When What We Need is Divine Pruning to Restore Order to Our Lives

The shrubs and landscaping in front of my house were overgrown and threatening to completely block the sidewalk. Even though it looked messy and was rapidly becoming an azalea jungle, I couldn't figure out how to fix it. 

I didn't realize it, but I needed an expert.

My friend, Linda Buchanan, mentioned her new yard man one day. Mr. Bailey was a wonder and a great help, she said, so I called him. 

That first day, I instructed him to clean up the front and trim the shrubs a little.  A few hours later, I walked outside to see an enormous pile of brush. Mr. Bailey had been busy. 

My heart sank as I thought, "My azaleas! He has cut down my azaleas!" 

I hurried around front to find, not destruction, but order. He had trimmed up the mess and brought it under control. Instead of a jungle, I had lovely landscaping again.

Scripture tells us that John the Baptizer's listeners were in a similar situation. They knew they had a mess in their lives and that something needed to be done. That's why they had come out to the banks of the Jordan to hear him. Their heritage wasn't enough to save them, nor their sacrifices. They were in a quandary. What then? What could they do?

And the crowds were questioning him, saying, "Then what shall we do?" (Luke 3:10 NASB)

He began by giving practical examples of sacrificial behavior. It wouldn't be long before Jesus would come for baptism, and John would recognize exactly what they all needed. 

The Lamb of God would take away their sin. 

The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29 NASB)

They couldn't do anything to rectify their guilt but Jesus would do it for them and He would soon set them free.

Maybe you, too, are wondering what to do about problems in your life or in the lives of loved ones. You may not realize it, but, like me, you need an expert. 

The answer is incredibly simply. Look to Jesus. He can clean up the mess of your life as well as that of your loved ones. He can clean up the guilt and shame and set you free.

Today, let's pray for a heart willing to accept the help that is so desperately needed. Pray, too, for the divine pruning that only Christ can do. 

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In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the link:How to Tell Your Faith is Alive? Take a Look at Your Works

If God leads you to help support this ministry outreach, here's the link to give: Global Outreach Acct 4841 

#Jesus #Christian

Guest Blogger Ruthie Howard: Beautiful and Broken

My island home is a beautiful place. 


I know my (biased) opinion is shared by others, since visitors also make the same observation.


Imagine a tropical island with diverse trees and flowers, profuse birds and interesting wildlife, puffy clouds liberally painted across an expansive canvas, cooling breezes blown off the vast lake, views of incredibly striking sunrises and sunsets - each one taking your breath away. 

Night skies are studded with precious age-old "gems" - seen more clearly above when away from city lights. 


Lapping on the beaches, the lake water is an ever-present source of one of earth's greatest treasures - life-giving water, which is such a precious resource here. 


There are no cars and motorcycles (except one rarely-seen cycle) and thus no artificial pollution and annoying traffic jams, unless you count the cows, goats, and chickens loitering on the walking paths. 


The island villages seem quaint with their narrow meandering paths, twisting between the crowded grass-thatched mud houses. Bright-eyed children with big smiles play here and there, creatively recycling discarded items for their playthings. 


Many agree the island is a beautiful place. 

But, like the rest of the world, the island is also marred and broken. 


A forest of trees has been slowly reduced for more urgent needs like firewood and making charcoal to cook food to fill hungry stomachs. Poor planning means replanting has not taken place. And, without the plentiful trees, less rainfall means the island is drier than it used to be - and gardens, animals, and people suffer. 


Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world and Africa's largest, is far from "fresh" or "clean." Human pollution has contributed to extremely high levels of e coli and other harmful bacteria. Wading and swimming risk exposure to sickness or disease-causing parasitic worms. 

While the removal of the forests made way for more gardens, an on-going struggle exists between the farmers and the apparently richer and more powerful animal owners. Hungry cows and goats can easily decimate an acre of crops, which took a family days and weeks to cultivate. Local leaders' laxity and corruption stifle justice and fairness. 


