At the time of this writing we have been saddened by the devastating fires in Australia, mourning the loss of 176 people killed in the plane crash over Tehran including 57 Canadians, threatened by the Corona virus affecting the lives of people around the world.

Winter storms, floods, volcanoes earthquakes and hurricanes continue to play havoc on our planet.

Listen to the news and the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Terrorism, nuclear weapons, social unrest, unethical leaders, unemployment, hopelessness, opioid epidemic, poverty. Hardly anyone thinks the world is getting better.

According to Max Roser, an economist at the University of Oxford and founder of our World in Data, there have been some significant advances in poverty, literacy, health, freedom, and education. He states that the world is an extraordinarily better place than in was a couple centuries ago. He continues to say: “In 1950 75 % of the world were still living in extreme poverty. Today it is less than 10%. Eight out of ten people can read and write. Infancy mortality rate is down by 40% since the 1800’s. While freedom is hard to measure, more than half of the global population lives in a democracy. Despite these statistics eight out of ten people see the world as worse off.”

The struggle from a Christian perspective as to how we view the world can be influenced as well by the media and the scriptures.

The following current statistics as stated by Open Doors reports that 1 in 12 churches suffer persecution for following Jesus. Every month an average of 66 churches in the world are either destroyed or burned. Every day 6 women are raped. Every month 2400 people leave home because of their faith.

Like Job in the Bible we wonder where it is all going to end. Thirty eight of the forty two chapters record the dialogue between Job, his friends and God. Here Job questions God and his friends have the audacity to lecture Job as to who God is.

In Chapter thirty eight God finally breaks His silence and out of the eye of the violent storm he tells Job to pull himself together.

Have you ever traveled to where snow is made and seen the vault where hail is stockpiled? Did you command the eagle’s flight, and teach her to build her nest in the heights?” In chapter forty-one God lets Job know ,“ I’m in charge of all this, I run the universe!”

I will put together my church, Jesus said, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. (Matt 16:18 Msg)

He will settle things fair between nations and turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes. Nations will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4 Msg)

He shall have dominion from sea to sea. (Ps 72:8 NKJ)

The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14 NKJ)

Look God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women. They’re his people he’s their God…tears gone, crying gone, pain gone…look I am making everything new. Yes, I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon! I’m bringing my payroll with me. I’ll pay all people in full for their life’s work. I’m A to Z, the First and the Final, Beginning and Conclusion. (Rev: 21:3-5,22:12-13 Msg)

What is my level of influence as to how one sees the world? How Bad is it?

With my backpack slung over my left shoulder and a big red suitcase in my right hand, I jostled through the crowds toward the Air Canada kiosk at the Phoenix International Airport. After checking in, then walking through security and past Starbucks, suddenly everything felt ridiculously familiar. When I saw the sign for Gate B28, flashbacks and unsettling images flew through my brain. Vividly I recalled walking this exact route three years ago. That nightmare trip of undefined proportions.

Once I found my chair in the departure lounge, all I wanted to do was settle in with my good book and cup of tea. But I couldn’t relax. My mind had been heightened with the pain and anxiety I’d felt the last time I sat here. I’d been in Phoenix visiting with my dearest friends Bob and Fran when the intense grief from my second husband’s death escalated to the point where I hit a wall. I knew I was in trouble that morning when I tried to get out of bed and ended up on my hands and knees crawling to the bathroom. My body was in extreme distress. I had no strength, I couldn’t stop crying and my heart beat like a drummer within my chest. Something was frighteningly wrong and I needed to get back home to Canada. To the Emergency ward. Once back home I was diagnosed with PTSD and the next few months were a journey through hell.

Now three years later I was overcome with gratitude for my healing and filled with unexplainable joy. Thank you Lord that you are a restorer. It is true that “everything in life is temporary” and that you heal, renew and re-energize. God I’ve been through the darkest valley of death but you were there beside me. In my agony I cried out and you comforted. In my despair you brought hope. In my tears of sadness, you reaped new joy.

