Man, it's been a long week. (What does that mean anyway? Same number of hours and days in every week) Car a/c isn't working.  Wash machine is on the fritz.  My laptop is acting buggy. The kids are misbehaving.  I've fallen off the wagon on my diet.  I'm late on the electric bill.  Work is slow.  It's 100 degrees outside.  I'm tired.  I have a headache.  The toilet is plugged up.  The laundry list goes on and on doesn't it.  The things we can complain about.  The irritations we have to deal with.  The things that consume us.  They are just all so over the top, aren't they? 
I’ve worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death’s door time after time. I’ve been flogged five times with the Jews’ thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.   Oh wait, that isn't me, that is Paul talking in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27 (MSG)  Now here was someone who had legitimate reasons to bewail his circumstances.  Wow, jailed, beaten time after time.  Shipwrecked, for goodness sake, not once but three times?  You read his biography, there isn't a blockbuster movie that can compare.  But the thing is, he isn't complaining about all of this.  This is just a laundry list of events to him.  What does he consider the hardest thing he has to go through?  "Besides those external things, there is the daily [inescapable] pressure of my concern for all the churches," verse 28 (AMP).  He is most bothered, he is most concerned not about those petty 'external' things, but about the condition of the church, the well-being of his fellow believers.  He is more concerned for their lives and their souls than for his own physical body, than for his own welfare.  "When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut," verse 29 (MSG). 
When did concern for our fellow man, when did the burden for others turn into being self-absorbed and self-centered?  We turn on the news and see people hurting each other, with words and with weapons every night.  We see families being divided by political beliefs.  We see horrendous abuse, blood chilling atrocities and we complain about being a little warm in this summer weather.  I am pointing a finger at myself first here, so don't feel that I am picking on you.  I have become overly comfortable in my little cocoon here and it's time to step out.  We look at all that is going on in the world and it is easy to become overwhelmed.  Where do I start, who do I help.  I think biblically we start in our families, then in the church body and then the world at large.  We help where we see a need and as the Lord shows us, we obey. 
"And that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut."  How Paul had the heart of God for his people.  He feels their agony when they are in despair.  When they make a mistake and fall back into sin, he doesn't point a finger and lambast them.  "Who makes a mistake and I do not feel his sadness? Who falls without my longing to help him? Who is spiritually hurt without my fury rising against the one who hurt him?" (TLB)  When my children were young I tried to teach them to look beyond the behavior and see the person.  That old story of the lion with the thorn in it's paw, roaring at everyone, but only because it was in so much pain.  We look at how people act and the things they do and don't see who they are and why they are behaving that way.  We don't want people to stay in their sin, but shouting and finger pointing never did anyone any good.   The bible says we are to speak the truth in love, Ephesians 4:15.  I heard in a sermon this past week that Jesus did not condone sin, but He also did not condemn the sinner.  That is how we are to live.  Can we save a man who is drowning if we don't throw him a life ring?  How are we to pull them out of one lifestyle without showing them another, better one?  We are so good at judging.  We are so good at blaming.  We are so good at the snide little remarks meant to show how spiritual we are and what poor humans others are.  God must shake His head sometimes.  He has given us such wonderful grace, and shown us such amazing, overwhelming mercy and we squander it with a head shake and the roll of an eye.  Lord forgive me for being that Pharisee.  For puffing up my religious chest all the while the person standing next to me is dying in his sin.  God I am so tired of carrying the weight of my own self-rightousness.  I lay that down at your feet Father and ask for Your loving heart for your people.  I ask that instead of rolling my eyes I will fall on my knees.  Instead of shaking my head I will hold out my hand.  That rather than walking away in disgust I will reach out with Your love and Your mercy and Your compassion.  Forgive me Father when my fear and my pride and my impatience get in the way of Your will and your grace.  Lord help me to see through Your eyes and hear with the help of Your Spirit. 
