He Is Mighty to Save!

Do not hide your face from me, 

 do not turn your servant away in anger;

you have been my helper.

Do not reject me or forsake me,

God my Savior. Psalm 27: 9

Teenagers are experts at being sassy.  The word sassy could have an endearing connotation, however...and in my opinion, some of the adolescents that I've come in contact with...in my house...without going into much details as to whom I am talking about...are beyond the implied cuteness of "sassy," and border the territory where "insolent" and "impertinent" reside.  Needless to say, when the level of rudeness and lack of respect rises in my beloved teen...the last thing I want is to be in his presence.  I know it's harsh, but, I have been known to say phrases like: "get out of my face!!" (double or triple exclamation mark) every so often...once in a while...yeah...bad Mom-move...

At any rate, in those moments of unacceptable behavior, I don't want to be in the presence of my child, lest I do something I will regret later...like using whatever I may have in my hand at the moment, as a projectile aimed to his (THICK) head!!

...breathe...in...out...in...out...again...calm down.

I'm OK, now...I'm OK...and so is he...in case you were wondering!

My point is, as parents, sometimes we need time to cool off after our kids have done something that seems incorrigible and completely out of line.  We need time away.  I think parents invented "time-out" not just for the kids but for ourselves as well.  It comes a time when we all need "time-out" from each other in order to regroup and patch up the relationship.  Since that's our experience as parents and as children, that's the model we use to imagine our relationship with our Heavenly Father too.  We think of ourselves as the rebellious teenager who knows has done something wrong and needs punishment...and we think of God as the parent who wants to put us on a time-out...out of His face...far far away, out of his reach to avoid hurting us inadvertently.  

The thing is, well, first, we could and would never be out of God's reach.  It's impossible!  We will always be within the scope of His outstretched arm. And, most importantly, Our Heavenly Father is not a human parent...Jesus Himself reminds us in Luke 11: 13

So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

However, there are moments when we can't help but feel completely unworthy.  How often have we implored Our Lord the words in Psalm 27: 9? How many times have we felt like we don't deserve to be in His presence? How frequently have we feared our guilt is too deep to deserve to see His face?  

He will not reject us, or forsake us, or send us away in anger, though.  He doesn't need to cool off.  In those moments when we feel like we are that unruly, sassy, insolent, imprudent adolescent whose sin seems unforgivable, we must remember, He is the One who "did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all..."  so "that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (Romans 8:32, John 3: 16)

He is nothing like our human parents.  His love knows no measure.  His grace covers us.  His patience is limitless.  His Son saves us and forgives us again and again and again.

May the Holy Spirit remind us when we are feeling lowly, that

The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Amen!

Distractions

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. Psalm 27: 8

Do you feel distracted often? I do. 

I find it so easily to get distracted, it's not even funny anymore.  Social Media alone is responsible for a great deal of it (at least in my case).  We are so bombarded with stimuli that it becomes harder and harder to lift one's head up from the phone.  And even though it affects younger people at a higher scale, it is not just kids...I'm guilty of it myself.  I can spend so much time scrolling through media that when I finally put the phone down, a good part of the day is gone without me having done anything productive.  Quiet time with the Lord? I'm ashamed to say, I have to be very intentional about it, and almost schedule it in my calendar...otherwise, weeks would go by without me setting aside time in prayer.

Verse 8 in Psalm 27 says how the calling to seek His face is one that comes from the heart...and as such...our response is simple: yes..."Your face, Lord, I will seek."  But, do I?  Do I make it a priority to seek His face?

I've lived in this world for over 50 years...how many of those have I used to seek His face?  How much of a priority has seeking Him been in my life?

I don't even want to go there.

However, it is time I do.  It is time I open my eyes to the reality that it is imperative that I set aside the lesser things, and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness...Matthew 6: 33a

How do I do that?  Well...

