Written in Tears

Written In Tears by Luke Veldt

Sacrifice of Praise: Aligning Yourself with God

It is in times of suffering, of course, that aligning yourself with God presents a special challenge. How can you align yourself with God’s purposes when you don’t understand what’s happening around you? When your world has caved in on you?

But perhaps it’s in such times that aligning yourself with God becomes truly meaningful.

The author of the book of Hebrews talks about offering to God “a sacrifice of praise.”10 The sacrifice of praise must cost us something. Every sacrifice has a price; that’s what makes it a sacrifice. A sacrifice that doesn’t cost anything is not worth anything.11

So perhaps praise that costs nothing is not worth much either—or, at least, not worth as much. It’s easy to praise God when things are going well, and it’s the right thing to do. But if we can offer praise to God only when we are basking in His blessings, it’s an empty exercise. By praising God in the hard times—not by pretending to be happy, but by praising Him in the midst of sadness—we validate our praise for Him in the good times.

The more it costs us to praise Him, the more our praise is worth.

David will bless God, regardless of what it costs him. His attitude seems to be, “Though my heart is heavy, I will bless the Lord. I know He loves me, no matter what happens, so I choose to bless Him. I’m on His side.”

In his determination to stick with God despite his pain, David greatly resembles the most steadfast of the Old Testament sufferers, Job. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” Job said on the day that he lost his children, his wealth, and his reputation. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Sometimes people of faith have a hard time remembering that suffering was an excruciatingly painful process for Job. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord,” we quote Job brightly—forgetting that when he said it he had shaved his head and torn his clothes and that a few days later he was sitting on an ash heap, covered in painful boils and cursing the day he was born.

Job, while blessing the Lord, felt no compulsion to act the way a righteous man was expected to act. He questioned the justice of God, he begged God to leave him alone, he scrounged for answers to his dilemma in places that the theologians of his day thought inappropriate. He was, in fact, blessing God with everything in his being, by seeking out God honestly. “Yes, I will bless the Lord despite my suffering. I will bless Him with my very doubts and fears and despair, if I have to. I’ll keep at Him with all that is within me until He responds. Though He slay me, yet will I trust him; I’ll bless him if it kills me.”12

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10. Hebrews 13:15

11. King David understood this well. See the story of his sacrifice in 2 Samuel 24, especially verses 22–24: “Then Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him; here are the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king . . .’ But the king said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will buy them from you for a price; I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.’ So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”

12. Job 13:15 NKJV: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.”
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This excerpt was taken from Written in Tears: A Grieving Father’s Journey Through Psalm 103

©2010 by Luke Veldt
All rights reserved.
Discovery House Publishers
Grand Rapids, Michigan.

978-1-57293-382-8
pp. 38-39

To order a copy of Written in Tears, please click here.

Email publicity@dhpinreview.com, if you would like a review copy.

Finding Hope in Life’s Losses

BEYOND THE VALLEY

Introduction

I never planned to have valleys on the topographical map of my life. My map, as I saw it, would always consist of the high road. The smooth road. The pathway lit up by God’s love and decorated with His gift of the abundant life. It was to be the journey of the trying-to-be-godly-but-appreciating-aforgiving-God Christian. The walk of the trusting believer.

Yet here I am, still surprised and shocked to be walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

The way I figured it, my wife and I would raise up our four kids in the way they should go, and when we were old they would all be there to take care of us.

We were thirty years into this marriage-and-family thing, and we were enjoying God’s continued blessing.

We loved the stuffing out of life. Not that every day was always easy and full of smiles and laughing, but for the most part, our direction was still heading securely toward the road to blessedness. Up on the mountain. Far from the valley.

Take Thursday, June 6, 2002, for instance.

It was a typical day in the light of God’s grace. In fact, it was a bright, sunny, warm day that reminded us that the good times of summer were about to shine across our lives. And since it was the last day of school, our kids were enjoying the lightheartedness of impending vacation.

At home on that evening, my fifteen-year-old son Steve and I had settled in to keep an eye on the Detroit Red Wings’ hockey game. We weren’t huge hockey fans, but this was the Stanley Cup playoffs and these were our Red Wings, so we were tuned in.

Julie, our second-oldest daughter, had just come home from her summer job at a grocery store, reminding us again that this job made her extremely thankful that she had just graduated from college and would soon be heading for her first teaching job at a Christian school in Florida.

Indeed, the sisters—Julie, Lisa (our oldest, who lived in Ohio with her husband Todd and was a schoolteacher), and our youngest daughter, Melissa—had already purchased plane tickets for an all-sisters vacation in Orlando, Florida. The sisters (born strategically four years apart, each in July) were to take in the wonderful world of Disney, and then the rest of us would show up at Pompano Beach to move Julie and her stuff into her place near the Christian school where she would be debuting as a teacher.

The summer looked bright enough to call for sunglasses.

But back to our June 6 evening. Sue, my wife, was reading the paper, winding down her day and preparing to go to bed. She had to be on the job early the next day at the nursing home where she was a nurse—and where Melissa worked part-time. Mell, too, would be working on Friday.

Sue didn’t want to go to bed until she knew Melissa was safely home. Mell was at a cottage on Lake Michigan with some school friends where the parents hosted an end-ofschool party of pizza, jet-skiing, and just good times. Melissa had called her mom at eight o’clock to tell us she would be on her way home with her boyfriend Jordan at nine.

The path of our life had been so direct. Four kids. Four kids who had trusted Jesus and made us proud. The pathway of a family with its eye on loving each other and honoring God in life. We could see the valley, but it seemed so far away as to be inaccessible.

