Thursday Meditation - Cry from the Depths

Cry from the Depths 

Psalm 130

The Psalmist stood before the Israelites crying a soul wrenching cry.  The Israelites have turned their back on God.  They have allowed the worship of other god’s to go before the true and living God.  The people no longer fear the Lord God and have taken matters in their own hands.  Many of us have gotten to this point in life, our spouse decided to leave us, our children decided that robbing and stealing is better than working things out, our jobs have been outsourced or sent overseas for cheaper labor, the credit card company have increased our rates, our decision to invest our money has caused us to lose our investment and threaten our livelihood.  The foreclosure rate, unemployment and the recession continue to rise. 

And if that’s not enough, we received news from the doctor that our love one will not make it through the night or the diagnosis from the tests taken were positive and there is no cure.  Whatever the situation is some of us still have not cried out from the depths of our soul but those who have cried out have gotten God’s attention.  When life beats us down a shallow cry does not get God’s attention.  Shallow cries are from the throat, it’s hollow with no substance, but when a person is depressed and have no place to go like the psalmist, the cry to God will start from the gut.  This is the kind of cry that makes us take deep breaths deep and bellow out from our diaphragm to say “O Lord, hear my voice! Listen to me!"  I need your help.  I have tried it on my own but I can’t do it anymore.  I have sinned and fallen short of your glory.  I have acknowledged and recognized the sin, the unforgiveness, and the apathy in my life, but now it’s time for me to open my mouth and break the silence not only for me but for the community and its problems.  This is what God is waiting for us to do.  God wants us to break our individual silence and speak up and cry those deep well cries that will draw God’s attention and cause others to join in.

Prayer:  God we have not found our voice to cry from the depths of our souls.  We ask that you teach us by showing us where we can join the lament of others so we can cry from our souls.

Thursday Meditation - We are Living Bones

We are Living Bones
Ezekiel 37:1-14

We all may have heard about the story of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones.  God used Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and they were restored to a multitude of people in the valley.  This text fascinated me because I enjoy watching the show Bones.  Although it is a forensic crime solving show but I can't help to be intrigued by the reconstruction and resurrection of bones to tell a story.  Our bones can tell a lot about us in life and  after death. While we are living, our bones are wet with blood vessels and nerves run through them and in the center of our bones is bone marrow.  However in death our bones become dry and brittle because there is no life in them. When we want to know more about the bones of people we call upon the anthropologist and archeologist to tell us about the condition surrounding the bones and age, but it takes an osteologist to detail the true condition of bones due to disease, deficiency and demographics.

Ezekiel saw the condition of the bones and said they were very dry and in a valley.  These bones were not buried in the earth, they laid on top of the earth with direct sunlight.  The sunlight continue to make the bones drier and more brittle.  This is the image God showed to Ezekiel about the house of Israel. They have lost all hope and are cut off from God.  God showed Ezekiel restoration is possible by collecting and resurrecting the bones. 

This is the condition that many of us are in.  We are living bones, but living as dry and brittle bones.  We've lost our hope to live, no longer vibrant and wet bones with blood vessels and nerves running through our bodies.  When we encounter nothing but suffering, disappointment and rejection our living spirit starts to become like dry bones. We start to harden our hearts, our minds and spirits to the point that we refuse to hear from God nor want to speak with God.  The image God is showing in Ezekiel is the possibility of new life when all hope is gone.  We can be restored to a vibrant life if we are willing to believe in hope for a future, turn from self-righteousness and open ourselves to embrace unity without limitations.  If God can restore a valley of dry bones then what more can God do for our dried and broken spirit?

Prayer: God we seek restoration on this day.  Life have sucked us dry to the point that we have no hope or positive outlook on life.  We ask that you will shine a ray of hope our way so we can be recollected and filled with the spirit of your love. Amen.

Thursday Meditation - Time to Move On

Time to Move On

1 Samuel 16:1

Often in life we find ourselves stuck in neutral.  We get to a point in life where we think we can just coast and ignore the changes in life while everything around us is in an uproar.  This is where we find the prophet Samuel. He is still in denial and grieving that God has rejected Saul as the King of Israel. Samuel is experiencing tremendous grief because he was the one who anointed Saul as King (1 Samuel 10:1) and then he was the one to tell Saul he was rejected by God as King of Israel (1 Samuel 15:35). As we can see, Samuel is hurting as well.  He was there at the beginning of Saul's leadership and now he is at the end of his leadership.  Samuel was probably going through the second stage of grief process, pain and guilt.  Why? Israel wanted a king over them and Samuel felt they rejected him, but actually they were rejecting God.  

Samuel finds it hard to move on and accept that God has rejected Saul.  We all know how hard it is to move on after the death of a love one.  We can't help but to grieve, remain in denial and disbelief until we get to a point of acceptance.  We know Saul did not die physically yet, but his leadership suffered death because he rejected the word of God.  Because of this leadership death, Samuel wasn't able to let go and move forward, but God was ready. 

