Jonah's Hatred: A Whale of a Tale

As promised a few weeks ago, this is the second post in the series on hatred. See February 25 post if another look or first look is needed. This post focuses more directly on the hatred directed toward others. I have been thinking about, praying over and researching this post for several weeks now. With many different directions to take on the idea of hatred, it has been difficult to narrow the focus down to one single path. Possibly, this is because I have a great deal of trouble dealing with my own hatred toward others, and not just toward the ex. Everyone knows we should not hate. Children are taught from a very early age to not “hate.” They are taught to strongly dislike, but not to go as far as actual hatred. As adults, we realize that there is really little difference in the terms “strongly dislike” and “hate” although we don’t always realize the detrimental effects that hatred can have on our own personal lives.

Typically, a devotion on hatred would provide external reasons as to the importance in not hating. It would explain that we should love both our brother and our enemy just the same for reasons that are supported with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It would not, however, tell us why this principle is so important to us or our well-being. Just like my toddler who asks “why” to every statement directed at her, I want to know why it is so important that I not hate my enemy – or even my ex-husband.

The thought of toddlers brings up an excellent illustration. My three year old is obsessed with Veggie Tales. She has the theme song memorized and is very willing to recite the storyline of any number of Veggie Tale lessons. The Easter Bunny is even getting on board with Veggie Tales this year as her entire basket will be nothing but Veggie Friends and DVDs. (Shhh, that is a secret.) As a mother, I like the animated stories almost as much as the three year old does. They are short, teach a valuable moral or Biblical lesson and most of all they are interesting to both children and adults. What’s not to love?

The toddler’s current veggie favorite is Jonah and the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. In this tale, we see the story of Jonah, played by Archibald Asparagus, in a different light than you may remember as a child. Jonah is still the star of the show; he still receives a message from God to preach to the Ninevites. Jonah runs from God, gets on a ship where he is thrown overboard by the Pirates in order to stop a terrible storm and yes, the whale still swallows Jonah and spits him back on the shore three days later. Jonah, smelling awfully fishy, goes to Nineveh to deliver the message just as God asked him. With a terrible attitude Jonah tells the king, played by a large butternut squash, that if the king and his people do not start behaving in a more pleasing manner God will destroy the city and all those who live there. The king decrees that the immoral and criminal behavior will cease in hopes that God will spare them. But, Jonah, who is looking forward to witnessing God’s wrath on his enemies, goes outside the city to await the impending “fireworks.”

Coincidentally, the past few weeks’ lessons in Sunday school have discussed the same story of Jonah, minus the vegetables. After learning a little more about the circumstances between the Israelites and the Ninevites during the time of Jonah, it became easier to understand why Jonah did not wish to share his God with the people of Nineveh. Some research offered a even more insight. From the time of Hellenistic Greeks, the city had been a pagan center of worship. By Jonah’s time, around 793 B.C., the city was being built into a great and powerful capitol of Assyria. With their location on the Tigris River, the Assyrians had cut off trade routes in an effort to control the economic and political affairs of Israel. It sounds similar to an Old Testament version of the Cold War. Jeroboam II became king of Israel in 786 B.C. and was able to recover some of the land lost to the Assyrians. During the reign of Jeroboam, Israel prospered due to the peaceful relationships with the Assyrians but the Assyrians were still very much feared and hated. The Israelite’s attitude toward the Assyrians might have been similar to the attitude of my grandfathers toward Germany even long after the tensions caused by World War II had died down. Further, it didn’t help that a few generations before Jonah came onto the scene, the prophet Amos had foretold of the Israelites being taken captive by the Assyrians. And sure enough, around 722 B.C the Assyrians conquered the ten tribes of Northern Israel and scattered them all over the Middle East. According to archeological findings, the walls of the palace were carved with battle scenes, images of impaled Israelites and depictions of parading soldiers presenting the spoils of war to the king; it was gruesome overtaking of the Israelites. A century later in 625, the two remaining tribes of Judah fell to a power struggle between the Assyrians, Egyptians and Mesopotamians. Only the lower classes were allowed to remain at this time; the professionals or skilled tradesmen were forced to relocate. This was the end of any type of Israel until 1948 A.D. which is modern Israel as we know it today.