In the years I have been a Christian. I have seen so much.  I have seen dedicated believers who would give their last penny to help others.  I have seen others who spread gossip and tried to besmirch those in the church.  I have seen hard workers and those just there for the snacks.  I have seen believers struggle with addiction and lose time after time.  I have seen people at their best and at their worst.  I have seen it, which means God has seen it.  And He has never turned His back on any one of them.  Good, bad and ugly His grace is there for all of them, for all of us.  So who are we to judge who deserves it or not.  Who is there that can say, no you've stepped up to the grace table one too many times.  Who can say that tomorrow won't be the day that they finally get it, that they not only believe that God can forgive, but that God does, and that He will for them?  When I read the bible I never see Jesus condemning those lost in their sin.  He only condemns those who believe they have no sin.  His mercy ever reaches out for those 'duped into sin'. 
There is a hope, there is a grace available to us all.  We just have to recognize our need for it.  We just have to reach out and accept it.  We just have to believe that He made it available to us; once, for all.  "I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to—what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.  I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t.  When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.  Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.  It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned;  but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin.  So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done[c] by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free."  Who in the world is saying that?  That is Paul again, speaking to the Romans in Chapter 7, verses 15-25.  If anyone could understand what other Christians were going through he could.  Because as much as he could boast of all he had done for Jesus, he could also be ashamed of all he had done to Christians before he met Jesus.  But he knew the true power of forgiveness.  The true effectiveness of Christ's power in his life and he could put the past behind him and move forward in the strength of Jesus' love and restoration.  So don't beat yourself up for past mistakes, but also don't stand on the laurels of your past accomplishments.  Walk today in His power, reach out today to those in need, give love today to those walking in self-condemnation.  They don't need your condemnation too, rather speak the words of Jesus, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more," John 8:11 (ESV).
In full disclosure, those complaints at the top aren't mine, other than my laptop being buggy.  We are doing great.  And even if we weren't, I am going to be careful what I choose to complain about..my friend is in need of prayer for her marriage, my child is in physical pain from MS as is another friend of mine, another deals with addiction problems, another has financial issues, another thinks he doesn't do enough for God, there is a fire raging in my community and many have lost houses and businesses.  That is a laundry list worth noting, worth taking to the Lord, worth reaching out and being Jesus with flesh on to those who need Him. 

I recently watched the movie "The Shack".  I read the book when it first came out, but was going through a time of great stress when my mom first had her stroke, so I really didn't remember much of the book.  It's about a man whose daughter is kidnapped and is killed.  The whole family is trying to get through the pain and loss and they are doing very poorly.  The wife is a believer, the husband has really never given his whole heart to the Lord.  So we see the husband by himself as his family goes off and he opens the mail box to see a note addressed to him.  Inside the envelope it tells Mack to come to the shack and it is signed 'Papa', which is what Mack's wife calls God.  Next thing we know Mack is off to the shack, which is the place where his daughter was killed, the place of his greatest pain.  And so there Mack meets God, Jesus and the Spirit. 
God had Mack return to the shack to bring about healing in his life.  Mack blamed himself for his daughter's death, he blamed God for his own pain as a child and later as a man and he could never truly find peace.  I won't go into all the details of the movie in case you have not seen it yet.  Needless to say, I was touched by the movie and what it represented.
