FLOWING

The spot of blue at middle/left is the Columbia River.

I live in a valley carved thousands of years ago by a mighty flowing river we call the Columbia. This is one viewpoint above the river valley, a pull-off which has also become something of a romantic “date” place. (Okay, “Lover's Leap,” but any who try to “leap” would land in the driveway of the home just below.) Often when passing the turnout I think of the imagery in Psalm 36 as it describes God's love, righteousness, and faithfulness. Especially these verses:

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep....They [people, both “high and low,” v. 7b] feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. (Psalm 36:6, 8)

My hometown isn't perfect. It has crime and homelessness problems. Illegal drugs. Income inequities. Folks living in shacks, others in Hollywood-worthy mansions. But good people live here. So does the God who offers spiritual refreshment far superior to the treated water that comes through our faucets.

Yet every time I read Psalm 36, I pause at this phrase: “your river of delights.” Surely this describes the first river into which Adam and Eve pushed their toes in the very beginning at the Garden of Eden. We're left to guess what it was—quite possibly the area we know now as the Tigris and Euphrates river basin. But the “where” is not as important as the principle: that God's righteousness, justice and merciful provision flow from Him like a mighty river of love.

Not that we won't have tough times in life. Just a mile downhill from this lookout, my husband and I were victims of a crash caused by a young driver who rounded a curve too fast and went out of control, hitting us and totaling our car. It happened in seconds. But we all lived. A tow truck removed our vehicle, a friend took us back home--to a crock-pot dinner and bread-machine loaf that had simmered and baked the whole time of our traumatic experience.

I first lived in this town in the early 1970s when hired as a “intern reporter” right out of university. I was almost broke after paying college bills, but the managing editor took note of that when offering me a job. He also asked around the newspaper office if anyone would like to temporarily “room and board” a young lady coming to work for him for the summer.

I had no car to drive over to this new job, but scraped together enough to fly over (a luxury for me). I still remember looking down into this river valley that would be at least my summer home. The managing editor himself picked me up at the airport, and praised the landscape and advantages of this valley as he drove me to the newspaper office. There, he introduced me to the lady in “advertising” who'd rent me her spare room (and feed me) for a couple months until my first paychecks helped me get a car and my own housing.

I'd end up working as a reporter and section editor for more than five years before moving on, never intending to come back. Little did I realize that about a decade later, a young man I'd seriously dated in that town would decide he was ready for marriage and contacted me—in Chicago! We did marry and I moved back. That was more than forty years ago. Four decades of hard times (like that accident) and burying loved ones. Joyful times of raising children to responsible adulthood.

Undergirding all of that was trust in the One who is the “fountain of life” (v. 9a). Our Refreshment in spiritually dry times. The One in whose light we see light (v. 9b). Thus, whenever I drive past this viewpoint, I am reminded of my “history” in trusting God, and learning how He is my “fountain of life” (v. 9). I'm also reminded of another “river” of delights, that flows from the throne of God (Revelation 22), and will be mine to behold, someday.

TRUST (Psalm 37)

Who's in the driver's seat?  I chuckled when I saw this dog had taken 

over his owner's seat in front of the steering wheel. I wouldn't trust

my life to this furry driver!  But there's truth in this humor--how often 

do we think we can go solo without God at the controls? 

A series on the 48 psalms recommended for times of depression by pastor/counselor David Seamonds, author of Healing for Damaged Emotions.

I was a young Christian, struggling to trust God in all the changes of young adulthood and first job, when I came to Psalm 37 in my Bible reading. I’m sure I’d read it before, but the challenges and disappointments I was then facing made it almost throb with truth for my particular circumstances.

Trust in the Lord…Delight yourself in the Lord…Commit your way to the Lord…Be still before the Lord.

