What (on Earth) is Holiness?

I’ve been thinking about the word holiness. Probably because I’m reading a book right now, by John Eldridge, called The Utter Relief of Holiness. I’ve never really liked the word, and never really understood what it meant. Never had anyone satisfactorily define it for me. It is a severe word, conjuring up images of an austere and unapproachable God, even though what we as believers come to know about Him increasingly, especially in the character of Jesus Christ, is His goodness and kindness and grace.

The word holiness makes me think “absolute sinlessness.” It sounds completely out of reach. And yet God has said, “Be ye holy, even as I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44, 45; 19:2; 1 Peter 1:15, 16). That’s a pretty intimidating command. Overwhelming. Impossible. I don’t think I can become that, and I still don’t even know what it really means.

So I looked it up. Do you know what the definition of holiness is? It’s the state of being holy. Okay, that didn’t help me much.

It occurs to me that holiness is like humility, in this way: if you’re trying to achieve it or measure it, you probably don’t have it. Oswald Chambers talked about “unconscious holiness,” and he implied that it comes about through “conscious repentance.”

We can find religious articles that encourage us in our quest for holiness, advising the practice of things like praying daily, reading the Bible, meditating on God’s word, spending time in silence and solitude, fasting, and serving. And of course, these lists also add in things you should avoid, things we know are contrary to God’s righteousness. Dos and don’ts: they can seem a dreary obligation of requirements for earning God’s favour. We can employ some of these things in our life and yet still feel no closer to God. We can completely exhaust ourselves trying. It can be a whole lot of self-effort, very little of which seems fruitful. It’s a lonely place to live. We feel we just can’t do it by ourselves.

And that’s the first thing God wants us to recognize: we can’t do it by ourselves, and he never intended that we would. His whole plan is based on “Christ in us, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), the only hope for holiness here on earth. May He increasingly make real in our lives the mystery: “…I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20, KJV).

He also wants us to stop thinking in terms of earning his favor. We already have it, and we didn’t earn it. Remember the message from the angels to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born, Luke 2:14: “Peace on earth, goodwill toward mankind.” It was the announcement of the fulfillment of a prophecy of Isaiah (61:2, NLT), “The time of the Lord‘s favor has come.”

 It’s a good book I’m reading, The Utter Relief of Holiness, but I have probably spent more time thinking about the title than about the contents, trying to understand that word. Something that gives me a huge clue is the subtitle: How God’s Goodness Frees Us from Everything that Plagues Us. With this title and subtitle, the author is clearly equating holiness with goodness. So that is a great place to start. And if God’s holiness truly can free us from everything that plagues us, it surely must be an extremely important and practical thing. I mean, wouldn’t you like to be free from everything that troubles you?

So we’ll start by equating holiness with goodness. But God is more than just goodness. Now my memory retrieves something from the Amplified Classic Bible: Oftentimes when the word faith is used there, it is broken down into this: “the leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in his power, wisdom, and goodness.” What if these other two words give us a fuller picture of holiness? What if, in addition to goodness, holiness also means power and wisdom?

I have often thought of and spoken of that definition of faith in the Amplified translation in this way: “God is all wise, so He knows the best thing to do and when to do it. He is all good, so what He chooses in His wisdom is always the most beneficial thing for us. His word assures us that He is always working everything together for good, that He intends for our ultimate benefit even the things that the enemy intends for evil, things that certainly to us seem at first to be nothing but disastrous. So God knows the wise thing to do; He anticipates the good thing, the best thing, to do; and then, being all powerful, He also has the power to pull off what needs to be done.”

I recently found these three attributes echoed in a description of “God’s essential nature” written in the 1800s by Adam Clarke, a Methodist theologian and biblical scholar: “God is ... of perfect goodness, wisdom and power...” (quoted by Dallas Willard in Life Without Lack).        

Back to that intimidating list and how it seems to tap in to our subconscious striving for God‘s approval: we  must understand that these “spiritual disciplines” (on the list) do not lay claim to any merit; they will not earn us any points with God. But rather, they benefit us directly by our practicing them, building our character and faith, deepening our knowledge and understanding of God, so that He can entrust to us greater responsibility and blessing. We also will find that He surprises us with deep insights and sudden visits of His presence, right in the middle of such practices, and we will find ourselves thinking what we would have missed if we had instead been off running after our busy lives.

But as far as finding acceptance with God and being declared righteous in His sight, we must always remember that that status comes only by God’s grace, through our faith in Him, our trust “in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead (Romans 4:24, NIV).

Once we have been converted, reconciled to God through faith, we may be ready to die and go to heaven, but we are not yet ready to live on this planet, at least not victoriously. This is where discipleship and the practice of the spiritual disciplines are so key. So if you find you’re not living the life of an overcomer, you might want to ask yourself: “Am I a disciple, or just a convert?”

When the Bible tells me to be holy even as God is holy, I feel at first like I’ve come up against an insurmountable wall. But if holiness is power and wisdom and goodness, I can begin to see some hope. It’s not hard to believe that God wants to bring more of these three things into my life—and through my life to others. As I trust God, as I truly seek Him, reading His Word and allowing it to be “functionally authoritative”* in my life, I grow in the character of Christ. I take on more of His goodness and wisdom.

As we pursue Christ by way of the spiritual disciplines, as we spend time with Him, we catch glimpses of Him. Scripture says that “when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2, NIV). But that process is already in motion here on earth. The more we “see” Him, the more we are becoming like Him.

As we walk with Jesus, He teaches us to take up our cross daily. We learn to die to ourselves and, in love, to put others before our own needs and desires. Death to self slowly and surely brings humility. It is only in true humility that we can be trusted with God’s power. Having the ability to exercise the power of God is much too heavy an experience for our flesh to handle. It would gorge itself on aggrandizement, pig out on pride.

Many Christians yearn to walk in the power that we see displayed in the Book of Acts and in the stories of great men and women of God through the centuries. We have not understood that the uncrucified self stands in the way of God’s entrusting His power to us. As we will slowly come to learn, it is a kind and merciful thing that God calls us to die to ourselves, because it will free us from the tyranny of self. My husband said recently, “Jesus didn’t die for us so that we wouldn’t have to; he died so that we could die too.” I’ve often thought about the verse that calls us to “make up what is behind of the sufferings of Christ” (Colossians 1:24): What spiritual provision could possibly be lacking in the crucifixion of Christ? The answer is death to self. It’s the one thing Christ cannot do for us. But He commanded it, and He showed us how it’s done, not just in His death, but all throughout His life.

 Jesus said that if we try to save our life, we’ll lose it, but that if we lose it for His sake, we will truly find it (Matthew 10:39). This is a verse that comes to me over and over in my own thinking and writing. I want the life He offers; it’s worth giving up the life I think I have, in order to find it.

When God calls us to holiness, I believe he is calling us to continually greater wisdom, greater goodness, and greater power. How else will we ever be and do what Jesus has called us to: “The works that I do, these shall you do and even greater” (John 14:12)?

There is another way I think about this command from both the Old and New Testaments, “Be ye holy, even as I am holy,” and it really takes the pressure off us. When God commanded light into being, saying, “Let there be light,” the word let does not appear in the original language; therefore He was saying something more like “Be light” or “Light, be!” He commanded the light to be. And yet none of the power to become, none of the effort, came from the as-yet-nonexistent light itself. It all came from God.