With that history lesson under our belts, it is easy to understand Jonah’s hatred toward the Ninevites. In Jonah’s mind there was nothing about the people of Nineveh that should allow them the favor of God’s second chance. So, as the story continues, Jonah goes out to the edge of the city and waits. He waits and waits and waits – in the blazing hot sun. God felt sorry for pitiful Jonah in the hot sun, so He made a vine grow to shade the cocky preacher. Jonah was very pleased with his vine, but the next day a worm eats the vine and God caused the sun to be even harsher. Jonah becomes faint, becomes terribly enraged that the vine is gone, and wishes that he could die. This is how the conversation went according to the book of Jonah:

God: "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

Jonah: "I do. I am angry enough to die."

God: "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left... Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

And that is where it ends. Seriously, the whole book of Jonah, the entire story is finished with those words. We don’t know anymore. We are left with an image of a once great man sitting in the desert to rot. Jonah allowed his hatred of the Ninevites to rot his soul, his very being. This hatred had turned him into a bitter old man, from whom we never hear again.

As with almost everything God requires of His followers, He does so with good reason. God tells us to forgive, essentially let go of our hatred, in order that we don’t allow that very hatred to consume us. By not offering forgiveness to our enemies or our ex-spouse or whomever, we allow that hate, and by extension the enemy to mentally, emotionally and spiritually kill us. In the case of Jonah, it seems that his hatred did not stop at killing his soul but physically killed him in that scorching hot desert.

I don’t pretend to know exactly how we are to reach a point where we can offer our enemies forgiveness. I think that is something that has to be done very carefully after spending many hours on your knees in therapy with our Savior. And, I believe that God offers us some suggestions to offering forgiveness, some of which I will discuss next week. In the mean time I leave you with a prayer from Christian Word Ministries. Let this lead you to God’s lap and in turn allow God to lead you to that place of forgiveness – not just for the sake of your enemy, not just because God has told you to, but for your own personal healing.

Prayer to Help Against Anger

Lord Jesus I truly regret my sin of anger, I come to You in humility and lowliness of mind. I acknowledge my sin of anger and I repent, I turn from that way to walk in Your chosen paths of Righteousness. I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me of all unrighteousness, pride, self-centeredness, hate, rage, bitterness, resentment, strife, contention, taking offense, giving offense, misplaced hostility, indifference and all forms of anger in my life.

Lord Jesus, Your Word says that Your anointing destroys all yokes of bondage (Isaiah 10:27) so I ask You now to cause Your anointing to break and destroy any yokes and strongholds of pride, self-centeredness, hate, rage, bitterness, resentment, strife, contention, taking offense, giving offense, misplaced hostility, indifference, and all forms of anger in my life along with all of their works, roots, fruits, tentacles and links that are in my life, the lives of anyone that I have prayed for today according to John 14:14, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

I ask You Lord to force out all spirits of pride, self-centeredness, hate, rage, bitterness, resentment, strife, contention, taking offense, giving offense, misplaced hostility, indifference, control, and anger from me and any replacements of evil spirits trying to come back from the Abyss, bound till they are judged and thrown into the Lake of Fire. Lord Jesus fill me in all these areas that were set free with Your Love and Your Holy Spirit. Amen.








The story of Jonah and the Pirates who Don’t Do Anything comes from the Big Idea, Inc feature film titled Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie.

Dates and historical information directly associated with Jonah, Jeroboam II and the Israelites are taken from The Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History: History for the Thoughtful Child by Rob and Cyndy Shearer, published by Greenleaf Press. All other dates and historical information are taken from from A History of the Ancient World by Chester G. Starr, published by Oxford University Press.

“Prayer to Help Against Anger” is used by permission, Christian Word Ministries, Lexington, Kentucky.

