To Follow . . . or Not?

After reading my last post, someone sent me an e-mail asking why we have to follow anyone at all. It’s an interesting question. Here are my thoughts:

If we live in the United States (or any other country), whether we originally chose to live there or not, we have to follow that country’s laws—or pay fines or go to jail or move somewhere else. We are free to choose whether or not to obey the laws of our country, but then we have to accept the consequences of our choices whether we agree with them or not.

Henry David Thoreau challenged this in his time. He decided he didn’t like the laws of the state of Massachusetts, and so he declared himself not a citizen. When he refused to pay taxes to the state he lived in but didn’t consider himself to be a part of, he still found himself in jail. And he’d probably still be there today if someone hadn’t taken pity on him and paid his taxes for him—an action he didn’t appreciate. He had a point to make. He wasn’t a citizen of the state of Massachusetts—and yet he was in jail.

(At this point, I could go off on a tangent about the ethics and options of civil disobedience, but that’s not the point of this post, so let’s not go there today. Let’s stick to whether or not we have to follow anyone.)

If someone like Thoreau doesn’t want to follow the laws of the state or country he lives in, along with choosing whether or not to obey (and accepting the consequences of that choice), that person is also free to move somewhere else. But finding somewhere else to live where there is no government and are no laws to follow would be quite a challenge today.

In the spiritual realm, it is impossible.

Here’s the deal:

Satan’s goal is to keep as many people out of God’s Kingdom as possible. A body (or soul) count is all he wants.

God wants to let everyone into His Kingdom—everyone! But the only way in is through Christ, by accepting His gift of salvation and choosing to follow Him. Some people think this is unfair, but God is God. It’s His Kingdom. He created it. He’s in charge. He has the right to make the rules. He has the right to say that everyone is welcome, but all must come through Christ and choose to obey.

Therefore, if someone says, “I don’t want to be a part of either kingdom. I just want to do my own thing,” that person, by choice, cannot enter God’s Kingdom, and therefore, by default, is part of Satan’s. There is no other option. There’s no where else to go.

Yes, we have to follow someone. We have no choice but to choose.

But here’s what I don’t get:

God offers love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He offers mercy, grace, and forgiveness. He offers cleansing and perfection. He offers wisdom and truth. He offers hope. He offers eternal and abundant life. He offers Himself! –as a Savior, as a loving Father, as a gentle Shepherd, as a Friend, as a Teacher, as a Comforter, as a Guide. And so much more! (What's not to love in all that?!)

Satan offers unspeakable horror and never-ending hopelessness. (And this is appealing, why?)

Why is this such a difficult and dreaded choice for some? And, even if there were a third choice, to just do your own thing, wouldn’t life with God beat that option hands down? It surely would for me.

I’ll close with the verse I quoted in my last post:

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." –Joshua 24:15

If you haven't already, I hope you'll join me. God loves you. He's waiting--with open arms--today!


If you don't know how to receive Christ as your Savior to enter God's Kingdom, please click on the ready button in my sidebar to the right. God has made it so simple! I hope you'll pray today.

Truly Free

“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” --Galatians 5:13

"Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God." --1 Peter 2:16

When America’s founding fathers declared independence from Great Britain, the colonists immediately began to set up a government of their own. They knew that their freedom would be in jeopardy if the people of America could not agree on the way the new country would function. Ongoing independence required a united government. Anarchy would leave the people vulnerable to unwanted control from any other nation with organized leadership and proven strength.

Likewise, if we want to be free from sin, we must submit to God’s authority. If we refuse to learn His truths and follow His rules, we’ll be vulnerable to every temptation Satan chooses to throw our way. This means we must love God first (Matthew 22:37-38) and our neighbors as ourselves (Galatians 5:14). It means we must learn the secret of being content in any and every circumstance--just as Paul did (Philippians 4:12), and probably with as many opportunities! It means we must allow God’s Spirit to develop His fruit in our lives--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)--through the circumstances of our lives, whatever they may be (Romans 8:28).

In the words of Joshua (chapter 24, verse 15),

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Serving God brings true freedom in Christ. Serving anything else means eternal bondage to sin.

Lord, I’ll never regret declaring my independence from sin by claiming freedom in You. I gladly submit. Amen.



For more thoughts on freedom serving Christ, visit:

Parachute Prayer #31

Oh! This one so surprised and tickled me the other day—it’s a little silly, but a lot of fun! I have to share the idea with you.

I was taking our dog to the groomer. When I walked into the office, I was startled to see a good friend of the family’s slightly-older-than-teenage daughter sitting at the receptionist’s desk. (I was startled because I haven’t seen this girl in a few years, and she lives on the other side of the United States!) But it wasn’t really her, after all. They say everyone has a look-alike somewhere in this world. That day I met our friends’ daughter’s.

