The Fact that HE is There – Solitude and Silence - Purity 1184

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning! Today's photo of the sun and blue sky over the rivulet of a mountain stream in a Catskill Mountain autumn forest comes to us from Natasha Voisy, who captured the scene somewhere along the Pine Hill-West Branch Trail as she made the ascent up Big Indian and Fir Mountain yesterday. An avid enthusiast of exploring the Catskills who has put on a whopping 20 miles on her new boots with her last two hikes, Natasha took advantage of the pleasant weather in upstate New York, uh, and, and unknowingly took my advice to seize the day yesterday by spending the day going up and down the mountain. Her social media post confessed that her hike had its mental and physical challenges, but overall She was energized and thankful for the experience. Well, it's Saturday, and while I have had some limited experience hiking in the Catskills— one fire tower to be exact— I prefer a more level playing field for my hikes. I enjoy the silence and solitude aspect of going into the great outdoors and don't necessarily need to go huffing and puffing up a mountain to get that. Not that I can't or won't do hilly or mountain hikes, it's just that I don't I don't have to go too deep into the wilderness to enjoy the fact that I'm in the middle of nowhere and it's quiet, beautiful, and let's face it, dangerous. Natasha's post, uh, also testified about her gratefulness for the AllTrails app to keep her on the right path because she could easily imagine going off course and getting lost if she had to just rely on her sense of direction or a compass. As much as I like to commune with God and nature, I have no desire to make the news as "Lost man rescued by forest rangers" or "Lost man found dead." Uh, no, the only story I want to be told about me is "Lost man saved by Jesus and made alive by the Holy Spirit." But I do recommend making regular trips to nature areas to appreciate the silence and solitude that you can find there. It's good to go out and experience God's creation and and to rest in its peace. As for me, I can find that peace right outside my front door here at my countryside home. Our canine friend Harley thrives when we take him for quote-unquote hikes up and down an off-white road, and I am thankful for having to, having to walk the dog during our strolls. I have often confessed to Harley that um, let's see, that I'm— that I'm thankful for his desires to go out, uh, because although I would like to think I would still go on my own, I don't know if I would or if I would do so quite as often. I don't know if we have trained Harley or Harley has trained me, but when I am at Countryside, he constantly comes to me and communicates his desire to go out and explodes in enthusiastic barking when I suggest we go for a W-A-L-K. You have to be careful what you say around here, uh, because if he hears that word, he gets triggered to go. Uh, speaking of triggered, my day at work yesterday was a mix of peace, frustration, and ultimate joy as I cycled through a whole continuum of emotions as the day started off well, then was interrupted by some unbelievable blunders on my part. Followed by a full return to joy as I reminded myself that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, my mantra, and I was able to rise above, move past, and correct my mistakes by the, by the workday's end. I won't go into details of the ins and outs of my blunders, but as I encountered them, I was both ashamed of the fact that I could not only continue to make similar mistakes I've made in the past, but they also seem to periodically fail in new ways, uh, ways you would think would be next to impossible. Uh, let's just say exclamations like "really?" and "again?" and "I can't believe that I forgot that." Uh, "are you kidding me?" would have been appropriate— appropriately used if I didn't actually say or think those phrases verbatim. Um, but after the initial shock of the blunders and the resolution— or the resolution of the problems I created— I was able to remind myself that I am not perfect, that everyone makes mistakes, and most importantly, I am completely accepted and loved by God regardless of my performance. Thank God. So what turned into a frustrating day at work was magically transformed as I overcame the challenges I faced. Okay, maybe I created them too, but they were overcome, and I focused on who I am in Christ and the good, good Father I have in God. Also, the day was unseasonably pleasant yesterday, and as I closed out my work day, I was rejoicing over the beauty and wonder of God's creation and the life he has given me. After reaching, uh, Countryside and having dinner with my beloved wife Tammy Lynn, who's Mere presence fills me with joy. I took Harley for an extended stroll down an off-the-beaten road where I just fell into the present moment of a late afternoon, early dusk wonderland of God's creation, stillness, and awe and wonder. Um, after reaching our normal turnaround point, um, which is marked by a dirt road, dirt and gravel road that goes beyond for at least half a mile into the plains and farmland. Because of the beauty of the late sunset sky, I invited Harley to keep going and went down to the dead end where I discovered that the cornfields had been harvested. As I walked down that long stretch of road, a group of Canadian geese flew back and forth in formation before heading west, uh, east into a magnificent full moon. As I looked around, I realized that I was between the fading light of day on my west and a full moon rising towards the east, and all was well in the world. It was a magnificent moment in the solitude and silence of the presence of the Lord and, and in his creation. And I thank God, um, I thanked him for my life. Um, so as we go into today, I invite you to go find God in the silence and solitude of nature. You do not necessarily need to go up a mountain to find Him because He is always with us no matter where we go. And I think all we have to do to experience His presence is to appreciate what He has done, what He has made, or just the fact that He is there. Just the fact that we know we are His and that He is there is enough to give us peace. So keep walking and talking with God. And appreciate your life with him. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verse comes to us from the section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. Um, then today's verse is Proverbs 10:18, and the word of God says, um, let's see, from the English Standard Version: The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utter slander is a fool. Today's verses fall under the 13th point of our Counseling Reference Guides resource section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. And that 13th point is: To conceal or harbor hatred in your heart is lying before the face of God. Today's verse shows us that God knows what we are thinking, doesn't fool when we try to cover up our emotions, and chastises us for speaking ill of others. God knows the intentions of our hearts, and when we try to conceal our hatred, the Word of God tells us that we won't get away with it, and in essence, our façade is akin to lying to the face of God. Now, I suppose this could cause a bit of concern for us. Well, what am I supposed to do with my hate if I can't conceal it? Express it? Tell people how I really feel? Let them know that I hate their guts? I suppose you could do that, but I get the impression that God doesn't want us to be self-righteous or angry Christians who spew forth hate and bitterness. Jesus directs us to love others, not hate them, and based on today's scriptures, I— it's not okay to just conceal our hatred. It's lying to God. So instead of concealing our hatred or expressing it, we should seek to resolve it by offering forgiveness to those who have offended us or by seeing our enemies according to God's perspective—as ignorant sinners who desperately need the love of God and knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ. So, don't conceal your hatred, resolve it in God's way, and learn to love others as He commanded. As always, I invite all to go to M.tforChrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue hearing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and we continue in chapter 32, Honoring the Spirit. And today's section, we've broken up into two parts, which we'll do today and tomorrow. But the section we're, we're doing is Worshiping the Spirit Directly, part 1 of 2. So if you want to know how to worship the Spirit Spirit directly, go to A.W. Pink's, uh, excerpt at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship where you continuously walk and live in the Spirit. And, uh, you know, as my testimony affirms, when we do that, we can overcome our frustrations as we focus on who we are in Christ and the goodness of God who's with us everywhere we go. Yeah, made some big mistakes, and I know I said I won't go into details, but now we're in the off, off the blog portion of the podcast, and basically I forgot my laptop and I had to go run back to my home to retrieve it before coming up here at the countryside, and that was a big blunder. I mean, how do you forget that? Other than that, made a big mistake and I left my strobes on in my van and basically killed the battery. So I had to call my foreman, a foreman, to come out and jump start the van so I can continue working. That's understandable, but I'd done that previously, like just a few weeks ago. So to have done that again, you know, in retrospect, those things aren't big, you know, anything anything to get upset about really. But in the moment, oh my goodness, such condemnation for myself, you know, stupid, how can you forget your laptop? And then, oh my God, you idiot, you left the strobes on again, you know. So this is, you know, so I didn't say that though. I mean, I don't think I called myself an idiot, but yeah, basically the inner condemnation was enough. Anyway, I got over it. Because, you know, after you confess your mistakes, after you call the foreman and he jumpstarts your thing, the problem's over. And as for the laptop, I retrieved it. And so we took care of it. You know, you can fix the problems you make sometimes, and when you can, that's great. And, you know, and then when you reflect on the beauty of the day and the fact that you're alive and well, and, you know, there's not too much else going on, you know, that you can find peace in the present moment even if you had big things going on in your life, big problems. That's where we find— we find peace moment in the present moment, right? You know, we can't find it in the past. I mean, we can reflect in the present moment on the past, um, you know, something God's done or something we've enjoyed, to find peace right now. Or we can think about something we're going to do in the future to give us a moment's peace, but the peace we find is right now. It's not yesterday and it's not tomorrow. It's right here. So if we're upset right now, you know, we can use our mind and our, and, you know, reflecting on God and who we are in Christ to find this peace right now. You know, we're going to have to face trials and we're going to have to face you know, limitations and problems that we've created for ourselves from the past. But we're gonna have to take everything right now, and all we can do is what we can do right now. And, you know, we can move in the right direction right now. So right now, I think I'll pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we We thank you, um, for the peace you give us right now, and we, we thank you for being with us everywhere we go. Lord, we pray for our friends who might be listening or reading today's message. We just pray for you to come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, and that you would reveal yourself to them, that they would know that you're right there, right there with them. Um, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today, um, open our eyes to the things you want us to see and move our steps in the way we should go. Because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom and live in your peace. Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today, and we thank you for never leaving us or forsaking us and filling our hearts with joy when we realize that we are yours and you are always with us. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.