Red Bud Blooms: God's Faithfulness

I am a news junky, but I am a snobby news junky. I love national news. I really enjoy “breaking news,” especially when the breaking news isn’t quite as newsworthy as the news guys thought it would be; think of the tsunami watch that we all ogled last Saturday. However, I loathe local news. Regardless of what city the new is local, it is awful. Because of this hatred for local news, I never know what the weather is doing until I walk out the front door.

Because of this lack of knowledge of the daily forecast, I was prepared for a chilly start to what I thought would be an otherwise beautiful Sunday. After an extraordinarily frustrating weekend, I was rather looking forward to sunshine glimmering through the windows of the church yesterday morning when I walked out the front door to a cloudy, overcast sky. It looked like the making of yet another one of those days that have been the norm this winter. My spirit sank. I was looking forward to sunshine and warmer temperatures that were nowhere to be seen. I began the drive to church literally dreading the cold and wet that were sure to follow. Even the bare trees on the mountain side seemed gloomier with their limbs drooping in the morning dew. They too had been looking forward to a taste of spring.

Then, out of the gray dreariness they appeared on the corner across the street from the church – three bright pink red bud trees. They were glorious! There are few things prettier than the early blooms of a red bud, but these were even better set against such a pale backdrop. Immediately, my soul was lifted and I felt rejuvenated. I sat at the traffic signal and said a prayer of thanks to a God that has expressed His personal beauty in the nature around us. I immediately began to think about this post. So much so that I drove back to the church that evening with my camera just to take a picture of the three trees.

To me the trees served as an example of God faithfulness to provide. In this case, after a particularly arduous winter, we crave those pleasant breezes through our hair and the warm sunshine on our cheeks. Likewise, after the long, dry, southern summer we find ourselves anticipating the cooler air and long shadows of fall. In addition to the agricultural necessity of the changing of the seasons, it is God’s way of reminding us that just at the moment we become weary, He will provide the refreshing breeze our soul so desperately needs.

Of course, the first verse that comes to mind is Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” Side note: This, in turn, made me think of The Byrds song, "Turn, Turn, Turn". (And yes, the pun was intended.) The song is surprisingly verbatim for the verses.

However, after the encounter with the red buds, the order of worship for our Morning Worship service materialized as if it had been planned in tandem with the thoughts of God’s faithfulness to renew our weariness. Different verses and thoughts came into consideration in light of the changing of the seasons. The call to worship was titled, “My Soul Thirsts For You, O God.” The scripture reading for the day was Psalm 63:1-8 which begins, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” We went on to sing one of my favorite hymns, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” which only continued to speak to the evidence given by the changing seasons for God’s provisions with stanzas like:

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Now to the correlation between all the trees and songs and devotions on divorce: I have a friend who is currently in the process of divorcing her adulterous husband. She filed for divorce sometime early last summer and they have not yet reached mediation. She is living in very difficult circumstances while awaiting decisions to be made and they have a long way to go before anything will be finalized. Another friend fought a similarly difficult battle with her spouse for over two years before the judge at last signed the papers. By comparison my personal divorce was short and simple. I filed the first week of August and everything was said and done by October 29th. But even as quick as mine was settled, we continue to work through the difficulties of shared custody. There are great feelings of walking through a “dry and weary land where there is no water.” The bleakness of the winter is endured while longing for the refreshment of spring.

That is the promise God has made and the promise that He reminds us of with the changing of every season. It is the promise that it is just a season through which we are passing. One of the few things I remember my late grandmother saying was “the Bible never says “and it came to stay,’ it always says, ‘and it came to pass.’” She was making gravy over a hot stove during August in Mobile when she said those words. We were miserable HOT and were desperate for the cool breezes October promised. In a similar fashion, divorce is a season of our life that God has promised will pass. Even, in the midst of the dreariness, God continues to prove faithful. Verse 8 of Psalm 63 says, “my soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” God has promised that there is hope coming and until that red bud tree blooms or the first fall breeze blows through the changing leaves, His right hand is outstretched allowing us to rest.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Preface: I am returning to divorce related topics. I hope that this post is the first in a two or three part series. (I sound like your preacher, don’t I?) I want to first state that this post has been by far the most difficult for me to write. I think that is so because this is something that I have not yet overcome. Perhaps, we can work through this together.