This represented a shift in thinking for me. I’d just come out of college where diligence and planning were rewarded with academic honors. I was the ultimate planner whose desk calendar was full of deadlines to achieve so I wouldn’t come to “Dead Week” (finals) half-dead. The work world was different. I put on a lot of unpaid overtime to meet my workload expectations. I had a boss with a deserved reputation for being hard to please. I felt I had good work relationships with my colleagues. But for many, Jesus wasn’t first in their lives, and as a believer, I felt lonely. When a young Christian man came into my life, I felt I was about to see God fulfill verse 4:

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

But the relationship ended. I wondered, had I missed “the desire of my heart” because I hadn’t delighted enough in the Lord?

ROLL IT OFF

I also missed the meaning of “Commit your way to the Lord.” It wasn’t like signing a mortgage agreement. Instead, the verb in Hebrew means to “roll off your burden.” God has stronger shoulders than I do, especially when I’ve been slandered. Instead of limping around with somebody’s negative words hanging on me like a burdensome backpack, I’m to roll that ugly, demeaning load into His care.

I feel I’ve barely begun to understand and live out Psalm 37. But it always encourages me to see God as a gracious, loving Father who understands all the disappointments we face as we live in an imperfect world. He will satisfy all our desires. This is not to say He will give us all the “things” we think we need or are “entitled” to, but He will satisfy those who want more of Him in their lives.

David wrote this psalm in his old age, when he had the time and experience to deal with the puzzle of why the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous suffer. I’ve wondered about that too, as some sort of “suffering” has been a part of every decade of my life. But I’ve also known the blessing and mercy of the Lord, and I think this is what Psalm 37 is getting at. These, for me, are some of its key verses:

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their way, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. (vv. 7-9)

In other words, the end of the story hasn’t yet been written. The wicked may seem to be in control now, but their drama on this fallen earth isn’t forever: “The Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming” (v. 12). Just wait, God says--patiently (v. 7). He won’t disappoint.

HANDING IT OVER (Psalm 31)

This old abandoned service station in an Eastern Washington town seemed

to illustrate to me the feelings expressed in Psalm 31: down and unwanted.

An ongoing series on the 48 psalms listed as “recommended reading” for "down times" by counselor David Seamands (author of Healing for Damaged Emotions).

“Favorable outcomes…solution-based…positive results.”  Such are the catchwords of our generation. We want things that take away the pain—if not instantly, then as fast as possible.  Psalm 31 runs straight into those ideas with the truth that life isn’t always easy and sometimes it really hurts and confuses. David gets right to the point with something I’ve probably prayed in one way or the other:

In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame, deliver me in your righteousness.

The word “shame” reappears in verse 17:

Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I have cried out to you.

Our English word “shame” comes from the Hebrew bosh, meaning to become pale.  Good description, for it seems the blood and courage drain away when someone “shames us.” I felt similarly “depleted” when I ran into people who “shamed” me for innocent and upright actions and words.  They were so emotionally disheveled that their perceptions of people and life were distorted.

Bingo!  Did you read Saul into that (“emotionally disheveled,” “perceptions distorted”)? Welcome to history repeating itself in the ordinary threads of life.

A MENTAL/PHYSICAL MESS

So here, in Psalm 31, is a persecuted believer feeling it in his bones.  Verses 9-13 give a glimpse into his medical chart. Lots of tears, anguish, groaning, weakness, forgotten, like broken pottery, pressured by slander and other attacks. Depression manifests itself in such ways, like a creeping darkness. But the portion of Psalm 31 that lifts me most is verse 5:

Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.

Does it sound familiar? Jesus, on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)

Stephen, as stones flew, killing him: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”(Acts 7:59)

Making the world “right” is not my responsibility. I’m to trust and obey.  Sometimes that’s really hard because our world’s mantras are “favorable outcomes…solution-based…positive results.”

Psalm 31 records a journey, from hurt and dismay to trust.  Because David was frank enough to recall his pain, we benefit these thousands of years later in our own spiritual battles.

But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies." (vv. 14-15)

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD. (v. 24)

The Transformation of "Much Afraid"

Hurnard's allegory frequently mentions falls, leading me to share this late 1980s

family photo showing falls at Rainy Lake in Washington's North Cascades.

My children  (pictured with their dad) are adults and parents of their own children.

