Tag Archives: Hope and Encouragement

Making a Difference

We all want to make a difference.

To have meaning and purpose in our lives. Does this really happen? Is it possible to have some grand purpose, to know on our deathbeds that our lives had meaning?

It depends.

You may be like me, sometimes thinking that “making a difference” means leading “feeding-the-five-thousand” type events: God working grandly through me, for all the world to see. Important people will see that I am important. I am significant. Sure, I will give God the glory, but I take secret delight in my obvious impact on the world. Good Morning America (or Women of Faith) here I come!

But God rarely works this way.

Don’t get me wrong. He does miracles every day. Jesus said, “My Father is always at His work in this world, and I too am working.” But much of what God does goes unseen, and unappreciated.

Jesus’ own life was the prime example of this. Jesus didn’t have the respect of the Important People. In fact, Important People were threatened by Jesus, because the Truth He shared often made them look bad. He spent his days walking from place to place, talking to ordinary folks about extraordinary truth, and, on occasion – mostly in out of the way places – working miracles.

God hasn’t changed. He still walks this earth and works through those willing to follow Him, touching people with His love and truth in very ordinary ways. A warm meal. A kind word. A listening ear. A cup of cold water.

And sometimes – mostly in out of the way places – He still works miracles.

God has prepared good works, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

When have you seen God work through your “ordinary day”? Share with us!

Want to read more? Read The Extraordinary Ordinary

Consider It All Joy

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by Lydia Floren

Being a doctor, I see many advantages to being cared for by a physician who has lived a few years (well more than a few, but who’s counting ☺). We “older” docs have personal experience with bad knees, dimming vision, pneumonia, colitis, hemorrhoids. I know, I know. TMI.

I can’t say I like being sick, or having surgery – nothing makes one appreciate good health like infirmity. But because I have “been there,” I can better help my patients through their difficulties.

When I live through – not just observe – an illness, I have a much better understanding of it. For someone like me, this is particularly good news. My “empathy” gene is not particularly dominant: experiencing pain unmasks its expression.

Like Paul, we can “consider it all joy” when we go through hard times. Not only will God strengthen us and guide us through it, He will use it to help someone else.

Difficulties open our hearts to compassion.

With God, no experience is wasted.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 NASB

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. James 1:2

Thou has enlarged me when I was in distress. Psalm 4:1 KJV

“Be set free not from suffering but rather through suffering.” -George Matheson

Our Deepest Need

The Truth About God (God’s Company Part 2)

No Shadow of Turning

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by Lydia Floren

It is so easy to doubt God in a crisis.

Is God really going to provide?

Is He really going to take care of my current situation? Or is it all up to me?

In his song “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” Thomas Chisholm answers these questions with a remarkable image:

Great is your faithfulness, O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee.

There is no shadow of turning with Thee.

What is a “shadow of turning?” When you are walking in the sunshine, you have a shadow. Every little motion you make is reflected by your shadow. Any time you turn a little to the right or left, your shadow also turns. And if, as you are going along, you notice that your shadow has changed, you can be sure that your direction has also shifted.

When Thomas Chisholm says “there is no shadow of turning with Thee” he is pointing out God’s consistency. God is steadily walking toward the light, toward Truth, and He invites us to follow. As we do, we are, naturally, in His shadow. If God were to get off course—to turn to the right or left—we would no longer be directly in His shadow. The shadow would have turned.

In whatever crisis we face, we can count on God. He will lead. He will provide. He will see us through. 100% of the time. There is no shift—not even a slight one– in God’s faithfulness to us.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17 NIV

Related Posts: Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Recent Series: NOMB Part I, NOMB Part II, NOMB Part III

NOMB Part III: Curbing the Impulse to Fix Myself

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NOMB (None Of My Business) Part III: Curbing the Impulse to Fix Myself

by Lydia Floren

One time, when I was particularly aware of my failures and inadequacies (this happens a lot to perfectionists, BTW), I decided I would make a list of of each of my faults. It took awhile. It was quite a list. Finally I finished, and then wrote this prayer in my journal:

“OK, God, here are all the things that need changing in me. Where do you want me to start first?”

Here was His answer: “Why don’t you start with the perfectionist part?”