Rejection: the Hatred of the World We are approaching the anniversary of my engagement. On March 3, 2003 (the night before my birthday, because he was too excited to wait) my now ex-husband asked me to go for a walk around my college campus. I had given two tours of the campus that day and was tired of walking around it. So, true to form, I responded, “If I am going to walk around this campus again, there had better be a ring in your pocket.” We walked to a statue that is the landmark of campus and he proposed to me. I was completely surprised. I was unbelievably excited. I was rather overwhelmed.

Throughout my life I had had the privilege of watching great marriages progress- namely that of my parents. I saw how important their relationship was to one another, how much they cared for each other. I experienced their efforts at making their relationship successful, even when it was difficult. Occasionally I heard my Mother say what a “good man” my father is, and sometimes heard Daddy refer to my mother as “his treasure”. The night of March 3, 2003, I was overwhelmed that I had found someone who saw in me the potential to have a relationship like that of my parent’s. I was someone’s treasure.

I think that is one of the primary reasons we search for a mate. We long for someone to love and cherish us not because they have to or are supposed to like our parents, but because they choose to. We want to captivate another person in such a way that they pick us out of the 6.7 billion people on the planet as their beloved. The moment that happens, all the years of insecurity disappear. The questions of a lifetime are suddenly answered – I am enough, I am desirable, I am loved…

Conversely, the moment that same person tells you they want a divorce, that lifetime of feelings immediately returns and is exponentially multiplied. That same person who but a brief time ago declared that we were the “one for them” out of the 6.7 billion people on the planet has suddenly changed their mind. Ultimate rejection.

Have you ever heard of someone named Mark Hamill? Maybe Carl Douglas? What about Margaret Hamilton? Not ringing any bells, are they? Mark Hamill stared as Luke Skywalker in Starwars. Carl Douglas is slightly famous for the song Kung Foo Fighting which should immediately conjure an image of a stuffed chipmunk kicking and punching as it sings the song. Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. The only thing these have in common is the fact that they each produced an act of celebrity but the rest of their career was not all that noteworthy. It must be terribly disappointing to play one of the greatest characters in one of the best known movies but go onto little else. We jokingly refer to it as their fifteen minutes of fame, but what rejection they must have experienced.

Think about another celebrity: Jesus. Jesus is decidedly one of the most well known people to have ever walked the planet. Today, no one would consider him to have only had “fifteen minutes of fame.” After all, his name and reputation have lasted some 2,000 years. It might be better to compare the celebrity of Jesus to that of struggling artists. He is better known and appreciated for his work after his life than he was during his life. This is true because during the life of Jesus, he was rarely celebrated, rarely desired or treasured.

The one moment of human exaltation Jesus experienced was the day he entered Jerusalem in preparation for Passover. The story taken from Matthew 21 describes:

“Nearly all the people in the crowd threw their garments down on the road, giving him a royal welcome. Others cut branches from the trees and threw them down as a welcome mat. Crowds went ahead and crowds followed, all of them calling out, ‘Hosanna to David's son!’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in God's name!’ ‘Hosanna in highest heaven!’ As he made his entrance into Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken. Unnerved, people were asking, ‘What's going on here? Who is this?’ The parade crowd answered, ‘This is the prophet Jesus, the one from Nazareth in Galilee.’”

We know this event now as Palm Sunday, the week before Easter. In modern terms, one week the city was throwing an impromptu parade in His honor and the next week the same city was executing Him. Talk about fifteen minutes of fame. Talk about rejection.