How would you like to be named “Much-Afraid” and feel stuck in your negative life? So starts one of the lesser-known Christian allegories titled, Hinds’ Feet in High Places.  I recently re-read my copy of the 1955 work by Hannah Hurnard, who spent most of her life in missionary work in the Holy Land. Hinds' Feet is counter-cultural to a world that promotes the idea of “upward mobility" in social class, wealth and status. Instead, like another recently revived Christian novel (What Would Jesus Do?—remember WWJD?), it promotes “downward nobility,” moving “down” to the high example of Christ’s servanthood.

Hurnard’s book title comes from the concluding verses of the Old Testament “minor prophet” Habakkuk, who lived in perilous times as his nation fell apart:

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer [hind].  He enables me to go on the heights. (3:19)

Like John Bunyan’s allegory “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Hinds’ Feet is a journey metaphor. The main character is an orphan from the “Family of Fearlings” named “Much Afraid,” who had crooked feet (probably “clubbed” in today’s terms) and a disfigured face with a “crooked mouth.” She was being raised by her aunt, “Mrs. Dismal Forebodings,” along with her two cousins, sisters “Gloomy” and “Spiteful” and their brother “Craven Fear,” a bully. But she yearns to be near the kind “Chief Shepherd” (Jesus) of the nearby mountain. When faced with an arranged marriage to “Craven Fear,” she flees the dark and gloomy hamlet of “Much-Trembling” in search of the Shepherd. During her long and treacherous climb to “spiritual high places,” constantly taunted by evil faces of her old life in the valley, she learns deepening trust in the Shepherd.  Finally, she is healed and her name changed to “Grace and Glory.”

The names given places and characters lend deep symbolism to this classic book. They also reflect Hurnard’s personal story. She once stammered and had many fears, and described her “old self” as “a miserable, morbid, self-centered person who never felt love for anyone, shut up to my own torment.” But Hurnard’s spiritual life was transformed after attending the evangelistic “Keswick convention” meetings of her times. She became a missionary and an author, leaving a legacy of hope and trust that rose above her old pain and fear.

Talk about coincidence: As I finished

writing this blog in April, I looked

at my desk-side calendar and realized

its photo was a breathtaking falls

Much of her inspiration for this allegory came from her trips to the mountains of Switzerland, where she especially reveled in the thundering, dizzying mountain waterfalls. Through such splendid scenes, she said, God taught her that “love’s eternal, ecstatic joy [comes in] ceaseless, blissful giving.” For her, these alpine falls symbolized how Christians share the ever-flowing love of God:

1. Humility: “The pouring of oneself down lower and lower in self-effacement and self-denial.”

2. Giving: “The poured out life gives life and power to others.  The more love gives, the more it fulfills itself,”

3. Service: The water plunging over falls eventually nourishes crops or is turned into electricity. Similarly, true Christian love is “utterly abandoned to the goal of giving oneself to others.” *

Or, as the apostle Peter said, quoting Proverbs 3:34: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

Have any of you who visit this column read Hinds Feet on High Places? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

*Hannah Hurnard, Hinds’ Feet On High Places (Wheaton: Tyndale/Living Books, 1975), p.259.

Head- and heart-warming

Winter hadn’t left the calendar yet, but it was a sunny enough day that a walk sounded like a good idea to me.  I didn’t want to squish a knit hat on my head, so dug in my winterwear box in the closet for some old white earmuffs.  As I pulled them apart to put on my head, SNAP!  The plastic ear-to-ear arc broke.  Even household super-glue has its limits and this was one it couldn’t reattach. So I  pulled a snug knit hat on my head.  I like ear muffs but accepted the loss.  Maybe someday, probably at some thrift store, I’d find another pair at a reasonable price.

A few days later I tagged along with my husband to an estate sale.  As we hopped over snow piles to get to items for sale in the house and garage, I found nothing of interest.  (He did.)  As we were about to leave, I noticed a box of “free” things.  Right on top of miscellaneous things that nobody else had wanted was—you guessed it--a pair of black earmuffs, with a metal band of better quality than my cheap snapped-apart plastic ones.  I lifted the “muffs” out, thanked the money-takers for my “free gift,” and almost skipped down the hill remembering:

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:19

WARM EARS, WARMED HEART
Now, ear muffs are not a necessity—just something I like to wear when it’s cold. But it was just like God to plan ahead for me. I needed that encouragement for some heavy-duty need-much-prayer situations that had occupied us for a long time. If God could plop some earmuffs in a giveaway box, couldn’t I continue to trust Him for the still-unanswered?