Why do we keep holding on to situations, positions and people when it is time to move on?  

We hold on because we really don't want to start over again or believe this will be the best we will ever get.  Imagine what life would be like if we really looked at all that God has rejected in our life as a change for the better.  Too many of us are walking around as stained cups because of the things that has happened in our past. We refuse to move forward because our cups will not be as beaming white as others.  We  must stop looking at the cups of other people and move when God says move.  The longer we hold on to situations, positions and people that reject us, the harder it will be for us to function properly and we will keep grieving.  Let us not drag our feet when God says move or we'll end up like Lot's wife a pillar of salt (Genesis 19) to remind us that we started to move on but we kept looking back to see what were leaving.  In order to prepare for our future we must be willing to let loose of the baggage, junk in the trunk, skeletons in the closets or what ever we call it, we must let it go.  God let Saul go when he told Samuel to fill his horn with oil and sent him to a place and a people where new leadership.  God has told us provision has been made and trying to move us into new territories of life, leadership, relationship and positions but first we got to let the rejected mess go.

Prayer: God, we pray when we are no longer useful in what we are doing, we ask you to give us the ability to move on and stop lingering around. Amen.

Thursday Meditation - Living in a Drought Condition

Living in a Drought Condition
John 4:7-21

In recent years we've witness extreme drought conditions across the farming region in the South East and Mid-West.  These long periods of no rain have caused the ground to become cracked and hard, streams and lakes dried up, crops burnt or crops not growing.  The condition created an adverse affect on our economy, the financial well being and lively hood of the families involved.  Even when the rain comes, it doesn’t quench the thirst of the land due to prolonged dryness.  However, some families survive because they’ve started planting drought tolerant crops and preparing earlier in the year for this.

A drought causes us to rethink survival and what we need to do when a situation of prolonged dryness enters our lives.  Some of us have experienced droughts in our lives; we’ve gone long periods without prayer, daily devotional, worshiping and fellowship with the body of believers.  We have been living in a spiritual drought condition so long that we are not able to recognize the thirst in our spirit.  Our spirit is in need of nourishment just like the woman at the well.   

So, why are we living in a spiritual drought condition?

Some of us live in a drought condition because we are ashamed to be seen in public with our stained past.  When our stained past continue in our lives we stop praying, we stop our daily devotional, we cut off communication and avoid those who could be living water to our spirit.  We need to check our spiritual level and gauge it like the drought level for crops.  If we are in an extreme spiritual drought condition, expect the unexpected.  The woman at the well didn’t expect anyone to be at the well at noon, but Jesus was there.  Just because we have shutoff all communication with God in our spiritual drought stage that doesn’t mean God has stopped trying to provide living water for our soul. 

Prayer:  God help us to recognize the signs of a potential spiritual drought in our lives.  Keep nourishing our spirits with living water. Amen.

Thursday Morning Meditation - Bragging Rights

Bragging Rights
Romans 4:1-5 

For those who love college basketball, we are in the midst of March Madness.  This is the NCAA Championships which overshadows all the other tournaments in the country.  There are 64 teams battling for the #1 spot of the 2011 NCAA Championship.  The winning team will not only have bragging rights for this year, they will be added to an elite group of women and men who have gone before them.  Like these men and women, we like to have something to brag about.  Some of us brag about our travels, portfolio, spouse, children, grand-children, ancestry, career, church and our pastor.

Ironically, when we brag some of us must belittle or make other people accomplishment insignificant so we can be looked favorably upon like the Pharisee in Luke 18:10-13.  The Pharisee compared himself to the tax collector which was a despised position as they were in prayer with God. In verse 11 he said, "God, I thank You that I'm not like other people - greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector."  As we see it is easy to make a comparison when we've attained a level of accomplishment in life.

It is still amazing after we've accomplished so much in life, we believe we are entitled to brag before God what we've accomplished to show we are justified in this right.  What makes us think we can go before God in prayer and brag about what we have?  

The only bragging we can do is about our work with our hands and that's all.  We always brag about us, but why haven't we bragged about God in our prayer, in our community and in our world.  We have a lot to brag about when it comes to God.  We can brag about God's love for us (John 3:16).  We can brag about God being our protector (Psalm 121:7-8).  We can brag about God's faithfulness and promises (Romans 4:13,17) and we can brag about God calling us out and setting us aside (Genesis 12:1-2).  Although we can go on and on about what God has done.  We must check ourselves to see why we feel the need to brag about ourselves all the time.

So before we start bragging on our self, let us brag about our God who supplies all our needs, who gave us the gifts and abilities to work with our hands.  There is little to be gained when our bragging must put others down in order to make ourselves look better before God.  Let us brag more about the one who created the world instead of us.

Prayer:  Dear God, humble us in your presence.  Remind us that you have the right to brag because you created not only the word but us in your image.  Our bragging is limited to our works but when we brag about you we just can't tell it all. Amen.