I often think of my marriage as fifteen minutes of fame. It certainly didn’t last much longer than fifteen minutes. Nor was I note worthy to him for much longer than that. The divorce left me completely rejected. In essence, the one person (out of those 6.7 billion) who was supposed to treasure me for the rest of my life rejected me. Over the past couple of years, my journal entries show my obvious preoccupation with the theme of rejection as they are riddled with verses concerning the concept. Some of the verses are:

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Isaiah 53:3

“Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes?’”
Matthew 21:42

The most fitting of scriptures seems to be from Jesus’ address to the disciples as they expressed their concerns about rejection. John15:18 says “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” As shown in the stories of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and later his brutal and humiliating execution, Jesus was no stranger to rejection. That is the key. In the preface, I stated that we could perhaps work through this together. The pronoun “we”, of coarse was figurative as I was referring to me and whoever happens to read this post that has experienced the same feelings. But, maybe, the “we” should refer to me and Jesus. After all, who better is there to walk with than someone who has experienced the same rejection?

Scratch Spin

Last night, my three year old daughter and I were watching the men’s figure skating competition at the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Wearing socks, she decided to test her skills as a figure skater on our hardwood floors. She watched carefully as the skaters performed their routines, paying particular attention to the jumps, then she attempted to recreate each element. She watched as Yevgeny Plushenko performed what I now know is called a “Scratch Spin.” This spin begins with one leg and both arms extended, as the skater brings their arms and free leg closer to their body, the speed of the spin accelerates. Plushenko finished his spin and now the attention was to be turned to the toddler. The toddler spun and spun. The toddler got dizzier and dizzier. The toddler fell down. She looked up at me with her eyes still making circles and asked “why doesn’t he get dizzy and fall down?” I answered that “he finds a focal point and looks at it every time he makes a turn. Keeping your eyes on a solid object will help you focus as you spin.” In the skating world it is called “spotting”.

Today, as I was trying to read the final chapters of the text that was due for tonight’s class, the same toddler was demanding my attention. She was hungry. There was laundry to wash, turn over and fold. The dishes were piling up in the sink. Sheets needed to be changed. There were articles to be summarized and posted. We were late to story-time at the library. There were e-mails to be returned. We had church, choir and Mission Friends. The phone was ringing, things were breaking and the toddler was still hungry. As any mother knows... no, correction… as any modern person knows, life is hectic. It often seems as though life is spinning out of control. The more we do to fix this, the tighter our arms and legs are pulled to our bodies forcing the speed of that spin to accelerate.

When I get stressed, my first reaction is to start making lists. I immediately try to create control out of things that cannot be controlled. The stress level is directly proportional to the length of a given to-do list. At the bottom of today’s list was written, “finish blog post”. I had already begun a different post, but I think (and pray) that God had different intentions. After I had put the toddler down for a nap, washed the dishes and finished my class work, I began thinking about my post. I have been re-reading one of my favorite books of the Bible lately and happened upon the following in Isaiah 26:1-4: “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord is the Rock eternal.” God is our Rock eternal – He is our solid focal point on which to fix our gaze.

As I considered God as the focal point preventing me from dizziness, I was randomly reminded that today is Ash Wednesday. Today is the start of Lent. Lent is traditionally a time of self-reflection and repentance so that we may prepare for Easter and more clearly focus on our Savior and the sacrifice He made for us. Not surprisingly, all that spinning is sin. Anything that distracts our eyes away from God is sinful. During the season of Lent consider refocusing on, or “spotting” on our Savior. I pray that God shows us our sin. I pray that as we recognize our sin he will forgive us of it. I pray that we allow Him to be the solid focal point on which we fix our gaze; He will prove to be the balance to our spinning world.

Psalm 51 is a prayer of repentance that may guide the way to better spotting God. Pay particular attention to verses 7-15.

1-3Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I've been;
my sins are staring me down.

4-6 You're the One I've violated, and you've seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I've been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you're after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean,
scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don't look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I'll let loose with your praise.

16-17 Going through the motions doesn't please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don't for a moment escape God's notice.

18-19 Make Zion the place you delight in,
repair Jerusalem's broken-down walls.
Then you'll get real worship from us,
acts of worship small and large,
Including all the bulls
they can heave onto your altar!


Side note: I realize that this particular post does not deal specifically with divorce or the ramifications thereof. However, I really felt as though God wanted me to write on this topic today, so I am prayerful that it will minister to someone.

