Tuesday, February 11, 2014

We've Got the Power!

4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor. 10. NIV

I have to apply this to my life daily, sometimes more than once. Followers of Christ must fight against what this world can do to us; tempted to hate, to mentally destroy, to use crass and vulgar language which can become one of the biggest hindrances to our witness. These can cause bad attitudes and pride in our own opinions, and we need to recognize how ugly these are to our Father. Pray and resist, and use the weapons of the divine powers with which we have been gifted.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Daddy's Lap

I didn't grow up with a godly father. He was angry and bitter at God for allowing the fatal accident of his son in a horrible farm accident and also the death of my sister soon after she was born. Words were never spoken by him in my presence, but my mother often tried to explain to me all the emotional trauma that he oftentimes experienced mainly through nightmares.  Many, many nights mom and I would hold him, rocking him in our arms, crying with him, trying to comfort him after these violent interruptions of sleep. But comfort really never came for him.  The mental suffering of this haunted man was unimaginable.

Dad never went to church except for funerals.  He wasn't about to give God the satisfaction of thinking He would ever be forgiven for what dad believed God had taken from him. But mom and I were in church every Sunday.  If there was any talk about not attending church my dad nixed that immediately.  He wasn't going, but he saw to it that we went.

However, my dad was the type of man in whose lap I was always welcome. Even as a teen, I  could climb up in my daddy's lap, and he would cuddle and love me profusely. He died when I  was 18, and for 19 yrs I  had no lap to crawl into. When I came to Christ at age 37, I  realized the love of my Creator/Father. My earthly dad had taught me that I would be welcome to climb up into my heavenly Father's grasp and bask in His loving arms.

Daddy wasn't perfect, but I knew his never-ending love for me and finally recognized that love in my eternal Father.