Shoutin’ Saturdays is one of seven posts here at Lillie-Put dedicated to giving God the shout out He is worthy of.
You know, I am not given to frequent bouts of sadness but for the last couple of hours I have been taking a tumble deep into the pit of despair. I actually googled “Really sad songs that make you cry” on Youtube.
After a bit of that nonsense I dope-slapped myself and asked, “What the heck are you doing?”
So I shut down the really sad songs, prayed and then I began to listen to praise music. As I did, I came across this song that was a perfect echo for the cry of my heart at this moment.
Learn more about Fernando Ortega and his confessions HERE.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1,2
Have you ever climbed a mountain? I have. What I can’t believe about mountain climbing is that there are people who actually do it for fun. I remember climbing this one mountain ( I remember it because it was the only mountain I ever climbed). I remember looking up to see the peak. I remember making my way up the steep thigh-killing trail, my breath tearing out of my lungs in great gasps.
I kept saying to myself “just a little further and you will have made it. The top is right around the corner!”
I remember coming out of the trees on that summit only to discover that what I thought was the top was just an outcrop masking the view of the real peak which was some half mile up in the distance. I think I wept.
Mountains are like that: tricky, turn-coat, hiding their bigness in the clouds and aiming to steal your joy at every turn of the path (sorry mountain climbing lovers I just calls ’em likes I sees ’em). The truth is if we keep our eyes on the mountains we will lose hope pretty quickly. Honestly, if you’re looking at the mountain and it seems to big for you to climb you’re only seeing the half of it. The real mountain is worse than you know.
But there is HOPE. You won’t find it looking at the mountain though. Hope is found in the Lord. He’s the maker of Heaven and Earth and He is bigger even than your mountain. Never forget to factor God in on your mountain climbs. He’s the greatest asset you have and He is the only reason you are going to make it up and over whatever mountain stands in your way. As Scripture says, “It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure. 33 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights Psalm 18:32,33
If God should think the mountain is to big for you to climb He will help you move it straight out of the way. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” Mark 11:23,24
Let me encourage you, stop looking at the mountain. Start looking at the God who is bigger than…
The Heaven posts are a devotional study through the Bible using the word “Heaven”. To find other Heaven posts go to my Pastor Wrinkles page above and click on the “Heaven posts” drop down.
Patricia has given us a quote and has asked us to write a new piece between 250 and 500 words.
Here is the quote and my newest story
Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” Willa Cather
Finishing the Island Lady
By JE Lillie
Andre was determined to make his mark on the world. His parents were even more determined that their son would succeed in his ambition. The family moved out of the tenements in lower Cleghorn when Andre was five and found a low rent apartment in a nearby suburb. It meant commuting in a beat up old truck for Andre’s father and working in the Dollar Store for his mother but they considered the sacrifice for their son worth it all.
Andre was no genius in the classroom but there was nothing the boy couldn’t create with a paintbrush. The word “prodigy” was tossed around throughout Andre’s high school career. That and a dozen blue ribbons from around the state and a full scholarship to the Boston School of the arts made him a shoe in as one of Massachusetts up and coming artists in gallery shows around the Commonwealth.
But Andre’s mark was bigger than a name on a canvas, bigger than money in the bank. When the boy started teaching art classes at the Boys and Girls club in Lower Cleghorn he knew he had come home. He trained a dozen young men and women in the art of painting.
For his Senior project he got permission from the City to begin painting murals over several of the graffitied walls in the center. Andre was warned of the danger of painting over gang tags. When he was interviewed he told the papers he was not challenging anyone’s authority, that his only goal was to revive a love for beauty in the downtrodden village called Cleghorn.
The gang’s did not see his work as beautiful. They shot and killed Andre on a Wednesday as he was finishing the outline of a mural he called, Island Lady.
Andre’s memorial service was held at the site of the outlined portrait. A hundred artists from around the state agreed to finish the Island Lady and to paint over every tag in the city as tribute to one of their own. The broken heart of love can breed anger. Used right that anger becomes resolve. When resolve meets hope and hope meets God that opens the way for many miracles.
Things aren’t what they seem! From everything…most of us can see, it appears clear that “the kings of the earth” are where the action is; theirs is the clout that makes things happen; theirs are the actions determining the course of history….
No things are not what they seem! Contrary to their own inflated opinion that crew does not hold the riens of history….they are being ruled. That ruler…already has won the decisive victory and established his control….God’s is the real power clothed in apparent powerlessness; Evil’s is apparent power which is really powerlessness. Things are not what they seem! Jesus is Lord— and that not only of us… who accept his lordship but of everyone else, up to and including the kings of the earth.-
This incredible rainbow appeared over our town hall last night after the day’s torrential rains.
It reminded me of this verse in the Bible.