Health care is limited or non-existent on many of Buvuma's 52 islands. Simple, preventable sicknesses and injuries may go untreated, becoming gravely serious. At times the wide-eyed children display signs of malnutrition and worms, with their unnatural orangish-brown hair and swollen stomachs. 

Adult supervision is limited as siblings only a few years older are left in charge of younger brothers and sisters, ensuring they are fed, taken to school, etc. Consequently, child predators or those seeking sexual satisfaction take advantage of loose moral codes, offering paltry payments in exchange for stealing virginity, introducing life-altering diseases, or causing unwanted pregnancies. Girls and young women are often seen as commodities in the villages. 

As reflective of the greater culture, men dominant in the islands - taking the women they want as "wives," until another catches their eye. Domestic abuse and violence are more common than not. 


Most children grow up in mixed and fractured families, with siblings of different mothers or fathers. Larger families are often parceled out, with kids put in the care of an aunt or grandparent, whoever is deemed more able to feed and care for their basic needs. 


Selfishness, ignorance, poverty, disease, abuse, exploitation, injustice…the wretched effects of sin...these comprise the underlying reality of the islands... 


...of the world... 

...of my heart... 

...apart from the Gospel. 


Every day I desperately need the Gospel of Jesus; to embrace the fact God loved me, though unworthy and deader than dead in my sins, and not seeking Him in my sin-blinding stupor. 


God saw us as beautiful, but very broken. His incredible love took action, sending His precious and holy Son Jesus into such a broken, sin-wracked world to a life of humility and humiliation. God sent Jesus to buy us back - to redeem us from slavery, from darkness, from sin, from death, from separation from our Heavenly Father. 


The powerful, redemptive Gospel of Jesus is for my heart, for your heart, for your neighborhood, for my neighborhood. Yes, the world is very broken, deeply scarred by sin, but it is not beyond God's amazing redemption. 

In the split second after the Fall, God enacted His redemption plan, relentlessly and passionately pursuing His image bearers - for thousands of years, even in this very moment and the next one. He has not given up, nor should we. At times, the situation of the islands (and the world is general) is overwhelming and discouraging, but God asks us to continue living and declaring the Good News, until He says "time's up." 


And, until the time is up, we must embrace the God News, believe it, apply it, share it, declare it, shout it. We must live it and proclaim it every day, to every person, in every possible way. 
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This post was first published in June 2016 at the “Journey of Faith” blog (www.journeyoffaith11.blogpost.com). The author, Ruthie Howard, originally from Northwest Oregon, is working on her 7th year in central Uganda, East Africa, where she lives and works in the Buvuma Islands on Lake Victoria. She is privileged to serve with an amazing ministry family in Shepherd’s Heart International Ministry (SHIM), a project of Global Outreach Uganda. Ruthie’s passions are young people, discipleship, teaching the Word of God, and seeing lives transformed by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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n case you missed the story of Sam's project, here's the link: Sam's Project: Rubber Boots for Barefoot Rwandan Children
If you'd like to give to help buy boots for the barefoot school children of Rwandan, you can go directly to the project page here: Help Sam's Kids. 

In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the link: You Don't Have to Understand to Believe
#Uganda #Jesus #globaloutreach #SHIM

You Don't Have to Understand to Believe

I'm not sure why I tried to explain the internet to Sam, but my effort was a total flop. How do you explain the way an email or a text travels through the mysterious world of digital to land in an inbox on the other side of the globe in a way that makes sense to someone who has never used a computer? 

I can't do it. That's for sure. Maybe my failure to explain cogently is because I don't understand the internet myself. 

The good news is that understanding the internet is not necessary in order to use the internet.

My very flawed explanation was still on my mind when I read John 3. Jesus told Nicodemus that he would have to born again. Nicodemus heard those words and was skeptical. (Leanna paraphrase coming up.)

"Yeah, right. I'm a grown man. How am I going to get back inside my mama and come out again. That is so not happening."

"That's not what I mean, Nick. There's physical birth and spirit birth. You need spirit birth."

"I can't understand this at all. It doesn't make sense. I can't believe this."