Then I settled in on the story of Elijah after he’d sat under a broom tree and told God:

I’m going to die anyway, it might as well be now” (1 Kings 19:5).

After Elijah slept, ate and recovered his energy, he ran to meet with God on Mount Horeb. God listened as Elijah poured out his disappointment and despair, but then God told Elijah:

Go back the way you came.” (1 Kings 19:15).

The first time I studied this story I thought God’s words were a little harsh. But now I get it, because along with Elijah I’m living out the rest of the story.

God didn’t say:

Elijah, I know that was hard, and you’ve done your part and now you can go home and rest, and enjoy life.”

We all go through really tough stuff. Yes, we have to cry out to him with our pain and disappointments. We must take the time to let God heal and restore us. And then use what we’ve learned use it to better, grow stronger and go back and do it again. With more resilience, Holy Spirit power and an enlarged capacity for mercy and kindness.

That’s what God did for me. Three years later I went back to Phoenix and this time to be the keynote speaker at an outstanding conference. I was filled with new energy and joy proclaiming the excellence of Him who called us out of darkness into His glorious light. God uses the soil of darkness and pain to grow us into His most excellent leaders.

What painful path is God calling you to go and “do it again?”

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” – Jeremiah 1:5

These words bring me to the life of Mary the mother of Jesus laying her life in the master’s hands. God saw humility, obedience and purity in Mary. Her obedience and total dependence on His promises are qualities that stand out in her.
Her purity was also another contributing factor. She was pure enough for God’s thoughts to dwell in her mind.

She trusted God even to the extent of putting her reputation on the line in order to fulfill His promises.

GIVE IT UP FOR GOD

Mary didn’t know that the angel would be sent to her. She never knew what take place at the time she was planning to get married to Joseph.
She had to give up her plans in order to fit into God’s great plan.

When God calls us into His service, we must embrace the call.

When the situation is fully explained to Mary, she makes herself available to God,

And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.” – Luke 1:38

Mary recognized her own worth although she occupied a humble position in society. God honored her and from then on all generations would call her blessed. Her understanding of herself was affirmed by her cousin Elizabeth’s exclamation,

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” – Luke 1:42

Our plans will never change what God wants to do in our lives. He will make a way where there seems to be no way.

In the midst of situations that we don’t understand, God comes in to give clarity as it was for Joseph,

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:19-21

Any time God interrupts your plans, it’s only because He has a better idea. He knows and examines our hearts.

The way we respond to situations determines the end of the matter. Mary knew God was first in her life and she accepted God’s will before consulting with Joseph. She knew that her life and plans were in God’s hands.

God may well be working out His purpose even in the seemingly insignificant acts of our lives. Let us be vigilant for opportunities God brings our way for He’s in the business of restoring us to the purpose with which He created us for.

A renewed passion to understand the life of Jesus and his followers has taken me on a journey into the Gospels.

I have attempted to put myself at the scene of that historic birth, help pick up the leftovers from that amazing lunch, questioned my faith on the stormy Galilee. I pushed myself through the crowd to receive his healing touch and heard him call my name at the Garden tomb.

Then there was the motley crew that he called his disciples. They were something else to write home about.

Peter really got me.He lived in a house in Capernaum with his wife and mother in law. He obviously was in business with his brother Andrew and was in partnership with James and John. My uncle was a fisherman, he was tall well built and had enormous hands that were well calloused. I envisioned these men to be similar in appearance.

It is difficult to pinpoint when Peter became Peter. Was it before or after the great catch? Was it Peter’s appearance that caused Jesus to look at this burly fisherman and change his name from Simon to Cephas which is Aramaic for Peter, which is Greek for Rock?

However and whenever it occurred, that great catch of fish, of all times in broad daylight, brought the Rock to his knees and in his impetuous manner he blurted out, “Lord leave, I am a sinner and can’t handle this holiness.” Jesus said there is nothing to fear, from now on you will be fishing for men and women.