I was stunned. And then I laughed.

Perfectionism wasn’t even on my list. But once I thought about it, perfectionism, in a sense, WAS my list. The very act of writing down that string of deficiencies was my attempt to perfect myself, albeit with God’s blessing. But God had different ideas of what needed fixing. He knew I needed to change my tendency to perfect myself at all, and the audacity, in fact, to think that I could. Suddenly, I saw how prideful and foolish it was to attempt any self-improvement on my own.

I not only need God’s strength to carry out any change in myself, I need His wisdom about what really needs changing. His words, His wisdom, didn’t come from within me, it came from Him, and it is changing my life. Slowly. Recovering from perfectionism is a long process.

Not only are we unable to fix others’ problems, we are not even very good at fixing our own. We are quite blind to our blind spots. We don’t perceive the fixed false beliefs deep in our psyches that are obstacles to freedom and joy. And when God shows us one of those blind spots, only He can help us navigate the complicated path needed to free us from the lies and lead us into truth.

This is why Paul says, “I don’t even judge myself.” God is The Master Physician. He alone sees the big picture of my life, the unseen pain and distorted misinformation that unconsciously drives destructive thought and action. He alone knows the best way to blast me out.

God has serious skills.

Recent Series: NOMB Part I: Letting God Be The Fixer, NOMB Part II: Curbing The Impulse To Fix Others

NOMB Part II: Curbing The Impulse To Fix Others

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by Lydia Floren

NOMB (None Of My Business) Part II: Curbing The Impulse To Fix Others

When I see someone else’s struggle and “feel their pain”, I want so much to make it better. WHAT’s a person to DO? Here are a few tips:

#1 Face yourself:

Check your motives. Be honest with yourself about why you want to make it right. Your urge to fix is probably not as altruistic as it seems. Our motives are often mixed: sure we want to help, but we may also want to avoid the discomfort of watching others suffer or the annoyance of their “imperfection.”
Accept your limits in understanding and skill, and the specific ways God has asked you to serve in this world.

#2 Remind yourself of truth:

Pain is important. We are programmed to avoid pain at any cost, but experiencing pain is necessary; the stove’s heat or the wind’s cold prompt us to practical action. Leprosy is a malady where the nerves that detect pain are destroyed. Much of the disfigurement of leprosy comes because of the lack of feeling, not from the disease itself: a burn goes undetected, or an infection untreated, which leads to irrevocable tissue damage. Pain notifies us of danger or a need to change, even if that is just taking better care of ourselves.
Suffering is a part of life on earth. “In the world,” Jesus said, “you will have tribulation. But take courage: I have overcome the world.” He understands that we will have suffering—He experienced it himself many times. But he also knows that accepting hardship is not admitting defeat: far from it. God works all things out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.
God uses all the pain in our lives, and sometimes He allows us to suffer for a reason. If He does so, He can be trusted: He has a good purpose in it, either for us or for someone else.
Your fixing can actually do more harm than good. What you think is helpful for someone else can often be downright harmful; how could you possibly know?

#3 Pray:

Thank God that
He is at work in this situation, and good will come of it.
His love for you and your loved ones is much greater than your own.
His ideas, His strategy, His perspective, His understanding are far beyond you’re own.
He will let you know if He wants you to do something in this situation.
He will give you the self-control to resist the urge to step in where you don’t belong, and the courage to step forward when He leads you to act.
Talk to God about the specifics. He already knows what is going on, but also knows that you need the listening ear of a loved one to hear your concerns. (It really helps. Trust me.)
Ask God what He wants you to do or not do.
Listen for His answers.

#4 Act: There are many ways God MAY ask you to help. You might be led to do one or a combination of the following:

Intercede. Often when I see difficulties in another’s life, I feel like God’s primary request is for me is to pray for that person. This is not a last resort. It is actually the most powerful action I can take because prayers invite the power of God’s spirit into the situation. Perfect power and perfect love, working on the problem! Who doesn’t want that?
Encourage. The most important thing a person can do–outside of praying–for someone in difficulty is to encourage them. Encouragement can be as simple as a smile, a hug, a note, or a shared laugh. It is easy to encourage via phone, text, Facebook, or email. A moment of thoughtfulness can make a world of difference in someone’s day, especially when they are going through a hard time.
Listen. God gave us two ears and one mouth, right? Listening is a powerful encouragement. Giving someone a safe place to articulate a problem or vent emotion is actually therapeutic. I have seen this over and over in the practice of medicine.
Serve. Practical acts of service, such as a gift, a visit, a meal, an offer to babysit are “cups of cold water” given in Jesus’ name. They help lighten another’s load in the most literal sense.