Passage copied from The Message.

Dealing with the Depression

Manchester, Georgia is a quaint little town of a little less than 4,000 people. It was founded in 1909 as a railroad community. The railroad is a hard way of life for many families; many families don’t endure. As such, the community and our church have seen a great deal of divorce.

My father has served as Minister of Music at First Baptist Manchester since 2004. My mother is the director of the library at West Georgia Technical College in nearby LaGrange. The move to Manchester was a difficult one in some aspects and positive in others. Daddy had briefly left full time ministry and was returning to the service to which God had called him. Mother was getting a promotion. But the move also meant giving up on dreams. For several years, we wondered why God had allowed the turn of events that brought Mother and Daddy to Manchester

When my ex-husband asked for a divorce, my daughter and I moved to Manchester to be with my parents. Not knowing what the response would be, I was astonished at the outpouring of concern and love that we received. Many within the community, Daddy’s church and Mother’s library offered their prayers and devotions. Parents of divorced children reached out in support of Mother and Daddy. Through the disabling depression of those first few months, the reason God had moved our family to this area became evident. God brought us to a community that has been deeply effected by the ills of divorce. God brought us to the support that can only be provided from those who have traveled this road before.

As the weeks went by, I received encouraging words from every direction. There were days when I could actually feel the power of the prayers that were being said for us. Several people shared pages copied from their personal devotions they felt would be inspirational. As time permits, I hope to pass these along.

I have been blessed to know several God-seeking, God-fearing people throughout my life. The first devotion I want to share was passed on to me by one of these people. Johnnie Freeman worked part time as a library assistant with mother and serves her church as a lay minister. Mrs. Freeman is truly a woman of God – a prayer warrior. Over the course of the summer immediately following my separation, she shared many copied pages of inspiration. The following comes from Come Away My Beloved by Frances J. Roberts. Read as though you can hear God say these words to you. The entire piece is supported by scripture (as noted in the parentheses and brackets), so in essence God has said these words to you.


The Art of Committal
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

O my child, lay your heart in My hand, and let Me heal it. Yet, let Me gather up your tears, for they are precious to Me (Psalm 56:8). You have not been suffering alone, but I Myself have been near you all along the way. My heart has felt all that you have felt. You do not have a high priest who is not able to sympathize with your suffering, but one who experienced every grief and human emotion common to all people. In the midst of these painful experiences, He did not sin. Therefore, He is one who is able to help you (Hebrews 2:18).

He is one, who having walked the same path Himself, is able to teach you how, in the midst of these human experiences of hurts, frustrations, loneliness and heartache, you may rise above the natural tendencies to fall into the sins of self-pity, self-reproach, depression of spirit, resentment and the like [Hebrews 4: 14-16].

It is not easy. Not only is it not easy, but in the natural, in the flesh, it is impossible. But the same grace I promised to the apostle Paul to help him bear his affliction, the same grace I will give to you (2 Corinthians 12:9).

You may bring the whole of your burden to Me. I will help you as the days go by, and as the trials come and go; and as the learning process continues, I will teach you the spiritual secrets of the art of committal [Matthew 11: 28-30, Psalm 55:22, Nahum 1:7].

For in complete and repeated committal lies the key to victories that can be thus more easily won, less painfully achieved, and more quickly gained, so the valleys become less deep and less dark and more quickly passed through.

“Man is born,” it is written, “to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). This is true as surely as rain falls and snow is cold. But it is equally true, and gloriously so, that I have promised to deliver you out of all your troubles [Psalm 34: 4-6 and 17-19].

So will you now take the first step in this committal and give Me your heart?
Make it as tangible a transaction as possible, and visualize your own hand laying the physical organ of your heart in My hands. Say to Me, “Take this, Loving Master and Wonderful Lord, and do with it as pleases You.”

