Tag Archives: clouds

The Land of Miracles

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Mount Rainier-Berkeley Park

Berkeley Park, Mount Rainier National Park

Berkeley Park is a place of flowers and mist, a peaceful place for healing of the soul.

Have you ever prayed for healing? This appeal to God is little scary for me. It is even scarier when the prayer is for a child with a life threatening illness. I am scared because I don’t know if my faith measures up to what is required. Can I muster the faith required, or will one little deviation, one little doubt, one little slip cause the miracle to crumble? That is what one father worried about when he asked Jesus to heal his son.

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”                Mark 9:17-24

This man knew the faith needed to heal his son was beyond his ability. I think it is beyond most people’s ability to summon that kind of faith, even the disciples couldn’t do it. But Jesus healed the boy because He is the author and perfecter of faith and interceded with God on behalf of the man and his son.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  Hebrews 4:14-16

I may not have what it takes, but I can go to my high priest, Jesus, and pray: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief.” Knowing that brings peace to my soul.

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.

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.

Grace and Peace

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Winter Along Icicle Creek

New snow, new day, peaceful and serene along the Icicle Creek

The scene is the Icicle Creek near Leavenworth WA. The photo was taken the morning after a snow fall in early winter. All is at peace with only the rushing of water for background music. I like to think of this moment as God’s salutation to me:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every letter in the New Testament begins with this greeting. The reason is grace and peace go together, with the gift of grace comes the gift of peace (see Romans 5:1). But I have to admit, often in accepting God’s forgiveness, I fail to also receive His peace that comes with it. Instead my mind falls into old ruts that rob me of the fullness of grace.

These are my ruts. I am sure you can add others to this list:

Grace and “Don’t let it happen again!”
Grace and “What a mess you’ve made.”
Grace and “You’re no good.”
Grace and the temptation to give up on myself.
Grace and fear.

Truth is I need help to receive all that God wants to give me. I need His help to put down the cacophony of lying voices in my head. I need His grace applied not only to forgive my sins, but also to let His peace rule in my life. Quite simply, I need grace upon grace.

For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. (John 1:16)

Therefore, as you live by God’s grace don’t let your thoughts lie about the conditions of His grace. Instead ask for grace upon grace, so that you can walk in the peace that God has for you in Jesus Christ.

Grace, like new fallen snow, covering everything with His peace.

Christmas Preparation

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Sun lifting the clouds on the mountain peaks

Mountains make ready for the sun.

A voice of one calling:
“In the desert prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the
Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3-5

I prepare by humbly asking for the Holy Spirit to come and make a straight path through my wilderness. Allowing my Lord to raise me up from my dark valleys, to fill them in with His presence. Then ask Him to bring down the mountainous obstacles I have erected, such as my way versus His way, and a pride that rebuffs the notion I need changing.

“Build up, build up, prepare the road!
Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”
For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:14-15

Reflecting the Light

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mountain reflection

I can either obstruct the light and become part of the shadows, or reflect the light and be part of the kingdom of light.

“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.” -Jesus, Luke 11:23

New Creation

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Sun light through mountain clouds highlighting cascading ridges

When light and clouds turn the ordinary into extraordinary.


Amazing how sunlight and clouds can take what a minute ago appeared ordinary and hardly worth looking at, into something breathtaking. Often we have a similar lack of understanding when looking at our own lives, or at the lives of people we meet. Even our appreciation of Jesus is flat and unremarkable. This happens when we look with worldly eyes, very little is perceived, and we move on. But if we let the glory of the Son of God shine upon us, then everything is cast in a new light. We see far beyond the ordinary and behold the eternal. Next time you get down on yourself, or on someone else, remember — in Christ that which looks dry and worthless can become a glorious new creation.

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)