Things Will Get Worse

Posted on February 2, 2014 by James Gorton

We have all been in situations where we call out to the Lord to help us in getting out of the dilemmas we have put ourselves in.  It may be a job that is very stressful and we are asking God to give us another job.  It could be a relationship that we are in and are wondering what to do next.  We are looking for a savior to get us out of our entrapment.  We are looking for an easy fix to move us to less stressful circumstances.

The last thing we are looking for is for the circumstances of our lives to get worse. We worship a holy God that wouldn’t allow us to go farther into troubled times would He.  I’m asking these questions because in my daily reading of the bible, I came across a passage that made my mind go to this seemingly troubling thought, “Things often get worse before they get better.”  It’s a story of God coming to Moses in the wilderness and calling him to go back to Egypt, the place he had run from after murdering an Egyptian soldier forty years earlier, to free the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.  After being in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses had lost all his courage and confidence as a leader for change and had placed himself on a shelf of “not being able to be used for God”.  If you had murdered someone could you find yourself in a similar situation.  When we make mistakes that are found out by others, it is easy to place ourselves on that shelf because of feeling that God couldn’t use a broken vessel like that.

Fortunately God is in the vessel repairing business as he wanted to use Moses.  But listen to the call God gives to Moses.   “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. (Exodus 4:21 NIV)  God is calling for Moses to go back, but he is saying that Pharaoh will not listen to him and things will get worse for the people before they get better.  After this call by God, Moses and his wife had a heated argument and they split–she went back to her father and Moses went to Egypt.  After reading further along in this story, it did in fact get worse for the Israelites.  They had been making bricks for the Egyptians and the Egyptians were furnishing straw.  After Moses came, they had to go and get straw and still keep up their quote for bricks daily.  It became worse for them before it became better.

Habakkuk is a prophet in the Old Testament who was experiencing difficulties and cried out to the Lord.  God answered him by saying that things were going to get worse before they got better.  It doesn’t make sense that if we want God’s help, things oftentimes will get worse before they get better.  Unless you put this perspective with what James 1:2-4 where James says for us to consider it joy when we encounter various trials in our lives.  Trials are specifically designed by God to build our faith and produce endurance in our lives.  It is in the difficulties of life that our dependence on God is molded and purified.

So on this journey, it is good to note that the circumstances we find ourselves in will get worse before they get better, but God is there and will give us the way of escape if we continue to trust him.

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I Cannot But God. . .

Posted on January 22, 2014 by James Gorton

As I was reading in Genesis this morning, I came across a passage about Joseph that hit me differently than in the past years that I have read it.  Joseph was one of 12 brothers of Jacob.  His birth order was 9th of the 12.  Joseph was the first of two sons born to Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife and was the favorite son of Jacob.  Obviously, the other brothers were jealous of Joseph favorite status.  Joseph didn’t help their attitude toward him when he would brag about his dreams where his brothers,mother, and father would be bowing down to him.

The jealously hit its height when Joseph was sent by Jacob his father to make a report on his other brothers who were out in the fields tending the flocks.  The brothers sold him into slavery to get rid of this arrogant punk and this favorite son they despised.

While in Egypt he was sold to Potiphar and was a servant for a time, but was accused by Potiphar’s wife of trying to sleep with her (she actually wanted him to sleep with her, but he wouldn’t), so he was put in prison.  Over the course of time he interpreted the king’s wine taster and baker dreams, and both of the dreams came true.  The wine taster was raised up to again work for the king, but the baker had his head cut off.

Pharaoh had two dreams, one about ugly cows eating healthy cows, and the other fat grains and thin grains on one stalk and the thin grains swallowed up the fat grains.  No one could interpret Pharaoah’s dreams, but the wine taster remembered Joseph who in prison correctly interpreted his dream.  The wine taster revealed this forgotten experience to Pharaoh.  Joseph was summoned, cleaned up and new clothes put on him before he was taken to the king.

When he was asked about interpreting dreams, Joseph surprised me by saying, “I cannot do it.”  (Genesis 41:16)  Think about that for a minute.  Joseph throughout his life bragged to his brothers about how superior he was.  He was his dad’s favorite child.  He had a special robe that was made for him by his father.  Where is the ego?  Where is his lifting up his gift of interpretation?  This is his get out of jail card, and yet he says, “I cannot do it.”  What happened to the arrogant boy?  What happened to his feeling of being favored and blessed?

