Rainy Seasons

I can’t remember a spring when it has rained so much. 

Farmers have been unable to plow their fields, as tractors sink up to their axles.  Lawns are high.  Water overflows creeks, rivers and ditches.  Cars hydroplane because of deep water on the roads.  Wipers often fail to remove torrential rains from windshields and cars are forced to pull over to wait out heavy down pours.  The ground is saturated causing sports events to be cancelled.  Parts of Texas are under deep water!

And it appears that no let-up is in sight. 

Sometimes life is like that, too.  We become saturated and overwhelmed by difficult days.  Tension-filled situations threaten to destroy the very fiber of our existence, often with no let up in sight.  But summer and sunshine are on the way!

Over 35 years ago my late father-in-law experienced a long bout of depression.  Severe life-altering situations threatened his physical, mental and emotional health.  It seemed that nothing worked out for him.  Financial setbacks and family struggles took him to the brink of disaster.  Dad was a strong man, but everyone has a breaking point.  It seemed the more he prayed, the worse things got.  Ultimately, over a five-year period, he also lost his health.  Instead of family members and friends saying, “Poor Job,” they were saying, “Poor Dale!”

When life’s struggles escalated to a severe breakdown, my in-laws drove to Indiana from Alabama to be with their parents.  Subsequently, our family history records and remembers a miracle. 

Dad’s health had declined to the point where his nerves were shot and Parkinson-like symptoms caused his hands to shake.  He was at his wits end.  Dad sat mostly in silence, refusing to talk to anyone, including his worried wife and parents.

My wife and I remained in Alabama to take care of the church he pastored.  During those years Sunday night church was a regular part of our week.  Lori was at the piano when she heard the Lord say, “Pray for your father.”  Suddenly an intense burden came over her and she knelt down behind the piano and began praying earnestly for her dad, who was in desperate straits some 500 miles away. 

Dad was sitting in his parent’s living room in Jamestown, Indiana when he began experiencing more severe tremors.  He later said, “I felt like I was dying.”  The prayer burden in Lori’s heart became crushing to the point that she could only weep and moan.  Intercessory prayer reached the throne of grace from Gadsden, Alabama and exactly at 7:03 p.m., Dale Owens was healed!  Lori felt the burden lift that very moment.

Like rain that seems not to let up, we sometimes go through long periods when our faith is severely tested and answers escape us.  For me personally, my mind races back to October 1982 when an intercessory prayer meeting (of one!) connected with the Healer and across the miles a man who was desperately ill experienced an instantaneous healing. 

Inordinate amounts of rain may continue to fall but God alone is able to bring us through the harsh seasons of our life into the sunshine of His grace, healing and provision!

Victim or Victor?

Are you a victim or a victor?  How do you see yourself?

Your perspective determines your answer and your ability to successfully navigate life and positively impact others along the way.  Victims always focus on what others are doing to them or not doing for them.  Life’s circumstances are usually seen through a negative lens and victims always come up short – in their minds drawing the short stick.

Victims love the “Blame Game.”  To pass along the blame allows them to never take personal responsibility for their own attitudes and actions.  In so doing, they never break out of their cycle of criticism and negativity.  Nobody who has anything on the ball likes to hang around victims – except other victims!  Misery  breeds company.

Victims garnish the truth, often undermine others, jeopardize reputations and secretly gloat when others fail, because those things allow them a temporary reprieve from their own victim mentality.  Victims move through their world never impacting in a good way, only soliciting others who share their negativity.  They practice self-hate!

Victims never find fulfillment and tend to demean others so that in some sick way they elevate themselves to a temporary high.  When not affirmed or given attention, they seek lesser goals and attack those who strive to walk in victory.

Victors, on the other hand, never glory in their circumstances and refuse to play the “Blame Game.”  They take personal responsibility for their actions and attitudes, and understand that while life may be unfair and tough at times, they remain victorious.  They see themselves as overcomers.  They become not circumstance-driven, but Christ-driven.  They live in the expectation that Christ in them is a Victor and nothing can separate them from their intended victory. 

They choose high living over low living.  They realize that it’s not about them; it’s about Christ in them.  They determine to live above the potential defeat of circumstances and never feel sorry for themselves or compare themselves to others.  They are the masters of their destiny because they daily place themselves in the hands of the Master, the One who has purchased them with His blood and whose indwelling presence drives them toward continued and sustained victory.

Like the Apostle Paul, “The love of Christ compels (constrains) them.”  It captures them and won’t let go (2 Corinthians 5:14)!

Are you a victim or a victor?  Are you Christ-driven or others-driven?  Do you feel sorry for yourself or is the devil sorry when you wake up in the morning to begin another day of victorious, overcoming life in the Spirit?

Victims incessantly talk about their problems or other people.  Victors glory in the cross and the Christ whose power brings overcoming results.  They never run short of true friends, unlike victims who live with loneliness, dissatisfaction and like Henry David Thoreau said, “Who lead lives of quiet desperation.” 

True friends are rare because no one in his right mind likes to hang out with a loser mentality.  No one except victims wallows in the shortcomings of others, and chooses to spew their toxic waste on to unsuspecting bystanders. 

Are you a victim or a victor?

