Monthly Archives: September 2022

Sunrise at the Beach in Ocean City

Sunrise at the Beach

Last week, we spent a few days at the beach. Of course, we woke up early every day to catch the sunrise. That’s our favorite thing to do! Pretty much every morning we’re at the beach, we are out the door before sunrise so we can see the sun come up over the water. It’s the most amazing thing in the world to watch, especially if you can get there when it’s still dark and get to watch the entire progression.

There’s a spot on the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey that is the most popular spot to watch the sunrise. It always surprises me how many people gather in that spot each morning to watch the sun come up. Every single day, the sun rises. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. Yet, every day, people gather at that spot and stop whatever it was they were doing. For just a few moments of time, we all stop and stare in silence in the direction of the sun.

That Magical Moment Right before Sunrise

There’s this magical moment right before the sun rises. Everybody gathers around and stares into the horizon, waiting and hoping to be the first to catch a glimpse of the sun as it rises. It’s a moment of breathless anticipation. A stillness fills the air, and everybody waits in silence.

As we watch, the sun crests along the horizon. It begins its rise, magnificent in its ascension. The whole thing only lasts a few minutes; if you’re not paying close attention, you will miss it altogether. Then after the sun has risen, people begin to dissipate. Some people begin pedaling on their bikes once again; others turn to their walking partner and begin a conversation as they walk on the boardwalk once again. Others leave the boardwalk altogether, having accomplished what they came to accomplish.

The Consistency of Sunrise

It always amazes me how the sunrise can be so incredibly different each and every morning. I never grow tired of seeing the sunrise. If I lived by the ocean, I think I would wake up every morning and make my way over to the beach every single morning. Every time I see a sunrise, it reminds me of God’s faithfulness. The sunrise is so consistent; we literally set our clocks by it. So it is with God’s faithfulness; it is something we can count on every single day, no matter the circumstances.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23

Sunrises are More Uncommon than Sunsets

Andy Andrews, in his book, The Bottom of the Pool, says that sunrises are more uncommon than sunsets. At first that doesn’t really make sense; sunsets and sunrises both take place every single day. It doesn’t make sense until you continue reading and he explains that even though sunrises and sunsets happen daily, most people won’t catch the sunrise. Most people have a better chance of seeing the sunset than the sunrise. That’s because most people are busy in the morning. Either they’re still sleeping, or they’re getting ready for work or for school.

Sunrises are for the few that brave getting up early, so they don’t miss out on the spectacular. That moment right before the sun rises is a special moment that most people miss out on. I think it’s the same way with God working in our lives. Some people just miss out on what God was trying to do in their lives. They’re so busy rushing through life that they never stop and look up and wait and watch and try to figure out what God is doing in their life.

Don’t Forget to Pause and Look Up

Watching the sunrise each morning last week reminded me that I don’t want that to be the story of my life. I don’t want to miss what God is doing in my life and in the lives around me simply because I was too busy to stop and ponder what he was doing.

So this is my reminder to you and to myself. Spend some time in this month of October before we go careening into the holiday season to simply stop and spend time with God. Look up. Spend some extra time reading your Bible and journaling. See what he’s trying to do in your life and in the lives of those around you. Don’t miss out on the beauty that he is creating in your life every single day.

My morning time with my Faithfully Stepping Journal

The fact of the matter is God sees you; he knows what you are going through today. He has you right where he wants you. Don’t miss out on what he has in store.

sunrise and verse — Sunrise at Ocean City, NJ

For More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check out my post Getting Stuck in the Dark and Waiting for Dawn to Break, and a book recommendation is Sandra Stanley’s Devotional, Breathing Room.

It Always Comes Back to Faith

Jesus’ Run-In with Evil Spirits

Multiple times during Jesus’ ministry, he healed those who were possessed with devils. While it’s not so common in our culture today in the United States for someone to be possessed, it was a pretty common occurrence during Jesus’ time.

Evil spirits would take over a person and make them lose their mind. There are instances of people throwing themselves into fires and other dangerous situations because they were possessed by devils. It’s not something I like to dwell on personally; it can get pretty dark pretty quickly.

