TheWritePath

         My heart was grieving as the images of those who remained filled my thoughts, as if in a visual picture before me. I could see the terror in their eyes, feel the hopelessness all around me, and sensed the utter state of confusion of those left behind. For then if seemed to be a state of denial and extreme sadness; they knew in their heart that they had waited too long.    Then a coldness came over me even greater than before as the scripture from Matthew 7 came to mind,”Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven, Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declar to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”  (verses 21-23, NKJV). I could visualize a church filled with those who had been deceived into believing...

         THERE IS A TIME IN all our lives when reality becomes so great it is almost more than we can bear. For me, this was such a night. I had been awakened from a dream that was so real I found myself standing at the side of the bed crying as I looked down at my husband. Cold chills came over me as I stood there, for a moment unable to move. I went to check on the boys, they were sleeping soundly. Puzzled, I went downstairs to try and sort out what I had just experienced.    In the dream, I was awakened by a loud sound, and our room was instantly filled with a soft but brilliant Rose-colored glow. My spirit was quickened, and I knew I had heard the trumpet of God calling me home. As I stood up, I said good-bye to my husband. That’s when I realized I was stand beside the bed crying!     Still trembling, as if I was cold, I sat down in my chair and held my Bible close to me. My heart was pounding!  I sat there in the darkness until...

   When we look at the lives of these three men, we see one thing in common; their lives were directed by circumstances outside their control, and yet through the power of God, they overcame them. You and I are no different, Romans 8:28 (NIV) states, “We know that all things work together for good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” God looks beyond our circumstances and whispers in our ear, “For I know the plans I have for you . . . Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)  You see God look beyond who we are to who we are becoming in Christ. Even in life’s difficulties we can know  that He is working on our behalf to fulfill His purpose in our lives. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV) states it this way, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.” We may not always understan...

     When we look at the life of Moses, we see a man whose life began with a verdict of death at the hands of the same Pharaoh who would one day raise him as his own. After being placed in the Nile by his sister to save his life from Pharaoh’s decree having all Hebrew males to be killed at birth. Moses was then saved by the Pharaohs daughter and raised as a prince of Egypt, having access to the honest education, unspeakable wealth, and a position of authority. Yet with one violent of compassion, when a Hebrew slave was being beaten, he was branded a murderer, was forced to flee to the land of Midian. Moses’s heart of compassion surface once again as he defended a young shepherd girl who had gone to draw water for her father’s flock at the community, and as result, found favor with her father, Jethro. Over the next forty years, as Moses served as a shepherd, the Lord was transforming an Egyptian prince into a man of God. One day while tending the sheep, Moses was drawn to ...

         FOR SEVERAL DAYS, I HAVE been pondering on the lessons I learned from one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read, Hinds’ Feet on High Places  by Hannah Hurnard. It is a wonderfully written allegory about a woman named Much-Afraid and her journey to the High Places, where perfect love cast out all fear. I found myself on every page and surprisingly began to understand my own Christian walk with new insight. There was one part of special interest to me concerning the lessons discovered in the alphabet of love. On her journey, she encounters two flowers of great importance. The first growing in the desert was named Acceptance-with-Joy, and the second was found growing on a cliff out of a crevice in the rock named Bearing-the-Cost. Both flowers accepted their fate in life with grace, determined to let love prevail in their lives.     All of us have had things happen in our lives that have resulted in our having to bear the cost fro...

     Change is a hard thing for some of us to accept, but if we are to be Christ like, then we must deal with the heart  issues of our life. Scripture tells us that it is the center of our moral and spiritual life. When I teach, I like to use objects lessons to reinforce what I am saying. One of those lessons is taken from Ezekiel chapter eleven. In this object lesson I use a gray-ish-colored cut stone, that looks something like a large piece of gravel. There is nothing beautiful about it, as a matter of fact it’s quite ugly, that is until you look inside. Then the true beauty of the stone is revealed of pearl used soft pink quarts, verses 19-20 (NKJV) says, “I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh.” In the Bible man’s conscience is associated with his heart because in the Hebrew language  there isn’t a word to express this concept. We are instructed in Proverbs 4:23 to “keep your heart wit...

