Deserting the Desert - Martin Wiles

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1 NLT

 

Deserting the desert is the easy way out.

 

My greatest lessons came where I didn’t want to dwell. Although I’ve never visited a desert, I’ve seen pictures. A desert is a geographical place that receives less than ten inches of rainfall annually.

 

Sticking closely to the definition, Antarctica is the world’s largest desert, and the second is the Arctic Desert. But we usually associate the desert with heat. According to that definition, the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa would be the largest, covering 3.5 million square miles and stretching from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

 

While certain wildlife and animals can survive the extreme temperatures and the sparse rainfall, a wide range of plant and animal life doesn’t live here. But what is barren quickly comes to life with just a tiny amount of rain.

 

Nor have I had much success growing the kind of plants found in deserts. Although I’ve tried, I usually overwater them, ironically leading to their demise. What I think will help them kills them. They have been created to live with little water. I’ve thrown away numerous cacti and aloe plants simply because I thought they needed water when they did what God created them to do: survive with very little.

 

The Bible references deserts often. Jesus Himself even spent some time in a wilderness where Satan tempted Him for forty days. Interestingly, Matthew claims the Spirit of God led Jesus there.

 

Deserts are more than geographical. They are emotional, spiritual, financial, and relational. I spend most of my time trying to avoid them when sometimes God wants me there. Occasionally I even put myself in the desert through bad decisions.

 

When God led me into the desert, He always had a purpose. I didn’t always know what it was, but I trusted a reason existed. I’ve never fallen for the old religious lie that God will explain everything when we get to heaven. I think it’s just a hope we have. I suppose when I get to heaven, I probably won’t care why God led me into the desert—if I even remember the experience at all. For Jesus, God’s purpose was so that He could identify with us in our temptations.

 

God limited Jesus’ time in the wilderness, and He does ours, too. When the forty days were up, angels ministered to Jesus. God also comforts us when our time in the desert is completed. Just as rain in a desert leads to plants suddenly blooming and animals scurrying, so God gives us refreshment when our trek through the barren land is over.

 

My downfall has been trying to desert the desert in the first place. When I do—as painful as the desert experience might be—I miss out on something God wants to do.

 

Don’t desert the desert. If God has led you there, He has blessings in store.

 

Father, give me the strength not to desert the deserts. 

Tweetable: Are you deserting your deserts? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Choosing a Substitute - Martin Wiles

Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” Exodus 32:4 NLT

Rarely is choosing a substitute as good as the real thing.

“We have a sub” can spread like a California wildfire through a school. An array of negative emotions may follow the statement. But some students are ecstatic. They envision free time and an opportunity to give a difficult time to this person who isn’t their teacher.

Being the sub is no easier. Often, the call to fill in comes at the last moment, along with the possibility of being totally unfamiliar with the subject area they sub in. For some reason, students don’t perceive subs as having authority. The sub is not their teacher or usually an employee of the school.

As a teacher, I don’t get to choose my subs, but I would have my favorites if I did. The ones who maintain control of the class, know the disciplinary rules, and make the students do the work I’ve left.

God summoned Moses to the peak of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and other ceremonial laws. After a long absence, the people assumed something had happened to their leader. They beckoned his brother, who made them a gold calf and said, “Here is your God.” They chose a substitute—and it couldn’t compare.

All around me, I see people choosing substitutes for God. I even fall into the trap periodically myself. My substitutes may be bad habits, sinful practices, laziness, or busyness. Anything that assumes God’s place.

When we choose a substitute, we’ll be disappointed. That’s what God substitutes do. They promise happiness and fulfillment but don’t deliver. They look good but taste bad. They prance around under the guise of being God-sent but never are. God sent Moses, not a golden calf.

Choosing substitutes also guarantees God’s discipline. The Israelites who disobeyed paid the price. Whenever I’ve chosen something to replace the real thing, God has lovingly shown me my error and then convinced me by disciplining me like a loving father.

Don’t let substitutes take God’s place of supreme authority in your life.

Father, keep my eyes focused on You, so I won’t choose substitutes to replace You. 

Tweetable: What substitutes have you chosen? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Loving, Faults and All - Martin Wiles

Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Ephesians 4:2 NLT

Loving, faults and all, is sometimes easy and sometimes tricky.

Never had I encountered such suspicions as I did at my maternal grandparents’ house. Mom grew up on a farm. Mom’s only sister married and moved a stone’s throw away. I visited often to see my grandparents and hang out with one of my first cousins.

Visits without stories and suspicious happenings were uncommon. My aunt talked about the hag—an impish beast who came out at night, jumped on a person’s night, and paralyzed their bodies. My cousin referenced a white horse that roamed in my grandmother’s front yard. And the stories continued.

