Acts 27

Perhaps it's because I think I have the super-hero power of invisibility, (pretty sure it's not a spiritual gift), that I noticed Paul lacking sufficient influence to affect the course of the ship despite having a word of wisdom regarding the trip.  He even had the concurrent testimony of the weather to bolster his admonition; yet, he was overruled, ignored, not heeded.  The voyage continued and it didn't work out so well for those which rebuffed his warning.

Why would the LORD give Paul future knowledge and the liberty to speak it without the accompanying pull to benefit from it?  I can imagine a couple of answers; but what I can observe directly from this passage is God will let His precious child experience risk, harm and hardship because of another's rejection of Him or His Word.  From my understanding of the story, God did not "fastpass" the suffering and danger, either.

Another observation is the respectful fashion in which Paul responded to the refusal of the wisdom.  He did not have a fit, threaten them with doom or even repeat himself.  He pitched the warning and accepted their answer.  His calm demeanor in the face of troubling plans challenges me to better conduct.  How many times do I repeat myself? How do I trust God's words and His timing when my cloak of invisibility is concealing any authority I may have in a given situation?  What habits can I adopt to operate in trust and belief rather than frustration and fear?

Sovereign King of the Universe, I praise You for You are never in a predicament.  I know that all details are Yours, nothing escapes Your notice or plan.  I am constantly mystified and surprised by how Your ways are not my ways, even when I am seeking Your ways.  Lord, my Provider, please forgive me for allowing my meager understanding of a situation to trump the grandeur of the scene You have authored.  Help me to never think that I have enough of the picture that I can run with it...I need You to direct my every step, opportunity, prayer...breath.  Let all that I am comply joyfully with Your story.

1 Peter 5

And now, a word to you who are elders in the churches. I, too, am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ...As a fellow elder, I appeal to you...

Peter is writing to his peer group, he introduces himself as an elder like they are and then appeals to them as a fellow elder.  But, he gives the badge of being a witness to Christ's sufferings as the extra weight to his words.  He didn't say that he was "the Cephas," one of the inner three, "Transfiguration Pete", or that he had even walked on water; Peter self-identified as a witness of Christ's sufferings.  That was clout in his eyes.

Peter was discipling the elders, penning scripture, and yet his trump card was having been a witness to the brutalities his Christ suffered.  I am just...stuck here.  

Why do I not believe that my witness of Christ's sufferings is authority for me?  I know I am not a firsthand witness; but I have scripture, a sanctified imagination and the Holy Spirit confirmation.  Why do I not operate in the same authority amongst my peer group?

Lord, I just don't get it.  Help me to not miss it.  You call us to and promise us sufferings, Your sufferings were the thing that one of Your closest mates called up and it was his memory of Your sufferings that was his warrant for influence.  I usually just skate over the suffering part of Your Word.  I know I don't have much reference for suffering and the gracious way You wired me causes me to be unable to dwell long on anyone experiencing hurt...I drive off the road to not hit a frog...a frog, God.   I don't know how to frame sufferings (plural), except that You endured them and Your believers are promised them.  Forgive me for the spirit of procrastination regarding this integral component of a life of faith.  I confess, I don't want suffering to happen to anyone; but I know enough to not want to pray anyone out of a blessing You have wrapped as hardship or harder...even myself.  God, please help me to not miss this critical aspect of Your design.  I need You to accomplish this work in me and my very meek heart.  And as I am living this life You provided me, let me be known by what I know of You and not what has happened to me. 

1 Peter 4

...live for the will of God...live in the spirit according to the will of God...good stewards of the manifold grace of God....so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 

God's will, God's grace, God's glory...

Am I living for God's will?  How much does my will compete with His?

How does my life reflect the multifarious grace of the Most High God?

How precisely does my life-story communicate His glory?

Even in suffering, for whose honor, distinction, magnificence and preeminence do I work?  

Whose name do I try to make good in hardship and trouble?

Lord, it is so straightforward.  That renewed life of the one who 

                     ~survives and succeeds in the Spirit

                     ~accepts and abides as a bearer of the Almighty Name

                     ~loves intensely and demonstratively

                     ~welcomes others courteously, graciously and spontaneously

                     ~intercedes with tenacity

                     ~decides and does with divine discernment

  it is all for You...of Your will, by Your grace and for Your glory...help me to keep it simple and focused on You, of You and for You.