In the three and half years that Jesus was with these guys, they really couldn’t figure him out. With all the coded messages and talks about the Kingdom coming, they kept looking for signs of a revolt against their oppressors the Romans. One day Jesus put it straight to them, “Who do YOU say that I am?” The silence was deafening until Peter broke it: “You’re the Christ the Son of the living God.” Matt 16:15-16. Jesus knew it took a lot to say that and he told him that he was the Rock he wanted to build his Church on.

In the same setting, Jesus was trying to explain to them that being the Christ was not going to be a bed of roses. He would soon suffer the tortures in Jerusalem and be killed. Peter couldn’t take it and blurted out, “God forbid, Lord, this shall never happen.” Jesus lit into him, who just a while ago he gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and said “Get behind me Satan.”

It wasn’t the only time Peter put his foot in his mouth. Would seven times be enough to forgive anyone person? Lord what deal to a person get if they leave everything to follow you? You Lord, wash my feet? Never!But when Jesus explained to him the role of being a servant he pretty much wanted Jesus to give him a bath.

Then there were those famous words, “Lord, I will lay down my life for you.” While Jesus was agonizing in the Garden, he found Peter sleeping and said, “Could you not watch with me one hour”? There was that horrible scene. The Rock was sitting out there in the high priest’s courtyard keeping warm by the fire while Jesus was being interrogated pretty much in front of him. Three times he told that girl, he didn’t know what on earth she was talking about, he had never seen the man before. He even stooped to cursing and swearing. The rooster crowed three times and Peter went out tears running down his face like water on a rock

Then there is this incredible scene at the Garden Tomb where a young man was sitting and told the alarmed seekers to go tell his disciples and PETER.

It was on the beach at daybreak. Peter had decided to go fishing that night along with some of his buddies. When they came ashore Jesus was cooking them breakfast. When it was over, he called Peter only this time he called him, “ Simon, son of John, do you love me?”and Peter said he did. Then he asked three times altogether. Maybe to make up for the three denials.

Then Jesus said,“Feed my lambs, Feed my sheep.”This time he got the point, even though he encountered a few blunders along the way. The keeper of the Keys, the ROCK never let the boss down from that day to this.

Writing to the dispersed church in 1 Peter 2:25 – For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

I was in my mid-thirties when I experienced a faith crisis, and it terrified me. My husband and I were busy in ministry. We were at the church every time the doors were open, yet there was this void inside of me. I knew that somehow, in my eagerness to serve the Lord, I had lost something precious. I couldn’t remember the last time my faith excited me. I couldn’t remember the last time love motivated me instead of duty, and I didn’t know who to talk to about it or how to change it.

Is a Church Leader Allowed to have a Crisis of Faith?

I started to pray despite not feeling it. I banked everything on Hebrews 11:6, the Lord rewards those who earnestly seek Him. I staked my future on the trustworthiness of the Word because if God didn’t move in my heart, I didn’t know what I would do.

I prayed with straightforward, honest, and fervent words. There was nothing beautiful about those wretched cries that welled from the deepest places of my soul. I was far from God, and I had no idea how I arrived in that spot when every waking moment had been devoted to ministry. I repented, but it didn’t bring a rush of desire or joy. So I opened the Word. It was time to grow up and stop letting my emotions direct my relationship with God. It was time to put in the work and seek the Lord believing that He could be found. It was time to cut things I enjoyed from my schedule to make room for the things I needed, to stop aimlessly running, and instead, chase the disciplines that would earn the prize that mattered.

Chase What Matters

I believe that we can teach stubborn hearts through the discipline of seeking God to remain focused on Him. We can live as if we believe God when He calls us his child, chosen, holy, and redeemed. We can learn to live by the power of God rather than by our fledging strength and become so overwhelmed by God and the great length to which He has gone to save us that it changes everything in life.

We all chase something. It might be a degree, career, or academic recognition. It might be a spouse, a family, a cultural perception of success, or the approval of man. But not everything we chase is worthy of the pursuit. It’s time to step up and chase holiness.

*Chasing Holiness is the premise for Stacey’s next non-fiction book. It is scheduled for release in Fall 2020 through Write Integrity Press.

Read about her book Glorious Surrender