And God seemed to say, “Pray for her!”

So I did. I prayed for our friends’ daughter, then I prayed for her look-alike (all while trying to hand off an extremely wiggly and overly excited, wild puppy dog!). I didn’t know anything about the look-alike, but I asked God to make her as much like the girl I did know on the inside as on the outside because the girl I know is loving Christ and serving Him with all her heart each day.

When we see someone who reminds us of someone else, that’s a cue for a Parachute Prayer.

And while we’re praying for look-alikes, just for fun, why not pray for our own?! After all, they do say we all have one. (I don’t know who they are, but if they say it’s true, it could be so, don’t you think?--Okay, normally I'd tell you to check it out when they say it's true, to make sure it really is, but this is just for fun—no harm, no foul.)

Lord, please bless our look-alikes today—wherever they happen to be! If they don’t know you, please draw them into Your kingdom. And if they do, please bless them with an extra-close sense of Your loving Presence today. Thank You, Lord! Amen.

The Door into God's Presence

Last week, I reminisced about the Sunday school teacher who introduced me to the concept of praying all the time about every little thing, practicing the Presence of God. That memory led to the one I’d like to share today.

Several years back, I was struggling to reinvigorate a waning Bible study routine. I had trained myself as a teenager to read four chapters a day because that’s how many you have to read to get through the Bible in a year. In college that changed; I studied what my professors told me to study for each class and usually tried to read a Psalm each day with that. Then I became a Sunday school curriculum editor and studied whatever I was working on. When I became a stay-at-home-mom, I tried to go back to the four-chapters-a-day plan.

But my heart and mind weren’t in this as they should have been. It was duty more than devotion. I longed to love God’s Word, but couldn’t quite figure out how. My Bible study time dropped off to what I heard or read in church and Sunday school or read in books about God’s Word. I prayed about this often because it truly troubled me.

Then one Sunday, the chaplain in charge of the service for the day spoke on just this thing. He told us that reading about God’s Word wasn’t sufficient and that hearing it read in church once a week wasn’t enough. He encouraged us to make daily appointments to read our Bibles with God, to set a time, any time, to read every day.

And then he let me off the hook!

He told us devotional time isn’t about reading through the Bible in a year or accomplishing a set amount of reading. Rather, devotional time is opening God’s Word in order to open the door into His Presence. Reading the Bible is listening to God. That chaplain challenged us, whether we read one chapter, one paragraph, or even one verse, to open our Bibles and read each day, same time every day—a sacred appointment to meet with God.

God convicted me through that message, yet He also invited me—to meet with Him each day. I set my alarm and started the very next morning.

Now I read my Bible with a post-it note, journal, and pen. I read until I sense I’m done. If one verse especially speaks to me, I write it down and reflect on it—sometimes, then, it says even more. Some days, this time an act of discipline: I’m chomping at the bit ready to get on with my day, but determined to stick around until I believe God is saying, “Class dismissed.” I run off with relief, yet equipped for the day.

Other days, God has to send me on my way though I long to linger. It's as if He says, "You have a household to run, child. I will go with you, though." I use the post-it to mark my place, and begin a new day with God.

Lord, thank You for Your Word, the door into Your Presence each day. A book, a chapter, a paragraph, a verse—quantity doesn’t matter. It’s all about precious time with You, amazing God! Amen.

First Grade Christianity

“Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.” –Psalm 19:12 (ESV)

As children learn to write, teachers in different grades focus on different errors. For example, they start by teaching children to capitalize the first word of every sentence and to put a period at the end. They correct spelling in words the children have learned, leaving more challenging words misspelled for future lessons. In fact, my oldest son’s first grade teacher was so determined her students would learn to love to write, she would have them journal every day and wouldn’t correct a thing! She taught simple spelling and grammar, but not through their writing journals. Her goal for her students was not perfection in first grade, but improvement over time as they experienced the joy of writing words.

If teachers were to correct all the errors all at once right from the start, the children would become overwhelmed very quickly. They’d feel discouraged and might even give up. Good teachers don’t want this; they want the children to learn and improve.

I think God does the same with us.

When we first become Christians, He forgives our sin. We joyfully begin living the Christian life, following Him, submitting to His teaching. But Christian perfection is a process. We may not willfully sin, and we know to ask forgiveness and make things right if we do. Yet we may still have faults in our thinking and attitudes, like misplaced commas and misspelled words. If God were to reveal these all at once, we would become overwhelmed very quickly, feel discouraged, and maybe even give up. So, wisely, He teaches one lesson at a time. His goal for us is not perfection in first grade, but improvement over time as we experience the joy of walking with Him.