Being sold as a slave and having to be a servant, the lowest on the totem pole impacted Joseph in a significant way.  Being put in prison and having to work his way up to being respected took its toll on his perspective of his own life.

Joseph finished the statement, “I cannot do it. . .” with, “. . .but God will give Pharaoh the hander he desires.”  “But God.”  The Christian life is a life of cutting away our self, our thoughts, our desires, our attitudes, our accomplishments, and replacing “mine” and “I” with God.  God takes us through tough times in life to cut away our self and our ego so that He can be glorified through us.  What would happen to all of us if we began to see that we can do nothing apart from God.

On this journey we all want to emulate certain characters in the bible like Joseph, but are we willing to go through the fires of trials in order to get there.  As John the Baptist so appropriately put it, “He must increase and I must decrease.”

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Building Resentment Part III: Irrational Choices

Posted on January 20, 2014 by James Gorton

Have you ever been in a situation where your anger got the best of you?  Someone said something to you or did something to you and you went off on them?  Have you been driving and someone cuts you off?  You take their driving personally and want to get back at them?  Or someone is behind you and demonstrates impatience at how fast you are driving?  Do you intentionally slow up to push their impatience to a more intense level?  I think that most of us have something in our lives that is so personal to us that when someone pushes that something, it pushes our anger to a point where we potentially lose it.  We may react to them by cutting them down.  We may react by an action to get back at them.  We may do nothing at the time, but stuff it and cause it to fester inside and react later.

In the case of our two sisters we have looked at, Rachel and Leah, Rachel was resentful to her sister for taking her to-be-husband and being the first to have relations with him.  The resentment was further cemented in Rachel’s mind when Leah over a period of 5-6 years had four sons with Jacob and she was unable to get pregnant.  She gets angry at her husband for not giving her any children and Jacob is befuddled by her accusation because he knew that only God could give children.

The irrational choice she made came when she decided to give her servant Bilhah to Jacob so that she could have children through her.  “Here is Bilhah, my servant.  Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.” (Genesis 30:3)  Over the course of time, Bilhah brought forth two sons, Dan and Naphtali that were supposedly Rachel’s sons, but they weren’t really.  Throughout the next several chapters, Dan and Naphtali were never mentioned as having been Rachels’ sons, but were always under Bilhah, Rachel’s servant.

When we experience resentment, we often find ourselves making irrational choices that never pan out the way we intended.  Rachel was so desperate to have children that she was willing to give her servant to her husband and allow her servant to sleep with him so that she could have children.  But they were never called her children.

When resentment isn’t dealt with, it creates complex choices that oftentimes are built on irrational thought.  The journey that God calls us to is one where resentment needs to be cut away from our minds and hearts.

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Skiing In Flagstaff

Posted on January 19, 2014 by James Gorton

Skiing In Flagstaff

It was 50 degrees in Flagstaff on Saturday and the skiing was wonderful. That man-made snow is the best

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Building Resentment Part II: Misdirected Accusations

Posted on January 17, 2014 by James Gorton

Resentment is a very interesting feeling.  The Merriam-Webster defines resentment as a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury.  It is not one those feelings that come and go, but persists in a person’s life and continues to grow in intensity as we focus on the wrong that has been done.

As we continue to look at the life of Rachel and Leah, Rachel’s lover and soon to be husband was given to her older sister.  As I mentioned in the earlier jlog Rachel had resentment to her father and to her sister.  As the story unfolds, it becomes obvious that the resentment focused primarily on her older sister.  In Genesis 29-30, Rachel was the loved sister and Leah was the one left out.  So in the course of time, God gave Leah, the older sister, the ability to conceive and give birth to 4 sons with Jacob, but Rachel was childless.  That covers about 5-6 years  at least where Rachel was seeing her resented sister being able to bring forth children, while she is childless.

