Huckabee on creation

Fighting for our wives

As Natalie and I walk through these difficult times with our children we have become increasingly aware of the evil ones schemes to use these times to disrupt and divide our oneness though marriage.

The conflict we both feel inside had started to move towards conflict toward each other. Because and only because we had determined and set our minds to stay together in prayer and reading the word, God allowed us to see vivid pictures of what Satan was trying to do and what that might look like if we allowed him to succeed.

So instead of focusing on how our children’s choices were affecting each one differently, we choose to commit the other to God in prayer, every day, all day. The following are some of the short prayers that I pray for Natalie that would apply to any man for his own wife. I am not only encouraging you to pray them for your wife, I am imploring you to pray for her.

Even though we, Christ-ones, win, we still have to fight the battles.


· Pray that you will be the kind of person God wants you to be so you can be the best husband possible for your wife. Ask God to show you how to fully love your wife, and how to pray for her in all situations.

· Pray that your wife will walk closely with Christ, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and be able to discern God’s will and follow it.

· Pray that God will give you insight into your wife’s emotions, and that she would enjoy stability and peace.

· Pray that God will enable your wife to be the best mother she can be, that her children will respond well to her.

· Pray that you wife will fee comfortable communicating with you, no matter what her mood, and that you will be able to help he stay calm and rely on God’s grace when she doesn’t feel right.

· Pray that God will continually strengthen all aspects of your marriage. Protect if from destruction, and grow love between you.

· Pray that your wife will respect and trust you as a spiritual leader, and that you will be completely submitted to God so you can effectively serve as a spiritual leader.

· Pray that your wife will enjoy close friendships with other Christian women, get along well with family members, and will be able to forgive people who have hurt her.

· Pray that God will give your wife the wisdom she needs to discern how she should set her priorities, and the grace to spend her time accordingly.

· Pray that God will give your wife confidence that she is beautiful in His sight and yours, and that He will help her value herself and take care of her body.

· Pray that you and your wife will enjoy a mutually fulfilling sexual relationship.

· Pray that your wife will recognize God’s purpose for her life, and be able to live it out as she uses her gifts.

· Pray that your wife will completely trust God, trust you as her husband, and be trustworthy herself.

· Pray that God will protect your wife - physically, mentally and spiritually - wherever she goes.

· Pray that your wife will know which dreams God wants her to pursue, and that you will be able to help her pursue them.

· Pray that your wife will bring glory to God through her work, that her work will fulfill her, and that others will respond well to it.

Humor is good!

Some will understand now, to others, it's coming!

I want to be vitrified!

I want to be vitrified. Not familiar with that word? Neither was I until I talked to my friend Bill the potter. Vitrified is a pottery term meaning “water tight”. When a pot is under fired it is not completely watertight and can leak or seep.

This is how I am feeling right now. As a father I desperately want to give my daughter everything she has dreamed about. Yet as a Christian who has desires to live an uncompromised life of truth, I don’t know if I can give her away to someone who is not a Christian and at this point in his life does not really want anything to do with God. I have some peace about going to the wedding to support my daughter because she’s my daughter not because I approve of what she is doing. But the action of walking her down the isle and giving her away communicates that I’m ok with this and I’m not ok with it. Some may see the conflict and others can’t see the big deal.

The conflict I feel with in me has begun to seep into all other areas of my life. The way I respond to my wife, how I feel about my own failures, my desire to continue to do the next right thing, work, sleep, and on and on. It’s is a constant battle to “take every thought captive” when every thought is fighting back.

So what am I doing about this? The hardest thing I know I can do, asking God to re-fire me. One thing about a pot not being vitrified is that it can be re-fired; it can’t be at a lower temperature, it has to be a higher temperature. But first everything has to be poured out. And this is what I am trying to do, pour everything out.

I don’t pretend to have the answers or even begin to understand. What I do know is this, I cannot do it on my own, and I need God to re-fire me. I don’t know how many re-firings it will take but I’m tired of leaking all over everything.

Free will - Mine or Theirs?

God gave free will for a purpose and intended it to be used.

So why does it surprise us when others choose to use that free will?

Is it the how and to what purpose?

Or is it because it’s not our will?

And to what end?

Not So Convenient Christianity

It’s not convenient to get up early every day to pray.
It’s not convenient to tithe consistently.
It’s not convenient to join with other Christians every week to worship.
It’s not convenient to watch what is honoring to God.
It’s not convenient to hold my tongue.
It’s not convenient to think the best of others, no matter what.
It’s not convenient to live with integrity when no one is looking.
It’s not convenient to let my “yes be yes and my no be no”.
It’s not convenient to take every thought captive.
It’s not convenient to live in truth when your kids aren’t.
It’s not convenient to love unconditionally when love hurts.
It’s not convenient to praise God when hope seems deferred.
It’s not convenient to live an authentic Christian life.

Convenient Christianity - Part II

What if the conversation between God and Jesus went something like this?

~ “Jesus when you have some free time on your hands I would like you to go down to earth and die for everyone, but only when you have time and it’s convenient for you. There’s no rush and I wouldn’t want you to inconvenience yourself. You can do it whenever you feel most comfortable and it doesn’t matter what my plan is you can do what makes you feel good.” ~

Why have we allowed the world to tells us that living our life for Christ is about us, what we feel comfortable with, what is convenient for us and what we think is truth more than what God’s word clearly says?