“It’s God’s problem. He should worry”
To be honest, it is a relief to acknowledge my limits, and accept my inability to fix others. When I do, I find I worry less. I pray more. My focus centers on God’s sufficiency rather than specific problems. And I am more likely to pay attention when God leads me to how and when I should act, or if it is best for me just to concentrate on prayer.

At most I might be a small part of a solution to someone’s problem. I am certainly not meant to be The Solution. Only God can be that; when I try, I just get in the way.

Accepting my limits frees me to do what God has already asked me to do—what we are all called to do in this world: love people. This love may take the form of prayer, encouragement, listening, and/or serving.

It’s our job to love folks. It’s God’s job to fix them.

Recent Series: NOMB Part I: Letting God Be The Fixer; Patience

Our Problems Are Not The Problem – Overcoming Series, Part II

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by Lydia Floren

In the last blog Learning to Fish, I said:

“It is so easy to forget who Jesus is, and what God can do. We have seen Him do amazing things yet when we face difficulties, we tend to focus on the problem instead of on The Solution. When we fixate on the problem, we might get to work trying to find a solution on our own. The busier we get “solving problems,” the harder it is to remember what—and Who—is important. “

In other words, our problems are not the problem.

As long as we are in this world, we will have problems. In fact, Jesus words are startlingly clear:

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

The problem is we forget these 2 key truths: problems are a part of life on earth, and Jesus has overcome the world.

Problems are a part of life on earth. “In this world you will have trouble.”

We all have problems. But no one wants them. We want a life of comfort, undisturbed by pain or distress. So one reaction we might have to difficulties is to deny that they exist. If we aren’t careful, avoidance or denial can become our primary modus operandi, and it is driven by fear. We are afraid of future problems, or that a difficulty won’t be resolved to our satisfaction. We try to please everybody. We smooth things over. We worry. We think that burying our heads in the sand will just make problems go away.

In order to truly overcome, we must first accept that we will have problems throughout our lives. No one escapes this reality. According to one study, in a person’s life the average time span between one problem and the next it is 2 weeks. 2 weeks! That means that, at best, we may have a 14 days reprieved after our last “issue” before we are faced with our next one. While that may sound depressing on the surface, it is really quite liberating, and here’s why: when we know that difficulties will come, we are less surprised by them. We can see them as part of the fabric of life, rather than a “detour” from the life we imagined.

The Eeyores among us

Now there are some “Eeyores” among us. Eeyore, the donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories, was a cup-half-empty kind of guy. He always found something to worry about. Lest you become like—or more like– Eeyore, let me be clear: Accepting that there will be difficulties on our journey does not mean we are to anticipate trouble around every bend.

When we expect the worst, we live in a pretty dismal reality, and so we tend to cope with this by either enduring or escaping. Here’s what I mean:

Enduring. If we believe that life is no more than a long series of problems, we might decide that the best we can do is endure it. We may develop a victim mentality or become poisoned with self-pity.

Escaping. An alternative to enduring is to try to escape life—to check out, via our favorite addiction (food, social media, TV, games, work, thrills, sex, porn, substance abuse, etc.) But the distraction doesn’t cure our hopelessness.

Choose to accept problems as a part of life, but don’t stop there—also embrace the truth that Christ has overcome. The second half of Jesus’ statement is much more important than the first:

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Jesus has overcome the world.

While it is important for us to accept troubles as a normal part of life, it is even more crucial to remember this: Jesus has overcome the world.

What exactly does “overcome the world” mean?

In Greek, “overcome” means “to conquer, or prevail”, and the literal translation for “the world” is “an ordered system.” Putting these together, Jesus said that He has conquered the ordered system we have been living in, a system riddled with evil and deception. His victory is far more profound than a political coup or a military conquest. His victory is over evil itself! His triumph spans generations and penetrates every willing soul.