The Lord and I have quite a history with this verse, especially during times of my life where I was between jobs or stretching my savings to get through college and graduate school. I really clung to it   after my parents died and I was on my own at age 31.  Oh, the ways He came through—like freelance-writing checks, babysitting, typing or filing jobs that turned out to be "just enough"to pay my bills.

What can I say to that?  Except, maybe, what Paul wrote as he wrapped up his letter to the Philippian church:

To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever.  Amen.  (Philippians 4:20)

Rest assured

Pictures of contentment, these horses reminded me that life is a rhythm of activity and rest. God’s plan is a balanced life of service and renewal that brings Him glory. It’s the sense of “rightness” conveyed by Isaiah 30:15:
            In repentance and rest is your salvation,
            In quietness and trust is your strength.
This verse is one you might find on a plaque in a religious gift shop. But be careful of scripture plucked out of context. It’s embedded in a chapter full of reprimands for national obstinacy. With vicious northern empires chewing away at their borders, the Jews decided God’s protection wasn’t enough. So they decided to form an alliance with a heathen nation to the south, Egypt. Time would prove the folly of that treaty.

“Return to me for safety,” God was telling them through the prophet Isaiah. “Rest in me. Quietly trust me instead of making a frenzied alliance with Egypt.”

Of course, they didn’t, and in 606 B.C. the nation was overwhelmed by the Babylonian powerhouse. Yet 2,600 years later, the principle still speaks. We’re prone to fall on our faces in failure when we rely on something other than God. For some, it’s technology, fame, beauty, or wealth. In the end, all these fail.

So what do “repentance, rest, quietness, and trust” look like in real life?  Longtime Billy Graham evangelist Leighton Ford, in his book The Attentive Life (IVP, 2008) offered one idea. When he suffered a heart attack, his son-in-law brought those words to his attention. Ford began praying those words in his morning walk and wrote them daily in his journal. “They became a reminder to slow down,” he wrote, “to savor the goodness of the Lord each moment, to remind myself that I did not have to ‘do it now’ every time a new thought came, to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from my life and soul” (p. 174).

If your life has gotten so busy that there’s little space for spiritual rest, you too may need to absorb the truths of this verse. Don’t worry about finding it somewhere on a plaque. Write it on an index card and post it where you can see it, like the bathroom mirror, car dash, or a corner of your laptop. “Rest” assured: the reminder will be helpful.

What's next, Lord?

Here’s my second grandson, Zion—and what a winsome smile!  He was born with a cleft lip and palate, and next Friday, the day he turns four months old, he will undergo his first surgery to repair his cleft lip. We have known he had this condition since several months before birth, when an ultrasound revealed both “it’s a boy!” and the cleft. It has complicated feeding, but not taken away his endearing baby ways. He now smiles and coos when we hold and feed him.

Cleft lip and/or palate occurs in varying severity in about one in six hundred births. Especially when a mother was diligent about healthy living during her pregnancy, there are “why” questions. But as we have walked alongside our son and daughter-in-law, I’ve learned that “why” isn’t the right question. Instead, it’s “What’s next, Lord?”

Once when feeding Zion, I was reminded of some Bible verses that speak of  physical challenges evident at birth. They’re packaged with the story of God calling Moses to lead the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt. After a hot-headed murder forced Moses to flee Egypt, abdicating his privileges as an adopted son in Pharaoh’s family, he roamed the wilderness for years, pushing sheep around.

When the time was right, God caused a nondescript shrub to burst into fire and get Moses’ attention. Then, establishing that place as “holy ground,” God told Moses his next step would be leading a nation, not sheep. Moses reacted, “Who, me? You’re kidding. Send someone else. I’m a clumsy speaker” (Exodus 4:10, personal paraphrase).

