Ramblings | Wayne Stiles

Archives For Ramblings

This Can Help You Not Compare Yourself with Others

Someone else’s stuff always seems better than ours. Yes, always.

Even their struggles seem better. Have you noticed?

The temptation to compare yourself with somebody else can be devastating in the Christian life.

Apple and Orange they do not compare This Can Help You Not Compare Yourself with Others

(Photo: By Michael Johnson, CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

When Peter first met Jesus, the fisherman followed the Master out of a motive for glory and a prime seat in the kingdom of God. Peter wanted to be the “greatest” in comparison to others.

But after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, a single conversation along the shores of the Sea of Galilee at Tabgha changed Peter’s whole frame of reference.

That conversation can also help you not compare yourself with the lives of others.

It can free you to follow Jesus as an individual.

Trying to Understand God’s Plan for You

Tough circumstances of life always change our minds about God.

They either tempt us to doubt what He’s promised, or they draw us closer to Him in faith. But we never stay the same.

Trying to Understand Gods Plan for You Trying to Understand Gods Plan for You

(Photo by Photodune)

God’s plan for your life is revealed and tested in times of struggle.

If you’re struggling today, don’t miss the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of God’s plan for you.

Joseph shows you how.

The Ideal Life You Want Isn’t Enough

Most people live for dreams. It’s a quest, really.

Clinging to ideals of how life could and “should” be, they chase those dreams like a carrot on a stick. Always within reach, but never gotten.

The Ideal Life You Want Isnt Enough The Ideal Life You Want Isnt Enough

(Photo by Photodune)

I guess we’re all wired to pursue the ideal. The world calls it following “your heart,” and we Christians refer to it as “the will of God.”

But in truth, we generally settle for nothing less than our version of how life ought to be.

Any search for the ideal needs only to look at the Garden of Eden to see the futility of that pursuit.

God points us a different direction.

Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places

God will lead you places you would never choose. Unwanted places.

Because the Lord is much greater than you and I can imagine, it makes sense that He wants for us more than we ever dreamed.

Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places Why God Will Lead You Unwanted Places

(Photo by Photodune)

God wants you to trust Him, and you’d like to do so. He wants you to glorify Him, to know Him, and so do you. But really, you often want to trust God only when you understand Him.

Too often, that desire to know the Lord slices His list of attributes in half.

When you and I settle for anything less than all of God, we also settle for less than all we can become.

Being Better than Your Parents is the Wrong Goal

You can live better than your parents did.

Or you can live worse. It’s true.

Growing up in a godly home is no guarantee you’ll follow God. But it’s also true that a godless home doesn’t doom you to a failed life.

Being Better than Your Parents is the Wrong Goal Being Better than Your Parents is the Wrong Goal

(Photo by Design Pics, via Vivozoom)

I know of one young man who had as his goal to be a better father than his father was to him. And he did it.

But then he realized that wasn’t enough.

Being better than your parents is doable, sure, but it’s the wrong goal.

Egypt’s Locust Invasion & Your Next Meal

The recent locust invasion in Egypt can’t help but remind us of the biblical plagues on that land.

The boils, frogs, hail, and darkness of biblical days were natural and supernatural methods God used to get the attention of Pharaoh.

They also get our attention.

(Photo used by permission of GNU Free Documentation License, via Wikimedia Commons)

The flying critters in Egypt today do more than bring to mind a Bible story.

They point to the provision of God upon our lives.

Watch this video of a recent locust invasion in Africa.

How the Lord’s Prayer Helps with Anger

I never thought the Lord’s Prayer would relate to anger.

That’s probably because we usually associate the prayer with that flowery, feel-good moment in a service when we all pray the words together (though we’re never real sure whether to say “debts” or “trespasses”).

But the prayer relates to anger?

vivozoom 85825478 w How the Lords Prayer Helps with Anger

(Photo by via Andy Dean Photography, via Vivozoom)

It relates especially when we find ourselves asking, Why am I angry all the time? Especially in my relationships?

It’s tough to see the Lord’s prayer helping much with anger. But it does.

Here’s how.

Listening to Well-Timed Words of Warning

Dark shadows had fallen over Jerusalem.

A lone figure knelt, weeping, agonizing in prayer, as eleven men slumbered nearby. While Jerusalem slept, the Lord Jesus endured anguish in the darkness of Gethsemane.

But He did not suffer alone that night.

Citadel of David minaret with full moon tb091103007 Listening to Well Timed Words of Warning

(Photo: The Citadel served as the residence of Pilate and his wife. Courtesy of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.)

On the other side of Jerusalem in the luxuriant palace of the governor—perhaps even during the hours of Jesus’s agony in the garden—another figure writhed in agony.

The content of her nightmare was about Jesus. It caused her to arrive at a firm conclusion.

Traditions, Truth, and Praying with Your Eyes Open

Most Americans find it difficult to identify with the Jews who rock before the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I know I did at first.

It seemed, well, just . . . odd.

Then I thought about my traditions. Are they any less bizarre?

Traditions Truth and Praying with Your Eyes Open Traditions, Truth, and Praying with Your Eyes Open

(Photo: men praying at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Oddness just comes in different flavors. They’re called “traditions.”

Jews pray with their heads covered; we take our hats off.
Their prayers are public and loud and showy; ours are private and quiet and restrained.
They rock back and forth and mumble from a book; we bow our heads, close our eyes and utter unrehearsed words.

It’s easy in the familiarity of our own traditions to shake our fingers at the oddities of others. Jews pray while rocking, Muslims kneel with their bottoms in the air, and Christians bow our heads and close our eyes.

Blend any tradition—bowing, standing, prostrating, rocking, kneeling or jumping—with no personal relationship with the true God, and it’s totally pointless.

Maybe we Christians should open our eyes during prayer for a change.

When God Takes Something Away from You

It’s always great when God replaces something painful with something wonderful.

Or when He provides for a need in a context of desperation.

But what about when God takes away something we enjoy—or even something we need? Or when He allows something bad to invade something good?

When God Takes Something Away from You When God Takes Something Away from You

(Photo: by Hariadhi. Own work, GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Can we then say what Job said?

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised. —Job 1:21

During the times when God takes something away from you, it’s easy to feel duped, as if God was some kind of pusher, giving free samples and then removing them after the cravings have their hooks in your heart.

The Lord’s generosity can be misunderstood as cruelty.

Rather than praise God for the time we enjoyed His blessings—we tend to resent His sovereign prerogative to confiscate them.

Here’s some perspective that can help when God takes something away from you that was a blessing.