Hindsight

For I know the plans that I have in mind for you,” declares Adonai, “plans for shalom and not calamity—to give you a future and a hope.

~Jeremiah 29:11 (TLV)

A familiar verse that we all know and have probably used. But when life takes a hard left, do we believe God? Do we trust His word? Sometimes, it takes a little time and distance in order for us to see God's hand in our lives. Sometimes, the event causing the stress seems so big in our eyes, it's difficult to see that God can be anywhere around.

"Now we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28, TLV)."

With time and distance, we can see how God works in our lives. Even the things that threaten to destroy our faith, bodies, minds, health, families, and the very structure of our existance can be used to change and improve who we are.

I was born with a bone disease and by the age of 34, I was in a wheelchair. I couldn't walk more than a few steps because my left hip had disintegrated. Over the next two years, I had surgeries on both hips and after a year, I could walk on a walker, and then a cane. But I hated that year in a wheelchair. I hated being "disabled." I had five kids still at home and everyone's life changed when mine did. Of course, I felt sorry for myself. I also felt angry. My body had betrayed me, my life had stopped, or so I thought, and God had let me down. I had prayed for healing: I had been prayed for by countless people who had annointed me with oil and laid hands on me. God didn't heal me.

Didn't I even have faith the size of a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20)? I thought my faith was strong. I was an ordained minister; I'd been all over the country preaching in jails, prisons, churches, and biker clubs. I'd seen people healed, saved, and their lives changed, surely I had some measure of faith! So if God heard and answered my prayers for others, why not for my own body?

While in the wheelchair, with husband at work and kids in school, I was bored out of my mind. At that time, the state had some great college grants for people like me, so I enrolled. I had nothing particular in mind, so I took classes that interested me--water exercises, English literature, sign language, and I found a class on grief. Having lost our 16-year-old daughter a few years earlier, I was interested. Not only did that class rip my heart out over and over, it changed the course of my life. I went on to get a degree in counseling with specialty certifications in grief counseling and addiction. And some 25 years later, that certification list has grown as I continue my education to this day.

God took a situation that I hated, didn't understand, had left me in extreme pain and used it not only for my good, the good of others but also for His glory. Without that wheelchair, I wouldn't have gone to college when I did. I wouldn't have become a counselor. I wouldn't have worked in prisons, for probation and parole, I wouldn't have started groups for addicts, abused women, or grief support. My life, and hopefully, the lives of others, were changed because God had a plan for my future that I couldn't have imagined or seen with a telescope.

When we look at our life situations, we can only see the moment in front of us but when we look to God, we allow Him to intervene on a level that only He can imagine.

"These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have shalom. In the world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world!” 

~John 16:33

©Marie McGaha 2017

No reproduction without author's permission

No Excuses

Romans 1:20-21 (TLV)
"His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So people are without excuse— for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark."

Have you ever noticed that people who say they don't believe in God are the first ones that use His name in vain, and they're also the first ones that want prayer when something goes wrong in life? I'm not talking about just atheists but all non-believers, or at least all of those who profess that they don't really believe in God.

We are made in God's image. All human beings are made in God's image. A God-shaped hole was placed inside of us when we were created and the only thing that is going to fill the God-shaped hole within us is God Himself. We all have a natural instinct to run to daddy when something goes wrong. As children we run to our Earthly fathers but as adults that need deep within us to run to our father was put there by God for us to run to Him.

All of creation, including us, know there is a God. We have to work really hard to avoid God and to avoid our belief that there is a God. I remember back in my younger days when I was trying to "find" myself and figure out things, I started practicing Wicca, which is mostly just a bunch of tree huggers who refuse to believe that God is God, and want to believe in Mother Earth and all of that kind of stuff that's really just purely stupid. It took physical work for me to believe in this Pagan practice of Wicca. It didn't give me any sense of fulfillment, it didn't give me any sense of worshipping something greater than I am; and isn't that what we're all looking for -- Something higher than we are, something greater than we are, some meaning to our existence? I didn't find it by burning candles, or waving a knife around, or looking up at the full moon.

Psalm 42:7 tells us that deep calls to deep, that is, the Spirit of God calls to our spirit because there are things that only the spirit can understand. There are things that only the spirit can relate to, and the only thing that our spirit can truly relate to is the Spirit of God.

He is the vine and we are the branches, apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). So is it any wonder that so many lives are in disarray? Is there any wonder that the world is as upside down as it is today? We try so hard to do things on our own when we weren't created to do things on our own. We were created to do things through the power of God. When Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden, they walked with God and talked with God on a regular basis. We were created in God's image to be a friend of God, to commune with God, to be part of the perfect world He created in the Garden of Eden. With that failing, God created the perfect Sacrifice so that we would not have to do things under our own power; so we would not have to follow the ruined nature of man. He sent Jesus Christ, the fleshly embodiment of God Himself, to be a pure sacrifice for us so that we could come back to the perfect relationship that was originally created in the Garden of Eden.

