Trying to Catch UP!

Read Micah 7:8

The difference between a champion and an “also-ran” is the champion fails to give up. I have often heard in interviews of those that have overcome great odds to become a champion at anything say, “Well, on those days that I didn’t feel like training, I forced myself one more time, and this is the outcome.”
You will never accomplish anything in life, both naturally and spiritually, without first finding a determination in you to fight through the times when your physical body and its emotions are telling you to quit. You must keep moving forward or you will begin to go backwards.

One step won’t take you very far,
You’ve got to keep on walking.
One word won’t tell people who you are,
You’ve got to keep on talking.

One foot won’t make you very tall,
You’ve got to keep on growing.
One trip to church won’t tell you all,
You’ve got keep on going.
People often get frustrated because they cannot or will not see what God is trying to do in their life. It is at those times that one must continue moving toward Him, and suddenly, He will appear. The only way you will fail to please God, is if you give up trying to please God. Many people, including King David, fail God from time to time, but the way to stay in communion with God, is to get up and keep on trying.
Are you about ready to give up? Is life getting so overbearing you want to scream? Is your mind ready to explode? Do you question whether it is all worth it? Keep on pushing toward God because what I have found out is that when it is really bad, God is preparing you for something phenomenal. Hang on for the ride of your life!

“Patience and perseverance have a magical affect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.”
- John Quincy Adams

April 18

Read Matthew 1:18-21

One of my favorite Bible characters is Joseph. Not the one with a coat of many colors that saved the house of Jacob from famine. Not the one that took care of the body of Jesus Christ after His death. I like Joseph, the step-father of Jesus Christ.
Joseph is not given the accolades that his dear wife Mary receives. He is not as famous as the Virgin Mary. He is not even as famous as Joseph, son of Jacob or Joseph of Arimathea. There are not great volumes of books written about this man that was asked to raise the humanity of the Creator. Can you imagine what your heart would do if God asked you to teach Him how to read and write and work with the tools of carpentry. How daunting would it be for you or me to be asked to take the materials that were created by the spoken word of God, and to teach the creator to make a chair? I admire this man named Joseph.
He had every right, according to the law, to have Mary put to death. Notice that God sent an angel physically to Mary, while Joseph simply had a dream with an angel in that dream. How many of you would awake from a dream and accept the responsibility that was going to be placed upon the shoulders of this man.
Joseph did not have any training in how to raise God manifest in flesh. There were no seminars that he could attend to get answers to his many questions on fatherhood, especially the fatherhood he was to partake in. There were no parenting books he could read to prepare him for raising God. He just trusted God.
I believe that Joseph must have lived with this mindset:

If God can hang the stars on high,
Can paint the clouds that pass by,
Can send the sun across the sky,
What could He do through you?

If He can send a storm through space,
And dot with trees the mountain’s face,
If He, that sparrow’s way can trace,
What can He do through you?

If God can do such little things
As count our hairs, or birds that sing,
And control the universe that swings,
What can He do through you?

I believe that there are some modern day Josephs that will allow God to send something into their lives that is so much bigger than them that they tremble in fear. I also believe, however, just like Joseph, there are those that trust Him enough to raise up His dream in their life. Are you a Joseph?

“And in that time, I lost my dad and had kids of my own. It was like, OK, I get it now. I know what fatherhood is all about. And you look at your parents differently.”
- Paul Reiser

April 19

Read Luke 18:15-17, Galatians 4:1-7, James 1:27

There is a saying that goes something like this, “If you want to see what kind of a father he is, look at his kids.” This saying is very accurate, but it has one fatal flaw in it. In 2007, there are too many kids that have no consistent father figure in their life. Since the 1960’s, the divorce rate has climbed so staggeringly, that it is more likely to see a divorce than a healthy marriage. We are at a point, and have been there for some time, where children have “become” adults and yet, they still have never had a father-child relationship. Most have never had any kind of relationship with their father, let alone the kind of relationship that God designed for the father and the child.
God has designed the role of the father to be multi-faceted. He did not intend for the father to simply be a masculine, hard working, “putting the bread on the table” individual. His desire was also for a father who is loving, caring and sometimes even childlike. The best childhood anyone could ask for is having parents that love and care for them. God is so specific when it comes to the role of the father because it is a picture of the relationship He desires with each one of us. It is so important to God that James writes that the care of the fatherless is pure religion and undefiled.
We see Christ’s attitude toward children in Luke when in His very hectic date book, he takes time out for the children. What a father. Galatians lets us know that we can have that intimate father-child relationship with him. “Abba” is the equivalent of calling Him, “Daddy.”
So, whether you are a man trying to be a father, a woman raising children without a father or an adult that never had a father, or a bad father, you have the opportunity to find that father-child relationship today. God is holding His arms out to you right now. At your computer or lazy boy (wherever you are reading this), He is patiently waiting for you to call out, “Abba, daddy”, and He will swoop you up in His arms and tenderly hold you and love you. And if you listen close enough, maybe He will sing you a lullaby.

“It has to be real, and I think a lot of the problems we have as a society is because we don't acknowledge that family is important, and it has to be people who are present, you know, and mothers and fathers, both are not present enough with children.”
- James E. Jones