Yet at just after nine p.m. on that gorgeous Michigan spring night, our lives veered off the path we thought would be ours for the rest of our time on earth. We careened off that pathway and went straight into the valley—an unfamiliar, dark, and deep ravine of near hopelessness.

While Jordan and Melissa were on their way home that evening, traveling on an unfamiliar road, Jordan pulled his car into an intersection—where it was hit broadside by another teen driver.

Melissa, our seventeen-year-old daughter and sister—a girl who loved to cook odd concoctions in the kitchen, who never liked to be idle for a minute, who played varsity softball and volleyball, who had a solid though not flashy faith in Jesus, who was a bright light of joy and love to her many friends at school
and church, and who had grown from a frightened little preschooler into a self-confident teen—was killed instantly.

Our family was plunged into a new existence. Now the mountaintop was so far away we couldn’t see it.

Suddenly, and without warning, we found ourselves walking numbly through the valley of the shadow of death. We were thrust into the place where we had to test the Psalm 23 promise that God’s presence will make sure we “fear no evil.”

We found ourselves in a far different place than we had ever been in before.

A place where life is not as much fun as it used to be.

A place where harmless words from well-meaning others can turn into unshakeable irritants.

A place where hearing other people harmlessly laughing often seems completely incongruous with how we feel.

A place where the God we knew and loved and served sometimes seems more mysterious than knowable—and we realized this just at the time we needed Him the most, when we first arrived in the valley.

Have you ever been in the valley? The valley that comes with life’s troubles and pain?

If so, or if you have ever walked with those who dwell in its misty atmosphere, I invite you to walk along with me for a while. As I journey, I am continually seeking the help of the One who promised never to leave me. I’m begging the One who said not to fear to give me peace. I’m pleading with the God of all comfort to explain what that word means to the uncomfortable. I’m clinging with all my might to the One who said I could never be plucked from His hand. I’m struggling to trust completely the One I trusted with my daughter—knowing that she now dwells in His presence and not mine.

Walk with me, won’t you? Together, we can find hope, solace, comfort, and sometimes even joy—while seeking to go beyond the valley.

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This excerpt was taken from Beyond the Valley: Finding Hope in Life’s Losses

©2010 by Dave Branon
All rights reserved.
Discovery House Publishers
Grand Rapids, Michigan.

978-1-57293-373-6
pp. 7-10

To order a copy of Beyond the Valley, please click here.

Email publicity@dhpinreview.com, if you would like a review copy.

Are you living with thorns?

Are you fighting a chronic illness, living in a strained relationship, grieving over the death of a loved one, struggling with depression or an addiction?

As Christians, we are enamored with the success stories. We revel in God’s miracles. But, Mary Ann Froehlich, author of the new release Living with Thorns, asks, is there a deeper miracle that we are missing?

“We may be overlooking the miraculous lives of those who live with visibly unchanged circumstances, the ‘less than success’ stories,” observes Froehlich. “If you see yourself in this group, you are in good company. Many of God’s followers throughout Scripture are our models. This book is about the imperfect life.”

Instead of asking “why,” maybe we should be asking “who.” Who do we turn to when life becomes unbearable? The answer: God. He speaks to us through our affliction and uses our thorns to rescue us and draw us closer to Him.

If you struggle with thorns that you cannot overcome, Mary Ann Froehlich offers comfort, encouragement, and tangible survival tools for facing unchanged circumstances and fighting the despair that so often accompanies our pain.

Click here to purchase a copy of Living with Thorns or email me at publicity@dhpinreview.com to request a copy for print or broadcast review or to set up an interview with Mary Ann Froehlich.

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Mary Ann Froehlich is a music therapist-board certified and Suzuki music teacher. She and her husband, John, have three children. Mary Ann has worked in hospitals, schools, churches, and private practice. She has written articles, music, and eleven books. She has a doctorate in music from the University of Southern California and an MA from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Are You Living Life Alive?

In the movie Meet Joe Black, Death comes to life (an odd phrase, don’t you think?) in order to, simply put, try to understand what the big deal is all about. He compels a man with a potentially fatal heart condition to instruct and mentor him in life, to understand why human beings cling to life with every ounce of strength they have. In the end, the character that represents Death discovers love  and life and realizes the power that life has-but he nevertheless returns to being Death-a taker rather than a giver of life.

When Jesus Christ came into the world, He declared that His mission statement was not about death but about life! Hear His words:

• “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John10:10, emphasis added).
• “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (John 11:25-26, emphasis added).
• “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6, emphasis added).

The Christ kept His Word and provided the rescue He had promised. In fulfilling His mission, He did the impossible by taking dead people and making them living persons. This is the victory of Calvary. The victory of love and the victory of life-changing grace is secured and made possible by the love that holds us in its arms and won’t let go.

It was George Matheson who wrote the hymn “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.” Of his hymn of devotion, Matheson wrote:

My hymn was composed in the manse of Innelan (Argyleshire, Scotland) on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882, when I was 40 years of age. I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s marriage, and the rest of the family were staying overnight in Glasgow. Something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.

That is the heart of George Matheson, and it is the heart of Mary of Magdalene as well. Her identity may have been misrepresented over the years, but her witness is clear, and her devotion is unmistakable. It is a declaration of the glory of the cross and the power of the resurrection. It is the wonder of the Christ and what He does to change one single, individual, eternal life. And that is the pulse of the powerful witness Mary gives of the Savior who died and rose again that we could have forgiveness and life. Matheson’s hymn ends:

“Life that shall endless be.” Not death-life. May we, like Mary Magdalene, go forth to be living witnesses of the living Lord Jesus Christ who killed death dead so we could live life alive.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

 

Taken from The Path of His Passion
©2006 by Bill Crowder
All rights reserved.