Monthly Archives: December 2008

December 11, 2008

A dude who has been there before

By Chris Lewis

Psalm 27 is a favorite of mine. David probably wrote this after a guy named Doeg talked smack about David to Saul, who was the King of Israel at the time. Saul pretty much tried to kill David every chance he got after that!

There’s a ton to this Psalm. I’m going to take a look at the first 3 verses today:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” (Psalm 27:1-3, ESV)

CONFIDENCE IN GOD

Some say when you are born you only have two natural fears: the fear of falling and of loud noises. Others would argue that those aren’t fears – they’re actually reflexes. If that’s true…then we actually come into this world FEARLESS! I love that concept! We don’t stay that way for long though…

Are you afraid of the dark? One of my scariest memories as a young child is of the curtains in my bedroom. They had tie backs on them and when the night light hit them, it cast a shadow on my wall…of DARTH VADER!!! There are caves so deep they are considered to be the darkest place on earth…when the flashlights are turned off, the darkness that engulfs is so thick that people become disoriented and their equilibrium is affected.

David knows what the dark is like. David knows that light dispels darkness. He understands that God is the source of spiritual light in our darkness of humanity. But he ascribes more…God is not just the source of light…He IS the light! That is altogether different. I can get light from a flashlight…but the flashlight is not the light. David says that the Lord IS my light and my salvation!

How about dying? Even if you’re secure about where you’ll spend eternity, most people aren’t in a hurry to get there. As the masterful biblical expositor Joe Diffy says, “Lord I wanna go to Heaven…I don’t wanna go tonight”. But then again, while we will all die at some point, very few of us face the prospect of death in the manner David was speaking. Just so we are clear, when he wrote “when evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh”, he was talking about people hunting him down to destroy him like savage animals!

That’s not where we live…PRAISE GOD! But, we all have very real fears…and David’s words are a comfort:

The Lord IS our stronghold! My heart WILL NOT fear! I WILL BE confident!

Fear is rooted in an awareness of vulnerability and a sense of helplessness. David speaks of armies surrounding him and his corresponding confidence. Even valiant warriors’ heart race in the moments before battle – but not David’s – his response is confidence!!! That is not natural – it is SUPERnatural!

Charles Spurgeon wrote that “confidence is the child of experience”. David responded with confidence not because he was cocky or arrogant. On the contrary, David displayed confident humility because he had been there before. He made these statements in a real life situation from actual experiences with God. These were not theoretical statements – they were experiential!

I hope this is an encouragement to you. I hope your fears are neutralized in the face of God’s faithfulness and that your faith is stretched with each new experience.

1 comment | posted in Faith, My Thoughts - Chris, Prayer, Theology

December 9, 2008

Eight years ago today!

By Chris Lewis

Topher Birthday

8 years ago when my son Topher was born, we knew absolutely nothing about Down syndrome.  He was two days old when we learned he was affected.  We learned a lot in a short period of time, but our knowledge was superficial at best.  Since he also had a heart condition that would require surgery, we were in what is probably the darkest valley we have walked through (yet).

There are no “right” words to say when someone’s child has a birth defect.  I look back and remember some of those well intentioned comments people made…my favorite was “God only gives special kids to special people“.  They make me laugh today.  They didn’t then.

See, the thing is, we experienced a death that day.  We experienced the death of a dream.  Our expectations of the life our child would have died when he was 2 days old – only we didn’t have the funeral.  I’m not comparing this to the actual loss of a child – but I am telling you that our experience with grief was as close to mourning death as anything I have known.

But God is sovereign…

God is in control…

All things work together for good…right?

If you ask me today…I’ll tell you with unwavering conviction you better believe it!  Today, I am a rock.  That dark valley is in the distance in my rear view mirror.

Eight years ago, I would have struggled to affirm those statements with integrity. Back then, I could only see the moment.  In the past, I lacked the benefit of hindsight.

APPLICATION:

This is not the last valley I will face – and you will face your share of them too.  Here’s my advice: don’t trust the moment in question – trust the moments in history. Trust the times you can look back and see where God’s plan worked out so much better than your plan.

Christopher is eight years old today, and I can tell you with enthusiasm that I would not change his “condition” if they invented a pill you could take for it tomorrow.  Sometimes I see in Topher what might be a closer representation of what it means to be created in the image of God – I often wish I could see the world through his eyes of innocence.  God IS sovereign…He IS in control…all things really DO work together for good!  I have 8 years of proof.  This is now part of my history. It’s integrated with my permanent hindsight.

Here’s something else I learned: sometimes, God may have to kill one dream in order to replace it with a better one!

Happy Birthday Topher!  Thanks God for being Faithful and True.

4 comments | posted in Family, Personal - Chris

December 8, 2008

Why do we doubt?

By Chris Lewis

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

I never cease to be amazed at my own capacity for doubt.  Tabitha and I are sorting through a host of different things right now.  We are in a phase right now where we are patiently trying to sift through a number of several different options.  At times it seems as if the minute we get something figured out, something else presents itself to be much more spiritually palatable.

That’s when my inner being gets involved.  That’s when the part of me that the Spirit of Christ wrestles with on a regular basis tries to latch on and take control.  It is in those moments I understand fully the thesis of Paul in Romans 7 where he questions the hold his sinful nature had on him even as he diligently and willfully seeks to follow and obey Christ.

Then I read the words from Jeremiah!  He is aware of ME.  He wants to PROSPER me.  He wants to give me a HOPE.  His desire is to provide for my FUTURE!

Wow.  I am so amazingly weak sometimes.

2 comments | posted in Faith, My Thoughts - Chris

December 1, 2008

I’m now sharing more!

By Chris Lewis

This is something cool I have just started doing. I follow about 40 blogs pretty regularly – about 25 core blogs and 15 that rotate based on how good their content is.  Wow!  That’s a lot of blogs…not really though because I use a reader which lets me scan new posts and identify which ones I might want to read more.  Something you can do too and I wrote about it in this post.

The cool thing is now I can easily share the ones that I find really helpful and give you a quick way to see it.  Then I don’t schmooze and re-blog someone else’s stuff, but I can still share things that I think are impactful. I hope you like it.

Click this link or visit http://www.google.com/reader/shared/11070727714967376136.

Leave a comment | posted in Personal - Chris

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