No Soliciting

In our neighborhood, we get a ridiculous amount of solicitors.  There seems to be a steady stream of people knocking on our door trying to convince us to buy solar, buy magazines so they can win a trip, switch over to home delivery dry cleaning, or even buy meat from their truck. Ew.

They are all fairly smooth talkers and work hard at making their product sound valuable and necessary.  They certainly don’t take “no” for an answer and will continue to push their wares on me or any other unsuspecting neighbor who opens up their door.

So, that being said, I’ve learned to stop opening my door to them.  I don’t want what they’re selling, so I’m not going to give them the opportunity to try and convince me otherwise.  I have no trouble keeping my door shut on them.

Now if only I could just as easily keep the door shut when Fear, Doubt, and Worry come knocking.  I would save myself the misery of listening to, and sometimes falling for, their cunning sales pitch.  But unfortunately, more often than not, when they come knocking I open the door wide open and buy into their empty promises instead of immediately slamming the door.

It’s not that I don’t recognize them and accidently open the door.  I know who they are and as much as I want to turn my back on them and walk away, I get suckered in. It is by God’s strength that I am able to take a stand against them and say no.  I need to trust God and His promises to me regardless of how hard Fear, Doubt, and Worry pound on my door.  After all, they can’t get in if I don’t open the door.

Deuteronomy 31:6 …do not fear…

Matthew 21:21 …do not doubt…

Matthew 6:25 …do not worry…

Dina Pugh

A Quiet Strength

I watched something interesting the other day.  A hawk was perched atop a light pole and an angry crow was repeatedly dive bombing him.  Now I don’t know if the hawk did something to incite the attack or if the crow simply saw the hawk as a potential threat and therefore figured he better try and take care of it.

 

What immediately struck me, though, was the hawk’s demeanor.  Not once did he flinch or move a single feather in response to the crow’s ongoing attack.  He just sat there with an air of quiet strength.  Maybe he knew something the crow didn’t, like the fact that one quick swipe of his talons and the crow would be toast. Whatever the reason, it made me think.

Like the hawk, we too, are constantly under attack from the enemy of our souls. Why?  Because as Christians we are a threat to the kingdom of darkness. How do we usually end up responding when the attacks come?  Do we stand or sit with a quiet strength like the hawk? Or do we duck and run and try to hide?  Do we even know we too possess a quiet strength?  It is nothing of ourselves, it is the strength that comes from God.

 

God is the One in charge. God is the One who commands what happens and what doesn’t.  As God’s children, we get to stand in His strength.  So no matter the attack, we need not fear, we need not flinch because nothing can overrule or overcome our heavenly Father.

Yet in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37-39

Dina Pugh

Riptide

Getting caught in a riptide or rip current is frightening. The more you fight, the further you are drug from safety. The best move is to let go and to float until you are released from the rip’s grip. Then you can swim sideways until you reach the shore.

One day at the beach, when I was very young, I got caught in a bad rip current. I panicked. I think I screamed for help. I believed I was going to die. As I was getting pulled under again, an arm reached down into the water and pulled me out. It was my dad. He probably saved my life.

Psalm 18:16-19:

He sent from on high, he took me;

he drew me out of many waters.

He rescued me from my strong enemy

and from those who hated me,

for they were too mighty for me.

They confronted me in the day of my calamity,

but the LORD was my support.

He brought me out into a broad place;

he rescued me, because he delighted in me.

Always remember God’s love. He will rescue you from the rip currents, just like my dad rescued me, because he delights in you.

Kevin Bibo

Did God really say?

I realized something this week. I realized that Satan is just as crafty today as he was in the garden with Adam and Eve.  Satan is the ultimate deceiver, while God is the ultimate truth.  Every human being is faced with this fact:  God offers salvation; Satan offers death in disguise.

I think for us as Christians, more so than non-believers, Satan makes it a point to assault us with lies and deception.  He wants to get our eyes and attention off of God. It is inevitable that throughout our lifetime we will find ourselves in situations that will elicit a response to what our hearts truly believe.  Are we going to trust God and what He says, or are we going to listen to the lies of the enemy of our soul?

Adam and Eve were the first ones to have to make this choice.  Even though the evidence of God’s truth was literally all around them and even though God spoke His word of truth in them, sadly, they believed the Liar over the Life-Giver.

“Did God really say, ‘You are not to eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1

I don’t know about you, but I find myself having to choose the Truth over the Liar all the time - Different day, different tree; same opportunity to choose as Adam and Eve had.  Sometimes I get it right.  I listen to God regardless of how things look and I trust Him.  Some days I blow it.  I let the circumstances and lies become my “truth.”  Praise God, that He is abundant in grace and mercy!  He knows our weaknesses and frailties and covers them with understanding.

“For He understands how we are made, He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:14

Dina Pugh

  

I Am Limited

God is unlimited. He shares his power with us through the Holy Spirit. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul celebrated his role as teacher and the church as a conduit for the Word of God. In Ephesians 3:16-19, Paul wrote:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

 Paul explains that Jesus dwells in our hearts because of our faith in him. Then, God fills in our limits with the love of Christ. Instead of confronting our challenges and limitations on our own, think of whatcould happen if we deliberately relied on God’s unlimited power delivered through the Holy Spirit? 

Kevin Bibo