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29: 13

"With all my heart..."  that's the key.  When my heart finally learns how to completely surrender to Jesus, then, I will empty it out of all the distractions and fill it up with the urgent desire to seek Him first.  It is hard to do that with the world pulling us from every side...reeling us in...but it is possible through discipline and intentionality.  It is a conscious decision.  It is a decision born out of the necessity to do the only thing that will bring us fulfillment: to follow Him...to know Him...to feel His presence...to dive in His peace...to experience His love.  

Nothing this world has to offer will bring our hearts and souls the satisfaction and contentment that seeking Him first offers...so why not?  There's still time to turn things around and change our priorities, being more present and less distracted.  Maybe it can be something as simple as following Christian influencers who post Biblical messages which may switch us from mindless scrolling, to purposeful guidance into paths that lead to a Christ-centered experience in social media?  Maybe? I don't know...but let's fill our feeds with the Word of God and see what happens?  It's worth the shot...I mean, we know social media is not going to go away.  We know we are going to continue to use it (at least I will).  We may as well use it for good, don't you think?

May the Holy Spirit show us the way to Christ through all the distractions.  May we hear the voice of the Shepherd in a society so full of noise.  May His hand reach us and pull us to where we can finally see His face.  In the Precious Name of Jesus, whom I want to seek first.  Amen!

Amazon Prayers?

Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. Psalm 27: 7

Does God really hear us when we pray?

That's the question, isn't it?

Yesterday at church, visiting Pastor, Gordon Jardy talked to our congregation about a series of instances in which he fervently prayed and the outcomes were not what he had so passionately prayed for...and how that could be crushing if we are looking at prayer from misleading perspective.  I call it, the "Amazon Prayer" perspective.  This is when we present our petition/request to God and expect to get exactly what we asked for in a very timely manner -like when we go to Amazon, place our order, pay for it and in two days we expect to receive it in a neatly wrapped package.    

They say, God is not a genie, right?  Well, He is not Amazon either.

As I listened to Pastor Jardy and an audio podcast from a Panamanian priest from my hometown who also addressed this issue, the Holy Spirit is revealing in me the fact that the miracle, the gift, the real answer to our every prayer is prayer itself!  The fact that we can communicate with the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Ruler of the Universe, is the answer to our prayer.  The real miracle is that Jesus opened the path of direct communication with Our Heavenly Father by His birth, life, death and resurrection...and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us.  The gift is His saving grace.  The answer is His constant love and His presence.

What about me? What about my pain? What about my needs? What about my hurt? What about my brokenness? What about my healing? What about my suffering? Why can't You take it away, God?

He certainly can...if it is in His plan.  And that is the toughest thing to accept, isn't it?  To trust that an All-powerful and Almighty and Loving God chooses to answer our prayers and petitions differently from what we wanted, is a hard pill to swallow.  But that's the test.  That is the test of our faith.  That's what reveals what we are made of.  That's what allows our complete dependence and reliance on Him to flourish.  That is how He becomes Our Lord of All.

As we realize this truth, we continue to pray.  We continue to pray He hears us.  We continue to pray He answers us in a way we can understand.  And we continue to trust Him, His Love, His Mercy, His Provision, His All-Sustaining Power and His Perfect Will.  In the Precious Name of Our Lord, Jesus the Christ.  Amen

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1 John 5: 14

Exalted? Me?

Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me;

at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;

I will sing and make music to the Lord. Psalm 27: 6

I've never been good at taking compliments (trust me, I'm worse at taking criticism...but that one is for another day).  With compliments...I just don't know what to do...I usually dismiss them and say something like, "O you are way too kind."  Basically, that phrase really means: "listen, I know me.  I totally suck at everything. You just witnessed how God likes to use the most imperfect and undeserving people to do His work...and sometimes, for some unexplainable reason, He decides it is my turn...but I do not deserve any iota of exaltation...so please don't."

Anyway...needless to say, these thoughts started bouncing in my mind when I read the first few words of verse 6 in Psalm 27:  "Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me;" and I'm thinking..."my head will be exalted?" I don't see that...how...why?

Who am I?