God simplified all of the Law and the Prophets so that we would not have to do anything under our own power, except confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and accept Him as our Lord and Savior. That's all we have to do and Jesus Christ does the rest. Anyone who does not do that is missing out on the most basic part of human nature and that is God within us. We fill that God-shaped hole with everything except God, and when it doesn't fit we move on to the next thing. But nothing is ever going to fill that void because God is the only One who can fill that void.

God came to Earth in the flesh of Jesus Christ to fill that void, to be the propitiation for our sins, to be everything that we cannot be on our own. He came as a sacrifice for our sins against Himself, to keep our very souls until the day that we are in Heaven with Him forever. He is not looking for perfect people, He is looking for faithful people.

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

You're Gonna Die

1 Corinthians 15:41-44 (TLV)
"There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.
So also is the resurrection of the dead:
Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption!
Sown in dishonor, raised in glory!
Sown in weakness, raised in power!
Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body!
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."

Most people don't like to think about it, but we are all going to die. You are going to die, your mom is going to die, your children are going to die. When a loved one dies, even though we know death is a natural process and the end of life, we're never really ready for it to happen. Death is painful for us even if it's the death of a grandmother or grandfather who have lived out their lives and died at a ripe old age. Death is never easy for us to accept.

I have had a lot of deaths in my life. When I was 19 my first born son, Eric, died, and in 1992 my sixteen-year-old daughter Cassandra died. In between those years I lost grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles, and since then I have lost a husband and several grandchildren. Death is never easy and grief can be overwhelming. But we have to find our way through it and continue to live even in dark days when we don't want to. Life goes on whether we want it to or not.

As painful as death is when we lose a loved one, we can be comforted in the knowledge that if they were a Christian and loved the Lord, they are now in heaven. It is only through the grace of God and the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we can get through this life, and especially get through the loss of life as we continue our walk each and every day.

Sometimes death makes absolutely no sense and we look for someone to blame. But when we are in Christ Jesus, we realize that there is no one to blame. Death is a fact of life and it is no respecter of persons. While the grief of losing a child is much different than the grief of losing a husband, which is much different than losing a grandparent or a parent, the sense of loss and the questions of why still remain. But when we are grounded in the word of God, we know that death is not the end because we know that our spirits live on, and while life on planet Earth may be over, life in heaven has just begun. We have the promises of the Bible that even though death comes to all, there is life in the Spirit and there is a reward for our faith in Jesus Christ. That reward is living forever in heaven, and the promise that we will see our loved ones again.

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

Where's Your Focus?

Focus your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
~Colossians 3:2 (TLV)

Focus is everything. Our eyes focus depending on available light so we can see better. We have to stay focused at work in order to complete the daily tasks and keep the boss happy. We hear about staying focused in life from the time we start school. Stay focused and keep your eye on the prize whether it's graduating with a degree, getting a driver's license, or our dream car. Life is all about focus. So why do so many lives seem to fall off track?

The verse above explains it. We are to focus on the things above - the things of God through Jesus Christ rather than the things of this world. When we focus on Christ first, keeping His ways always in sight, we will have the "desires of (our) heart" (Psalm 37:4).

Too many people seek their own praise and glory instead of seeking God. Matthew 6:33 tells us to first seek God and His righteousness, and then everything else will be added to our lives.

Too many times we get bogged down in doing life on planet Earth that we forget about afterlife on planet Jesus. Our jobs, spouses, kids, friends, all can take our focus off Jesus and keep it on our mortal lives. Even our ministries can bog us down in the doing of them if we aren't taking time to be alone with the Lord and allow Him to both center us and be the center of us.

And finally, (sisters), "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
~Philippians 4:8

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

The Devil Didn't Make You Do It

Now the deeds of the flesh are clear: sexual immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, witchcraft, hostility, strife, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, just as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit God’s kingdom. ~Galatians 5:19-21 (TLV)

When I get a follow request on Instagram, I always check out the requesters posts to determine who that person is because we all know social media profiles can be deceptive.

One day I received a request from a young lady whose profile said she was a Christian and initially, her profile backed that up. However, the next time I saw a post from her, it's a video of her in bed, covered with a sheet over one leg, coming up over her belly and barely covering her chest. She writhed around under the sheet while telling viewers she wanted to be 'friends'. It looked like an ad for a porn site.

I messaged her and asked why she would disrespect herself and God by posting such a video while professing to be a Christian. We chatted back and forth and she agreed with me and removed the video.

A few weeks later she posted some other sexual pictures of herself and commented about drinking at the clubs, and picking up some guy. I messaged her again. This time her response was, "I'm only human and I sin. I'm not perfect but that's what God is for."

