Walking on Water

You’ve probably heard people say, “I’ll believe it when I see it with my own eyes.” The eyes are a poor benchmark for truth. I saw someone walk on water today.

Here I was wet up to my knees from plunging into the outgoing tide to retrieve the dog’s ball. I look out across Moray Firth to the lighthouse and see someone walking on water. It startles me. “Only Jesus can walk on water,” I say to Angel Joy who is more interested in getting the ball back than in what Jesus did. I’m thinking, “If I could have walked on water, I wouldn’t be wet and cold now.”

When I get closer, I realize that whoever is walking on water is actually standing on something. Then I feel better about being wet and cold.

That’s just one example of how our eyes can trick us. All of our senses are vulnerable to deception. Atheists hit those vulnerable spots when they attack our faith. “Look at the world,” they say. “If God is a God of love, why is there hate, war, crime and hurt? Show me proof that God exists.”

When you try to explain that sin, not God, causes everything evil and bad in the world, they don’t want to hear and they refuse to accept. Instead of honestly seeking the truth for themselves, they laser beam their energy to cut down your spiritual foundation of faith and truth.

Don’t fall into that trap. The proof is in our hearts. When we have Jesus in our hearts, we know He is there. Nothing including vitriolic attacks or faulty accusations and arguments from the world can shake our faith. We know that we know that we know.

The evidence of God’s existence is everywhere in every part of the earth. Here in the lovely Black Isle of Scotland, God’s voice speaks from the water. His creation reflects His glory in color and beauty in every rock, on every hill, in the soft petals of each flower blossom and along the flaming rims of sunrises and sunsets. God is as close as the next heartbeat the next breath. But it’s hard to convince someone who doesn’t want to hear or see for fear of losing their own authority and giving place to God.

So when you think you see someone walking on water, look into your heart and see what your spirit has seen. Trust the evidence of God in your heart whether He speaks in a still small voice or in the mighty roar of storms and waves.

The Bible advises: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 2:5

Broken Sticks…

One day that bat-fowled fiend satan was smarting off to God and God asked him, “Have you considered my faithful servant Job?” That ornery ole devil smarted off again and said that the only reason Job worshiped God was because God had blessed him so much. So God allowed that mean ole devil to take away everything Job had except his nagging wife. Job said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away and blessed be the name of the Lord.”

So that cursed serpent said, “Let me at him again! Then he’ll cuss you up one side and down the other.” So God allowed slimeball, sleeze satan to touch Job’s body. I mean to tell you, that poor ole boy had boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He was so messed up he had to take his boots off to scratch. Job still blessed God.

Then along comes these three friends to comfort Job. Let me tell you: when you’ve got friends like these, you’re up to your armpits in enemies. They started in on Job something fierce about how he must have done something powerful bad to get punished by God and how he was a terrible secret sinner. After a bit, Job had had about all the comforting he could stand from these fellers.

So Job says, “How long will you torment my soul, And break me in pieces with your words?” (Job 19:1)

I challenge you. Take a stick and break it. Put it back together. Does it fit right? Is it as strong as it was before you broke it? Can you put it back together perfectly so that you can’t tell it’s been broken?

Your words can break people or heal them. When you get angry and break people with words, an apology never quite does the job of mending the relationship. There is always that jagged, hurting shard of memory that spoils the symmetry of the friendship and mars its previous flawless beauty.

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Choose to speak life with your tongue instead of breaking sticks that will never mend.

At the end of Job’s story in the Bible, God held Job’s three friends accountable for their stick-breaking words. He told them they had not spoken what was right and true and ordered them to apologize to Job and have Job pray for them. Then…”the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.”

Words are powerful. Communication is a gift from God. Use yours to build, not break.

Orkney, Guns & Collies

Just got back from a lovely trip to the Scottish island of Orkney. Even though Orkney’s history was written in spilled blood from Viking longboat invasions along the coast, the island is quiet and peaceful now and you don’t need a gun.

My past was written in the western drama of Texas. My Christian mystery-romance-suspense book Bridge to Nowhere (Sunpenny Publishing) is set in the imaginary Texas town of Three Prongs, much like Bandera, “Cowboy Capital of the World” – a place where misfits fit. Guns are important to folks in Bandera. If you find a rattlesnake in your driveway, a wild pig killing livestock, or a rabid coyote chasing your dog – you’re gonna want a gun.

Fish Soup (Sunpenny Publishing) author Michelle Jayne Heatley, from Brixham here in the UK, inquired about becoming an honorary Texan. It was suggested that she get a gun, an answer she quickly negated. To folks in the UK, including picturesque Orkney, guns are not needed and are despised. They are not written into the fabric of the country.

I never owned a gun in Texas (but I can shoot one) for the same reason I don’t train collie dogs. You have to be smarter than the dog to train it. And if you’re using a gun for protection, you better be smarter than your attacker – or he will get the gun away from you and use it against you. Why make it easier for him? I know the sum of my intelligence. I failed high school math.

But not owning a gun doesn’t mean that I can’t protect myself. I have a mobile security company on the job. I own stock in the company. “God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.” Psalm 46:1. “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.

So I would encourage you wherever you are in the world to seek your protection from the Source of security Who will never let you down. You don’t have to be smart enough to train a collie or own a gun and you don’t have to live on an idyllic island like Orkney. Only one condition is demanded for 24/7 security…faith.

Directionally Challenged

I’m so thankful that God can find us more easily than we can find ourselves.

Since big Taxi wiped out little car, we took a bus into Inverness to look for a new car. We had a map. Alan read the map. He stopped along the sidewalk every few yards to consult the map and make sure we were going in the right direction. Once he stopped in the street and I had to pull him to safety.

We briskly and confidently walked four miles, never realizing we were lost until approaching the same roundabout for the third time from the third different direction. Looking at the map again – this time in the rain since we had lost the sun as well as ourselves – we realized that while we had already walked four miles, we needed to go at least four more miles in the opposite direction to get to the car dealership. We gave up.

I laughed all the way back to the bus station. It was so funny that Alan had diligently followed the map, only to be lost. Besides; becoming physically lost is a minor and temporary frustration when the soul has found God.

God gave us the Bible as an infallible map through life. When we follow it, we circumvent lifestyle choices that can steal our health, peace of mind, and rob us of our joy. With the Bible as our guide, we can never lose our most important and valuable possession – our soul.

But here on earth…don’t walk or ride with us unless you have a good sense of direction and aren’t in a hurry. You might just wind up in the very Brigadoonish Luss. We did!