Extraordinary Directions, Extraordinary Peace by Marcia Lee Laycock

My husband and I, Dawson City Yukon, 1978

As I made our bed, the one my husband had constructed that week as a temporary place for us to lay our heads as we finished our eight-sided log home, I wondered how long we would live there. The still small voice that responded, “six years,” made my hands stop their tucking and smoothing. I did not recognize the voice of God at that moment, but for some reason I believed it. I peered out the window at the hayfield and hills around it and listened to the gurgling Klondike River that ran just beyond our door. Six years. Well. I purposed in my heart to enjoy every day of that time.

It was six years later when my husband came home after a hunting trip with our pastor. He was laughing as he came in the door and when I asked him why he shook his head and said. “Oh, that crazy Pastor Jack Sailor! He just told me he thinks I’m going to be a pastor someday.” I smiled. I knew it was true and I knew God was about to cause our world to turn upside down, once again.

But I had complete peace. God didn’t reveal all the details of what was about to happen, and it’s a good thing He didn’t or I likely would have tried to run, but I knew, as each step unfolded, that we had been called to go in an extraordinary direction by an extraordinary God.

We had only been believers in Christ for about two years. Our lives had already been turned upside down, the changes obvious to all. Now the road was narrowing even more, and the challenges just kept on coming as we made the decision to go to Bible College.

We had to come to terms with selling the house we had built with our own hands, giving it to God, not as a precious sacrifice on our part, but as something He had given us for a time and was now taking back so that He could give us something much more valuable– a life lived in service to Him.

We had only just gotten our heads and hearts around that hurdle when things started going awry. We bought an old station wagon and a tent trailer to make the 3,222 km. trip south with two young children and an aging husky dog, but shortly after we bought it the motor died. A wonderful mechanic friend came to our rescue, helped us find another motor, and installed it for us for free. 

We had thought the house and property were sold but that fell through at the last minute. The new butcher in town asked if he could rent it, so we agreed, with a handshake but no lease signed. He backed out just after we’d mailed all our belongings away. Then a man who’d just had an amazing conversion to Christ told us he’d dreamed about living in our house and believed God wanted him to buy it – two days before we had to leave. Those are just a few of the details that should have shaken my world. 

But I had extraordinary peace. 

God had told me we’d live in that home for six years and it came to pass. He made it clear to us that He wanted us to go to a Bible college in Saskatchewan and even though my husband resisted that idea at first, I knew it would come to be. Things began to fall apart in many ways, but I just kept on packing.

That was thirty-five years ago, almost to the day. It has been an extraordinary path He set our feet, and our minds and hearts on, way back then. It hasn’t all been easy, by any means, but it has been a life I would not change for all the gold and silver in the world. His blessings have abounded, His grace evident at every turn and His mercy enough to send us to our knees over and over again, as He continued to teach us and grow us into His disciples. Flawed though we are, He continues that work.

Extraordinary directions. Extraordinary peace. Extraordinary God.

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Read more at www.marcialeelaycock.com

The Immeasurable Reach of God by Valerie Ronald

          
I prefer a window seat when I fly, one back from the wing for an unobstructed view. Leaning my forehead against the rectangular window, I can see the miniature scenes below becoming smaller and smaller as the plane gains altitude. Aeronautics is a science, I know, but there is a mysticism to the vast altitudes a plane can reach. It is the visual picture I imagine when reading Ephesians 2:4 & 5.

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions --- it is by grace you have been saved.”

These have become my life verses because I see encapsulated in them the immeasurable reach of God in saving a wretch like me. God “made me alive with Christ even when I was dead in transgressions.” Is there any span greater than this? I was an enemy of God, wallowing in sin with no thought of my Creator, yet He reached down to pick me out of the muck of a broken world and raised me up to sit beside Christ in the highest heaven. It makes me dizzy to imagine being transported such an immense distance!

There are times when my repeated, stumbling transgressions overwhelm me with sadness and make me long for perfection. Who am I to receive God’s grace? If I have these thoughts as a forgiven child of God, how much farther did He have to reach when I was buried under mountains of sin, a dark, lifeless soul? I did not even know I needed a Savior. But God did. And He intervened, “because of His great love with which He loved me,” says one scripture version. He loved me even when I was terribly unlovable because His mercy is so rich, immense and generous that it lifted me up on a swelling wave of love to seat me next to Jesus in heaven.