My responses were Scripture on sin, sinning, righteousness and Holiness. Her answers weren't rude but she was not happy and said I must be taking the verses out of context because there was no way we could be expected not to sin.

Funny how we can justify our lives to make what we are doing seem right in our own sight. Proverbs 14:12 says, 'there is a way that seems right to man but it's end is death.' Justifying our sin might make us feel better and it might make others nod in understanding but it still won't fly with God.

"Be holy for I am holy," is what God tell us in 1 Peter 1:16. God is perfect and even though we are not, He sent a perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins - Jesus Christ. It is through faith in HIM that we are justified, sanctified and made righteous but we must also work out our salvation with 'fear and trembling' (Philippians 2:12). Jesus said, Go and sin no more," (John 8:11) after saving the adultress from being stoned to death.

Colossians 3:5-6 tells us to put "to death" our earthly, or carnal, natures, which tells us we have control over those things. It's not the devil, demons, or any other outward influence that causes us to sin, it's our own sinful nature. But through the power of the Holy Spirit we have power over sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:57).

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

What Happened to Godly Marriages?

Proverbs 30:18-19 (TLV)
"Three things are too amazing for me, four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a maiden."

This verse always makes me chuckle. Written so long ago, yet that last part is still true today. Do you remember how your husband acted before he was your husband? How it was between you those first glorious months of wedded bliss? We can all get a little silly when we first fall in love and all those endorphins and pheromones are zinging around inside of us. They don't call it 'crazy, stupid love' for nothing! But marriage is more than pheromones and romantic walks together. While those things are wonderful, a relationship with the opposite sex has to be founded on more than physical attraction. Yet we see marriages continually ending in divorce, even among Christians. The divorce rate is now 53% even among church-going Christians. What has happened to our marriages?

The Bible tells us a husband will "cleave unto his wife" (Genesis 2:24), and "the two shall become one" (Mark 10:8). A relationship nothing less than death can separate (Matthew 10:9). So how are so many Christians winding up divorced?

Of course there is no one single answer but a good clue is in the world around us - the less important Jesus becomes in our lives, the less we act like Him and the more we act like the world around us. The less important Christ is, the less important our lives and relationships become. The less we come to church, more of the world seeps into every area of our lives. Contrarily, when our focus is fully on our relationship with Jesus the less world we will see in our lives and relationships.

Our marriages were created as a triangle with God at the top point, and spouses at the other two points. Inside the triangle is everything else - home, kids, jobs, finances, friends etc. With spouses at the bottom points, you have no choice but to keep looking up.

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission

Who Are You?

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua." ~Galatians 3:28 (TLV)

The Who sang, "Who are you? Who? I really wanna know. Who are you?" That is something we tend to to turn inward and question about ourselves from an early age. We spend our younger years trying to 'find' ourselves, acting one way or another, dressing this way or that, trying to belong, to be popular or cool, and hopefully, we figure out we are who we are and don't waste our entire lives being something else.

God made each of us individually for a reason. He has never looked for cookie cutter people, or cookie cutter Christians. He gave each of us a personality different from others, yet complimentary to others. He gave us different talents, likes, dislikes, etc but He intended each of us to use those talents to glorify Him and to help one another. But often, we can see the talents and wonders in others though not ourselves.

1 Peter 4:10 says, "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of the many-sided grace of God."

Your gifts are the talents, abilities, desires to do something in particular. The fact that you may not have the resources to achieve what God has placed inside you to do doesn't mean it's impossible, for "all things are possible with God" (Matthew 19:26). Whatever God has begun within you, He will complete if you don't give up.

I have a friend, Sue, who had the desire to help women who were addicts. She wanted to open a residential facility that not only dealt with the addiction, but also taught women the fullness of the love of Jesus. She had no formal training and no resources to accomplish her goals but she had a vision she wouldn't let go of. Instead of focusing on what she didn't have, she focused on what she knew to be true - God brings to completion whatever He begins (Philippians 1:6).

Sue tackled one thing at a time. First, she enrolled in the local community college to get her degree in addiction studies, then she began seeking those who were like-minded and could help her toward her goal. And she continued in faith and prayer to believe God would complete the task. It didn't happen overnight and it wasn't always easy to get others to see her vision, but Sue persevered. Now, more than 25 years later, she is the founder of Streams of Living Waters in Humboldt County, California and has helped hundreds of women get clean and sober and to become the women of God they were created to be.

No matter your circumstances, there is a higher calling on your life. No matter who says you can't, God says you can. He has made you capable and stronger than you think you can be. He has equipped and empowered you to be a mighty woman of God who can change the lives of others.

©Marie McGaha 2017
No reproduction without author's permission