1 Peter 3

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

This passage has caused me some wonder...I see that Christ died and then the subject is baptism; the intervening portion related to what Christ did in the spirit and when is what puzzles me.  

The also which is bold-faced above is the same word interpreted as even, (which we looked at a couple of days ago),  indeed, actually and certainly.  I could read that verse as He even went (so far as) to witness to those who were in the days of Noah but are now spirits in prison awaiting the final judgment.  That makes sense and it matches up with the promise Jesus gave the thieve on the cross that "Today, you shall be with Me in Paradise".  

As I sit, examining the words and the context, a phone call comes.  My (hero) husband invites me to lunch with the goal of visiting Umesh, a man who wanted to know about Jesus and Santa Claus, (seriously).  Remembering verse one which instructs me to be submissive to my husband (hero), I readied myself to leave.

As I was driving to lunch, I was struck by the thought that I was musing and meditating on what I did not and could not definitively know.  But I had an opportunity to share with another what I did have; knowledge of the True, relationship with the One, hope in the Faithful, salvation for eternity.  How encouraging that was to me that God is still mysterious after all these years, I can still operate from what He has absolutely shown me and it is a good thing to submit to my hero (husband) and my Hero God.

Thanks and praise to You, Glorious One.  You have deep and deeper still; some things are not clear to me and yet, what I need to know has been made clear and available.  How perfect are Your ways, oh Lord, how incredible are Your mercies that You would include me in Your plan.  Help me to always have a heart for Your purpose, a desire to fulfill my part and to not get stuck in the unknown parts.  

1 Peter 2

...For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves...You who are slaves must accept the authority of your masters with all respect...For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you.

          slave.of.GOD.   
                              Accept His authority with all respect.  
                                                                                    EVEN.SUFFER.  
                                                                                                         LIVE.FREE.

Salvation - slavation...save - slave.   Just switch a couple of letters around...makes all the difference in the world.  God is my authority, I am His slave.  Don't switch those couple of things around...that's an eternal difference.

Master, help me to submit to Your authority with all respect.  Help me to get rid of all evil in my life...it sounds so easy, like taking the trash out; but it's sticky, lumpy and both smaller and larger than I can find or handle.  I need You to cultivate in me Your desires and disciplines.  Help me, in liberty, to be the God's-slave You created me to be.  Let me serve You faithfully, let me adore You completely and let me love You well.

1 Peter 1

...and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.......do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance

 These two verses cause me to wonder how I am supposed to truly look as a daughter of the Most High King.  

Do I look like I am rejoicing greatly?  Is my joy inexpressible and full of glory? 

I feel rather ordinary, if not invisible, most days...If I had this exulting, thrilling, glorious joy overflowing, wouldn't I be obviously pleased and ...dare I say, radiant?  

Contrast that beaming countenance with the admonition to not be shaped and molded by the former evil desires from my ignorant stage (pre-Jesus-follower).  Now I was five years old when I responded to my Savior's call...so I am not terribly certain what my evil desires were; but of this I am confidant: they were all I-ME-MY oriented. 

My person should not reflect what the i-me-my person would...What I want, when I want, how I want, as much and as long as I want...I am charged with not looking like these former ways and, I think, that means I don't look like those who are living in these ways...That means I watch different things, I listen to different things, I pursue different things...and by different, I mean God-pleasing.  I may have knowledge of the world; but I am not to harmonize, correspond or coincide with it.  

Oh, LORD of All, I confess too often I resonate with the world's melody and neglect the rhapsody of my King.  May I be known for the joy which wells up from within me by the life-support system You have given me.  Let my pattern and habit be not of this world; but of Your Kingdom and consistent with Your design - to the praise of Your Gloriously, Joyously Name and Reputation.

Hebrews 13

...for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by God's grace (God's favor and spiritual blessing)...

my heart should be strengthened by my God's grace.

His grace makes strong, establishes and ennobles my heart...me.

how am I allowing and encouraging that strengthening to occur?

what do I miss by not being fortified, deepened, magnified by God's grace? 

Father, I so desire Your strengthening and deepening in my life.  Please make it so...at the cost which must be paid for Your grace to do its work - as You have already paid great cost to supply grace.  God of Grace, have Your way with my heart and with me.