“Measure how high heaven is above the earth; God’s wide, loving, kind heart is greater for those who revere Him. You see, God takes all our crimes --- our seemingly inexhaustible sins --- and removes them. As far as the east is from the west, He removes them from us.” (Ps. 103:11-12 The Voice)

God’s mercy is an unknowable reckoning. It isn’t just benevolence or leniency but an actual removal of our sins onto His Son, Jesus, the perfect sin offering. Mercy means we do not get the punishment we deserve. Grace means we do get the salvation we do not deserve. This makes my head spin if I try to work it through my own finite mind. Though I cannot know how it happens, I am grateful to accept by faith the gift of His grace.

These verses from Ephesians resonate in the back of my mind when I am writing about the Christian journey. They motivate me to do my best to convey the immensity of who God is and what He has done in a way that will touch souls who long for God. The distance between what I write and the incomprehensible being of God is as far as the east is from the west, yet I will always reach for the next word to give a small glimpse of His wonder.

Attempting to figure out what keeps a multi-ton metal airplane full of people and luggage in the air will bring me to the end of my knowledge quickly. So I choose to sit back and enjoy the journey, admiring the view of God’s beautiful creation from 35,000 feet, trusting the aeronautical engineers and commercial pilots know what they are doing.

The reason I can do the same with God’s perfect plan of salvation is because I trust the Omnipotent Designer, "whose love knows no limit, whose grace has no measure, His power no boundary known unto men." (excerpt from hymn, He Giveth More Grace, by Annie Johnson Flint)


More of my devotionals can be read on my blog https://scriptordeus.wordpress.com

My Battle With Summer by Alan Anderson

Did the title of this blog grab your attention?  Are you a sun worshipper and have already resented the thoughts the title brings to your mind?  If so, you may have to stop reading now because this post may not be pretty!  Turn away now before it’s too late and you read the musings of one who has a battle with summer!  The term “battle” may call to one’s mind a serious contentious disagreement between two or more parties!  Yup, you guessed it, I have a battle with another party by the name of summer!

I live in what is known as the Lower Mainland in British Columbia.  Other parts of our country have given us a reputation for having a lot of rain.  I ask you, what’s the big deal about rain?  Oh, the sweet memories I have of rain even summer rain!  Oh, how I love walking through a puddle I didn’t notice in time and feeling its contents soaking through my shoes and socks!  Rain at this point in time is but a memory.

In the past at least two months this summer our area and other parts of the country have endured heat waves that don’t know when to stop!  Stop I tell you, cease and desist right now!  Oh the misery of over 30 degrees Celsius day in and day out!  In my area it is not unusual this summer for us to be inflicted with 35 Celsius or even higher.  Isn’t that just obscene?

As I write this post I am becoming aware that some readers may think, “Man, this guy is a real whiner!  He must be a total thrill to be around at a beach party!"  Well my friends, if you are indeed thinking such thoughts here is my reply.  I don’t go to beach parties!!  They are usually held during hot, sweaty weather like this summer and there’s sand that gets into your bathing suit and hamburgers!  There’s the smell of coconut butter that people lather themselves in!  Not me I tell you!  I’m in the shade writing about my battle with summer sipping a beer and eating veggie chips!  Please don’t think I indulge in alcohol very often only now and then!  Okay, now that I ‘ve gotten that off my chest I will continue!

Even with what I have stated to this point I am reminded of something fundamental to my faith.  I thank God that He created the seasons including summer!  Now and then I show how I may take things for granted like the beauty of His creation.  I see how summer heat can lead to forest fires that in turn lead to destruction and panic!  I hear of the threat of drought and how this threatens our water supply.

When we panic or perhaps I should say, when I panic, I may take things for granted.  Perhaps God even sends such things as summer heat to the degree many aren’t familiar with to remind us that even the winds and summer heat obey Him!  Nature has also been given limits that perhaps only God understands!  I sure don’t!  I therefore pray that my battle with summer soon ends and that things cool down.  I doubt I will ever welcome summer heat but perhaps God in His mercy will allow me to see the beauty around me in spite of it!

If you dear friends enjoy summer heat I pray you have been thrilled this summer!  Now, bring on the rain!

Personal Blog:  ScarredJoy@wordpress.com