Remember, we are “more than a conqueror through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us…” (Romans 8:37).  Determine today to be a victor!

The Process

Occasionally, people approach me for help and want me to fix in five minutes what it’s taken perhaps many years to “break.”  They’re looking for the big event and the quick fix.

Even God needed time to redeem the earth!  Two-thousand years passed between Creation and Abraham; another two-thousand years passed from Abraham to Christ, and another two-thousand-plus years from Christ to our day.  And redemption’s scheme still hasn’t played out completely.  The devil is still on the prowl.  “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8b). 

Don’t get me wrong.  I thank God for the “big events” in the Christian life.  I was born again on August 4, 1970, baptized in the Holy Spirit on July 22, 1971 and baptized in water on August 18, 1974.  Because of my fear of water, it took me four years to work up the nerve to get “dunked.”  And even then I positioned a pastor on each side of me to secure my re-entry from the waters of the Grand River in Rock Creek!

I’m thankful when God answers a prayer or grants me a hallmark experience.  Those times ignite my faith and move me toward higher levels in God. 

Long ago, the night skies outside of Bethlehem suddenly lit up when an angel made earth’s greatest birth announcements to a group of unsuspecting shepherds. “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified” (Luke 2:8-9).

In A.D. 29, 120 believers in Jesus Christ were gathered together in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem when sounds from heaven suddenly filled the atmosphere.  “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:1-2).

The first “suddenly” of God announced the birth of a Savior.  The second “suddenly” signaled the birth of the Church. While we marvel at the big events in the Christian life, we must never forget that the intricacies of the Faith are hammered out on the anvil of time.  Salvation is both an event and a process.  I was saved, I’m being saved, and I will ultimately be saved.  Like you, I’m in process of “becoming.”  Remember, we’re human “beings.”

John 1:40-42 is a particularly meaningful passage to me.  “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.  The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ)’ And he brought him to Jesus.  Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon, son of John.  You will be called Cephas, which translated, is Peter.’” 

Jesus saw not only who Simon WAS, but who he WOULD BECOME.  That’s why He gave him a new name – Cephas in Aramaic, Peter in Greek.  Either way, both names mean “a rock.”  Peter, of course, is not presented in the Gospels as rock-solid, but he became a solid rock in the days of the Early Church.  By giving Simon a new name Jesus introduced a progressive change in character. 

Jesus looked past the Simon of “today” and saw the Peter of “tomorrow.”  He saw untapped potential.  That’s the way he sees us, too!  Don’t allow the process of you becoming more like Jesus to make you impatient.  Know that the good work He began in you will come to fruition.

Lead Me to the Rock

Life has a way of pulling us down. Downward spirals into discouragement, depression and even despondency result when we fail to keep “looking up.”  The enemy of our soul wants to ground us.  He whispers, “I will use your circumstances to destroy you.” But he cannot as long as we look to the “Rock!”

David, the psalmist-king of Israel, wrote in Psalm 61:1-3, “Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.  From the ends of the earth I call to you.  I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.  For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.”

David was heart broken.  His son Absalom had staged a coup to overthrow him as king.  Like his father, the son was handsome and charismatic but Absalom was spoiled – a narcissist.  We read about him in 2 Samuel 15-17. 

Because he listened to the wrong advice from self-seeking friends, he plotted against his father to take away the throne.  His plot was well executed.  He used his position as prince to win the hearts of the people by subtly undermining the authority and favor of the king.

By most casual observers, Absalom would have made an excellent king, and the people loved him, but he lacked the inner character and self-control needed to be a good leader.  His appearance, skill and position did not make up for his lack of personal integrity.

Can you imagine David’s inner turmoil as he fled the palace to find refuge from his dearly loved son?  Absalom had gathered enough public support to potentially overthrow David.  However, David mustered adequate military support to defeat Absalom’s troops, and 20,000 men lost their lives in battle. Think about it.  One man’s self-love and rebellion led to the destruction of thousands!

When the battle turned and Israel’s impending victory became evident, Absalom fled from the chaos.  His long hair became entangled in the low branch of an oak tree, pulling him off his donkey. 

As the would-be-king struggled mid air to free himself, he was killed by Joab, Commander in Chief of David’s army.  Upon hearing the news of Absalom’s death, a grief-stricken father cried, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son” 2 Samuel 19:33)!

It was against this backdrop that David wrote, “Lead me to a rock that is higher than I.”  When hidden away in the desert, David must surely have seen the majestic rock formations around him.  He perhaps felt despondent about the rebellious intentions of his son, while noting the safety of his position – surrounded by a natural rock fortress. 

David’s words remind us of our Rock – the one we hold to during the overwhelming and seemingly helpless circumstances of life.  Our Rock is Jesus!  He is our refuge.  He is our strong tower in the day of trouble.  We can run to Him and find safety.

David said, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

I’m so thankful that Jesus towers above the difficulties of our lives.  He is the “Rock of our salvation, “ and as we run to Him He lifts us above those things that threaten to destroy us.  In David’s case, it was his precious son.  Imagine the mixed emotions of the king. 

We too go through extremely difficult days when we can run to the Rock and find peace and protection.  Run to the Rock today!