As we made our way to my grandmother’s funeral, another cousin felt my grandmother’s hand stroke her hair. Then there was the handprint that suddenly embedded itself on the same cousin’s brass bed while we were at the funeral.

After my uncle died, my aunt soon found evidence of his living spirit. A leaf floating down the hallway. The rose that mysteriously fell from its resting place in the arrangement while the minister pronounced the final words over his body.

Mom and Dad found these stories humorous—as did I. We weren’t the suspicious type. But we loved our family just the same. They were, after all, our family.

Paul encouraged believers at Ephesus to do the same. None were perfect, but a common bond joined them: Christ. Believers still are.

I’m often tempted to find fault with others. In those moments, I remind myself I have my own trunkful of faults. They may not be sinful habits, but they are blemishes, nonetheless. Paul’s instruction challenges me. Finding fault with others is the easy way out. Looking for the good—along with encouraging and loving them—takes patience, something I’ve never had large doses of.

Remembering we are all pilgrims on a similar journey also makes it easier. Loving the really difficult-to-love—my enemies and those not like me—means allowing God to remind me His Son also died for them.   

When loving others seems challenging, remember God loves you—faults and all.

Father, help me to love others with the same love You love me. 

Tweetable: Do you love others, faults and all? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Crock Pot Scalloped Potatoes

 

Ingredients

2 POUND BAG CUBED HASHBROWNS,THAWED

    

8 OUNCES SOUR CREAM

1 CAN CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP

2 TABLESPOONS BUTTER

1 CAN CHEDDAR CHEESE SOUP

1 TABLESPOON DRIED ONION FLAKES

Topping 

1 CUP CORN FLAKES

½ STICK BUTTER

Directions

MIX THE SOUP, CHEESE, SOUR CREAM, AND ONION FLAKES TOGETHER AND SPOON OVER THE HASHBROWNS.

MELT BUTTER AND POUR OVER THE HASHBROWNS.

TOP WITH BUTTERED CORNFLAKES.

COOK ON LOW FOR 5 TO 6 HOURS IN CROCKPOT.

Tweetable: Why not add this as one of your sides? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Smelled Up - Martin Wiles

Not a hair on their heads was singed, and their clothing was not scorched. They didn’t even smell of smoke! Daniel 3:27 NLT

The smell clung to me like a too-snug shirt.

 

I love a campfire—and evidently, many others do too when they camp. I’ve seen people build campfires at campgrounds in the middle of July when the temperatures soared into the nineties and the humidity approached one hundred percent. Something about camping just isn’t complete without a glowing—and for some, a roaring—campfire.

 

But one thing I don’t care for is the smell. I’ve cooked on a campfire, roasted marshmallows around one, lounged around one for enjoyment, and hovered near one for heat. Regardless of my purpose, the result was the same: smoke smell. When camping, I don’t always bathe every night, so that means getting in my tent smelling like smoke—and smelling the smoke all night. For some reason, the odor keeps me awake. Bathing, or dousing myself with cologne, is the only way to diminish the odor.

 

My wife and I have a favorite restaurant in town that leaves us smelling almost the same as a campfire. No matter how my clothes smell when I enter—and regardless of what I eat—they reek of smoke when I leave. No wearing them a second time. Straight to the dirty clothes they go. Some things just cling.

 

Not so with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Through trickery by some who didn’t like the three Hebrews, Nebuchadnezzar, the king, threw them into a fiery furnace. But he didn’t watch them disintegrate. Instead, he saw a fourth Man in the fire with them, and he saw them all walking around. When he called for the three to come out, they did—and without the smell of smoke or a singed hair on their bodies.

 

God wants His children to smell, too. Not a repulsive smell—although it sometimes works out that way—but a pleasant aroma. He wants the smell of holiness. This doesn’t mean we walk around acting emotional or weird. Holiness carries the idea of separation—from all things that displease God, from all things that keep Him from accomplishing His purpose in our life, and from all things that destroy our ability to live life as He planned.

 

Our smell can repulse or invite. When we smell of love, kindness, joy, peace, patience, forgiveness, goodness, gentleness, and faithfulness, people will want to know why we don’t smell like what they are accustomed to smelling in the world. They’ll be astounded—like the king was—and they’ll want to worship the same God as we do.

 

What can you do to smell a little better?

 

Father, may my smell lure others to Your love. 

Tweetable: How do you smell to others? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Wrestling with the Past - Martin Wiles

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn. Genesis 32:24 NLT

She often found herself wrestling with the past.