"You don't have to. You don't need to understand to believe. You believe in the wind, but you can't see it."

"I don't know about that..."

"Nicodemus, if you can't understand earthly things enough to believe them, how will you believe heavenly things enough to believe them?" 

And then...

Jesus decided to tell Nicodemus a heavenly thing, anyway, and give him a chance to believe.

"God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son to save the world and give them eternal life. And here I am. Right here, Nicodemus. You can see me, and I've come to save you."

It's a heavenly thing that's hard to understand, but it's no less true because of the difficulty. Nicodemus didn't believe that day, but one day, he did the hardest, yet simplest thing of all. He let go of his need to understand and accepted on faith the words of the One he'd struggled to understand.

That's how it is for us, too. We will never understand the ways of God. We're not good as He is good. We don't love as He loves. We don't give as He gives. Our inadequacy doesn't make Him less good, less loving, less giving. 

He's God and we are not.

He gave because we could not.

That's what's hard to understand. It's why belief is a choice we make. 

Do we want to have eternal life or not? Good deeds can't give it to us. Neither can lots of donations, or being kind to strangers, rescuing orphaned children, preaching sermons, or sacrificing everything for another. 

There's only one way to have eternal life, and that's through Jesus. If we want eternal life, we choose to believe in Jesus. It's that hard. It's that simple.

So what about us? Do we want eternal life in heaven? There's one way, and His name is Jesus. Let's be sure we've placed our faith in Him alone to save us.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 
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In case you missed the story of Sam's project, here's the link: Sam's Project: Rubber Boots for Barefoot Rwandan Children
If you'd like to give to help buy boots for the barefoot school children of Rwandan, you can go directly to the project page here: Help Sam's Kids. We're making good progress. More than 300 pairs of boots have been given so far. 10% of the need has already been met!

In case you missed yesterday's post, here's the link: The Redemption of a Wrecked Reputation
#Jesus #salvation

God Always Keeps His Promises

"And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, 'Woman, you are freed from your sickness.' And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, 'There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day." Luke 13: 10-14 NASB

We began a new series this week. It began with Jesus Sees Us As We Are , then Freed by Obedience, and yesterday's Before We Call, He Answers. (in case you want to get caught up, you can follow the links) 

This passage demonstrates a very beautiful truth that we need to understand. Jesus called to the woman, she moved in His direction, and He spoke those words she most wanted to hear but for which she least dared to hope. "Woman you are freed." From the moment those words were spoken by God's Son, the healing was underway and would not be stopped. 

When Jesus spoke, the healing was as good as done. 

There must have been a delay between the time He spoke and her actually standing erect, if only a few seconds, but the reality of healing, in the heavenlies, was done. 

This is an important truth because I have often prayed with diligence, felt I received an answer, a promise from God, and have not yet seen the reality of that promise. When God speaks a word, He speaks it with absolute truth, and we can receive it with absolute confidence. If God says something, it is true. 

If God promises, it will come to pass.

Isn't it comforting to realize that, when God says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," that's how it is? We can count on His presence, His persistence, His promise.

What delight we can take in His promise, "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." (Jer. 29:11) When life seems uncertain and confusing, it is a great comfort to me to KNOW that God has a plan, and it's going to work out to give me a future and a hope. I don't have to understand. I don't have to know how my circumstances will look tomorrow. He is in charge.

It's so simple. God can handle this life we live. He speaks into our lives with certainty and truth. We can count on Him. We can depend on Him and on His word.

When we dangle in that moment between "Woman, you are freed" and "immediately she was made erect," we can be sure that the latter will follow the former. If He says it, He will do it.

There is no need for fear. We can trust the God we serve.

For what promise of God are you waiting? Take heart. If He promises, He will bring it to pass. 

"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6 NASB

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Our Father, thank You that You are always with us, always helping us, always fulfilling Your promises. Help us to believe You, trust You, and wait for You. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Disciple, Biblestudy #believe #KeeperofPromises, #HesaysitHewilldoit,