EVEN IF

Keeping our emotions in check is a very difficult thing. Wouldn't you agree?  Many of our emotions are dependent on our circumstances.  We get frustrated if things don't go our way.  We get  angry if someone cuts us off in traffic or we feel that some injustice has been done to us.  We are sad if we lose someone we love. We feel insecure if we are not being recognized. We may be disappointed if someone else wins a record-breaking lottery. Those are all natural emotions. However, we have to exercise some control. II Timothy 1:7 says "For God has not given us the spirit of fear or timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self discipline."  It has always comforted me to know that the one emotion that I know can remain constant is joy. No matter what I am experiencing, my joy can never be altered because it is not dependent on my circumstances but on the hope that I have in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

I have MORE good news! There is an emotion that we do not have to control:  unashamedness.  Yes, it's a word. I looked it up. It is the feeling of no remorse, shame or embarrassment.  In fact it can be an impossible one to control. In Acts 4, Peter and John have just been released from jail and have been told not to speak the name of Jesus again.   Acts 4:20 shows their response. "As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." They just couldn't help it! They HAD to speak about it.

Wouldn't it be great if our faith was as natural as our emotions that want to explode from our inner being?  Three young men in the Bible have become my new heroes lately as I have examined one little phrase that they said to King Nebuchadnezzar as they were getting ready to be thrown into the fiery furnace. Here is the passage from Daniel 3:16-19:   "16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." 19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed."

Did you catch the phrase that hit me? In verse 18 , the words BUT EVEN  IF hit me like a brick. They were so sure of the fact that the Lord was their Defender and that He was able to save them. They even said, "He WILL rescue us from your hand".  These boys were wise enough to know that the way in which God chose to defend them and rescue them may not necessarily look like what they felt rescuing was, but they would be rescued nonetheless. No matter what they were being threatened with , they were not willing to compromise their faith.  "EVEN IF He does not...we will not serve your gods." That's a boundary, if I've ever seen one!  What courage! Do you have that kind of faith? EVEN IF things don't go your way, are you going to continue to serve God?  No matter what's at stake, are you willing to live in obedience and trust that God will rescue you? Are you willing to take it a step further, as these young men did, and be unashamed and proclaim boldly that you will continue to serve your God?

It made me reflect on a few of my EVEN IF moments from the past. EVEN IF my marriage fails, am I going to continue to serve? EVEN IF I have a miscarriage, am I going continue to praise the name of the Lord? EVEN IF it takes me over a year to conceive again, am I going to acknowledge that the Lord is in control? EVEN IF my house burns down, am I going to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength?  EVEN  IF I have to sit back and helplessly watch my husband go through the loss of his ailing father and muster the strength to preach at his funeral, am I going to fall at the feet of Jesus and thank Him for that trial?

Here is my honest answer. I got angry. I asked, "Why?" I cried many tears throughout my trials. However,  I never lost my joy or my hope and I never doubted who I was or Whose I was. I remember the pastor from our previous church asking me how I was doing after our house fire. I gave a one word answer, "Victorious." Believe me, I was just as surprised as he was with the answer that automatically came out of my mouth. I am victorious in any situation because I am the daughter of the King Most High! I am Royalty and I choose to have EVEN IF faith!

Be Careful With the Bananas!

         Our lives are based on relationships. Relationships with family, friends, our church, with God, employers, employees and believe it or not, everyone who crosses our path.   Too often, however , we get so wrapped up in taking care of ourselves and get so focused on  our own little world that we don't give ourselves fully to the people that are around us, even the ones closest to us.  From time to time we need to remember what it takes to nurture the relationships in our lives.  Are you all there for people? Are you committed to anybody other than yourself? Ouch.

Is there really anything so important in your day that you cannot be interrupted? Most of the things that surround us are just distractions that hinder our relationships.  We need to get a vision of what we want our relationships to look like and then take the steps necessary to reach those goals. Perhaps there are things that need cleared from our schedules. Perhaps there are things you need to work on in your own life to be able to be more transparent.

I did a fun activity with the kids from our youth group last week.   Each child was paired up with a partner. Each pair was given a knife, a plate and a banana.   The instructions were to cut the banana up, deciding as partners who would do the cutting and how many pieces they would cut it into.  I had only one girl team and they quietly discussed their plan. They made one neat slice across the middle of the banana, then stepped away from their plate. The younger boys made several neat slices and stepped away from their plates.  Two of my older boys in the group, however, sliced and diced their banana every which way until it was almost mashed up enough to feed the new baby born into our church family. They finally stepped away from their plate.

  They all waited for further instruction as I looked around at each team’s plate before smiling and saying, “Now put it back together.”  Jaws dropped.  You can imagine which team had their jaws drop the furthest.   I continued, “On the table, you will find clothes pins, tape, yarn and tooth picks. Your banana must look exactly as it did when I first handed it to you.”   The girls gently took their banana and secured the two halves with tooth picks then wrapped a piece of tape around it. Some of the boys got the inside of the banana looking pretty close but could not get the peel back on.  The older boys worked fast and furious, but truly there was no hope for their poor banana.

When every was cleaned up we discussed the lesson which you have probably figured out by now.   When we cut up and damage our relationships, most of the time we want to try to reconcile them and put them back together, but they will never be the same again. Even with the girls who only made one cut, there was still a scar.   The ones who mutilated their “relationship” tried very hard to get it back together, but there was no hope at all. That “relationship” could never be repaired.  It can really give us a visual and hopefully help us to understand that the relationships around us are so fragile.  

One parent and I were talking later about the experiment and after I said that those relationships would never be the same, she agreed, then said, “Sometimes they can look better.”  I pondered those words and she was absolutely right.  I thought about our marriages specifically.  We can say and do things to hurt our spouses. We can go through tough times, but as we work through it, it becomes a milestone that we can look back on and remind ourselves that we were overcomers.  We are stronger as we learn to weather the storms together.   I can see that happening with friendships and other relationships as well. The kids were able to use reinforcements to put the bananas back together. They SECURED them with other items to make the banana hold together stronger. We can do the same thing. We can SECURE our relationships with the foundation of God’s Word, with the new tools of communication, with new eyes of compassion toward the other. Our relationships can be strengthened through the lessons learned in the storms.   

I want to encourage you to slow down and really take the time to see who is around you. Take a moment and really look at your child.   Your spouse and children are around every day, but when is the last time you really looked at them and appreciated who they were? I challenge you to take the time to truly see people who come across your path this week. Look people in the eye and smile. Relationships are important and reconciliation can be so healing. If there are things that need to be taken care of, please do it. You are not guaranteed tomorrow.  Live your life with no regrets in those relationships!