God meets us where we are to bring us salvation and healing.  That place is the shack.  We are that broken- down dilapidated building.  We are that place of pain and suffering.  We are that house that is not fit to be a home.  But that unfit dwelling place can and will become a home when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.  John 14:23 says, "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (KJV)  When we receive Christ He promises that He will make His home with us.  In the Old Testament the Temple was built by Solomon as a place for God to dwell.  But when Jesus came He said that God no longer dwells in temples made by human hands as it says in Acts 17:24 but He now dwells in us, 1 Corinthians 3:16.  1 Corinthians 6:19, "Haven’t you yet learned that your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you?" (TLB)  "...each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: “I’ll live in them, move into them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people." (MSG) 
So when we accept Jesus as our Lord, He then moves into this decaying ruin and begins a renovation.  His Spirit in us teaches us, leads us, guides us.  He takes us back to those places of our greatest pain, but this time instead of feeling all alone, He is with us.  He holds us as He walks us through healing and restoration.  As that happens, that shabby unkempt house begins to become a home.  A place of rest, a place of peace.  The debris and detritus of that life lived apart from God falls away and we become new.  2 Corinthians 5:17, "...what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!" (MSG)
We become new because of that sacrifice that Jesus made for us.  John 14:2 says that Jesus goes and prepares a place for us.  The KJV says it this way, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."  Many people think because of this verse that Jesus has gone up to heaven and is in the midst of a huge building project.  The blueprints are unfurled and brick and mortar are being laid to make us these palatial edifices that we will live in when we get to heaven.  If we look back at the Greek, that word is actually monē, or according to Strong's Concordance, 'a staying, abiding, dwelling, abode; to make one's abode, and metaphorically of God the Holy Spirit indwelling believers'.  And if we look at the context of the conversation that Jesus is having, they have just finished the Last Supper.  Jesus speaks of His betrayal and then says that He will be leaving them and in John 13:36 in response to Peter's question of where Jesus is going, "Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” (NIV)  How can you follow someone unless they have either shown you the way or laid out a map for you?  Read John 14:1-4 in the Message translation, "“Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”  So if this is the case, Jesus is going somewhere, but Peter and we also as His disciples will follow later, then He is at least leaving breadcrumbs for us to follow right?  He says 'I go to prepare a place  for you', or in this translation, to make a room ready for you.  Where did He go to do that?  He went to the cross.  He went to prepare a place for us by making a way for us to get to the Father.  He says in John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (ESV)  The only way to the Father was through the death of Christ, the only way to forgiveness of sins was through the shed blood of Jesus.  So Jesus went to the cross to prepare a place for us, an abode for us with the Father.  He made a way for us to have an eternal home with the Father and the only way He could do that was by going to the cross sinless and dying a sinner's death for us.
Jesus stands at the door and knocks, the bible says.  He is at the door of your ramshackle run-down life and He is knocking.  Will you take the chance, will you open your heart and open that door and let Him in?  It sometimes angers me that people who don't believe in God say that we Christians are fools.  That belief in God is a crutch.  That we have this pie in the sky delusion of an imaginary friend named Jesus.  That He is not real and that our faith is useless.  I know that I know that I know that He is real.  That He has given me life and freedom, that He has changed my life.  That I have a hope and a future through Him.  I am not the person I was before I received His salvation.  I have seen the miraculous in my life and in the lives of others.  I have felt His Spirit and I have heard His voice.   I know Him and He knows me.  I know I don't see Him fully yet, but soon I will.  I will one day behold Him in all His glory.  " Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit... Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him," 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 (MSG).  We become like Him.  No longer a crumbling neglected ruin but a glorious temple of the living God.  Not a shack, not a mansion; something even greater, the residence of our heavenly Father.

For my husband Jim's 40th birthday instead of an over-the-hill party with black balloons and tombstones I had friends and family write him letters.  Telling him what he meant to them, what influence he had on their lives, how he had blessed them.  This past April for my 55th birthday he returned the blessing.  He was very sneaky and had friends write cards and letters and gave them to me at a bbq.  How touched I was to know that I had and have made a difference.  As the introverted wife of a very outgoing charismatic man I often feel as if I am in the shadows and that I am invisible.  It amazed me, the love and friendship I read of in those letters.  I posted on Facebook about it and a lady named Karen that I had worked with and been in school with so many years ago saw it and told me she was going to write me a letter and send it to me.  I received that letter about a week ago and it made me cry and really caused some deep introspection and thought.