Then I remember...exactly...who am I to question God's divine design for us.  It is He who decides and it is His providence what opens the pathways for us to walk through...not by our merits, qualities and deserving nature, but by His perfect plan and love.  He knows what He does and He has known it way before I was even a thought in my parent's head.  He is the One who, for reasons only He knows and are not right for me to second guess, set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace (Galatians 1: 15). It was His eyes that saw my unformed substance; and He who wrote in His book every one of my days, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them (Psalm 139: 16). It was Christ who didn't wait for me to get my act together and become holy and deserving before He died for me.  He took the cross upon Himself and sacrificed for me while I was still a sinner...(Romans 5: 8)

So...I think the lesson here is not to focus on me.  It is not about me and whether or not I am deserving of God's amazing grace.  It is about Him and how my reaction to His gift of mercy should be to dwell at his sacred tent, and sacrifice with shouts of joy.

He is worthy of all of honor and glory and praise.  So, rather than questioning whether I should be exalted or not, I need to sing and make music to the Lord!  Now...about my lack of singing abilities...

Thank you, Lord for Your Goodness and for Your unmeasurable Love.  I humbly receive it and give you Praises and Thanksgiving in the All Powerful and Worthy Name of the Lamb.  Amen!

Roadside Assistance

For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;

he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent

and set me high upon a rock. Psalm 27: 5

In our recent trip to Panama, we rented a car for the week so we could leave the city and drive the 4+ hour-road to my hometown and have a car there for our transportation needs.  Driving in Panama is such a hazzle.  Traffic is unbearable, rules are often not obeyed, and road conditions are not super safe.  Needless to say it makes me very nervous to drive there so I don't.  Dan does all the driving when we are in Panama.  Yes, he is the visitor, but he is a very good driver and handles the road much better than me.  That makes him overconfident and hesitant to want to pay for extra protections when we rent the car.  This time, however, he didn't argue and we got a good package that included all kinds of insurance.  Included in the packet was also a number for road-side assistance.  I didn't ponder much on it, but I tucked away the knowledge that we had it just in case.

Thinking of this brought to mind thoughts of the road...

The road has been an common analogy for life.  Countless thinkers, writers, poets, singers, preachers, prophets have used the road to explain the ideas of what happens while we are on this side of eternity.  The bumps on the road, the turns and twists, the detours, the loss of direction, even new ones like satellite technology and the infamous GPS plus many other metaphors for life derive from the road.  My favorite of such is found in John 14:6 when Jesus answers to Thomas (the doubter always having a hard time trusting) 

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Like Thomas the Apostle, trusting enough to let go doesn't come easy to me.  At the first sign of the slightest bump on the road of my life, my glands start secreting panic signals immediately throughout my entire body.  I forget so quickly about the fact that my way is directed and protected by He Who Is The Way Himself...and I fall for the signs of "danger ahead" becoming frazzle and fearful.  I forget very quickly all His promises for safekeeping...that's why verse 27:5 of Psalm 27 is one I have hidden in my heart so it can come to me when I meet unexpected hazardous conditions on my way.  

The words that the Holy Spirit inspired David to write thousands of years ago, come alive in us today to bring us comfort and peace in a time when the road of life has become so very scary.  These words remind us that it doesn't matter how lost we think we are or how destroyed the way seems, in the day of trouble the way is never lost because Jesus is The Way, and He keeps us safe in Him, hidden in His tent and set high upon the Rock that is Himself...unmovable, unshakable, eternal. 

Thankfully, the trip to Panama was a joy and we didn't need any of the insurances we got for the rented car...not even the road-side assistance.  But it is comforting knowing that we have them if we need them...isn't it?

May we always keep Psalm 27:5 handy in our brain's address book under our emergency numbers, so it comes to our rescue when we need road-side assistance.  In Jesus' Precious Name.  Amen!

Belated Father's Day Tribute

One thing I ask from the Lord,

this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord

and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27: 4

My Dad had a very distinctive voice. It was the type of voice that made most people afraid.  Even grown men stood a little straighter when they were in the presence of my Dad...now, when he spoke to them, you could see them shifting their weight to stand in attention almost as if a General were addressing them.  At home, he could make the walls tremble when he raised his voice...as well as the nerves of everyone inside the house.  But I loved his voice and I would give anything to hear him again. 