But there’s something about these instances that has caught my attention while I’ve been reading through the Gospels during my morning time routine. Every time Jesus had a run-in with these demons, they recognized who he was. They knew with certainty that he was the son of God. Yet every single time, Jesus commands them to hold their tongues.

Bible Examples

That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Mark 1:32-34

Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.
Mark 3:11,12

I read both of these passages this week, and it got me thinking. Why would Jesus command that they keep quiet about who he was? Wasn’t he trying to teach people about who he was? Didn’t he want them to know who he was? Wasn’t that the whole reason he was here on earth?

It All Comes Back to Faith

The answer is yes to each of those questions. So then why did Jesus command them to keep silent about who he was? I believe it comes back to faith. It always comes back to faith. Jesus wanted people to believe who he was by faith. Faith is believing something we can’t see.

If Jesus allowed the devils to tell the people who he really was, then they would have believed He was God’s son based not on their faith but on the testimony of the devils. The devils would give the people a personal account of who Jesus was.

These evil spirits were the same ones that would have been in Heaven with Jesus before the fall, before Satan fell and took a third of the host of heaven with him. So these demons knew who Jesus was; they’d been in Heaven with him before they were kicked out of heaven. So when they opened their mouths to testify, by their testimony, they would reveal Jesus’ identity. Jesus didn’t want that. He wanted people to believe in him by faith.

It’s Impossible to Please God without Faith

Thousands of years later, things haven’t changed. Faith is still really important to God. He still wants us to believe in him through faith, not just the faith that’s required for salvation. Jesus wants to increase our everyday faith.

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
Hebrews 11:6

Notice those words. It is impossible to please God without faith. So, if we lack in our faith, God says we are not pleasing to Him. If we doubt that God is going to come through on something for us, we are not pleasing to him. Let’s take it one step further. What’s the opposite of pleasing? It’s to be displeasing. So when we don’t have faith for today that God is going to come through, that he is who he says he is, or that he is working in my life, we am displeasing to God.

Here are some adjectives for displeasing: unpleasant, unattractive, humorless, ugly, exasperating, off-putting, maddening, and disconcerting. This really paints a picture and not a good one. This is how God feels when we don’t have faith. I don’t know about you, but that is not how I want Jesus to see me.

For Today

So what’s that mean for today? Today, we have to choose faith. Over and over and over again. We have to choose faith when we feel like God doesn’t hear us or doesn’t love us. When the bills aren’t getting paid, we have to choose faith that God is still for us and will come through for us. When we’re at the end of our rope, we have to believe that God will be enough.

It always comes back to faith. No matter how long we’ve been saved, it will still come back to faith. So let’s choose to believe God and take him at his word today. Let’s trust him when everything inside of us tells us we can’t. Let’s choose to take him at his word and trust that he will come through for us today, just as he always has in the past.

For More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check out my post, The Eight-Step Process of Faith. A great book to read is The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson.

Strangers Become Friends Around the Table

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Strangers Around the Table

Have you ever been to a party and had to sit at a table full of strangers? At first it’s awkward. You sort of fumble around a little, but then the awkwardness starts to fade as you find common ground. Conversation begins to flow; and by the time you leave the party, you’re no longer strangers but friends. That’s what happens when we open our homes and practice hospitality.

Strangers in our Homes

Hospitality has become such a thing of the past, hasn’t it? Nobody invites strangers into their homes. Nobody has their neighbors over anymore, right? That’s just not done; it isn’t safe. Nobody invites somebody that they just met at church into their home; they could be a child predator, for all we know.

In our world where safety is supreme and our homes are locked up tighter than Fort Knox, we stay safe by hiding behind closed doors and drawn shades. We pull into our garage and close the garage door before heading inside, so we don’t have to talk to anybody. Or we park on the street and wait until the coast is clear before walking up the sidewalk and into the house.

We’ve conditioned ourselves not to answer the door, not to run into people, not to take unnecessary chances of having to talk to people. We “protect” ourselves from the neighbors we don’t know and guard ourselves against the new family at school or at church. We don’t join a small group at church because we’re just not sure that’s for us, and we don’t really need to be in a small group.