In the same way, think about the command to be holy: not so much a commandment as a proclamation and a promise, with the power to do it coming from the One who “is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, KJV). Our job is simply  to come to him, and to yield to Him. This is part of ongoing repentance: we cooperate; we align ourselves with him. Holiness is His work and His alone.

*  *  *

* “functionally authoritative” is how Dallas Willard describes what kind of place we should give the Word of God in our lives.

Betrayed!

If you never struggle with emotions, you don’t need to read this.

How did Jesus feel when He was betrayed by Judas? This question came up in our Thursday night online Bible study last week. The consensus of the discussion was that Jesus would have felt just like we would, because of course in addition to being fully God, He was fully man. Surely He would have been hurt, angry, bitter. But then there was also the qualification made that He would have, sometime over the next few hours, let go of those feelings and forgiven Judas. After all, He was the unblemished Lamb of God. He couldn’t go to the Cross with unforgiveness sullying His heart.

We moved on to the next topic, but I kept thinking about that question throughout the rest of the study and also in the days that followed. It seemed that the Lord was prodding me to look a little deeper.

I found that in order to answer the original question, “How did Jesus feel when He was betrayed,” I had to ask some other ones.

1. Did the betrayal come as a surprise?

2. Was Jesus a victim? Did He feel sorry for Himself?

3. As the Son of God, did Jesus have an advantage in dealing with His emotions, an advantage that we do not have?
4. How did Jesus rise above His emotions, and how can we?

Did the betrayal come as a surprise?

The first thought that came to mind as I continued to think about our online discussion was a memory of a scripture about Jesus entrusting Himself to no one because He knew what was in men’s hearts. I looked it up in the NLT. He “didn’t trust them, because he knew all about people. No one needed to tell him about human nature, for he knew what was in each person’s heart” (John 2:24-25).

There are numerous examples in the gospels of Jesus responding aloud to people’s thoughts. How unnerving that must have been! At first glance this seems like a manifestation of His supernatural side, but consider this: He sometimes gives this kind of inside information to His people too. It’s called the gift of knowledge, and it’s one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, listed in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. I think He would like to give this gift of supernatural insight to us a lot more frequently, if we would just learn how to listen—and learn how to handle the power in humility.

Judas’s betrayal did not catch Jesus by surprise. He knew what was in Judas’s heart long before that fateful evening. He also knew from the scriptures that He would be betrayed and put to death (Matthew 20:18). At the beginning of that Passover week, heading from Bethany toward Jerusalem, as Isaiah had prophesied (50:7) Jesus “set His face like flint.” He narrowed His focus and mustered His resolve. You don’t set your face like flint for a walk in the park, or for your average annual Jewish festival. He knew exactly what was unfolding.

Was Jesus a victim? Did He ever feel sorry for Himself?

Jesus was not a victim, and He never saw Himself as one, not even when a “friend” heartlessly turned Him over to torture and death for 30 pieces of silver. He said earlier in His ministry that no one could take His life from Him; He would choose to freely lay it down (John 10:18).

A scene in the life of Jesus comes to mind. He is sharing with His followers that He will soon suffer and be put to death by the religious establishment. Peter opens his mouth to protest. His words come from the paradigm of the world, the flesh, and the devil: “Be it far from thee, Lord.” This is the King James, Matthew 16:22, but the original Greek says, “Pity thyself, Lord!” and then he tells Jesus this mustn’t ever happen to Him. (Aren’t you glad Jesus didn’t listen?!) This type of response can certainly set the stage for the victim mentality. (Perhaps we need to be careful not to feed into this attitude when, like Peter, we see a friend facing a difficult situation.)

We know how Jesus responded. As the NLT says, “Jesus turned to Peter and said, ‘Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.’” He did not hesitate; He would not entertain self-pity even for a moment. That’s why He could say regarding the prince of this world, “He has nothing in me” (John 14:30).  Satan couldn’t even get a toe-hold in His life.

When little demons like self-pity come knocking on our door, if we would stop and listen carefully for Jesus’ voice, we would hear Him telling us likewise to give no place to these things. Then maybe, just maybe, we might refuse to open the door.

As the Son of God, did Jesus have an advantage in dealing with His emotions, an advantage that we do not have?

No. Jesus had learned as a man to refuse to be ruled by His emotions. We must learn this too! Many of us think that we simply feel what we feel and that we have no choice in the matter. My husband recently read me a powerful quote form Dallas Willard’s Renovation of the Heart: “With very few exceptions, feelings are good servants, but they are disastrous masters.” It’s a call to learn to master our emotions rather than let them master us.

Emotions that are in line with the will and purposes of God are good things. They are wonderful things. We wouldn’t want to be without them, or life would be pretty boring. But we must be on our guard against emotions and feelings that are out of step with God, His character, His purposes, and His timing.

I don’t think it was His God-genetics that made Jesus emotionally impervious to the pain of the betrayal. He was fully man, and fully subject to the infirmities, the weaknesses, of human flesh. But as He walked the earth, He had learned submission and obedience by the things He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). And He spent long nights (alone but not lonely) in communion  with the Father. He knew His Father’s heart (as we can); and through the disciplines of life He had had His character confirmed in the Father’s likeness. For our part, we are being conformed to the image of Christ.

How did Jesus rise above His emotions, and how can we?

There is powerful counsel laid out for us, in 2 Corinthians 10:5, regarding how to handle imaginations, thoughts, and emotions that are contrary to God’s character and purposes—every high thing that lifts itself up above what we know to be true of God. We are to cast them down and bring each one of them captive to Christ and His kingdom within us. This is how Christ handled His betrayal: He took His thoughts and feelings captive and refused to be dominated by them; in fact, He had settled the matter and chosen to forgive long before that particular betrayal actually took place. Long before He hung on the Cross, the very posture of His heart had become “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He calls us to be of the same heart and mind, not just with betrayal but with every contrary spirit and accompanying emotion, to handle things the way He did. He has put His spirit within us, and He will help if we call. Just remember: Thinking about it is not the same as praying about it. When we do actually open our mouths to pray, even a simple “Help me, Lord!” will open the floodgates of grace and we will experience supernatural deliverance in the middle of everyday moments.

This is the example He’s given us to follow (1 Peter 2:23, NIV): “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”

How do you feel when you’re betrayed? It really doesn’t matter what the emotions are; it only matters that you submit them to God.

Quail and Manna

I was really hoping I was going to get a good sleep Saturday night. My adrenals have cratered again from the release of moulds in my body as I continue battling that scourge, and Sunday is always a full day, especially this one with young adults coming out for brunch after church. (This was shortly before COVID-19 social distancing restrictions set in.)

Although I had hoped to get to bed at 9:00, with unexpected company I wasn’t settled until closer to 11:00, and then I couldn’t fall asleep. Too much vitamin C, I think. In the past, taking large doses of this key nutrient has been a sure-fire way to help my adrenals and my energy rally. But if it’s taken too close to bedtime, it can wake me up. I’m sure I wasn’t asleep until after midnight, and I woke up at 4:30. I got up, put on my porridge, and spent some time with the Lord.

