Daniel's Faith

A few weeks back I published a post stating that I was in the process of looking for a new church body to join. Good news, I found one! I'm thrilled to have officially found a new church home and this week's post is actually from last week's sermon.

The Scripture passage is from Daniel chapter 2 where King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and asks his wise men to not only interpret his dream but tell him what the dream was. See, he suspected that they were just making up answers and so he wanted them to prove that they knew what they were talking about by telling him his dream before they interpreted it. Information, of course, that they had no way of knowing unless they did indeed have supernatural knowledge as they claimed.

Now I've been hearing this story since I was a little kid but the pastor on Sunday pointed out something I had never thought about before.

Daniel 2:14-19 "When Arioch, the commander of the king's guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact. He asked the king's officer, 'Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?' Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel. At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him. The Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven..."

Did you catch it?

I didn't at first.

First Daniel spoke to the king and asked for time, second he prayed that God would reveal the dream for him. Think about that for a moment. Daniel is living in a land that he never wanted to go to in the first place, he's a captive, facing death and instead of giving up or panicking he takes a huge step of faith. He believes that God can and will save him from this horrible outcome and he believes it so strongly that he goes straight to the king and asks for time. Then, after that, he starts to pray with his friends that God would reward his faith.

How much faith must that have taken? More then I have quite possibly!

And yet isn't that the faith we're called to have? That instead of saying "Oh, I can't possibly make this decision without praying about it first" we're already praying about everything so when the time comes we can step out on faith and ask God to honor that step.

Now please don't misunderstand me here. When we have the opportunity to take some time and pray about important issues it's a very important step. However we shouldn't respond out of fear and call it faith. Nor should we ignore prayer right up until the moment we have to make a decision. We should, like Daniel, be praying about everything so that when we need to take a step of faith, we're prepared to and we trust God with the outcome.

So here's my challenge, take some time to practice praying all the time so that when you;re called to take immediate action, you're ready to do just that.

Forgiveness

This post was written by my wonderful mom, Teresa Kirk. I hope you enjoy it!

Forgiveness is on my mind.  Because I need to forgive some people and it’s really, really hard.  Have you ever been there?  I know it’s the right thing to do.  Jesus said if we don’t forgive others we aren’t forgiven.  I’ve been trying to forgive them, but it’s just so very hard.  

Why is it so hard to forgive?  For me, in this situation, the wrong done wasn’t done to me, but to someone I love and care about.  That person has forgiven them, but I continue to struggle with forgiving them.  God knows my heart, and this week I had to see several of those people face to face, not by my choice.  (It’s much easier to ignore them, when they live in another town and you never see them.)   Knowing I was going to be seeing them, I had to ask the Lord to give me a forgiving heart.  I was able to give hugs to my fellow Christians and at least start to forgive them.  

Unfortunately, my heart attitude still needs changed.  I still believe what they did was so very wrong – and if I could, I would make them suffer the way “we” have because of their actions.  I realized today (before Kattarin asked me to write this blog) that fortunately for me, God doesn’t forgive me that way.  How many times have I done things in ways that have hurt Him, hurt His Son or one of His other children?  Each time He forgives me, He doesn’t hold it against me.  Just because it is easy for me to avoid the people I feel wronged me, doesn’t mean I can get away with my unforgiving attitude.  If I will not turn it over to the Lord and choose to forgive, I will become a bitter, unforgiving person.  The choice is mine.  Even when I choose forgiveness, sometimes it is a process.

As I think of forgiveness, I am reminded of another time I had to forgive and be forgiven.  This time it was my children’s Granddad, my father-in-law.  He lived next door to us and I saw him daily.    Dad loved a smooth lawn; my husband didn’t care if it looked like we lived in the middle of a grass wilderness, so mowing my grass was Dad’s way of taking care of me.  Unfortunately, he didn’t always pay attention to what he mowed and one day mowed down a fledgling tree, one my children had planted.  I was angry – how dare he?  Eventually, I forgave him – sooner rather than later, as I saw him all the time.  Only, do you know what?  He had to forgive me too.  He had to forgive me for being angry with him for trying to help me.  Sometimes we don’t see the other person’s side of the situation.  Who do you need to forgive?  Are you willing to let the Lord work in your heart and change you?  I’m asking Him to change my heart attitude and to forgive as He forgave me.

Choosing to Love

This year I've chosen to write a blog post for each of my siblings. While I still have one more sibling to go I'm taking a break to write about another person who's not quite a sibling but is family. Due to the sensitive nature of this post I'm not going to say his name. Those who know him will recognize the story but I hope the rest of you will be able to draw something from it.

I'm going to call this person M, that's not even his initial but it's the one I'm using. M has had an interesting life. As kids we were close. We're not that far apart in age and we usually got along. As M got a little older he got into some bad stuff. Drinking, drugs, etc. It's been hard on our whole family and those who love him. There's no way to sugar coat that.

When I think about the people that have broken my heart the most over the years M is at the top of that list. At different times, myself and others in our family have thought "Okay, this is it, this will be when he turns his life around. This is what it's going to take." And sometimes he has, at least for a while, and then something happens and it feels like we're right back to where we started. Talk about heartbreaking.

Throughout all these years of ups and downs with M there have been countless sleepless nights and heart wrenching sobs. Sometimes I've tried to encourage others in his life and sometimes others have tried to encourage me. We've cried together and prayed together and spent years hoping together that M would be able to turn things around.

Sometimes he stops talking to the people who love him and then it's really scary because you don't always know what's happening. Other times you see glimpses of the real M underneath all the bad decisions and you find hope, then something happens and it feels like it's dashed again.

I'm not going to explain all of M's problems or the circumstances that have led him to this place. I'm not going to try to justify his actions or share my hopes of him coming back to the Lord someday. That's not the point of today's post. The point is that through it all myself and others have had to learn one of, what I believe to be, life's hardest lessons. Choosing to love.

See M isn't perfect, he's hurt lots of people through his choices. Like I said earlier, he's broken my heart too many times to count because of things he's said and choices he's made. Drugs and alcohol don't just destroy the life of the one using them, they can destroy the lives of those who love that person. Obviously my life hasn't been destroyed by M's choices but my heart has been broken. So what do you do when a person you love constantly makes bad decisions?

In this case, when it doesn't put anyone in danger, I choose to love him anyways and still be a part of his life. I've lowered my expectations so I'm not constantly disappointed when he makes poor choices but I don't stop loving him. Sometimes it's difficult because he's not acting very lovable but I choose to love him anyways. Love is more then an emotion, it's a choice and an action and a commandment.

Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors and although M and I don't live near each other anymore I'm still supposed to love him, even when he makes it hard. I do hope and pray that someday he comes back to the Lord and is finally able to deal with his problems and move on with his life but I have no guarantee of that ever happening. And although that breaks my heart I will choose to love him anyways and ask God to give me strength to continue praying for him no matter what.

Favorite Verses

Sometimes I'll be reading through my Bible app and I'll come across a verse  that I just really love. On the YouVersion app I can do a verse image that I'll sometimes share to social media, send to a friend, or just save to my phone. They're not all a new life verse for me, or my new favorite verse. Sometimes they just seen to fits whatever situation I'm in, or they're something that reminds me of a truth I've forgotten, or they stand out to me as a reminder of God's love and promises. Today I want to share some of those verses with you.

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
Psalms 139:14

"I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope."
Psalms 130:5

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Micah 6:8