So where does that leave us with our troubles?

Even though we have troubles, those troubles won’t defeat us.
Even better, every difficulty we encounter can be used by God for our good.
Here is something truly amazing: not only did Jesus overcome this system of evil, He gave each of His children this same power to overcome.
We can have peace in Him. Even in the middle of difficult circumstances, God can give us a profound sense of inner peace, a stillness deep within ourselves that no circumstance can touch.

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Next week: 4 Practical Steps In Overcoming Problems

Savoring A Taste of Heaven. Joy Lives In Contentment.

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by Lydia Floren

One Saturday last August, Andrew and I blasted ourselves out of our rut and spent the day boating on nearby Lake Wissota. It was a perfect Wisconsin summer day. The water, hemmed by lush green, shimmered in the quiet morning light. The sun was warm, not hot, and a gentle breeze was rustling the trees.

For the first half of the day, we puttered from one end of the lake to the other. I was preoccupied. My thoughts kept drifting away from this beauty to the restlessness of “I wants.” I want to live on the water. How could we find a way to do it? Where would be the best place to live? Wonder what the property values and taxes are? Is it feasible? Wonder how much that property costs? I was distracted by what I didn’t have, instead of focusing on what I had been given:

A gorgeous day.
The company of my wonderful husband.
A panorama of natural beauty.

About midway through the day, I pulled out my camera and started snapping pictures. My attention was captured by lily pads and weeping willows, craggy cliffs, wild flowers, and of course the water–rippling, reflecting, shimmering, and sparkling. An awareness of my surroundings remained long after I stowed my camera. I noticed the quiet sounds of crickets buzzing and water lapping. I felt the tangled senses of sun-warmth and cool breeze. I experienced the gentle rock of the boat lulling me to sleep. I was content.

God offers me tastes of heaven every day–and every day I choose. Do I strain to look beyond the amazing gifts in front of me? Or, do I savor the blessings I have already been given?

Joy lives in contentment.

(BTW, I didn’t photograph a single house.)

Share with us: How do you remain content? We would love to hear from you.

Recent posts: Circling Back, Sharing a Sunset, Enjoying God’s Presence.

Sharing a sunset. Enjoying the presence of God.

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by Lydia Floren

“Solitude is not withdrawal in order to get away. It is withdrawal in order to be with Someone who normally gets crowded out of our lives…. it is the place of love and trust. It therefore puts presence before action and seeks companionship before help.” (Charles Rigma)

So many times when I am alone with God, I have an agenda. I might want perspective, or wisdom, or direction, or healing of some sort. But I think much of that time with HIm would be better spent not seeking anything, except to just hang out with Him. No agenda. No words, really. Just two friends relishing a companionable silence—aware of each other, but not expecting from each other. We have an understanding: I enjoy His presence, and He enjoys mine.

I liken it to sitting with a close friend at the beach watching a sunset. Though no words are exchanged, the connectedness is almost palpable. And the silence between us seems to magnify the beauty surrounding us.

In Heaven, I expect God and I will share many such quiet moments, enjoying the sweep of a mountain vista, the trill of a child’s laugh. Or the velvet touch of a horse’s nuzzle, or the fragrance of a rose in bloom. But those experiences will pale compared to the stunning beauty of God Himself. His integrity. His wisdom. His vitality. His strength. His gentleness.

heaven is a ways off, thought, and there is much yet to do in this life. People to help. Commitments to keep. Plans to make, and then to follow.

There is a journey. And I am on it.

However, I must remember: part of that journey includes tasting a bit of heaven from time to time. It is dangling my legs over a seawall with a Good Friend, watching the horizon together in companionable silence. It is enjoying My Creator’s presence, not for what I can learn from Him, or for what He can do for me—but simply because He is there, and I love Him, and He loves me.

And because it is just nice to share a sunset together.

Share with us: How do you find the time to enjoy God’s company?

Recent posts – Time Management Series: Taking Aim: Goal Series – Part I, Beginning With The End In Mi nd: Goal Series – Part II, The Right Things For The Right Reasons: Goal Series – Part III