It was 6:15 when I headed back up to bed. I was praying, “Lord, if I’m not able to go back to sleep, please sustain me supernaturally.” Jesus said He had food to eat that His disciples knew not of (John 4:32); He was supernaturally sustained by His relationship with God. In Matthew 4:4, AMP, Jesus said, “Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” He was quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. His own experience was that, when necessary, the substance of the Word of God was able to sustain and nourish His body.

In the same way, surely if I trust God in this regard, in the absence of sufficient sleep, God’s word is able to refresh and restore my body. I prayed that if I couldn’t have the one He would give me the other. “But then,” I added, “it would be nice to have both!”—and I smiled kind of sheepishly at God.

I got into bed and lay on my back with my hands flat open in a posture of receiving. I heard myself saying, “Lord, I receive not your quail but your manna.” It had such a ring of truth and power as I spoke it that I repeated it quietly over and over.

Both manna and quail were part of God’s provision to the Israelites in the wilderness, but in my mind at that point, quail represented provision of and from this world to meet my physical needs (nonetheless through God). As such, in this moment, it represented sleep. On the other hand, manna represented a provision straight from heaven metabolized into a form sufficient to meet that physical need—in the absence of sleep.

As I lay there, I said, “Lord, I need to receive your provision, but I don’t really know how.” But then I corrected myself and said, “Lord, I do know how; it’s just that it seems so hard—such a discipline to my flesh. What I need to do is simply tell You my need and then lie here expectantly and wait for You and believe You to fulfill it.”

Hmm. Need and expectation. It was making me think of a chapter in my marriage book (Made in Heaven, Fleshed Out on Earth), a chapter called “Needs and Expectations,” which is essentially about how these things can negatively impact a marriage relationship. They can cause very unhealthy dynamics. But how different, it struck me, are needs and expectations within our relationship with God. There, we express to Him our needs, and then we wait with expectation for Him to fulfill them. This makes for a very healthy relationship with God. He wants us to bring Him our needs, and He is pleased when we come to Him with confident expectation. This is a picture of faith, and it moves God’s heart and hand. 

As I continued to pray for God to help me to receive “not the quail but the manna,” He suddenly reminded me that just a few days ago, He had shown me something I’d never realized before. There was not just one time when God sent quail, the time He was angry and smote them with a plague while the flesh was still in their teeth (Numbers Chapter 11, especially verses 31-33). That was the second time. But the first time was the evening before He first sent the manna (Exodus 16:13). In the evening God sent quail that fell in the camp, and in the morning He sent the first of the manna. The Israelites had been complaining about being hungry and God sent them both earthly quail and heavenly manna.

It’s suddenly struck me that I could change my plea from “Help me receive not your quail but your manna” to “Both would be nice, Lord!” I felt He was saying, “There’s no reason you can’t have both sleep and supernatural rejuvenation through My Word.”

And so, gratefully, I was able to fall asleep for another hour. Then I was jarred awake from a heavy slumber by my alarm. I forced myself to throw back the covers immediately, stood up, and then stumbled into the shower. I allowed myself no murmuring and no self-pity, as there is no quicker way to cut oneself off from the provision of God. From then on through the whole day, until 7:00 in the evening when the last of the young adults left, I was marvellously sustained by continuing to trust God.

Our Times Are in His Hands

Vacations are special times, but have you noticed that some are more special than others? Sometimes we make a plan, but God doesn’t really seem to be in it. Then there are other times when the presence and blessing of God seem to cover it from beginning to end.

I notice that I’ve used the word or syllable times three times already in the first two sentences. Pay attention to how many times the word or the concept of time comes into this story. Realize that God created time, and that He says a time is coming when time will be no more. He also says, and it’s so reassuring, that our times are in His hands.

Greg made a plan shortly before Christmas that we would go away to Kootenay Lake for a holiday. We would stay at the Kaslo Hotel for five nights, rent a boat, and do some fishing. We would leave the day after Boxing Day. We let our kids know in case any of them could travel out and join us there. In the end, Lindsay and Christina made plans to come, along with their little baby girl.

Packing this time was, for some reason, easier for me than usual—although there was one hitch: I was pretty much all organized when Greg announced that we might stay a few days longer. I was rather discouraged for a few minutes, because I didn’t want to think through, all over again, everything I had packed. Especially my many supplements. I had painstakingly sorted and counted and then packed them in small individual plastic ziploc bags to save space. I just couldn’t face starting all over again. I told Greg so, and then I said I was just going to trust God that I would have enough of everything.

Greg had had another very long and busy season, without even a chance to get away with me for a summer weekend camping trip. This was a much needed unwind-time for him, and I was glad to be spending it with him. We were on the road in good time, and before we were more than a few miles south of Wetaskiwin, we prayed, thanking God for His protection, trusting Him to order our steps, and believing Him for divine encounters and happenstances along the way. The miles rolled out ahead of us, and we settled in for the long haul, intermittently talking, my hand tucked under his arm.

We weren’t much south of Red Deer when we realized we would have to make good time. A review of our possible routes indicated that the Crowsnest Pass would be the best way to go: there had been a lot of snow recently and the higher elevations would be worse. Going by the Crowsnest meant we would be catching the Kootenay Bay ferry, which sails approximately every hour and forty minutes. If we could catch the 7:00 p.m. ferry, then taking into account the time change, we would arrive in Kaslo about 8:15. If we missed that one, it would be close to 10 o’clock when we arrived at our destination—too late for supper and too late for a reasonable bedtime as well. We kept our stops very short, keeping the miles rolling past.

We arrived in Creston at 6:30 Alberta time. We were still almost an hour and a half from the ferry. Greg stopped at a service station to grab a jug of windshield wash. He came back to the truck with some bad news. The woman had told him that this side of the ferry was on Alberta time. It was leaving in half an hour. “You’ll never make it,” she’d said.

This was confusing. Where was the line then, where the time changed? We pulled back onto the highway. I thought we should stop and get some supper; Greg thought we should keep going. Meanwhile, we saw three young people on the sidewalk and pulled over to get another opinion. After all, God says everything is established in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2 Corinthians 13:1)! They said Creston was on Alberta time, as was Kootenay Bay where we would catch the ferry.

I grew up in the Kootenays. This didn’t sound right to me. The young people all checked their phones; Google confirmed their statements. I really would’ve liked to stop and eat, but God has been teaching me all over again some things about submitting to my husband. As we went on our way again, I went on Google myself. “What time zone is Kootenay Bay?“ I asked. The answer was Mountain Standard Time. And what about Kaslo? Pacific Standard Time. So the time must change somewhere in the middle of Kootenay Lake. How strange!

Believing now that we had more than two hours till the next ferry, Greg took his time. It was good not to be rushed: the night was as dark as dark could be, and the road was winding and icy. As he drove, Greg prayed aloud, “Lord, I ask that You would have that ferry wait for us.”

Now, I know that agreeing in prayer makes it much more powerful, but I couldn’t get on board with this one. This was just not going to happen. And in spite of the recent reminders from God about the power in submitting to my husband, I could not—or would not—muster even a weak “Yes, Lord.”

