16, 2020

The Secret to Enduring Physical Suffering

None of us escape physical suffering, either facing this hard in our own life or in the life of someone we love. With difficulty, we witness a sharp and clear mind trapped in a body that crumbles from disease or aging. Or the opposite, with a confused, fading mind in a physical body that remains strong. We wrestle with the “why” of such affliction, and struggle to understand the rightness and fairness of circumstances played out before us. And when...

September 26, 2019

Grab Hold of God’s Promises

At times, during a difficult season or storm, God’s promises are hard to remember, let alone to grasp and hold onto. On an early morning trek around the track, I jogged out from under tree cover and looked up, surprised to see a rainbow. Surprised because it hung in the western sky early in the morning, as opposed to the eastern sky in late afternoon, when most storms roll through leaving the color-filled bow. A dark cloud covered the very...

September 19, 2019

What to Do When God’s Ways Baffle Us

Life can be downright perplexing. And troubling. And complicated. At times churning with confusion, pain and sadness. Examining a situation, we shake our heads crying out, “Lord, this makes no sense to me at all.” We wrestle with the thing, turning the complex matter upside-down, inside-out and every which way, but cannot put the pieces together to reach any logical understanding. We reason until our brains ache with the effort. We devise a number of options for a situation to...

September 5, 2019

How to See Yourself through God’s Eyes

One of the marvelous treasures in a hard is the consistency and beauty of how God sees us. His view of us stands untainted, not swayed by how we feel, by others perceptions, or by our performance.  How we feel about ourselves in a hard situation or season makes dramatic shifts. The reflected image we see in the mirror morphs with how much sleep we get, the weather, what someone says to us, how we are treated, and a myriad of...

August 8, 2019

The Devil is No Gentleman

Reasons pile on reasons why hards exist. We’re impacted by consequences of poor decisions we, or someone close to us, make. Accidents and acts of nature produce great hardship. Disease and results of living in a decaying world make life difficult. Ugliness exists from sin remaining in our own, and other’s, hearts. But make no mistake. As followers of Christ, we have an enemy. He is real, determined to make our life hard, and he is no gentleman. Satan: opponent...

July 18, 2019

A Song of Hope for your Hard

When we face a hard, from daily struggles to overwhelming pain and sorrow, we long for comfort. For encouragement. A source exists at our fingertips, available to us at any time, straight from the heart of our Father God. The Scripture presents a love-packed story, from cover to cover, from God to His people; including passage after passage of comfort and encouragement. One of those scriptures, a familiar psalm, has entire books written to explore its depths, yet takes on...