God’s response was a reminder that our entire selves--physical, emotional, intellectual, even societal—are part of God’s permissive plan. None of us is perfect. Some have more visible “not-perfect” parts. Others have imperfections buried deep in their thinking. “Perfection” ended when sin entered the world.

When Moses focused on his imperfections and refused God’s high call on his life, God replied, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or dumb?  Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11). God knows all about the “not-perfect” parts of our lives, and none limit His power. If He insisted on using only perfect people, His work force would number “zero.” But He takes us where we are, and promises His help to do His work. He told Moses, “Now go: I will help you speak and teach you what to say” (Exodus 4:12).

As for “help you speak and teach you what to say,” I think of the learning curve his brother Josiah (older by 17 months) is experiencing with language skills. Josiah learned the usual “mama,” “dada,” “papa,” and “nana” (grandma/banana), and not too long after that came “duck” and “drip.” Right now, his favorite word is “cocoa.” As I warm up the milk for his cocoa, I smile and wonder, “What’s next, Lord?” in his language acquisition.

The same phrase comes to mind as I pray for little Zion. Right now, he loves to be held and is unaware of the discomfort ahead to fix his sweet, gapped grin. We’re at the beginning of a journey, one best navigated with hearts that ask, “What’s next, Lord?” and then go forward in faith.

A vine at a time

Last week, I “retired” our tomato plants. About the middle of October, I realize that few of those tight green marbles will ripen as we inch toward the first frost. We have only five tomato plants, but they may as well be fifteen. Clipping a branch at a time, I save out the tomatoes with a yellow blush of potential. These I wash and put in a covered box with a red apple, whose off-gassing helps them ripen. Finally, I yank out the main stems that seem to be super-glued into the soil. Goodbye, a couple hours. It’s the down side to having fresh tomatoes the last part of the summer. It’s not my favorite chore, but I get through it.

In the midst of this chore, I thought of tough things in life that loom much more tangled and messy than my autumn tomato patch. One story I’ve often shared with people needing encouragement comes from the life of Dr. A.B. Simpson (1843-1919), a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Think back a hundred-plus years, before cars, air travel, phones or the internet. Dr. Simpson was preaching in Ireland when he posed the question, “What is it to abide in Jesus?” Then he gave this answer: “It is to keep on saying, minute by minute, ‘For this I have Jesus.’”

That phrase of trust lodged in the heart of the event’s pianist, a young woman whose family lived across the Irish Sea. During the service she received a telegram asking her to come home immediately because her mother was dying. “I have never traveled alone,” she told him. “But for this I have Jesus. I must make a long journey to the south of England. For this and all else that goes with it, I have Jesus.” As it turned out, in those days of slow travel, she arrived home ten minutes after her mother died. Her family was so distraught that responsibility for the funeral service and legal details fell to her. She later told how she kept claiming, “For this I have Jesus,” as she had to do things she couldn’t have done in her own strength.

The message from Simpson’s sermon is echoed in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (KJV). Or, as the Greek-to-English translation is clarified in the Amplified Bible: “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me—I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who enfuses inner strength into me, [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]." My copy of the Amplified version was once my late mother’s, given her in 1962 by a godly aunt. Fifty years later, as I read the same words that my mother had underlined in red, I sense how she embraced this truth for her own overwhelming life challenges. They ranged from being the firstborn of nine in a family that knew profound poverty, to her life-long battle with asthma, to her final, hard-fought battle with cancer.

“For this”—for the intimidating, scary, impossible things of life—“I have Jesus.” The best part is that besides coming alongside in our challenges, He sees the eventual spiritual outcome. Leaning on Him, stretching with Him, and depending on Him are all part of growing in the faith. “For this,” there is a purpose.

I just checked the tomatoes in my “ripening box,” and a few are turning red. There’s another parable here, about God at work in the dark places, but I think Simpson’s hopeful counsel suffices for today.

Red-ripe jewels

It’s raspberry-picking time at the small “patch” in our back yard, meaning every couple days I pick the ripest red jewels and store them in the refrigerator. It takes several days to get the six cups I need to make freezer jam. But oh, how yummy.

