Hammer on Anvil '

"If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15).


Have you ever felt like you were spinning your wheels but not really getting anywhere in your Christian walk? I have felt that way many times, nearly always because at some point I had refused to obey something God told me to do.

Disobedience does not bring forth life. We can busy ourselves with all sorts of "Christian" activities, but if our heart is not yielded to God, "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).

Obedience to God, on the other hand, always creates LIFE. Are you a conduit of the life-giving water that Jesus offered the Samaritan woman in John 4? Can God help himself to you anytime He pleases, for whatever purpose He pleases? Or are you so preoccupied with your own agenda that God can't even get your attention?

I think we all go through periods when we have grandiose ideas about ourselves and the things we want to do for God. Some of it may be genuine, but many times our pride and desire for recognition are behind it. We need to ask God to deliver us of ourselves so that we can enter into His purposes for our lives. Mother Teresa was a shining example of the type of humility a Christ follower must possess; she poured her life into the unlovely and the dregs of society, and the only recognition she desired was that of her Savior.

I leave you with a wonderful truth by Oswald Chambers:

My personal life may be crowded with small, petty incidents, altogether unnoticeable and mean; but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God, and when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed.

I remember years ago reading The Navigator, a biography of Dawson Trotman. I read it because at the time my husband and I were involved in a two-year-long discipleship training program published by The Navigators ministry. After we completed the course, we taught it for four more years. The course grounded us in our faith more than anything else we had experienced.

If you're not familiar with Dawson Trotman, he founded The Navigators in the 1930s. After seeing the benefits of discipleship in his own life, Trotman became passionate about teaching others, inspired by 2 Timothy 2:2: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others."


Converted at 20, Trotman spent 30 years pouring his life into discipling others, beginning with high school students and Sunday school classes. In 1933, Trotman and his friends expanded their ministry to sailors in the U.S. Navy. Les Spencer, one of those sailors, was transformed by discipleship -- so much so that a fellow sailor asked Spencer to share the secret of his changed life. Spencer brought the sailor to Trotman, and said, "Teach him what you taught me." Trotman's response, "You teach him!" has become a classic reminder of what discipleship is all about. Once we have been discipled, we are to disciple others. That's how multiplication works.

Spencer did teach the sailor, and soon the two men were meeting with others. Eventually 125 men on their ship were growing in Christ and actively sharing their faith. Billy Graham, then an up-and-coming evangelist, was so impressed with Trotman's method that he enlisted him to help disciple new converts who committed their lives to Christ at Graham's crusades.

Trotman wanted to challenge people to stay on task with sharing their faith, and always be in the business of discipleship. A burning question was perpetually on his lips: "Men, where is your man? Women, where is your woman? Where is the one whom you led to Christ and who is now going on with Him?"

What challenged me the most about how Trotman lived his life is that he never allowed himself sleep at night until he had told at least one person about Jesus. One night after falling into bed exhausted, he realized he had not told anyone about the Lord that day. He told God he would witness to two people the next day to make up for it, but was not able to rest. He got up and began to drive around, asking God for an opportunity to share the gospel. He picked up a commuter who was walking to his car, and proceeded to share his faith, and the man accepted Christ.

John 15:13 says there is no greater love than to lay down your own life for another. That's how Trotman lost his life at age 50. Ten people attending a Christian conference were in a speed boat, when suddenly a big wave hit. Trotman and a young girl were thrown overboard. He held her head above water until the boat circled back to them. As the girl was lifted to safety, Trotman sank beneath the water and disappeared from sight. 

I am woefully and sinfully inadequate when it comes to evangelism. I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I see others as He sees them, and am asking Him to break my heart for the lost.

Why are we so reticent to share the greatest news anyone could ever hear? Are we just so busy with our own lives that we can't be bothered about where other people might spend eternity? 

I am grateful for those who prayed me into the kingdom -- for the ones who sowed the seed, the ones who watered and cultivated. Let's be grateful enough to God that we truly want to see His kingdom come and His will to be done. Begin your day asking God for opportunities to share the love of Jesus, and then walk through the doors that He opens for you.

"And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7, ESV).

The birth of Jesus was not as we might romanticize it to be. It was not a clean, cozy, warm room in a birthing center, where nurses attended Mary. It was far from being what hospitals call a sterile environment. On the contrary, the birth of our Savior took place in a barn which no doubt reeked of the dung and urine of the various animals that resided there. Since no Pack-N-Play was available, Mary laid her newborn son in a feeding trough.

Imagine that. God incarnate, choosing as His birthplace a foul-smelling building used to house cattle, donkeys, goats and sheep. As I meditated on this wondrous truth, the thought occurred to me, How can you NOT believe this marvelous story? Think about it. What other religion would enthrone their king in a feeding trough? The pharaohs of ancient Egypt, for example, were no doubt born with pomp and circumstance, with a dozen nursemaids attending to the mother's every need. If anything happened to the baby, the person responsible would likely have been executed.

Jesus was born in the same way He lived His entire life -- in humility. Instead of people of nobility being in attendance, Jesus was surrounded by shepherds, who were considered the dregs of society. The outcast and the marginalized were always His favorites; the pious and religious were the ones He shunned.

As you gather with loved ones this week, take time to stop and meditate about the wonder of Jesus' birth. And that He came for YOU. He came for me. He came for all those who will humble themselves and call on His Name.

Have a blessed, joyous Christmas.

Sometimes things happen to Christians and we wonder why. We seem to think that, as children of God, we should be insulated from any unpleasantness in life.

Recently my dear niece called to share what's going on in her life. She does this periodically; she and I seem to have an uncanny knack for understanding each other. She GETS me, and I get her.

This time, she called to ask for prayer. Her church is in the midst of a capital campaign -- not a huge one, but just adding on some much needed room. Right after my niece and her husband prayerfully committed the amount they felt God wanted them to give, they got hit hard -- a nearly $4,000 auto repair. Satan is SO predictable, is he not?

The cool thing about my niece is that she was way clued in on this. She shared her excitement at waiting to see how God was going to provide in the midst of this.

We must not deny God's inherent goodness simply because we are bewildered by circumstances. We need to remember we are but fallen, sinful creatures and that His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). We have no right to expect to understand our Creator's every move. If we did, what need would there be for faith?

Remember Job? He refused to curse God even when nearly everything he had was taken from him -- including his health. Through his entire horrendous ordeal, he maintained his confidence in God's goodness, even though the reason for His suffering was never revealed to him.

Christians love to quote Romans 8:28 about how all things work together for our good. But many of us misinterpret what "good" means. In God's economy, our "good" does not mean convenience and comfort and a carefree existence. God's ultimate end in His dealings with us is His own glory -- and when we are disciplined by Him, it is because He is conforming us into the likeness of His Son.

J.I. Packer explains this dynamic very well in his book Hot Tub Religion:

"He leaves us in a world of sin to be tried, tested, belabored by troubles that threaten to crush us, in order that we may glorify Him by our patience under suffering, and in order that He may display the riches of His grace and call forth new praises from us as He constantly upholds and delivers us."

Even in horrific illness; even in the deepest, darkest depression; even in the death of a loved one; even when an innocent is cruelly molested; even when children go astray and we fear for their very souls -- let us remember, dear brothers and sisters, that our God is still on His throne. And let us seek to glorify Him in how we respond to whatever life might throw our way.