Inevitably, we don’t invite people into our homes because we’re too busy. We have a schedule to maintain, and we don’t have time for company. Having people over will only slow us down, and we can’t afford that. And if we are going to have company, let’s be honest, it’s going to be people we know, people we are comfortable with. I mean, that’s what’s best for our family; that’s what’s safe.

Boundaries

The American mindset is to set boundaries, protect yourself and your family, look for out for yourself because nobody else will, take care of yourself first, you matter…And then we wonder why our country is splintering from the inside out. We’re fracturing at the most basic level—people, relationships. We’ve closed our doors to the needs around us, and we’ve hunkered down, protecting ourselves and isolating ourselves from the outside world. We protect our kids from the “bad influence” of the neighborhood kids. To keep others out, we put up fences; and we keep our distance from troublesome neighbors. Moreover, we don’t do community events, and we are too busy to go to neighborhood activities.

Replacing Community with Church

We’ve replaced community with the church. Here these words very carefully: we are pro-church. We are so pro-church that we started a church over ten years ago. We left our home and moved to an area outside of Philadelphia and started Greater Philly Church. Every Sunday morning, that’s where you will find our family. We, of all people, love the church Christ died for. We’ve made it our life’s work.

We have church events and activities, we have special days, and we have our small groups. But at the same time, we will be the first to admit that the church should not be the only interaction we have with people. We realize the danger of interacting only with church people. We’ve seen what happens to churches who simply stop interacting with people outside of church. They get so entrenched in church life that they forget about the people all around them.

A Both-And Mindset

We’ve made it our mission to see it as “both-and.” We have fellowship with people from church, and we have fellowship with those who don’t go to church. Matt’s part of a group called Front Yard Mission, where the group’s focus is to spend time getting to know and developing relationships with your neighbors. We’re gearing up to have a fall cookout with our neighbors in our front yard. We hope to have a good turnout.

At our last get-together, we had donuts and coffee in our front yard. We had fifteen plus neighbors show up to that. We sat and fellowshipped with neighbors that we knew and neighbors we met for the first time that morning. It was a wonderful time of food and fellowship. Matt didn’t preach; we didn’t have a devotional. We didn’t pass out cards and invite everybody to church. There are times and places for those things, but this wasn’t it. This was simply a time of opening our home to our neighbors and fellowshipping together.

Loving People without Thought of Anything in Return

God reminds us over and over again in his word that hospitality is from him; he ordained it. Why? Because Jesus understood what it meant to turn strangers into friends. He was the master of this. Jesus would take the time to talk to a woman at a well who was unpopular and unloved. He wasn’t doing it to get anything out of it; Jesus simply saw her. He ministered to her and loved on her. That’s the kind of ministry he had, and it’s the kind of ministry he set as an example for us to follow.

Inviting Others into Our Homes

In our quest to follow Jesus’ example, we need to remember that he didn’t call us just to practice hospitality with our friends, with people we know well. No, he calls us to practice hospitality on those we don’t know as well. Our neighbors, our co-workers, the mailman, the guy who fixes our car. When we start to see these people as people Jesus loved and gave his life for, we begin to understand that these are real people that need to be loved and need to learn about Jesus. The best way we can do that is to invite them into our lives, into our homes. And we need to do it even if they never come to our church; they might even attend another church. That’s okay. We do it because we love them, because it’s our job to share Jesus with them.

After we’ve loved strangers and practiced hospitality on our neighbors, having that new family over from church is a breeze! Hosting a small group in your home is super easy. It may not feel easy at first, but just start. Invite somebody over. You will be surprised at how fast strangers turn into friends when you’re gathered around the same table.

**This is an excerpt from my book Eshel Table, releasing Fall of 2022.

More Encouragement

If you enjoyed this post, check out another post of mine, Gathering Around the Table. One of the books that I love on this topic is Shauna Niequist’s book, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes. And one of my favorite books on this topic is The Turquoise Table by Kristin Schell.