       It wasn't long until I felt the heat of the melting pot once again, as I was reminded of how others scrutinized our actions as Christians, so I went to the Word of God for direction. The Holy Spirit leading me to 1 Timothy and began to read, I was stopped at 4:12, “Be an example to the believer in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” (NKJV). A word search on conduct and  life , did you know these two words are related to the word conversation?  God gave us His written Word as a blueprint for living, stating in James 1:22 we are told to be doers of His word and not just hears only for when we do, we deceive ourselves. Verse 26 (NKJV) states, “If anyone amount among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceived his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.” An empty religion will betray itself in the way we present ourselves to others. They will not be easily fooled by religious sounding words and a sel...

                 AS WE GO THROUGH THE day-to-day activities of our lives, God will often use them to teach us about Himself and how active He is in our lives. I have read many times in the Bible how God is like a refiner's fire, but the impact of this scripture never really became clear until I stood over the melting pot.     It was midsummer and my husband was doing some cleaning up in his shop. I had other things I wanted to do so I ask him if there was anything I could to help in hopes of hurting this project along. He asked me to meltdown some scrap lead and mold it into bars. I thought that would be easy enough, so I settled down to the task at hand. It was hot, dirty and I had to wear these long heavy gloves, not to mention the smell, and after a short amount of time, I was sorry I had asked him. Becoming bored with the job he had given me to do, I began to grumble under my breath and asked the Lord to get me out of this mess!...

    Before I knew it, the morning glow was of the sunrise filled the room, replacing the soft glow of the candlelight. I had fallen asleep sometime in the night. I am not sure when, but it seemed as if my dreams took over where my thoughts ended. Even though I had spent hours in deep thought, I felt refreshed and renewed. A reflection is a mirrored image, and I knew if I could somehow look into my heart, I would have seen the Lord for I had truly been in His presence.  I give God all the glory for what He had done in my life, and I look forward to the future He had planned for me with a renewed hope and anticipation.    When a piece of pottery is made or "thrown," the potter will only work on it a few hours a day, then the greenware, the name given to pottery in this stage, is cut free from the wheel and placed on a shelf to dry until it reaches a leather-like hardness; this stage is called maturing. The pottery will remain on the shelf until it reaches a bone-d...

     I went into the library to look up the Hebrew word for marred. Tears streamed down my face as I stared at the definition, it meant, "ruined." Unable to stop crying I went back into the bedroom and sat on the bed with my hands covering my face, had my life been so severely ruined that the Lord had no further use of me? Then through tear-filled eyes, I looked once again at the piece of pottery. It was even more beautiful than before! My tears had caused rays of light to twinkle across the room in a rainbow effect, and I could almost feel His gentle touch wiping them from my cheeks. He was the only one who could put my life back together. "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11, NKJV). It was then that I realized that without the brokenness of my life, just as this piece of pottery, how could have His light shown through?    As I sat there just startin...

      WHILE MY HUSBAND WAS AWAY on a hunting trip, I decided to tackle the dreaded chore of cleaning out the closets. It was getting late, but I just had one to go and was determined to get it finished before calling it a day. As I was sorting out a few things, I came across an old piece of pottery that at the time I could not bring myself to throw away, so I had put it on the back shelf and forgot about it. It wasn't expensive. It wasn't even a keepsake. But when I first saw it many years ago, it took my eye, and even now, to me, it was still beautiful. I didn't care that it was broken and pieces back together again, or that even had some pieces missing. I didn't even mind if it seemed to have no useful purpose anymore. I just liked it. After admiring it for a while, I sat it d. own on the dresser and continued my cleaning. When I finished, I had two piles, one for the Salvation Army and another to be thrown away. As I look around to see if I had forgotten anything, th...