I’m a raspberry-picker from w-a-y back as it was my first paid “job” in grade school. One of my dad’s co-workers also had a large berry farm, and was open to having youth come pick. Though I was only about nine, I picked alongside my teenage sister, earning enough to buy my school supplies. Long, hot, dusty days? You know it. But I preferred raspberries over the thorny blackberries we picked at another place.

The other day as I sat on an upended bucket, plying through leaves in search of hidden berries, I thought of how Proverbs 4:2 speaks of seeking wisdom from God: “Search for it as for hidden treasure.”

Like berries, scriptures don’t “ripen” in personal meaning all at once. A passage that seemed “not me” at one point in my life may come alive at a different time. Or, a verse in one chapter may blink like a neon light when I go through a certain hard time. Later on, another part of that chapter will be a guiding light. The other morning, for example, I was reading Psalm 56. In previous times of thinking on this psalm, I’d highlighted verse 8, about God taking special note of our tears. This time, the word “trust” jumped out at me
When I am afraid, I will trust in you. (v. 3)
In God I trust; I will not be afraid. (vs. 4, 11)
David wrote this psalm about being caught between two life-threatening negatives: the murderous rampage of King Saul, and the bloodthirstiness of the Philistines, Israel’s enemy. I’m certainly not running around with my trusty sword and shield, hiding in caves. But I do face invisible enemies of circumstances and relationships beyond my ability to solve or even appease. They’re God-size problems.

That’s probably why “trust” jumped out of this psalm. That word was the treasure with the sweetness of God’s mercy infused in it, ready for “picking” at just this time of need in my life.

Survival of the Floaters

How God builds your faith often comes down to ordinary experiences. Like a college swimming class.

The college I attended required, of all things, passing a swimming proficiency class for graduation. Most people just quickly splash up and down the pool and pass. But I’d never learned to swim, thanks to health issues as a child. I had an irrational fear of any water deeper than my waist.

Thankfully, the test began at the shallow end. When the instructor ordered us to swim, I attempted my best effort at swimming—one that might be described as tortured Dutch windmill.

“Sign up for Swimming 101,” the instructor told me. She means sign up for Faith-Stretch 101, I told myself.

I had only ten weeks to conquer my fears. By the ninth class week, the agony deepened.

“Today you learn to dive off the board,” the swim teacher announced. The board? Does she mean the plank at the deep end off which I will fall to my doom? I will spare you the details of my first straight-in dive to the utter bottom of the pool.

Still alive by the tenth week, I showed up for the final swimming exam. My classmates curled off the diving board like penguins slipping over an ice float for a frolic around the ocean. As they stroked the required three pool lengths, I took my fateful walk to the end of the plank, er, diving board. My life passed in front of me as I tried to remember the “how to dive” lesson. I sucked in a breath and jumped.

Surfacing for the compulsory crawl (aptly named, for me), I managed two more lengths with other “exhibit” swimming strokes. As I finished, the teacher nodded and mumbled something about how I might enjoy Swimming 102. I chose not to hear her. I was too busy thanking God for helping me get through Mission Impossible.

That quarter, I learned something more than treading water, diving, and the crawl. I also experienced how God could grow me by helping me accomplish something I thought was way beyond me. He specializes in “strength” and “protection” (2 Thess. 3:3). Even in this personal battle (small to others, big to me), God was ready to help me.

He’s continued to see me through lots harder things that I never signed up for, but that are a part of life. As a college freshman, I never imagined I’d be orphaned at 31, face joblessness, stay single until 34, or almost get killed by a drunk driver. At times, I’m sure my ability to trust God looked like that tortured Dutch-windmill stroke. But through prayer, trust in the Bible’s promises, and daily dependence on God, I got through it all.

I think that’s why Paul urged the folks at Thessalonica, “Never tire of doing what is right” (3:13). Even if we think we can’t do it, with God we can. And having God’s love and approval is a zillion times more exciting than the instructor’s nod that I passed Swimming 101!