Dulles Family Life Church

     It’s been months since I read Gerald Fry’s book, “In Pursuit of His Glory,” but I continue to find real gems of truth in its pages.  One of the things he writes of is the difference between trying and trusting.  He says, “Believe me, it’s the difference between heaven and hell.”  He goes on to state that each of us has to come to a place of surrender where we say to Him, “Lord, I cannot do it.  Therefore, I’ll no longer try to do it.”  It’s the place of consecration where we truly commit all things into His hands.  It is, I think, both a decision for life, and a decision for each day.  Have you made that decision yet, or are you still trying?
     In Mark 9:23-24, Jesus tells the father of a demon possessed boy that, “Anything is possible if a person believes.”  The father, struggling to do so, replies, “I do believe, but help me not to doubt.”  How close is that to you and I in matters that require our deepest trust?  Those things precious to us, whether relationships, children, futures, finances, and on and on?  We do trust Him, but we just can’t let go.  Pastor and writer Mark Buchanan says we tend to trust to a degree…..and then we don’t.  Somehow, we just can’t seem to let go.  Somehow, if given enough time, we feel we can figure a way out of it, work with, manipulate the circumstances, or people involved to bring about a solution, the “deliverance” we’re looking for.  Somehow, if we just have enough time, but time always seems to be running out, has run out.  I wrote something in my notes in response to Fry’s words.  “I know I can’t.  Help me to put all my trust in Your ‘I can.’ ”
     The father of that possessed boy pleaded to Jesus, “Do something if You can.”  Jesus, in effect, told the father, “I can.”  The father struggled with believing that.  He’d been trying to find deliverance for so long.  Could he stop trying now?  Could he trust?  Could he believe?  Can we?  Where in your life, our lives, have we been trying with all our might, trying….and failing?  Trying to straighten what’s crooked.  Repair what’s broken.  Make right what’s wrong.  Make no mistake, there are definite steps we can, must take in the repairing of many thing, foremost among them relationships, but at root, the response of people or situations is not in our hands, but His.  At some point, they must be given over to Him.  At some point, we have to stop trying and truly begin trusting.  As Fry says, it’s the difference between heaven and hell.
     Today, where are you trying, and where are you not trusting?  Your answer will be in where the stress, anxiety and fear are to be found in your life.  When the father cried out to Jesus that he did believe, but so deeply desired help in the areas he struggled with unbelief, Jesus took that despair and defeat and turned it into joy and victory.  He gave his son back to him whole and free.  Can’t He, won’t He, do the same for you and I?  Can you bring that thing, that situation where you’be been trying so hard, to Him, and trust Him?  Will you say, finally, “I can’t do it anymore.  I won’t try to.  I can’t.  I put my trust in Your ‘I can.’ “  We cannot.  Jesus can.  In that truth, is freedom.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »

     Have you ever felt like just running away from everything?  Finding some place you can just escape to, someplace where you can just hide?  David did.  He’d fled first from Saul, who’d tried to kill him, and then from Achish, king of Gath, where he’d also feared for his life.  I Samuel 22:1 says, “David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.”  When he got to that cave, he surely was spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted.  In that condition, cave living sounds very good.  It did to David.  Does it to you as well?  Are you tempted today to find your own cave?   Are you there now?
     David was a man after God’s own heart, with a rich relationship with the Father.  The last place we would think to find him would be in a cave, yet there he was, and through no fault of his own.  All he’d tried to do was serve the Lord and his king.  His reward was to be falsely accused, hated, misunderstood, pursued, and in danger of his life.  David had been promised the kingdom, but a cave doesn’t seem like much of a kingdom, yet it was in that cave that his kingdom began to come into being.  We’ve been promised a Kingdom as well, and for  us, it oftentimes, most times, it also begins in a cave.
     Verse 2 of this passage reads, “And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to him.  So he became captain over them.  And there were about 400 men with him.”  From these came David’s mighty men, the core of his army, the strongest army that area of the world would know to that point…and it began in a cave.
     Bryan Cutshall in his book, “Where Are The Armorbearers?,” writes about the many beautiful songs David wrote from that cave, and others he would continue to find himself in.  He calls them cave songs, and mentions how often David would call on the Lord from “out of the depth,” which he often felt was where his life was.  This is something to which you and I can relate I think.  Coming into the fullness of our Kingdom inheritance is never going to be easy, despite much of the proper preaching and teaching of today.  The journey to the Throneroom will have many a cave, many a tear, and above all, a cross.  We’ll have our own times of crying out from the depths, and we’ll stand alongside some excellent company, whom Cutshall mentions.  The woman with the issue of blood, the Old Testament prophets, the woman who broke the alabaster box upon the feet of Christ, and washed them with her tears, and Paul and Silas, beaten and chained in a Philippian jail.  Cutshall calls these “the choir of the cave,” those crying out to Him from the depths.  Their song, as David’s did, as yours will, gets God’s attention and heart, and it will carry us along to the Kingdom He calls us to.  His Kingdom, which can only be reached through the cross, and the cave.  Are you headed there?
     God brought to David, the cavedweller, 400 more cavedwellers.  Perhaps this sounds a lot like your situation, your family, your church, your ministry right now.  What will you do?  What will I do?  Will we sing in the cave, out of the depths, and by doing so, eventually move out of that cave, and into our Kingdom inheritance?  There is an old hymn whose title I can’t remember, but I know one part of it goes, “It’s the song of the soul set free.”  That song is written in the cave, and is first sung there.  It leads us to the cross.  It leads us to freedom.  It leads us home.  Out of the depths, unto the heights.  With Him, from the cave.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »

     I got together with a couple of good pastor friends the other day.  We were talking of the prevalence of fear and uncertainty that is affecting our nation, and even the church, particularly in the wake of a contentious and draining presidential election.  As we talked, one of the two friends said, “I always tell my people that God is always working with us from the perspective of eternity.  I tell them Jesus is walking around in your future.”  He spoke a great truth in that, and one that must weave its way into the very fabric of our being in these days that we find ourselves living out our walk with and in Him.
     So many seek to quote Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and yes, forever,” but believing it can be near impossible for us when today is so frightening and the prospect of tomorrow even more so.  How much of that is due to the fact that we live so much of our lives in our “yesterday’s” and “today’s,” forgetting that, as my pastor friend said, Jesus is operating out of the realm of eternity, of our “forever.”  We become ensnared by what we have lived and are living, yet it is the hope of eternity that calls us to freedom.  Too many, most, are more comfortable with the here and now, and in turn, are held captive by it.
     I go back to my friends statement, that Jesus is walking around in our future.  That means He has fully explored it, and fully knows it.  It may, and will, remain unknown to us, but His expectation is that we will trust in Him for His protection and care for us in it.  We also need to know that in the same way, He is walking around in our yesterday’s and today’s.  We need to give Him full access to and power over them.  We can’t undo what has taken place in our yesterday’s, but we can believe on and allow Christ to free us from the effects of what has taken place there.  Yesterday, today, and yes, tomorrow, have no power over Jesus.  He is Lord over them all.  He is operating from eternity.  One day, there will be no more yesterday’s or even today’s.  There will only be “forever.”  It’s true that we live in time, but we are to be looking towards, living in preparation for, eternity.  That’s where the Father is, where Christ is.  It’s what we were made for.  It’s our true home.  Nothing in this world or in time has power over it, and therefore, has power over us.  Jesus is the same……forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »