Author Archives: Stephen Hufman

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About Stephen Hufman

A physician in Family Medicine for the last 35 years, now concentrating on writing and photography. My intention is to encourage and strengthen people in the Lord. In all things I hope to be pleasing to Jesus who has given me so much. The photography is all taken by me. I use a Canon 5D mark 3, and Canon G10.

Spring Cascade of Color

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Spring Bouquet

Balsamroot spill over from the heights

This picture, from above my home, shows the Spring cascade of color.

The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom… But only the redeemed will walk there,
and the ransomed of the Lord will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:1, 9-10

My hope is not in the beauty of this world, but in Jesus my creator, my redeemer, my shepherd, my king. Only in Him do gladness and joy reside forever. Only in Him will sorrow and sighing be excluded from spoiling eternity.

Harbinger

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Glacier Lily

Harbinger of Spring

The Glacier Lily is one of the first wildflowers announcing Spring. It is a welcome harbinger of all the beauty coming in the weeks ahead.

To get this picture I had to get down close to the ground, upon trying to get up my joints and back complained mightily. The groan told me Spring had long since come and gone for my body. But those aches and pains reminded me of another harbinger that holds an even greater hope.

For while we are in this tent (our mortal body), we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Corinthians 5:4-5

The Holy Spirit is a harbinger of what is to come. But more than that, God’s Spirit is an initial deposit in us of all the good He wants to bestow.

Because of His Spirit within, I can rejoice in my groaning for I know it is temporary, and God will use it to mold me into something far greater than the Glacier Lily.

The Well-worn 23rd Psalm

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ps23

Aspen grove, Grand Canyon North Rim

This psalm is so familiar that reading it my mind often goes on auto-pilot, wandering unthinking through the words. Other times I get sidetracked into some memory from childhood. When this happens I have to remember to ask the Holy Spirit to open my eyes and heart, to make these verses jump off the page. After all Jesus calls the Word of God life giving food (Matthew 4:4). Isaiah compares the Word of God to rain and snow sent to accomplish a mighty task, for God’s power stands behind it (Isaiah 55:10-11). Jeremiah 23:29 declares: “Is not My word like fire, and like a hammer that breaks rock to pieces?” So when the words just sit on the page lifeless, I need to ask God for help.
The following is not the final word on this psalm but what I needed for this day.

The 23rd Psalm is about God’s relationship with me:
It is not a prayer, that I say, asking the Lord to be my shepherd. It is God saying “I am your shepherd, I will watch over you.
It is not about my finding water, or a place of rest — I just follow.
It is not about what I try to achieve. He is the one who directs me in path of righteousness by the power of His name.
He is there in darkness and in light, in the good and the bad, no matter where, always, no time outs.
It is not about what happens when I am good enough, or wise enough, or have faith enough. It is God telling me about His relationship to me because it is by His grace, and love, and forever.
Thus the 23rd Psalm is not my prayer to God, but His prayer to me.

Rejoice

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Rejoice

Rejoicing in new life

Rejoice, He has risen.
It is the death of Death,
New life in His life,
And the hope of glory.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.  Matthew 28:5-6

Beautiful Light

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Light in the woods

Light In the Woods

Oh, how beautiful…
There is something about real beauty that touches our soul.
Beauty is far more than shape or form, it is the fragrance of heaven.
Beauty inspires us to reflect the loveliness we encounter.
Seeing a baby smile brings beauty to the beholder, and inspires a smile in return.
Beauty is a signpost pointing to how life should be.
Beauty is never conscious of self, instead it always desires to see beauty in others.
Beauty colors our past with innocence, our present with joy, and our future with hope.
Seeing what is beautiful stirs the desire to draw closer to the source of beauty,
And seeing the source changes you forever.

One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4

So this prayer is far more than asking for a room with a view, it is about asking to draw close to the source of beauty, and be transformed.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18

Hidden

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hidden grandure

Hidden grandeur

This picture of a mountain looking through clouds reminds me of my understanding of God’s love. Sometimes I am angry at God and cannot see His love. Sometimes I am ashamed of myself and cannot think anyone could love me. Occasionally my vision of God’s love is clear and I am swept up in the wonder. But most of the time I know it is there for I can see it vaguely as through a cloud.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…God is love.
1 John 4:9-10, 16

How good it is to know that God’ s love for me is not dependent on the clarity of my love for Him — it is because that’s who God is. Even though you do not see it clearly that does not diminish the fact that it is there in all its glory — I just have to trust Him for it.

A New Beginning

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Sunrise of a New Day

Sunrise of a new day

“If only I had been more loving … spent more time.” These are words I have heard over and over from people grieving over the death of someone in their family. It is especially difficult when the death was self-inflicted. We all wish at times to be able to go back and change something we said or did. But, unfortunately, erasing and changing the past is not possible … or is it? The key to this miracle is found in the word forgiveness.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  2 Corinthians 7:10

This verse is about confessing our wrongs before God and receiving forgiveness.

How can God’s forgiveness leave no regret, especially when the person we have wronged is gone? Because the grace of God brings with it the “hope of the glory of God.”

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Romans 5:1-2

In other words, in the end the glory of God wins. It wins over our regrets, our shame, our sins — it wins out over death. God’s grace replaces all our regrets with peace and hope in Him. I still struggle with my feelings of regret; constantly reminding myself that I stand covered by God’s grace. How God resolves all the messes in life is His miracle not mine. I just know that through forgiveness and following Jesus, I will someday see the glory of God cover the land … like the sunrise of a new day.

An Invitation from Heaven

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Heavenly Initation

The sun breaking through storm clouds at Yosemite National Park

In the final summation of life, there is only one true blessing, also only one horrible tragedy. The blessing is eating at the great banquet with God, the tragedy is choosing anything else. Both of these final outcomes transform all that has happened to us. For those who choose to trust in God, all life’s happenings (including tragedies) will become blessings that brought us to sit at His table. We will look back and see how God used all to lead us to Himself. On the opposite side all the events of life (including what we thought of as good) become tragic if we allowed them to lead us away from God.

Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God. (Read Luke 14:15-24 for the entire parable)

Jesus tells us in this parable of invited guests, who had good things happen that kept them from attending the banquet. So the poor, crippled, blind and lame were brought into the the great feast. Those who let other things interfere were excluded. Blessings become tragedies and tragedies become blessings.

Trust the Lord in all things, and He will make them a blessed invitation to sit with Him.

Do Not Be Afraid

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Do not be afraid for He has risen

Do not be afraid for He has risen

These words are said to us from God over and over. Starting with Moses and the Children of Israel:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deut. 31:6

On and on through the prophets:

Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.               Jeremiah 1:18

And to the final completion in Immanuel:

Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Revelation 1:17-18

So whatever you face today, walk humbly with our risen Lord and “Do not be afraid.”

The 23rd Psalm?

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Bryce-1588

Two crows looking for lunch

How can this picture of two scavengers looking for carrion be connected to the 23rd Psalm? A pastoral scene is what usually comes to mind with “The Lord is my shepherd…” But, if you read down to verse 5 of the Psalm the words are a bit unsettling.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Psalm 23:5

It strikes me as strange that God would prepare a feast for me not with good friends as company, but with my enemies. What kind of meal is it when you are sitting across from those who wish you harm? Who wants to sit and eat before fear, depression, pain, and evil (to name just a few)? God surely must know a feast is better with joy, blessing, and goodness. But maybe there are certain heavenly foods that can only be served under the severe circumstances of our enemies. Literally, only when we are face to face with danger. It is here with our Good Shepherd that He serves character building food like courage, self-denial, humble dependence on God, mercy, and forgiveness. What my enemy intends for my destruction, God turns into a feast of nourishment and growth that can be had in no other way. Who are your enemies? Please, sit down with the Lord and say grace, for there is a banquet waiting to be eaten.