Always Be Ready

I learn so many valuable lessons from our kids. Sometimes it isn't so much a learning of something new as a reminder of something old.

As you may already be aware, our son Micah has been listed on the national transplant list for a liver transplant. This will be his second transplant.

The transplant could come at any time. Even in the last two weeks, there was a liver he would have received but the size was not a right match. Every day we live with the reality that the call could come for us to make the journey to Duke Hospital for Micah to receive his new liver.

This morning Micah took a suitcase and began packing his things so he would be ready. Every time the phone rings, he is adamant that we answer it because, as he says, "It could be Duke!" There seems to be no day that passes now that the anticipation of this doesn't come up in conversation in our home, outside our home, and even with complete strangers.

It has been a deep and powerful reminder of how we can begin to live without urgency and expectation. Jesus made a promise and He always keeps His promises. He promised He would return for His children to take them home to be with Him forever, receiving the reward of their labor. In Matthew 24, He emphatically tells us to always be ready because "in such an hour that you think not, the Son of Man will return."

Am I living with the same expectation that any day and every day could be the last day?

Do I anticipate Jesus returning, as He promised, as though it could come today?

Are there things I've left undone? Words I've left unsaid? Acts I've yet to fulfill? Love I've failed to communicate and show? Gospel conversations I've avoided?

The truth is that the call could come today. Jesus could call all of His children to come home never to return here or leave His presence again. We must always be ready. We must live intentionally, passionately, and urgently. Are we really ready?

He Gives and Takes Away

Over the years in ministry the most difficult circumstances have often been in regard to children. Seeing young children sick or die are especially hard. One that often we overlook are the scores of women who long to be mothers but their arms are still empty.

At times there are medical explanations and sometimes there's no explanation. Regardless, it doesn't change the heartache and longing in the heart of a woman who cannot conceive.

The Bible is dotted with the stories of women who found themselves childless. Sarai, Hannah, Rachel, Elizabeth, and others found their situation bitter and painful. A married woman who could not have children was viewed scornfully and even as one cursed by God.

Manoah was married to a woman who was unable to conceive. Yet God in his upper story was completely aware of this and would work through this not only to give her a son, but to give Israel a deliverer. And so it was that Samson was born and grew to be a man of incredible strength and courage, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rested powerfully.

The full story of Samson is quite tragic, reflecting a man who was often far more intent on living out his own desires than living out the will of God. But the beauty of his life was that he was a miracle. He was born to a father and mother who had probably come to think they may never have a child. And in spite of Samson's disobedience, God worked to deliver His people though it did not happen without Samson losing his power, his sight, his freedom, and ultimately his life.

God is the One who gives when the world has no power to give. He is the One who provides when there's no conceivable way to make it happen. Yet He is also the One who takes away, sometimes without explanation. Sometimes He withholds when we expected Him to pour it out on us.

God's power to give Manoah and his wife a child was a foretaste of His power to come on Mary so that she conceived to give birth to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God gave the world His Son. And God would take His Son from the world by nailing Him to the cross. But praise God that we know both why He gave and why He took away. As a result, we today are able to celebrate how God rescued us from sin and death by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Take a Daniel moment:

1. Praise God that He both gives and takes away.
2. Lift up to Him your request for what you need and the desires of your heart.
3. Pray that God would give you a content heart with what He gives, what He withholds, and what He takes away.
4. Ask God to demonstrate His power to open wombs, forgive sin, raise the dead, provide for every need in your life and the lives of those you know are in need.