The next hour and a half wended slowly by, until we found ourselves coming down the gentle slope to the ferry terminal. Imagine our surprise when we saw the lights of the ferry just pulling in to the dock. I was completely stymied. And I was also sad and humbled. Lord, I missed the opportunity to agree with my husband in prayer and be part of seeing Your hand moves on our behalf. We both thanked the Lord aloud, and I apologized to God for my lack of faith.

We pulled onto the ferry with a dozen other vehicles. “Hey dear,” I said, “you need to go talk to one of those guys and find out why we caught this sailing.” Then I changed my mind: “Never mind: I need to find out for myself.”

I pulled on my big coat, zipped it up, flipped up the hood and jumped out into the chilly darkness. Steam from the exhaust of the vehicles and the ferry billowed about, highlighted by all the lights, wafting in the slight but biting wind. It was a surreal setting as I waited for a ferry attendant to be done securing chains and cables.

When he turned away from his work, I intercepted him. “We didn’t expect to catch this ferry,” I began. “Can you tell me why you’ve just arrived here?”

“We’re right on time,” he assured me. “You must have read the schedule wrong.”

“It says you sail at 7:00 and at 8:40,” I answered.

“Yes,” he said, pulling up his sleeve and showing me his watch, “and it’s just 7:05 right now.”

“But in Creston,” I told him, “we were told that the ferry on this side is on Alberta time.”

“No,” he said, “we are on Pacific Standard Time.”

“Hmm. Well, two different parties there told us that they’re on Mountain Standard Time.”

“Well,” he said, “Creston does what Creston does. They don’t bother with daylight saving time either.”

This was sounding a little mysterious. “I grew up in the Kootenays,” I said, “and I remember the time-change happening somewhere between Cranbrook and Creston. So exactly where is the line now, where the time changes?”

“Ah,” he said, “now that’s where it gets interesting. In the summer it changes right around Yahk—you know where that is? Between Cranbrook and Creston?”

“Right,” I said.

“And in the winter it changes as soon as you drive off this ferry,” and he pointed back at the landing ramp we had just left.

I’d never heard anything so bizarre. I thanked him for his time and went back to the truck to explain it all to Greg, though I certainly wasn’t very clear on it myself. The great thing was, however, we were going to arrive in Kaslo right around the time Lindsay and Christina were expecting us.

We had a welcome meal in the dining room of the grand and beautifully restored old hotel and had just walked into our two-bedroom suite when Lindsay and family arrived back from walking their dog.

The next day, because Greg had continued to talk about extending our stay, I took stock of my supplements. For over a year now, I have been slowly ridding my body of molds, which may have been there for decades and which have caused chronic health issues. I take various things that stir up and kill the molds, and then I take a large number of other things that powerfully neutralize the toxins being released. The latter group, which I call antidotes, curb all kinds of randomly flaring symptoms, like headaches, nausea, dripping nose, coughing, sneezing, indigestion, numbness and tingling in my extremities, itchy eyes and nose and ears, rashes, vertigo—really, you name it; it happens to me. The point is, if I don’t have everything I need, symptoms get pretty rough. But it becomes a pain, too, organizing it all, and that’s why I had thrown up my hands, so to speak, and told God it was His problem.

I muscle-test every time I feel like I need something. This kind of testing helps me determine exactly which things I need, when, and how many. Since leaving home, I had found myself going through an unusual number of two different products, both of them amino acids, and they happened to be things that might not be found in your average vitamin store. I scoured the small town. There were two stores that sold supplements, and neither one carried either product that I needed.

It looked like I was going to run out. I thought of driving into Nelson, but it would be an hour each way on bad roads, so it just didn’t seem like a peaceful choice. I didn’t even have the heart to phone and ask if they had what I needed. It felt at odds with trusting God. He tells us to cast our cares on Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7), and that’s what I was trying to do.

Strangely, beginning the next day, my body didn’t seem to want any more of those two products. Maybe, rather than increasing my supply, God was going to change my needs. Great! But then suddenly I was consuming a lot more of another product, something called NAC, or n-acetylcysteine, which is a fabulous help to the liver in heavy detox conditions. My dosage had increased substantially. I was going to run out of that now. But no worries; I had seen some in one of the local stores.

I went out and bought it—didn’t even think of muscle-testing it first because it was a familiar brand. But when I got back to the room, I realized this was not the brand I use but one I bought for Greg—which, ever since, had sat in the cupboard. Muscle-testing had never indicated that this particular formula would be helpful for me.

I was frustrated. I should take it right back. But the Lord was drawing my attention to not my needs but those of the shopkeeper. Kaslo is a poor little town, with businesses barely eking out a living. It would be a discouraging thing for that woman to refund my money. All right, I would keep it then.

And then I muscle-tested it and found it was rock-solid “strong” for me. Apparently the needs of my body had shifted to prefer a slightly different formula. To this day, the time of this writing, two and a half months later, my body has not wanted a single dose of that first product, whereas I’ve gone through several bottles of the other brand. Truly God was working everything together for my good (Romans 8:28). Normally I wouldn’t have even taken a second look at that product; I had bought it “by mistake,” yet it had turned out to be just the right thing.

Greg had rented a boat for four days. On the first and second days, he and Lindsay went out and fished all day. I had thought I would be busy on my computer, but I had a wonderful time visiting instead with Christina, not to mention cuddling with my newest grandchild. On Day Three, Christina decided to take little two-month-old Cali fishing with her daddy and her papa. It sounded like a nice, mellow outing.

They were gone all day. As the afternoon got late, I began to wonder. I went to the big windows across the front of our suite and looked out at the lake. The wind seemed to have come up a bit. It was hard to gauge, though, because the water in front of the hotel was somewhat sheltered. I thought uneasily of what could happen out there. I had spent many a cold day fishing here with my dad when I was a teen. I knew that Kootenay Lake was notorious for sudden storms. It’s a very deep lake, 400 feet, and the waters are frigid. The boats Greg had rented here in previous years had been between 37 and 57 feet: steel-hulled, heavy, solid, stable vessels. But the only boat he’d been able to get this time was a lightweight 18-footer, no good for weathering a storm.

I turned deliberately away from the window, and from the imaginations that were taking shape in my head. “No!” I said emphatically. “Nothing’s going to happen. Lord God, you have promised in Your Word that You are a shield to those that put their trust inYou.” (Proverbs 30:5, KJV)

Or as The Message puts it, “He protects everyone who runs to him for help.”

It was a while later that the phone rang. The front desk told me to call my husband, and she gave me an unfamiliar number. Shoot! They had probably been trying to reach me, and likely I had left my phone’s ringer off. I checked: sure enough, there was a missed call from Christina’s number and another from the number I had just been given.

They had been forced to beach the boat, Greg told me, and Lindsay and his wife and baby had taken shelter at a house on the property. The kindly couple there had told Greg there was a marina just around the point where he could moor the boat safely, so he jockeyed the craft alone the short distance. Then he walked the 400 metres back to the couple’s house, from where he phoned me. He needed me to come pick them up, about 15 kilometres north. But a search, first on my end and then on Greg’s, ultimately revealed that none of the keys for the two trucks were in our room or the vehicles but with the guys.

Providentially, the couple’s son-in-law popped by for a short visit on his way back to Kaslo, so he offered them a ride. It wasn’t long before they arrived back at the hotel.

Lindsay was terribly shaken. “Mom,” he said, “I was pinning the baby’s car seat down with my arm, and it still flew right off the seat every time we hit another wave. And then Dad told me to get out the life jackets. And I’m thinking, ‘No, that is not an option. We are not going to end up in the water.’ Mom, the baby wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in there!”

We had much to be grateful for as we all went to bed that night. Just before I powered off my phone, I decided to go on Bible Gateway for some peaceful debriefing in the Word. My attention was caught immediately by the Verse of the Day: “I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea.” (Isaiah 43:16, NLT). Wow, God. Talk about the right word at the right time!

The next day, the plan was for Lindsay to drive Greg up to the boat. They just wanted to get the boat back to its owner. Nobody felt like fishing anymore. I thought it would be a lark to ride with Greg down the lake, as it wouldn’t be too long a trip. He didn’t think it was a good idea.

“I’ll pick you up at the Kaslo dock if it’s all going okay,” he said, “and then you can go the rest of the way south with me if you want.”

Again I felt the challenge as to whether I would follow my husband’s lead. What if there was a disaster in the making and God was trying to protect me from it through Greg? Oh well, I would go along for the truck ride anyway and visit with Lindsay on the way back.

It had snowed all night, great placid flakes falling silently straight down, and the winding road was a picture of winter wonderland as we slowly made our way along beside the lake. We came to Schroeder Creek, where the boat was moored, but Greg and Lindsay wanted to look at a piece of property several kilometres past, so we checked that out first and then turned back.

The snow was thicker now and had coated all the signs. Everything looked the same. We just kept driving and talking, and suddenly we found ourselves back in Kaslo. We laughed, turned around, and headed north again. This was turning into long trip!

Finally we pulled into Schroeder Creek, a small, sprawling collection of houses spread out under tall evergreens and a marina that was all closed up for the winter. The wind had picked up; the snow was no longer falling straight down but was whipping wildly about. The guys walked down towards the dock; I went to the beach, which, unlike the marina, was not sheltered. The water was looking pretty rough. And it was cold! The snow and fog was so thick that I couldn’t see a hundred metres; it was like staring myopically at a blurry, grey curtain.

I caught up with the guys. Greg thought it would be very unwise to head out in this weather. He phoned the owner of the boat and offered him some extra cash to retrieve the boat himself when conditions became more favourable.

“You know,” he said, after he had ended the call, “the first time we drove by here, the lake was still very calm. Just think: if we hadn’t gone up to see that property and then missed our turn and gone back to Kaslo, I would be out there in the middle of this.” We three went back to the hotel, relieved to be done with the boat.

The snow continued to fall as we got ready for the New Year’s Eve dinner downstairs, a gala with live blues and dancing. All the locals were out—colourful, down-to-earth folk, lots of aging hippies. It was a fun time.

We awoke in the morning to a great silence. The snow was standing a foot deep on the balcony railing, and the power was out. Greg had planned to stay here another day or so to get some quotes done, but his computer wouldn’t last long running on the battery and there would be no internet. The road reports were bad, and the forecast was for a lot more snow in the next 24 hours. We packed up quickly, all of us, and headed out.

I glanced at my phone as Greg and I got into the truck. A friend had texted, requesting a call, as she was in a difficult situation with one of her young adult children and wanted advice and prayer. I wondered when on earth I might get back to her, as we would be in the mountains all day, with little or no cell service.

There were dozens of trees down along the road, leaning across power lines, some of them uprooted and hanging into our lane. There was one eight-inch trunk standing on the centre line with its top leaned way up against the cliff beside us. We passed a four-foot boulder that had rolled down the mountainside and parked itself on the edge of the pavement. It was clear that anything else could let go at any moment, and it was good to be able to rest in the knowledge that our times really are in God’s hands (Psalm 31:15, KJV).

In our preoccupation with the road conditions, it hadn’t even occurred to us to check the ferry schedule or look at the clock. Suddenly we were at Balfour, approaching the terminal and wondering all at once if we would have to wait for an hour and a half. Imagine our amazement when we found the ferry taking on the last few cars. We leapt out for quick hugs with Lindsay and Christina, blessing them on their further journey south and west, then drove straight onto the ferry. One more vehicle pulled on behind us, and then the attendant hooked up the apron chains and cast off the mooring lines.

We would be sitting in our vehicle for the next 35 minutes. I thought again of my friend and glanced down at my phone. Amazingly, it showed full reception. I dialled and she answered. Yes, she said, this was a good time to talk. I was grateful that Greg was there too, with his solid and godly wisdom. At length, it seemed that all had been shared that was relevant at this point, so I said, “Why don’t we pray right now, before you hang up.” We had a powerful time of prayer, terminated the call, and found the ferry was just docking, the timing as smooth as butter.

We wound along beside the east arm of Kootenay Lake. There was less snow here than back in Kalso. The overcast thinned and a bit of sun shimmered through, just enough to gild the lake with silver. The landscape was alight with the glory of God.

Greg had decided that we should spend two days at Fairmont so he could get his quotes finished before heading the rest of the way home. They were already overdue, and the clients needed an opportunity to make their decisions before our supplier’s winter rates were adjusted upward again. He phoned the resort as we got brief cell service again passing through Creston, and he booked a room for two nights. Okay, two nights there will mean I get a full day to write, and then we’ll be on the road Friday morning, I thought. I was going to get some writing in after all; plus the resort boasted, among other things, an outdoor pool fed by natural hot springs. Even though I may resist my husband’s plans sometimes, he usually comes up looking like a hero.

Thursday morning he announced that the tiny corner where the desk sat in our room was too claustrophobic for him to work in for hours on end. Just a few steps from our doorway, the hallway opened into the big lobby. At one end was a very long table with many chairs placed around it. He established himself there with his computer and water bottle and went at it. I happily ensconced myself in the little desk nook in the room and enjoyed hours of intense, productive work. In the evening we availed ourselves of the spa facilities after a late dinner. A sauna is especially helpful when one is dealing with a lot of toxins, so I was extra grateful for that luxury.

That evening I mentioned leaving the next morning, and looking surprised, Greg said no: he needed a second day on his quotes. It was then he realized that he should have booked three nights, not two. I assumed he would look after it directly, as he usually covers that end of things.

Around noon on Friday, the maid came by. She was surprised to find me still there. I told her we were staying another night. Unbeknownst to me, she immediately called the front desk to check, because this was in conflict with the information on her sheet. As she told me later, the front desk said we weren’t booked for that night and we wouldn’t be able to because they were completely full. After all, this was Friday at a ski resort, and the Christmas holidays weren’t even over yet.

Oblivious to all this, I went out to the lobby a short while later to ask Greg if he had looked after extending our reservation. He had completely forgotten again, the moment after we‘d talked about it the night before, because his mind was so focussed on his work. Oh dear. I told him I would go look after it right away.

At the front desk, I told the clerk we’d like to stay one more night. She hesitated and then said, “Give me a minute here.” She consulted with her computer for a few moments and then explained, “We were completely booked, but someone has just checked out a day early.” She did some juggling and then announced that she’d also been able to work it out such that we could stay in the room we were already in.

I went back to the big lobby to tell Greg our good fortune. He was chatting with a young female staff member who had just finished doing a craft activity at the other end of the long table with the children of some of the guests. Greg introduced me. She was just gathering up her things, and I was going to wait till she was gone, but the Lord impressed on me that she should hear this as well.

“The most amazing thing just happened,” I began, and I glanced at her as I said it so she would know that she was welcome in this conversation. I detailed the fine timing of all this, the maid coming to the door, the guest checking out a few minutes later, and my coming to the desk right on the heels of that cancellation. I didn’t mention God, but I couldn’t refrain from saying, “Hallelujah!” as I finished my story.

Greg picked it up from there. “I call it getting into the river of God,” he told her. ”You get into the flow of what He’s doing, and everything works out even when it shouldn’t.”

She smiled shyly. “Everything happens for a reason,” she said. “My old car has just broken down, and it’s not worth the money it would take to fix it. But the brakes were really bad, and I really shouldn’t have been driving it like that.” She was able to express gratitude for what was surely a great inconvenience, because she knew it could have had a much worse outcome.

I returned to the room and my writing, still astounded. I realized that if I had gone to the front desk five minutes earlier we would now be packing up and clearing out, immediately. And if I’d gone any later, the vacancy would probably have been snapped up by someone else.

An hour later I went out to get a snack and found a line-up of guests ten or fifteen parties deep, reaching from the front desk on down the hallway beside the lobby. Another hour later there were still that many people checking in. It underscored to me how fortunate we were to have a room.

In the evening we again had a nice dinner and availed ourselves of the spa facilities.

On our last morning in Fairmont, I began the day as usual with my supplement regimen. The cornerstone of my current mold protocol is a potent (and controversial) solvent, which I had packed in a little essential oil drip-cap bottle. I muscle-test this stuff for dosage every time, as it is nothing to fool around with. Almost always, my body “asks” for 30 drops. I dripped it into a mug, ten drops at a time, stopping to test before adding more. I got to 30; all good so far. I put in one more drop and found it was the last drop in the bottle; and my response to the muscle-test now indicated that it was one drop too many. How phenomenal! God had seen to it that I had sufficient for the trip, with just 0.025 ml to spare.

Regarding the two amino acids that I have been so concerned about running out of six days earlier and in search of which I had almost driven a two-hour return trip to Nelson on icy roads, I had not needed any all week and still had three or four left of each.

God had also shown His provision and forethought in a humorous particular. One morning back in Kaslo, as my husband was dressing, two extra pairs of my underwear suddenly came flying over to my side of the bed. Apparently I had been lost somewhere deep in thought the last time I folded laundry, and I had mixed some of mine in with the random stack that Greg had grabbed out his drawer when he packed.

Now it was finally time to check out and head home. We loaded up and hit the road for the long, leisurely drive, grateful to God for looking after us in every way and for giving us a really great time.

About a week after we arrived home, I was making up the bed one morning, tidying the room, and minding my own business when suddenly God opened a conversation with me.

Would you like Me to explain that strange business about the time-zone line changing between summer and winter?

I was all ears.

The important clue was when the ferryman said, “Creston doesn’t go on Daylight Saving Time.” They are on Mountain Standard Time all year long. That means in the winter they are on the same time as Alberta and eastern B.C., and in the summer they are on the same time as western B.C.

Then He showed me, more with a mental picture than with words, the explanation to this earthly mystery about time. Further research helped me sketch the approximate boundaries.

The little snippet marked by a solid line on the one side and a broken line on the other represents the cluster of communities that choose not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In the winter, the broken line is, in effect, erased and their clocks match those of everyone else on Mountain Time. But in summertime, when most of Alberta and B.C. go on DST, the broken line becomes the boundary and the clocks in the small segment match those in western B.C. So for us, travelling in winter, the time zone changed as soon as we drove onto the Kootenay Bay ferry. If we had come through in summer, it would have changed at Yahk, the eastern-most part of the snippet.

So this is, as it says in Ephesians 3:3, KJV, “how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.”

Contending for the Contract

Sometimes we have to fight for what God wants to give us.

Greg was quoting a grain-drying and ‑handling system for a prospective client. It had been a wet fall again, and dryers were in hot demand as more and more farmers realized that this purchase was the best insurance they could buy against unpredictable weather. It was December 2017 when he began general arrangement AutoCAD drawings in order to do an accurate quote. Over the next two months, as he continued to draw and consult with the client, new ideas took shape between the two of them and the design evolved progressively.

The client needed two “wet bins” side by side in a north-south orientation (which would receive the wet grain off the field before it was conveyed into the new dryer) and a cooling bin directly on the east side of the first wet bin (which would receive the hot, dry grain out of the dryer). In order to move grain from anywhere and to anywhere else in the system (to dry it, cool it, store it, blend it, and ship it out, an 85-foot conveyor had to run east and west directly under the first wet bin and the cooling bin and then ultimately (in a future phase of the project), a 230-foot, north-south conveyor would run perpendicular to the first conveyor, directly underneath the two new wet bins.

The client wanted 27-foot diameter hopper-bottom bins to obtain a certain capacity, so this was the size and type of bin Greg was working with in his drawing. There are 18 legs on a 27-foot diameter hopper. (The hopper is a cone shaped bottom on the bin that allows the grain to be efficiently discharged out the bottom into a conveyor.) He oriented the hopper legs on the cooling bin and the first wet bin so the east-west conveyor would nicely pass through. And then he suddenly saw that, because 18 is not divisible by 4, the perpendicular north-south conveyor in the future phase would run smack into one leg on each side of the two wet bins.

He informed the farmer that 27-foot diameter bins would not work, changed the bins in the drawing to 24-foot diameter, added a few tiers to each bin to bring the capacity back to the farmer’s specs, and increased the height of the bucket elevator to accommodate the taller bins.

The weeks went by with more changes and modifications, and with Greg putting in dozens of hours carefully reworking and redesigning. Meanwhile, there was another company vying for the project. And in all the time their salesman had spent so far with the client, there had not yet been a drawing produced or a design thought through.

It often happens in a situation like this that the supplier simply determines what equipment the client wants. Once they secure the contract, they drop all the equipment on site and hire an installation contractor to figure out how to put it all together to meet the client’s needs.

My husband has seen a lot of difficulties arise from this approach to sales. It’s all right with a simple job, but this was a complex system. A case in point: if Greg had not caught the problem with the 27-foot diameter bins and informed the farmer, and then if the competitor got the contract, it’s easy to imagine what could happen. The contractor doing the building would discover, too late, that the second conveyor wouldn’t fit. Whose problem is it then, when no one has taken responsibility for the whole job from design to completion? The client has to settle for whatever jury-rigged adaption the builders can come up with; it ends up costing more and being a huge and frustrating disappointment. And who shoulders the extra cost? The client? The supplier? The subcontractor? These things end up in court, and nobody is happy in the end.

The time came for the client to make his decision. Greg’s quote had come in at $980,000. The farmer called him to say that the competitor had come in at $900,000. Greg was almost 10 percent higher. The client would really like to go with him. Was there any give on that figure?