Teacher God, only You can discern our errors. Please declare us innocent from hidden faults as we joyfully walk with You. Reveal our imperfections over time, in Your time, at a pace we can handle. Make us more like You as we delight in life with You. Thank You, gracious Lord. Amen.

Parachute Prayer #30

Today’s idea is one that’s been on my mind since I started offering these suggestions. I’ve hesitated to write about it because it seems so obvious to me. Yet I realize it’s obvious because it was the first prayer idea of this kind ever suggested to me.

I was in seventh grade. My Sunday school teacher, a beautiful, young newlywed that every girl in the class wanted to grow up to be just like, decided to skip the lesson in order to spend the time mentoring her small group of junior high girls. She started by sharing some important tidbits of information, such as, “A young woman should never scratch under her armpits or dig wax out of her ears in public.” (I’m not sure why she felt compelled to teach us this, but I was sitting in the front row of the class. Perhaps there was something going on behind me that I couldn’t see.)

Then she began to teach us about prayer. She told us we could and should pray all the time about any and every little thing.

God is all around us to listen and hear and respond at any moment.

As she was explaining this, our lesson was interrupted by the sound of a siren going by. Our classroom window was open, so we had to wait for the emergency vehicle to pass. As the noise faded into the distance, our teacher told us that siren was our cue to pray. Someone was in trouble—whether being chased by a policeman, threatened by fire, or suffering a medical emergency.

It was the perfect object lesson for that time. And since then, I’ve discovered many more cues to pray. God calls us to live in His Presence—praying about everything.

It’s not what we pray that’s important. It’s that we pray. It’s that we acknowledge God’s Presence and His involvement in our lives.

And here’s a radical idea: we don’t even need words! When God uses something, anything, even a siren, to remind us that He is there, we can simply sit in silence, enjoying the knowledge that God is with us and that God is with those in urgent need. He loves them. He’s on the job. He truly cares. Praise His name!

Lord, in Hebrews 13:5, You promised to never leave us or forsake us. Thank You for sending reminders of Your Presence every day. Help us to recognize them, and take the time to pray.

And thank You for being on the job, responding to life’s emergencies even faster than 911 and racing emergency vehicles. Go with them, Lord, providing comfort, help, and healing to those in need. We thank You! In Jesus' name, Amen.

Cute As the Crab, It Was Not!

A few weeks ago, in my Alas, the Bug post, I mentioned that critters like that crab are only cute if they are outside my house and posing for pictures for me. That statement proved very true this week.

I was cleaning house, sorting things in a back room, when my son hollered loudly, “Mom! Come quickly!” I ran. My son was standing in the kitchen. Looking around, I didn’t see anything amiss.

“There’s a lizard under the refrigerator! I came in from outside, startled him, and he ran from me.” I climbed up on a chair.

Seth grabbed the biggest flashlight he could find and looked under the refrigerator. “I see him looking out at me.” I stayed up on the chair.

I’ll skip over the drama that ensued as my son and visiting father tried to coax that lizard out, but finally my husband came in, pulled the refrigerator out from the wall and saved the day. My son caught the lizard, minus his tail, put him in a coffee can, and poked holes in the lid.

I was concerned about this. I had no intention of keeping that lizard for a pet.

Working up the courage to see what had invaded my house, I let Seth slowly lift the lid from the coffee can (out in the garage, of course). Whoa! Seth says I screamed. I don’t remember this. But even without his tail, that lizard was an inch wide and seven or eight inches long. This was not your common, cute garden lizard.

I did not take his picture.

This lizard was not cute!

Seth carried the coffee can out into the woods and released the lizard delivering a strong warning from me that the lizard was not to return.

Sometimes as Christians, we may notice and even be intrigued by things that are not a part of our world. We find them interesting, fascinating—maybe even cute. We figure so long as they are outside, they are harmless and okay. But sometimes they slip in, take up residence under our refrigerators, and wreak havoc in our hearts.

This is why Jesus taught us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation.” As we pray this daily, God is faithful. His Spirit tells us what we must avoid. He delivers us from evil and keeps our hearts pest free.

Thank You, Lord, for rescuing me and for keeping my heart safe from all that quietly lurks too close to me! Amen.

Thankful Thursday: for Hedges and Other Boundaries

Today I’m thankful for hedges and other boundaries. God introduced me to this concept yesterday through Sarah Young and Joni Eareckson Tada and showed me what to do about it through the writings of Jeanne Guyon.

You see, sometimes God boxes us in. It may be through something as big as the paralysis that Joni deals with daily or something as small as a rainstorm on a day when a mom desperately longs to get out of the house by taking the kids to the beach. Suddenly we find ourselves stuck somewhere, plans cancelled, nowhere to go, nothing to do.