Verses found in the passage:

Psalm 56:8 “You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?” NKJV

Hebrews 2:18 “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” NKJV

Hebrews 4:14-16 “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” NKJV

2 Corinthians 12:9 “And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” NKJV

Matthew 11: 28- 30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." NIV

Psalm 55:22 "Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.” NIV

Nahum 1:7 “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” NIV

Psalm 34:4-6 “I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.” NIV

Psalm 34:17-19 “The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all.” NIV

*Verses in parentheses are original to the text and are copied from the New King James Version. Verses in brackets are added by the editor and are copied from the New International Version.

Passage from Come Away My Love by Frances J. Roberts, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

Happiness

Happiness. One word that everyone wants but no one seems to actually possess. It seems that the entire human race is on a quest for happiness similar to that of the Holy Grail. And in true Holy Grail fashion, we will stop at little to achieve that happiness.

The day my ex asked me for a divorce, this was the only reason he could give to explain his unfaithfulness – he just wasn’t happy. Not only was he not happy during the last months, but he had apparently been unhappy for the entire relationship. He was completely unconcerned with the conditions his desire for happiness would thrust upon his loving and concerned family.

Now, almost two years later, I sit at my computer in a comfortable house. I watch my beautiful, healthy and intelligent daughter play with a plethora of toys. I have a closet full of clothes, jewelry box with some really nice pieces (some not so nice pieces). A car in the drive and a swing set in the back yard. I have traveled the nation and the world. I have friends and family who deeply care for me… but something is missing. Something still causes me to want more.

It is a deep lack of happiness.

In the light of events like the recent earthquakes in Haiti, this desire for happiness is sincerely called into question. When I compare my material wealth, my physical health and general well-being to that of suffering people all over the world, a great sense of guilt comes over me. I feel as though I don’t deserve any more than what I already have. Who am I to desire more than I have, when there are people on this planet who do not know where their next meal will come from? How un-Christ-like of me to want something as children in Haiti are literally searching for their parents.

This is where most devotionals would consider verses like Psalm 118:24 which says “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” And, while this is true, God did make the day and we should rejoice and be glad in the blessing He has bestowed on us, this verse doesn’t exactly cut to the core of our desire for happiness. This is compounded when you consider that the same Psalmist who told us to rejoice in the day also wrote “May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed” in Psalm 20:4.

It is my belief, that our loving Lord, has a great desire for us to be happy. Why else would Eden have been so perfectly wonderful? Here are these two presumably beautiful people walking around a garden that, in my mind at least, is spa-like: serene, lush and perfectly happy. Enter the serpent. The serpent seems to be like one of those seventh grade girls who always had the best of everything. But, as soon as someone else was “going with” the star football player, she had to create some way to ruin that relationship. The serpent was the original unhappy seventh grader. The serpent was the original unhappy spouse. Seeing a happiness that he could not possess, the serpent set out to destroy it.

That is exactly what he has been doing ever since. For many years (the exact length of time is debatable), the devil has employed as many techniques as possible to prevent God’s children from experiencing the happiness that our Lord has in store for us. The latest technique is the weapon of divorce. It attacks from every angle: the family, the individual and most importantly, the soul.

The soul is what is the most vulnerable to the Devil’s attacks. The partner is left with a great void within their soul that can only be described as unhappiness. Those feelings of rejection, failure, defeat, anger, ugliness, disappointment, guilt (this list is endless) come from that void. In the midst of the divorce, it seems that humans are responsible for these feelings. We blame our ex-spouse or ourselves and then turn to God and beg for answers as to why.

The serpent has struck again. Unable to enjoy happiness of his own, he has taken happiness from mankind. He is successful. And, every time we allow those feelings of unhappiness to consume our thinking, the devil wins another battle. That is what the devil wants; he wants to keep our eyes off the glory of God.

It is only when we find the strength through God to fight the devil that we will truly find happiness. A friend’s Facebook status recently read: “Contentment is found in the LORD'S PRESENCE. We will be fully satisfied, when we get to the point where God is first thing on our minds when we wake up in the morning.”

Then and only then, will we fill that void with the happiness that we long for.

*This quote is used with permission from Ruby Stringer.