Greg had over a hundred hours invested in the design, and he was keen about the project. He was briefly tempted to try to cut some corners, but he’s been around this business long enough to know that any cuts can only come directly out of his margin and that he would be quickly putting himself in the position where he’s working for nothing. He charges a fair price, is open with his clients about his margins, and will do the job right even if he runs out of money before it’s finished. By taking the time ahead to work through the details, Greg had come to a legitimate and realistic idea of the true cost. He knew he had to stick to his guns.

We usually just shrug and say, “Win some, lose some,” but we went to bed that night with heavy hearts. “It’s not just about getting the job,” Greg said. “I want the guy to get what he needs. This was a beautiful system. It’s a good design.”

I awoke at 1:00 a.m., wide awake, with a deep burden pulling me to pray. Not knowing how I “ought to pray,”¹ I began to pray, very quietly so as not to disturb Greg, “in the Spirit,”² “in the tongues of men and of angels,”³ interceding “according to the will of God”⁴ “with groanings that cannot be [articulated].”⁵

As I prayed, I thought of a job Greg had quoted the previous spring for a large corporation. He failed to get it because, again, he was 10 percent higher than the competition. Another major factor was that the client insisted the terminal be ready to receive grain by the end of September. Greg maintained that it couldn’t be done in that time frame: he would need two more months to complete it. The competition, however, assured them they could pull it off, and they were awarded the contract. The following spring the job still was not completed. The whole project became an absolute nightmare for everyone involved. Oh God, please don’t let that happen to this client!

I was still praying an hour later when Greg woke up. We talked and prayed together for 3 or 4 more hours. We prayed that if the competition could best serve the client, that things stay as they were. We told God that if He didn’t want us to have this job, we didn’t want it either. We reminded ourselves aloud that God is the One who knows the end from the beginning; we cannot foresee ultimate outcomes. We submitted all this to God.

Finally at about 6:00 a.m., I went back to sleep and Greg got up and drove to town to talk it over with our son Lindsay. The pervading feeling overall, from the night of prayer and the discussion with Lindsay, was that God wanted Greg to contend for the job—for both his and the client’s sake.

On the way back from town, Greg placed a call to a man in upper management of a commodities group for whom Greg’s company, Western General, had recently completed a big commercial job. This man—I’ll call him Lance—had been Greg’s main contact for that job, and he had been very pleased with what Greg and his crew had done. Once he got Lance on the phone, Greg briefly described the situation and asked if our client could call Lance as a reference; also asked if he (Greg) could tour the client through the plant Western General had built. Lance graciously assented on both counts.

Now Greg put in a call to the client: would he give this man Lance a call, and would he drive an hour and a half to meet with Greg and tour through this plant? This client is a very busy man with a large and successful business in addition to his farm, frequently flying here and there. That morning, it turned out he was supposed to be catching a flight somewhere within a few hours. With a tinge of exasperation, he acquiesced: told Greg he would phone Lance, postpone his flight by 24 hours, and meet Greg at the plant a couple of hours hence.

When they met, the first thing Greg said was, “I don’t like to blow my own horn, but it’s the only way I can show you where the value is in what we do.” Then they went through the plant, phase by phase, beginning with the building that housed the seed-cleaning part of the operation. Greg explained how Lance’s company had got the engineer to just rough out some general arrangement drawings because they felt it wasn’t in the budget to do detailed blueprints at that point. As Greg quoted the job, he took those drawings and pored over them during a period of six weeks, drawing out every detail. He came face to face with a glaring problem: with the height at which the engineer had designed the building, the downspouts through which gravity would carry the product into the machines were not at a sufficiently steep angle for the grain to flow. He would have to add four feet to the height of the building to make it work. “It would have been a disaster if I hadn’t caught that,” he said to the client.

He had told this man earlier in the process, during a visit to the site, “God helps me. I depend on Him, and He makes things work out even when they shouldn’t.” He summed up by saying, “He has our backs.”

This kind of talk often makes people a little uncomfortable, but sometimes Greg feels compelled to point to the One to Whom so much credit is due. Now, as he and the client continued touring through the plant, piece by piece, Greg pointed out things that could have gone wrong but were discovered in time, changed or adapted, and brought into the flow of an overall better system.

When you think about it, that’s a paraphrase of Romans 8:28: “God works everything together for good for those that love Him.”

Well, the client liked what he saw and heard, and he awarded the contract to Greg. It was a tremendous victory, a large part of which was in the spiritual realm, where we had fought the real battle. I wanted to tell the story right away, but we’ve seen enough jobs go badly and end up being a curse rather than a blessing. I would wait until the job was successfully completed. As I said above, God knows the end from the beginning; we, on the other hand, would have to wait till the end before we knew for sure that it was good to get the job.

In the end, the project came together extremely well, and the client was very pleased. Our son Ben, working in the administrative side of the business, targeted that site to film for a 90-second promotional video on YouTube. I am providing a link here for those of you who have always wondered what exactly it is that my husband does. In it you will see our other son, Lindsay, who is our site manager, jumping off the skid-steer and striding here and there around the site. And although you won’t actually see Ben, you will “see” and "hear" him through the videography and the original music score he wrote and orchestrated for the video. To God be the glory.

1. Romans 8:26a

2. 1 Corinthians 14:2

3. 1 Corinthians 13:1

4. Romans 8:27

5. Romans 8:26b

Don’t LET Your Heart Be Troubled

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 
(John 14:27, KJV)

The first time I really took in this scripture was when my friend Mike Hartley died in 1981. I received a phone call one evening saying that he had been killed in a motorcycle accident. When I went to bed a few hours later, my heart was torn up with pain. I needed God’s comfort so badly, and I needed His Word. I opened up my King James Bible and found myself at John Chapter 14. As I slowly read through the chapter, I came to this verse, and through it the peace of God came to me.

The interesting thing was that my soul—my mind and emotions—were still torn up but my spirit was full of a deep and powerful peace; and that peace took dominion over the grief in my soul. The grief was still there, but it could not carry me away because now I was being carried by God’s Spirit through my own spirit. I thought of the words then in Hebrews 4:12, where God says that His Word divides asunder soul and spirit, meaning that it separates and discerns between the two. It was the first time I ever saw, ever experienced, the distinct difference between my soul and my spirit. Because those two entities in me were experiencing two totally different emotions, I saw how they were distinct from one another.

The other morning, reading in the Amplified Bible (Classic), I came across this verse again. Some new things about it struck me, especially in this expanded translation.

Read it thoughtfully:

Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]

Jesus begins by telling us that He is leaving His peace with us. He explains that it is His very own peace and that He’s not just giving it to us, He is bequeathing it to us. A bequest speaks of what is left to us in a will when someone dies, and Jesus spoke these words immediately before His arrest and crucifixion. His peace is part of our inheritance, an eternal provision. He doesn’t give it to us the way the world often gives, giving only to take away again; He leaves it with us forever.