When this happens, we can choose to grumble and complain about it, letting a day or a life be ruined—or we can look to God, seek His purpose, thank Him for His Presence. When there are walls all around, we can always look up to God.

Father, I don’t always understand. But thank You for stopping me in my tracks from time to time, for frustrating my plans, so I’ll take time to seek Yours. Thank You for Your Presence and Your careful oversight of each and every day. I long to seek You always, but sometimes I get caught up in life. Thank You for removing distractions when needed by hedging me in. Amen.

Full Life

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” –John 10:10

Jesus came that we might have life--full life, also known as abundant life, life overflowing with blessings from above. When I think about this statement that Jesus made, I often think of eternal life--in Heaven, with Jesus, some day. But I think Jesus meant more than that. I know that life--with Him, on Earth, right now--is richer because of His presence. When I let Him, He helps me see troublesome things in a more positive way by reminding me that He’s in control and working for good in spite of the bad. Jesus also helps me enjoy life’s blessings in a truly significant way. Because I know they are gifts from Him, I appreciate them in a way that I couldn’t otherwise.

Unfortunately, there is a thief out there waiting to steal, kill, and destroy my positive outlook and joy. He doesn’t want me to be happy, now or ever, and will grab any opportunity to mess with my friendship with Christ. When problems come, this con artist tries to discourage and depress. When all is well, he tries to make me forget from whom the good times came.

Thankfully, our Lord warned us about this troublemaker as He promised full life. If we focus on Jesus, He’ll protect us from the thief. He’ll stand by us when life seems dark or sad. He’ll send reminders of His love through good and bad, surprising us with blessings we’d never expect. We need only look to Jesus to enjoy abundant life.

Jesus, You came to give me life--a life that begins right now! I’ll count on You to protect me from the thief, while thanking You for every good thing that I see. Your friendship comes first. Thank You, Lord! Amen.

The Troublesome Tale of Young King Ditz

Once upon a time, in the land of 2 Chronicles 25, Amaziah took the throne of Judah. He should have been christened King Ditz.

Soon after this man started his sad reign, he decided, just like most all kings back in those days, that he wanted to go to war. (The Bible doesn’t tell us why, only that this is what King Ditz immediately made plans to do.) He gathered all the able-bodied men of Judah, but he wanted more than he had. So he spent 100 talents of silver to hire 100,000 troops from Israel.

That sounds like quite a deal to me—100,000 for 100. But King Ditz must have disagreed because when God sent a prophet to say, “Fire those troops! God will not fight for you if you’re fighting with them,” King Ditz said,

“But what about the money?”

Is your hand on your forehead and your head shaking in despair? Mine was. This part of the story is ditz alert #1.

Really! God said He’d fight for King Ditz if King Ditz would obey, but King Ditz was worried about getting his money’s worth out of those 100,000 troops! The prophet assured him God could give him much more than he’d lose, and that he’d lose a lot more if he attempted to fight without God on his side.

King Ditz considered this and decided to take the prophet’s word for it. He fired the Israelites, went to battle, and, surprise (not really), squashed the enemy. (Actually, he threw them off the top of a cliff, but the end result was pretty much the same.)

This leads us to ditz alert #2. King Ditz celebrated the victory by gathering up all of the enemy’s idols from the plunder. He set them up as his own gods, bowed down to worship them, and offered them sacrifices. (I’m kinda surprised God didn’t shove him off the cliff to join his enemies right then.)

Instead God sent the prophet to point out the obvious. If the enemy’s gods couldn’t save the enemy, why did King Ditz think they caused his victory, were worthy of his worship, or could do anything for him at any time? Needless to say, things didn’t go well for King Ditz after that.

But we can learn from Young King Ditz’s mistakes:

Lesson 1: when we’re facing a spiritual battle or a life challenge we don’t feel quite up to, rather than draw up our own desperate plans, we should always seek God’s first.

Lesson 2: if we forget to seek God first and He points out our mistake, leading us to abandon one plan for another, we can trust Him with this. Though the change may be costly, staying the course will cost more, and our God can more than make up the difference anyway.

Lesson 3: when the battle is over, we should always thank God. It’s unlikely we’ll be tempted to offer sacrifices to our enemy’s plundered idols, but we might feel like yelling, “We did it! Hooray!” God gets the seat of honor when we celebrate; the victory is His.

Sometimes I catch myself making some of King Ditz’s mistakes—God sends His Spirit like the prophet to show them to me. But God is faithful to help me with this. As I practice His presence, becoming ever more aware of His nearness each day, He reminds me to call on Him before and during each task I undertake. I’m thankful for His patience and help through every day.