Sigh...

Reading this verse brought memories of my Dad's voice...I could almost hear him...

In my mind I see him holding a Bible, standing at the threshold of our house reading with all the thunder of his powerful projection to a crowd who dared not utter even a whisper:

y habitaré en la casa del Señor por años sin término.

The closing words of Psalm 23 spoken out of the lips of my Father every December, few days before Christmas, as the Posadas made a stop at our house.  Traditionally, a couple of weeks before Christmas, our neighborhood had Posadas, which is Spanish culture's special way of doing caroling.  All the kids and many parents from our neighborhood would visit about 5 homes every evening until each home was touched by the cheerful singers armed with tambourines and castanets.  Once the group would get to a house, there would be a sing-and-response between the group outside the door and those inside the house.  This was done to commemorate Mary and Joseph looking for an Inn in Bethlehem.  Once the door opened, the leader of the Posada would hand the leader of the household a Bible to read Psalm 23.

That was my Dad's role.

Reading, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, in Psalm 27 brought me back to those days of my youth because the words echo the las words in Psalm 23: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.  And the echo of my Father's voice reading that line comes to me from the distance...

Now that I am as old as my Dad was when the memories of him reading those verses are the most vivid in my mind, I pray he is, indeed, living in the house of the Lord for years without end...waiting for me...so I can hear him again.

May the Lord guide us in our path so we seek Him above all else, because when we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him in the fullness of His glory.  In the Precious Name of Jesus.  Amen!

Memories of a Just Cause

When the wicked advance against me to devour me,

it is my enemies and my foes

who will stumble and fall.

Though an army besiege me,

my heart will not fear;

though war break out against me,

even then I will be confident. (Psalm 27: 2-3)

Praise the Lord, I've never been a foot soldier in the middle of a war, embattled in combat...literally in the trenches...and I pray I am never put in a position where I get to find out what that really is like.  But I do know the fear of having a powerful army advancing towards my vicinity...

It was the early hours of December 20th, 1989... the darkness before dawn still engulfing Panama City.  I woke up to the confusing sounds of what seemed like a weird mix between a freight train, an earthquake and a thunder storm.  The strange voices coming out of the radio sitting next to my bed...the same radio I used to leave on every night to bring me the comfort of noise in the lonely hours ... bounced around in my head incoherently.  Later I found out regular transistor radios were intercepting some communications among the armed forces at the initial hours of Operation Just Cause...the code name for the American invasion of Panama which I got to witnessed up close and personal. 

Confusion gave way to the slow realization that our city was the target of a massive attack directed at outing military dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega...a character that was not more than a second-rate annoyance to the United States, and a small thorn on the foot of the CIA, but certainly a devastating force of evil for my people, who had our small country under the sharp blade of his machete.

At any rate, all this reminiscing came to mind while reading verses 2 and 3 of Psalm 27... back then, as I was leaving my adolescence and entering adulthood, I wasn't yet very confidently standing on the firm foundation of My Solid Rock and unknown fears loomed in the shadows of my uncertain future, causing me to tremble at the first sign of trouble.  God's Word was not my constant companion, and His promises eluded me.

Over thirty years have gone by, most of which I have actually spent living and loving the very country that once attacked my home...and in those years, much learning has happened...including learning that the One Who Inspired the words in Psalm 27 is Trustworthy and Faithful, and that His promises are true.

The enemy has already stumbled and fallen...and though an army may seem to besiege us and war might explode all around us, our hearts do not fear because we rest in the confidence on the One Who Commands the winds and the waves...the heart trusts the One Who Promises because He is the Storm and He has overcome.

Therefore, whereas it'd be Latin American dictators in the 1980s or home-grown enemies that push to cancel our culture, we remain assured that nothing is out of the control of Our Lord, the One Who Holds the Future in His Hands so we don't have to worry, fear or doubt.