Whenever we discover that we do not have peace, we need to notice and then stir ourselves up to get it back. It belongs to us, but sometimes when we are not paying attention, it gets stolen from us. It is the thief, John 10:10 tells us, Satan, who comes to steal (and to kill and destroy). When we apprehend him and expose his crime, if we know our spiritual rights, we will command that he return double what he has taken (Ex. 22:4, 7). This means that when we contend to get our peace back, we should find that in the end we have a lot more peace than we did before the theft occurred.

Anxiety creeps up on us just like a thief and tries to steal away our peace. If anxiety comes upon us when circumstances take an adverse turn, it means that normally our peace is based on our circumstances and not on who God is and what He says.

Jesus says not to let our heart be troubled or afraid. This means that we have the power, the authority, to command our hearts in this matter. This command must originate in our spirit, which is filled with and directed by God’s Spirit. We must learn to keep the powers of our soul—mind, will, and emotions—under the direction of our spirit, which in turn is submitted to God.

We might even have to address our soul aloud and say, “Mind, emotions, do not be afraid. Will, I order you to set yourself against this unrest. I command you, soul: do not be troubled.” We must cut off and expel all fearful thoughts and emotions. Paraphrasing 2 Cor. 10:5, we must cast down every thought and emotion that lifts itself up above what we know to be true of God, bringing every one of them captive into submission to Christ.

Just as it is inappropriate for a child to be calling the shots with its parents, it is a disruption of God’s order for the soul to exert dominion over the spirit. The mind, will, and emotions can be like undisciplined children, bent on their own way, refusing to submit, and being “wise in their own eyes” (Proverbs 3:7, KJV). These unruly children might say, “I think I should be worried right now, and so I am going to worry.” But we must stop allowing ourselves to be agitated and disturbed; we must not permit ourselves to be unsettled.

The only way to precipitate this momentous shift in our thoughts and emotions is to get alone with God and transact with Him along these lines, agreeing with His Word, and bringing every essentially blasphemous imagination into obedience to Christ.

Sometimes when something is stolen from us, it seems too much trouble to go to the authorities and try to apprehend the thief. Whether or not it is worth it to us will depend on how valuable the thing is that we have lost. I don’t know about you, but I count the peace of God as one of my most valuable possessions.

Road Rage Resolves Righteously

It wasn’t until it was all over that I realized I wouldn’t normally even be taking that route through town. Heading for the Farmers’ Market to get my weekly vegetables, on the outskirts of town a random thought came to me: I shouldn’t take the usual way, past all the schools, stop signs, and 30 kph zones. It seemed to be an impression from the Spirit of God.

“Which way shall I go, Lord?” I asked aloud. An alternate route implanted itself in my mind. Well, I thought, there are a couple of stop lights that way, but maybe I’ll get lucky and catch them on green.

The first light was red when it came into view, but it changed before I got to it. The other one, just up ahead, was red also, but it, too, changed as I approached. Thank You, Lord! A vehicle up ahead was entering the intersection from my right, turning right on red. This was bringing him into my lane, but there was lots of leeway for that to happen safely. But as I came into the intersection, I realized that he had pulled over to the curb immediately after completing his turn and had come to a full stop. I wondered what he was doing.

Slow right down, came a prompting in my spirit. You have no idea what he might do. I dropped my speed from 50 kph down to 25 or 30. Then I noticed that his left signal light was on. Ah, I thought, he probably wants to turn across both lanes into the business on the opposite corner, as soon as I get past him.

Just as I was coming up alongside him, he turned left suddenly, right across my path. I jammed on the brakes and leaned on my horn, which caused him to hit the brakes as well. He jolted to a stop, broadside just a few feet in front of me. 

 His window was open; mine was closed, but I still had no trouble hearing what he hollered. “I had my ------- signal on!” he roared, using an f-bomb as a descriptive adjective. Then he gunned his engine and lurched across the other lane and into the parking lot of the business.

I was furious. That he would blast a woman in such a vulgar way, especially when he was in the wrong—well, it made me see red. I glanced at the clock on my dash. I could still get to the market before they closed, even if I stopped to straighten him out. No way was I going to leave him muttering self-righteously under his breath about women drivers. It would only take a minute. Checking carefully in both directions first, as I knew I was not really seeing clearly, I turned hard to the left and followed him across the other lane and into the parking lot. I yanked my keys from the ignition. Realizing how out of control my anger was, I paused long enough to say a quick prayer: “Help me, Lord!”

Wrapped up in that Help me! was a whole string of split-second thoughts. I submit to You, God. Don’t let me say or do anything to discredit You. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. The wrath of mankind does not produce the righteousness of God. Be angry, but don’t sin. Lord, put a guard over my mouth. I will bless those that curse me. (James 4:7; Romans 2:24; Psalm 19:14; James 1:20; Ephesians 4:26; Psalm 141:3; Matthew 5:44)

And then as I leapt out of my car and strode over to him, the confrontation unfolded with no conscious forethought on my part.

“Did I do something wrong there?” I challenged him furiously. My, my, I really am angry!

“I had my signal light on!” he roared back.

“I had the right of way,” I retaliated firmly.

“I was turning, and the light turned green,” he said. I didn’t know what he was getting at.

“Yes, the light had turned green. I had the right of way,” I repeated. “I just thank God that I had cut my speed by half before you cut in front of me.”

“I’m glad we didn’t have an accident,” he said, de-escalating a little. Maybe he realized suddenly that if I had been doing the speed limit, my radiator would right now be parked in his lap.

“I’m glad too,” I said. My voice was no softer, but I really was grateful that we had been spared bodily injury and vehicular damage.

“I’m sorry for being such a hothead,” he offered.

“I forgive you,” I said. I found myself extending my hand to shake his; he met me halfway. I heard myself say, “God bless you.” I said it sincerely, feeling God’s blessing moving through me as I spoke.

“God bless you too,” he said, his handshake firm.

I turned back toward my car.

“Have a good day,” he called after me.

I turned briefly over my shoulder. “You too,” I said.

 As I drove away, I was still so full of adrenaline from the close call and from my anger that I was shaking. I phoned Greg and interrupted his business and his busyness so that I could debrief a little. It was an ironic coincidence that just a night or two before, Greg had told me of witnessing something similar in a parking lot. Two drivers, a man and a woman, unsure of who was turning where, both had to jolt to a sudden stop. The man let loose a mouthful of obscenities at the woman, more vile than what I had just heard. Greg was so utterly stunned by the aggression and crudity that, although he thought about intervening, he couldn't get his thoughts together before both cars had gone on their separate ways. Perhaps that was one of the things that had fuelled my determination not to drive quietly away.

It took me only a few minutes to get my things at the market, and then I drove home. Now I found myself close to tears. I felt God’s nearness. That’s when I remembered how I had taken a different route than usual. I remembered how I had felt God’s nearness when each of those lights turned green. It reinforced in my heart that He was also very present in that near-accident and the confrontation that followed. He knew this was going to happen.

I was grateful that the Lord had been able to direct me, even through my anger, helping me to speak words that resisted the blame-shifting and vulgarity but that extended grace at the same time. 

And I was amazed at the warmth and sincerity that had descended on that man and me by the end of our exchange. Maybe he will continue to think about our encounter. I know I will.

Photo Credit: Thanks to an unknown photographer for this perfect pictorial expression of the incident. I found it online and could find nothing about it except that it “may be subject to copyright.”