Some days, she felt she won; on others, she wasn’t sure. Beth was the oldest of three siblings. They grew up in a loving home, but one thing scarred her memory: the words “I love you.”

Beth could only remember her father speaking the words when she was a young girl. Somewhere along the way, he stopped telling her. But she could never remember hearing those words from her mother. Her sisters confessed they hadn’t either. Their home had a loving atmosphere, but it would have been nice to hear love and see it in action.

As adults, the siblings psychoanalyzed their parents. Although both parents grew up in loving homes, neither experienced homes where love was spoken. Beth decided before she married and had children, she would say the words she had rarely heard. She was tired of wrestling with her past.

Jacob wrestled with his past, too. He had stolen his older brother’s birthright, then tricked his father and stole his brother’s final blessing. His brother hated him and swore to kill him. He ran. Many years later—while returning to face his brother—he wrestled with God over his past mistakes.

We all have things in our past that we wrestle with. Ruminating about the misery of our mistakes or the foul atmospheres we endured does nothing for our present or future. Only as we think about what we can do differently—or avoid altogether—are our present and future affected. Beth decided she wouldn’t be a prisoner of her past. When she married and had children, she often said, “I love you.” Jacob wouldn’t be a prisoner either—even if it were painful.

Our past can haunt or help us. The choice is ours. We are who we are because of our history, but we can also change who we are because of it. There’s much we can learn from our past—positive and negative. The past is set in stone, but our present and future are pliable. With God’s guidance, we can enhance them both. A part of us is what we were, but most is what we choose to become.

Are you winning when you wrestle with your past?

Father, help me use my past to my advantage rather than allow it to destroy me.

Tweetable: Are you wrestling with your past? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Guarding Against Infection - Martin Wiles

Do not even let them live among you! If you do, they will infect you with their sin of idol worship, and that would be disastrous for you. Exodus 23:33 NLT

A small bubble appeared in the corner of my left index finger and grew. What others forecasted came true. I had not practiced guarding against infection.

I’m not exactly sure when or why I developed the habit of biting my nails, but somewhere around middle school age, I did. Perhaps I needed something to occupy my time. My mother, aunt, and grandmother all warned me I was going to pull one down into the quick. Then I’d have to deal with infection.

Sure enough, I did, and it did. Mom tried boiling it with Peroxide. No luck. It must have been the weekend because she and my grandmother gathered me up and carted me to the local emergency room. After the nurse administered a numbing shot to my finger, the doctor took a knife to the infection—a painful experience I’ve never forgotten.

God warned the desert-traveling Israelites about a worse infection: disobedience. Pagans inhabited the Israelites’ Promised Land. Living among them—or even marrying them—would bring disastrous results. Their disaster reminds us we can still be infected by those who don’t love God or his commands. But how can we guard ourselves?

• Be careful of our company.

While Jesus tells us to influence others by being salt, the Bible also says bad company corrupts good morals. Obeying the command and heeding the warning take wisdom only God can give. My company told me to keep my fingers out of my mouth. I didn’t listen.

• Equip ourselves.

God told his people to avoid treaties with the pagan dwellers and not to worship their gods. Guarding against some diseases requires a shot. Keeping my fingers out of my mouth would have equipped me to fight infection. Spiritual disciplines protect us against infection. Programming our consciences with God’s Word makes it a reliable source of warning when infection stalks nearby.

What steps can you take to guard yourself against spiritual infection?

Father, direct my steps away from those things and people who would infect me negatively. 

Tweetable: Are you guarding against infection? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.

Sweet Potato Souffle

 

Ingredients

3 LARGE SWEET POTATOES

½ STICK BUTTER

1 CUP BROWN SUGAR

1 CUP WHITE SUGAR

2 EGGS

1 CUP MILK

1 TEASPOON VANILLA

2 CUP CHOPPED PECANS

2 TABLESPOON PLAIN FLOUR

Directions

WASH, PEEL, AND CUT POTATOES INTO CHUNKS. COOK UNTIL TENDER.

IN A BOWL, MASH THE POTATOES. 

ADD WHITE SUGAR, 1/2 CUP BROWN SUGAR, EGGS, MILK, VANILLA, AND 1/4 STICK OF BUTTER.

MIX WELL. POUR INTO A GREASED CASSEROLE DISH.

IN A SEPARATE BOWL, MIX THE REST OF THE BUTTER, BROWN SUGAR, FLOUR, AND PECANS. 

PLACE ON TOP OF POTATO MIXTURE.

BAKE AT 350 FOR 35 TO 40 MINUTES.

Tweetable: Why not add this sumptuous Southern delight as a side for your main dish? 

Thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts! We also invite you to follow and like us on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Help us spread God's encouragement through His Love Lines.