TMI!

Too much information. The clamor is killing me!

I want to run screaming from my computer and all the visual noise of earthquakes, floods, budgets, celebrity divorces and over-paid athletes. Will it never end?

As a matter of fact, it will. As soon as I turn off the Internet, the television and the radio, and put down the newspaper.

So this morning I picked up my Bible and began reading Psalm 46.

“God is our refuge and strength ...” Ah, yes, this is what I need. But soon the turmoil came: the earth gave way, mountains fell into the sea, the waters roared and foamed, mountains quaked with the surging.

Oh my gosh, Japan! And every other place that has ever been racked by earthquakes.

I kept reading, and for a brief interlude saw a peaceful river flowing through the City of God before things churned up again. Destruction brought images of Libya, Sudan, Egypt and Afghanistan, but God stepped in to break the bow and shatter the spear, and burn the shields with fire.

And there was the answer: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Could this be what I need, to simply still my heart and the noise in my life? Could these old, old words apply even to my modern life?

Regardless of what nature sends, regardless of how men and nations boast and threaten and stage themselves, God is still God.

He is still there.

Still waiting for me.

Still.

And when I still myself, I hear him.

Sometimes life’s a rodeo: Expect the unexpected

Have you ever felt like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, about to be pummeled through no fault of your own? Have you ever asked, What did I do to deserve this?

An Old Testament king named Hezekiah looked through his window one day and saw the Assyrian army camped outside. The biblical account says, “After all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah” (II Chronicles 32:1 NIV).

Seems unfair, doesn’t it? Hezekiah had been so faithful. How could God let the enemy get so close? What had Hezekiah done wrong, that such a large, seemingly unbeatable force could close in around him?

Hezekiah fell on his face before God and said, “If you don’t save us, it’s all over.”

I’ve seen the same thing at a rodeo.

When my husband was a barrel man, he often went head to head with a big lanky bull called The Grizz. This long-legged monster could step right over Mike’s red and white striped clown barrel and camp on the bullfighter behind it. Or isolate him in the middle of the arena.

One particular day everything stopped, even The Grizz. The bullfighter, down on one knee, looked Grizz in the eye and the crowd knew what to expect.

The big bovine swished his tail to one side, snorted, blinked … and walked off toward the out gate.

The bullfighter leaped to his feet and dashed for the fence, and with one collective breath, the astounded audience cheered.

Maybe ol’ Grizz saw an angel behind the kneeling clown.

That's what happened with Hezekiah: the Lord sent an angel to annihilate the Assyrian soldiers and their king withdrew.

Adverse circumstances can make us doubt that God is paying attention. However, he still intervenes today in the lives of his people - and more important than that is his presence in the lives of his people on an even deeper level than Hezekiah experienced.

The Lord is with us in everything we face and has promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV).

The next time we ask, Where are the blessings and benefits? Where are the good times and abundance? How can God let bad things happen? let’s remember that the Lord himself walks with us.

Even though our challenges may be bigger than we can handle, they are never bigger than our God.

“The Lord answered Job out of the storm.”

Wouldn’t you rather hear from God in church, where it’s safe and dry and predictable? Or from your sofa while you’re relaxing after a long day.

How about when everything is going you way? Wouldn’t that be a great time to hear the voice of God?

I’ll admit there have been times like these when I heard the Lord speak to my heart. Those moments of the still small voice have filled me with comfort and hope.

But when God speaks to me out of the storm, there is no doubt about who’s doing the talking.

No other voice can reach me above the roar of the crashing waves. No one else can find me in the debris, or lift me from the fallen facades of my life.

No one else can calm the fear and bring peace.

He is bigger than the storm.

Who's at the end of your rope?

Praise is the rope by which
the Lord lifts me from the
dark pit.

His hands grip one end,
strong to pull me up
as I cling to the other.
His face grows closer
as I rise
and I see his smile.

Clean me off, Lord.
Set me on a sure and solid place.
Show me which way to go.

And Lord,
may I sing for you
this new song in my heart?


Psalm 40:1-3

Tomorrow: By the time you get there it's today

After driving our pickup home on icy roads with snow blowing sideways and a semi bearing down on me, I had a much deeper appreciation for the phrase “white-knuckling it.” I was just grateful to make it to our driveway without sliding off the highway or adorning the hood of the semi.

My husband calls snow the Great Equalizer. It slows everyone, covers everyone. All of us are the same: travelers struggling to make it safely to our destinations, whether in semis or pickups.

As much as I love the beauty of the falling flakes, I’ll admit I groused about dashing through them from the parking lot to the grocery store that day. “My hair will frizz as soon as it dries,” I whined.

My world is so immediate. I took the pickup that morning without much thought of a snowy day. Didn’t take a muffler. No umbrella. No extra coat in the back seat.

This is Colorado; I knew better.

Remember when your mother said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”? People credit Thomas Jefferson with those words, but I don’t believe it. It had to be someone from Colorado where the weather can drop 30 degrees in 10 minutes and you can use sun tan oil and snow boots on the same day. It had to be someone like me who put off taking her broken glasses into town on Saturday because she was going on Sunday so she’d do it then and save a trip.

Ha! Not here. Not when a winter blizzard can blow in hours before it’s predicted, clog your driveway with snow and coat the highways in sheet ice.

Guess who spent three days trying to read and work at the computer in a white-out?

Procrastination cost me a lot, but it also gave me something in return: blurred vision and a killer headache.

Some people put off going to the doctor. Others put off saving money, exercising, eating right or talking to God.

Snow isn’t the only equalizer, so it time. We don’t get tomorrow. We think we do, but by the time we get there, it’s today.

Whatever it is you need to do, from saving money to talking to God, do it today. It’s really the only time you have.

Out of Control

A small natural disaster created a major inconvenience here the other day. On national radar it was a blip; locally it was a rockslide.

Literally.

Seven thousand tons of rock slipped off the mountain and across U.S. Highway 50 like a string of broken beads. The 20-foot swath closed the two-lane road west of Canon City for nearly a week. Commuters, tourists and delivery trucks had to reroute more than 100 miles out of their way.

Twenty feet doesn’t seem like much, roughly the length of a modern living room. But when individual boulders are themselves 20 feet across, there’s no getting around the issue.

Road crews broke, blasted and drilled the boulders into more manageable pieces before loading them into trucks. Three hundred truck loads, by the way, to clear the main artery that flows through Colorado’s Arkansas River canyon.

It doesn’t take much to stop our forward progress: a big rock, downsizing, a disabled refrigerator, a disabling illness, rumors of war, death.

How startling to discover that we are not in control.

How dare those rocks slide into our path. How dare our boss fire us. How dare we get sick now, when we’re so busy.

How dare the carefully threaded beads of my life come tumbling down around my feet and roll away.

And how glad I am - truly - that it’s not all up to me after all.


“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (I Peter 5:7).

They've Come!

At last, the finches and sparrows have come to my feeder. It took a foot of snow, freezing temperatures and chilling wind, but they came.

The feeder hung outside my living room window for months while the birds skittered and scratched around beneath it, ignoring its luscious fare. Finally, when they couldn’t work things out on their own, couldn’t find enough to eat, couldn’t reach through 12 inches of snow with their twig-like legs, they looked up and there it was. Full and easily accessible.

This sounds an awful lot like my personal journey with God. Does he, in his infinite wisdom, see the storm coming and know it will work something good in my life? Does he use deep distress, frozen circumstances and chilly relationships to show me he has a better way?

Does he know that when I can’t make things work on my own, I show up at his window sill?

He’s always there, waiting there for me.

Why don’t I just go to him in the first place?