When my  mom died in 2010, I had already lost my dad also.  I truly felt like an orphan.  Here I was in my 40's and had no mom or dad to talk to or turn to.  I went through a bit of depression and felt pretty lost for a time.  When I received that letter from Karen it brought some great memories but also reminded me of that sadness.  I realized that I had no one from those days that knew me then, except this one friend.  I had no one who remembered who and what I was.  Who remembered what I looked like then, how I acted.  I had no one any longer who shared that history with me.  That made this letter all the more special because here was someone who did remember and reminded me of the Gail back then.
I had never really thought of all that.  How important shared history is, how good it makes you feel to have someone remember you.  To have someone remember the big things, but also the silly little things like working at Dairy Queen together.  That shared history makes you feel special, makes you feel a part of things.
All of the introspection made me realize that I do have someone who remembers who I was back then.   Who knows what I looked like, what I did, how I felt.  And He delighted in me even when no one else did.  He was there when I felt all alone.  He watched over me when I got good grades and He saw me when I misbehaved.  He saw  when I treated myself like I was worthless and He never gave up on me.  He knows my history from before I was born, because He lovingly crafted me in my mother's womb.  Before I was a twinkle in my father's eye I was the apple of His eye.  My history was and is His story.  His creating me.  His giving me the family that He did.  His desire that one day I would choose Him and accept His redemption and love.  His plans for me, for my good.  His gifts that He has placed in me, including this one of writing.  His bringing into my life a godly man who would introduce me to my Father and to my Saviour.  His blessing my with three beautiful children and two wonderful step children as well as all of my amazing grandchildren. 
I have a great God who not only sees my tears, but collects them.  I love how The Message says it, "You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights,  each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book," Psalm 56:8.  So last night when I only slept for an hour and half God saw, He was with me.  And when I was about in tears because of aches I had physically, but also emotionally He saw that too.  He also sees my joys and triumphs.  He rejoices in my right choices.  He is delighted when I am and I believe He laughs when I do.  He knows my innermost thoughts.  I don't think I would want to be around a person who could always read my thoughts; because as much as I try every day, I am not always the best me I can be.  I do start out my day asking His help that I be good and kind, but I often fail.  You know how it is when your thoughts just go off.  You might never say it out loud, but you think unkind thoughts of someone.  I know I do, and I do try to catch it right away and ask forgiveness and that the Lord bless that person.  I know I have prayed more than once, Lord I am such a crappy person sometimes, (pardon the language, just being honest here) and I can picture the Lord just shaking His head and saying, 'Yes Gail sometimes you are'.  I can almost see Him using the line that Cher did in the movie "Moonstruck", 'Snap out of it!'  He knows the good, the bad and the ugly and He loves me through all of it.  Because He not only knows my history, He knows my future.  He knows I am growing, He knows I am daily seeking to be more like His Son and to glorify Him in all that I do.
History is being made every day in our lives.  New memories, new treasures to look back on.  If you are like me and you don't have family and longtime friends to reminisce with, hold on to the thought that God does know and does remember and does treasure every moment of your life.  And I think think that just as the bible says that He is faithful to forgive our sins when we have received salvation and confessed our sins He also, as it says in Psalms 103:12, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."  So while He remembers our history, those sins that we have confessed, He remembers them no more.  He blots them out.  Hebrews 8:12 says, "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more," (ASV).  I don't know about you, but that amazes me.  Think of an argument that you have had with someone, especially your spouse if you are married.  It starts out, you forgot to get milk at the store, or you didn't take the trash out.  Then it turns into you didn't mow the lawn last week, you never fold my socks the way I want, you always let me down.  Back to the day you met, all of the wrongdoings brought back up as ammunition.  Imagine forever letting all of those transgressions, all of those aggravations go, never to be brought up again.  In fact, totally removing them from our memory banks.  Ain't gonna happen...Well, that is why God is God and we are not! 
God is the keeper of our history, the maker of His story.  And He cherishes us and every moment of this beautiful life He has gifted us with.  Hold on to that the next time you feel alone and forgotten.  Hold on to the fact that His story in our lives is making new history every day.