Eph. 4:29 - Do not let ANY unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but ONLY what is helpful for building others up according to THEIR needs that it may benefit those who listen.

Phil. 4:8 – Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.

Col. 3:5 & 8– Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
But now you must rid yourselves of ALL such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from you lips.

As I read these verses I could not find anything in them or their context that indicates convenience or how we feel about it. They read very clear to me, yet we and I really mean me, continue to live convenient Christian lives. And we use our reasoning called “GRACE”.

There is a line in the song “Never Give Up On Me” by Josh Bates that says,
“Time after time I’ve used your grace as a way to do what I please”.

Ro 6:1 - What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

1Jo 3:9 - No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

To be continued………

Convenient Christianity - Part I

When did living a life for Christ become more about convenience than sacrifice? And when did our selfish need for convenience take on the form of compromise? Now the threatening appearance of compromise has grown into a lifestyle. A lifestyle of what I will call Convenient Christianity.

I’m not sure when it all started, but I believe it was sometime around the “fall”. And so the mindset of “I know better than God” and “You know God these commandments are really not convenient for me” began.

Many of us read the word of God the way we want to rear it. It may sound something like this:

Matthew 19:16-22

16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
17 "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." ( but only if it’s convenient for you) 18 "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, (only the convenient ones) "'Do not murder, do not commit adultery (unless it only in your mind), do not steal (unless it’s online music or movies), do not give false testimony (unless it makes you look better),
19 honor your father and mother (unless you don’t agree with them)' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.' (unless it’s takes to much time)"
20 "All these I have kept (mostly, ok sometines, well when it was convenient)," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
21 Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions (that you aren’t using) and give to the poor (but only if you can write it off taxes), and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me (when it's convenient for you)."
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth (and it really wasn’t a convenient time).

Truth -vs- Love

“Anthony and I are getting married next month”.

I sat stunned; a hurt blank stare was my only communication. This is not the way I dreamed it would be. The words racing through my mind would be hurtful and damaging, but I wanted to yell them out. “Lord guard my tongue” was my only prayer. All I knew was this was the same guy that three years ago we forbid our daughter from seeing, the same guy that was extradited back to California for robbery. And the same guy that spent two years for the crime and still has seven months on his parole. Before I could gain my composure I heard

“It’s just going to be a small out side wedding and we have a friend who said she would marry us.”

SHE? Wait, What? This goes against everything I believe and hold true. “Lord what’s next”? I asked. I had to turn every thought to a prayer in order to keep form lashing out.

“Is he a Christian?”
“He went to church as a kid”
“But is he a Christian?”
“I don’t know, he doesn’t like going to church”.
“ How can I give you away to someone who doesn’t love God?”

Tears started to flow and the “dad your just don’t get it” look came flying across the room.

Minutes seemed like hours. Time could not move fast enough for me. “I don’t want to talk about this” keep filling my mind. “Take me know Lord” actually flashed through once or twice. By the grace of God I held my tongue and listened. We shared our hearts and truth. She shared her feelings and uncertainty. Yet at the end of it all nothing had changed. They still plan on getting married and expect us to be onboard with it.

I can’t do it! I can’t give my daughter away to someone who does not love God.

Can I?

Another Rock in the Box

I’ve always liked rocks; the vast assortment continues to fascinate me. I’ve been collecting and studying them for almost 40 years now. I am in NO way even close to being and expert on them. One thing I do know, without any uncertainty, is that they really hurt when they hit you or when you stumble over one. If you pick up one that is too large for you to carry by yourself, you will most likely injure yourself.

So stretch with me for a minute and compare rocks to events in our lives. Some things happen that are a little like pebbles, they can really sting when they hit, not a lot of lasting damage but they can smart.

Then there are times when money is tight and you’re not sure how to make ends meet. A lot like a small stone, it hurts a lot more than the pebbles but you still heal well over time.

The rocks can get bigger and hurt a lot more. They do serious damage; leaving open wounds, deep bruises and long-healing scars.

Many times those we hold dear are the ones throwing the rocks. And yet other times they come from the unknown. Even now there are times when we pick up rocks and carry them when we don’t need to.

So what do we do with rocks? Well as Dee Duke says, “Put another rock in the box!”
You see he compares rocks to our prayers. Picture your life as board, like a teeter-totter. On one end is our box of “life” and on the other is our box of “prayers”. When we have the rocks of life filling up one box we need to put another rock in the box on the other side. If you don’t see your life moving, “PUT ANOTHER ROCK IN THE BOX”.

“But nothing is happening”. Put in a bigger rock. Still nothing. Put in another rock.
Get the picture? Only prayer can lift the rocks of life.

Wholeness

Wholeness

Hope for the future, for wholeness complete.
Hope in our Father to heal the deep.

To trust in our Lord with all not in part,
With surety of truth and pureness of heart.

For into our dark our Father will send,
His Spirit, a counselor, redeemer and friend.

We’re never alone, His truth is so real.
It’s not based on our life or how we may feel.

Full life He has promised, written words from the past.
They dwell in our hearts, His true light they do cast.

When all is reveled our transgressions we see.
Confession, forgiveness, acceptance, we’re free.

Wholeness, full life, our future is clear.
We were never alone our Savior was here.

He has healed my heart and restored my soul.
The pain in not gone but now I am whole.

Dave