Jesus or a Squirrel

Let’s start with a story.

A little boy is in Sunday School, enjoying the lesson. The teacher is telling them a story. In the story she tells them she is going to describe something and asks them to identify what she is describing. She begins with, it is brown and fury. It has little whiskers and a brown fluffy tall. It can run and jump pretty far and you often see them scurrying across the road. What am I describing?

The class thought about it for a moment and then the little boy raised his hand and said, “Well it sure sounds a lot like a squirrel, but since we are in church I know the answer is Jesus.”

So true, little man, so true. You see, this little boy was on to something. Jesus is somehow always the answer. He knew it…even if it didn’t make sense!

Every trouble. Every pain. Every joy. Every heartache. Every question that leads us to seek an answer. Jesus.

So why are we so quick to find answers elsewhere?

There is a Divine Response to every situation and in my experience, that response is HOPE. Hope is Jesus. The person of Jesus. Jesus is hope! Jesus doesn’t leave us in our depravity, but He pulls us out of the miry clay and sets us up on the ROCK!

May our hearts, no matter the season be ever focused on what Jesus has to say in a situation. Because I know that if Jesus has something to say about it…its good!

Ephesians 1:17 is a prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian church. It says, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him“

In all things, be it spiritual, natural, emotional, whatever…in all things we need wisdom and revelation. Not just about the situation at hand. That will come as we get deeper in the knowledge of Him. To know HIM, is where all wisdom and revelation comes from. This is not just knowing Jesus. But it is knowing who Jesus is and what He is all about. It is knowing Him in the most intimate way. I heard a great illustration recently on this.

Before caller ID when someone would call us we would ask, “who is this?” to identify who we were talking to. Or it was always polite to identify yourself when calling someone at that beginning of the conversation. So when a husband answers the phone and the wife says, Hi, this is Susan. The husband should not say “Susan, who?” As her husband you should know the voice of your spouse, so much so that when she calls and says “hi” you know who it is.

The same is true with our relationship with Jesus. When Jesus calls and says, “hi” if we know him well enough we will recognize that voice. We will know just with a simple two letter word who is speaking. We don’t have to ask, is that me. Or where did that come from?

So having the wisdom and revelation is more than just the what to do in a situation. It is what can I draw from the person of Jesus to inject into this situation. The ONLY way to do that is to know Him Better!

So when faced with a situation, ask yourself is it a squirrel or is it Jesus? 😉

Divine Response

“But what does the divine response say to him?” – Rom 11:4a

This little two word phrase jumped out out the text for me today. I couldn’t just skim past this one. DIVINE RESPONSE. Ultimately it is an eloquent way of saying, “what did God have to say about it?” But there is a weight so heavy in those two little words. It is not a flippant statement. It is not as if to say, “Let’s see what Joe Shmoe has to say about it.” Nope. There is purpose in it. There is a plan in it. There is a heavenly weight behind it. The Divine Response!

Paul was retelling the story of Elijah in 1 Kinds 19 when he was totally defeated. The enemy armies had defeated his people, killed all the prophets, and he was the only one left. He was crying out before God because from the outside it looked as though all hope was lost. He was as good as dead and all the things that were lining up are now gone. There is nothing left. His cry to God sounded like a child whining to their parent because all their toys were taken away and they had nothing left. But what that child doesn’t understood is that in the parents’ love they have created a better place for them full of bigger and better toys. What Elijah didn’t know; didn’t have the faith to see was that God wasn’t done yet. God still had a plan. He had a Divine Response! He told him to God back the way he came and grab these other people. God had a remnant already picked out and they just needed Elijah to come along and anoint them.

Have you ever been in a similar place? Where it seems like all hope is lost. Where it seems that the plans you’ve made (maybe even the plans you’ve made with the Lord) have disappeared from view. You find yourself in a dark alley with no way out. You begin to wonder, how did I get here? I thought I was on the right path. I was doing the things the Lord asked of me, surely this isn’t how it ends. Surely this wouldn’t be where God would be leading me. I’m sure I missed something along the way. — All the thoughts (and others) when we find ourselves in that place.

But God, in his DIVINE RESPONSE always has something in the works. You see that remnant that God had set aside for Elijah to bring up and accomplish what was meant to be accomplished…they were there all along. These were people that were part of the community where Elijah had been. God didn’t miraculously manifest these chosen ones to be there now that Elijah was at his last ditch effort. These people were already there. I’d venture to guess that they may have been people Elijah was familiar with to some extent. That’s why He told him to go back to where he came from. The only difference, now Elijah was in a place to see these people in a new way. The Lord had opened up his eyes to a new way of seeing things.