When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Luke 21:28
We have ebola. We have the entero virus. We have war all over the world. We have weapons of mass destruction being discovered where people assured us there were none. We have fear and anger and well the list just goes on forever it seems. But we also have the promises of God and the good news of the gospel. I can still sing “Jesus Loves Me” and “This World Is Not My Home” and those two things are the truth unshakeable.
Ebola can come. War can come. People can hate me, curse me and hurt me but in the end all these troubles will pass away and I will stand in the garden again with my Jesus and sing! And so can anyone who comes to the cross and receives the grace of the One True Messiah of mankind! Now that is good news that no amount of bad news can undo!
Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young. Isa. 40:10,11 NLT
Dear friends, you know who you are.This song is my gift to you today. May it light your path for a few hours. Know someone is praying for you.
Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Hebrews 10:35-39 ESV)
Dear friend, now is not the time to throw in the towel! You may feel like you are running blind but that doesn’t mean you’ve lost; It just means you can’t see how close the finish line is.
I am watching as the enemy of our souls is stirring up much contention within and against the church and her saints; But I know he is only doing it because we are near to a breakthrough. Victory only comes through warfare and miracles only take place when all possible solutions have failed; So if your situation looks like either of those two paradigms look up and your redemption will draw near!
Hidey-Ho, Fun Foto Challengers! This week’s foto prompt from environs west of me and from the land of Cee is FOUND IN NATURE. This year I am taking a bit of a different tac with all my blog prompts. I have decided to take the prompts and give them new names so as to speak to the audience about what the prompts really say to me as an individual.
I was listening to the radio this morning and the announcer was telling her listeners that the average temperature here in the U.S. is twenty-five degrees colder than normal. It got me thinking that the world is getting colder not just physically but in other ways more spiritual. Still no matter how cold the air (physical or spiritual) around us gets, if we look hard enough we can always find hope.
Black Oaks, Immaculate Heart Of Mary Church, Winchendon MA
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Rejoicing In the Cold
“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…” ― Alfred Tennyson
Forest of Ingleside, Winchendon MA
“Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be…” ― William Wordsworth
I hope you enjoyed the photos from nature I found. I pray that one of these quotes filled you with a renewed hope in the world. Remember it’s not what is happening just now but what we hope is to come that counts. Nothing is perfect. As Leonard Cohen quipped, “There is a crack in everything.That’s how the light gets in.” But I think the mysterious writer to the Hebrews said it best.
“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Heb. 11:1
Hey! Keep the faith fun Foto Challengers and as you do check out Cee’s other contributors at…
I closed Faith & Hope Pt. 1 by saying ” If it is true that every man has faith living inside of him (like everyone has love living inside of him), then it is impossible to be truly faithless. Being unable to use our faith is not really a faith problem, then. It is a hope problem.”
So in this post it falls to me to define for us the word “hope”, because fixing a problem (if we have one) always begins with defining what it is. Don’t you agree?
In part one I stated that faith (the Greek word pistis) is always used as a noun. Unlike faith, hope can be used as both a noun and a verb. We can hope for things to happen (verb form)…. OR….We can have a hope (noun form).
The verb form of hope is found in verses like Romans 8:25 “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
Here the verb, hope, is the word “elpizo” which means “to trust in”. When we put our faith in someone or something then we are hoping in it. Hold on!I am about to turn the lights on for someone.
We now know about the verb form of hope, but what about the noun form of hope? What is A HOPE?
The Greek noun translated as hope in the New Testament is the word “Elpis”- the object one applies faith to.
But the definitions of hope that really help here are from the Hebrew. There are several words translated as hope in the Old Testament but the two that I find most helpful are the words “tiqvah” and “betach”
a tiqvah is a cord and my betach is my security or my protection. Picture yourself repelling from a high cliff with nothing between you and a three hundred foot drop but the rope tied around your waist. The rope is your hope. It is your cord (tiqvah) and your security or protection (betach).
Now here is where the issue with faith comes in. You see, I can have all kinds of faith living inside of me but if I am expected to repel down a three hundred foot cliff using a seventy five year old rope that is full of dry rot I am going to have a very hard time using my faith to actually get myself to go over the edge. My problem is not with the level of my faith it is with the trustworthiness of the thing I am being asked to trust (my hope).
Now let’s put that into relationship terms. Many of us put our faith in people who were too weak to hold us up. We got dropped and smashed on the rocks of life. We made vows we would never trust anyone again. We don’t have a faith problem. We still have all kinds of faith living inside of us. We just don’t think there is anyone out there we can put our faith in. We see no hope…no tiqvah…no betach we can attach our faith to.
This is what Paul was talking about when he wrote, “11 Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. … In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope.” Ephesians 2:11,12 NLT
We cannot truly walk by faith until we meet someone who is strong enough to keep us from smashing on the rocks beneath the cliff called life. Jesus Christ is the only true hope of the world and until we make him our hope we succeed at nothing other than causing more injury to our faith.
Lillie-Put 