That’s what the divine response will do for us. When we seek the divine response in our lives, He, through Holy Spirit, will open up a new world for us. We will begin to see things in a new way. We will see great and mighty things that were possibly already there, but now we are in a place to see them.

The Lord showed me a picture in regard to this that is a cool illustration. It is as if you are living in a city and you walk to work everyday. So everyday you pass the same shops, the same people, and you take the same turns. And there is a vendor on one of the corners that gives out gold. But because you take this route everyday to work, the gold vendor just blends in and to you they look like the next vendor selling hot dogs or magazines, so you just walk on by on your way to work each morning and home each afternoon. Until one day, you loose your job, and the worry starts to set in. The negative thoughts creep in too. In search of a new job you find yourself taking the same route as before, only this time you notice things. You notice the small patch of grass with a small bench where a elderly couple sits and watches people. You wonder, “how long have them been there?” And what about the coffee shop where the owner stands at the door to greet his customers each day with that infectious smile? You think to yourself, “wow, that brightened my day.” And then you turn THE CORNER and there stands the gold vendor. And you received your piece of gold. And He says to you, “there is enough for each day.” It is at the moment that you realize the circumstances of YOUR plan have changed, but you still have enough for each day. The vendor was there all along, but until you were in a position to see him, you couldn’t.

God uses circumstances to show us His glory. He uses circumstances to move us into His plan. The trick to all of this…we have to let him! We have to ask, “Lord, what do YOU have to say about this.?” I want to hear the DIVINE RESPONSE. Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” We just need to pick up the phone and make that call. It might look like a whiney kid complaining about current circumstances, but that’s OK because God is not phased. He just wants us to come with an honest heart to seek the DIVINE RESPONSE.

Writing in the “to” season

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are being changed into the same image from GLORY TO GLORY, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

In this verse the writer, Paul is explaining a little of the process we all go through in being redeemed to our Christ-likeness image of God. Scripture also tells us we were made in His image and that we are being transformed to being like Him each day. How? Through glory to glory.

He takes us through moments that are glorious! You know the ones. The moments where everything seems to be going well. Those moments where God is SO present that you can touch, taste, and feel him all over the place! You can SEE (in the natural) the hand of God and all that He has done and been doing. Those are the Glory moments. Also the later glory is more than, or better than the former glory. So each time we enter glory, it is better than the last.

But how do we get from one to the other? We have to go through what I call the “to” season. These are tough seasons. These are seasons where things go wrong. These are seasons where God may seem so far away that you begin to wonder where He is. These are seasons that Paul in Romans 5 talks about when he says, “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope…” This is the “to” season. It is the process that God uses in our lives to take us higher. It is the way He develops us into the person He needs us to be to rule and reign in his kingdom.

That is where I find myself. Although, if I were honest, I started this post in April of 2023, and it is now September 2023. So…my “to” season is long. But its been good at the same time. Even as I’m typing, Tauren Wells and Elevation Worship is playing in the background singing Joy in the Mourning. The bridge “keep holding on, keep holding on, the weeping may endure for the night, but joy is coming” playing on repeat. God is so good in the “to” season that he reminds us to keep holding on”

So what can we do when we are in this “to” season to keep us going. Because the last thing we want to do is give up. The last thing we want to do is throw our hands up in the air and say, “oh well, God must not really be for me anymore.” Or some sort of quit mentality. We have to press on. We have to remember the goodness of the Lord. We have to build our faith in this season and remember those things He’s done for us in the past.

A few questions to ask and keep asking until you get answers are:

1. God, what can you be for me now that you couldn’t be before? You see in each season God can and will reveal a new aspect of Himself to you if you let him. So for example if you are in a new season of financial hardship. Maybe, He wants you to learn that He is Johovah Jireh, YOUR provider! And He wants you to learn about Him in that way.
2. God, where are you IN THIS? Scripture also tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. So either God is a liar, or He’s around somewhere, we’ve just lost sight of where.

Keep asking those things until you get answers. And once the answers come, don’t let go!!

There is so much more of what we can do in the “to” season to fight the battle in the “to” season.

1. Remember His promises and the things He’s done in the past
2. Stand on His word. His word is LIFE and through it you’ll find the truth
3. Speak the truth in every situation (this is good in whatever season you find yourself in)
4. Worship
5. Pray in the Spirit
6. Rest
7. Put on the Armor each day!
8. Enlist the help of other prayer warriors!

Not a complete list, but a good place to start.

So if you are in that “to” season, know this. Is is to get you to the next glory and that glory is greater than the last one. He IS WITH YOU, and you will get through it!

“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give you a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.”