I remember in my early years of life, my late wife Cynthia and I were not able to have children.  She went through 10 major and minor surgeries, but none of the surgeries produced biological children.  I remember sitting in a young couple Sunday School class and hearing couples announcing that they were pregnant (not the husband mind you) and were going to have a baby.  It was a bitter-sweet experience because I was pleased for them, but experienced bitterness for not being able to have children of my own.  I remember seeing people who were having children over and over and not being able to care for their children, and here we were wanting children so desperately and not being able to have any.  God provided us with three wonderful children through other means, but I can relate to what Rachel was experiencing.

The backdrop of this story lays the foundation for what Rachel decided to do.  She wasn’t able to have children, so she lashed out at her husband.  “When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister.  So she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I’ll die.’  Jacob became angry with her and said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who had kept you from having children?'” (Genesis 30:1-2)

Rachel’s anger and resentment became directed at Jacob, her husband.  She was assuming that he was the one who had the ability to give her children so she told him to give her children or she would kill herself.  Her accusation to Jacob, caused him to become angry directed her anger at the person that could give her children–God.

It becomes easy to accuse anyone and everyone who come into our vicinity for the emotional hurt we are feeling.  If we take this root to try to resolve our resentment, it will only grow in it’s intensity.  Our accusations of others causes those relationships to pull away from us and disconnect.  The more resentment we feel, the lonelier we get.

On this journey, resentment is not a road that will produce positive experiences for us.  We need to deal with and resolve this resentment before it grows and matures.

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Building Resentment Part I: The Start

Posted on January 16, 2014 by James Gorton

Have you ever been in a relationship where it seems that resentment between you and another person seems to build over time.  It is always someone you have connection with.  It may be a spouse, or a sibling, or a parent.  It could be a neighbor or a long- time-friend.  The relationship didn’t start out with resentment between the two of you or you would have never connected with them.

Resentment starts out like a little splinter in your finger.  If you’re like me, it is too painful to dig it out with a knife so you just let it stay there.  It isn’t that big and it’s not that painful so it just stays there.  Over the next couple of days it turns red, but it’s no big deal.  It begins to throb and you can count your heart rate by the throbbing.  Puss sets in and you begin to focus all of your attention on the splinter in your finger.  Resentment is similar in relationships.  It often begins with an unresolved issue between two people, but the issue is never resolved.  It seems that you can let the issue go, but over time the issue begins to build in your mind.

Take for example the relationship Rachel had with her older sister in Genesis 29 and following.  It’s a story of Jacob who is running away from his brother Esau who wants to kill him for stealing his birthright and the blessing from Isaac, the father.  Jacob meets Rachel and falls in love with her immediately and wants to marry her.  Unfortunately Rachel’s father says no unless Jacob works for him for 7 years.  Jacob does that because he loves Rachel so much, but the father tricks Jacob on his wedding day with Rachel by putting Leah, Rachel’s older sister, in bed with Jacob and not Rachel.  He wakes up in the morning and is furious.  Think how you would feel if you were going to marry someone and the night of your wedding your father gave your sister to your lover.  I would be furious with my father, but would have some resentment to my sister for sleeping with my fiance.  It is a complex story, but you can see how resentment becomes the seed between Rachel and Leah, as well as between Rachel and Laban, her father.

On this journey in order to deal with and resolve resentment, you first have to identify the source of the resentment to stop the resentment from building.  Left alone as we will see, resentment can become ugly.

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The Favored One Or The Rejected One

Posted on January 13, 2014 by James Gorton

Have you ever been in a family where you were the favorite son or daughter?  Where it seemed that your mother or father or maybe both doted on you more than your siblings?  It could be that you have experienced favoritism in your work environment where the boss has taken a liking to you and gives you the best jobs with the most rewards.  It’s wonderful in many respects to be the favored one because with favoritism comes affirmation from the ones who are doting on you.  Whatever you do there is positive affirmation and appreciation for your accomplishments.

OR

Maybe you are the one who isn’t favored.  You get all the grunt work and never get praised for what you do.  You seem to be on the end of the stick when it comes to gifts or appreciation.  No one seems to notice what you do, nor do they care.

OR

It could be that you experienced both favoritism from one parent and rejection from the other parent.  There is a family who had this dilemma in the bible.  It’s the story of Isaac and Rebekah.  Isaac was the son of Abraham and Sarah.  Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons (fraternal), Jacob and Esau.  In Genesis 25:27 it says, “The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents.  Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”  The parents had their favorite children.

What do you think it did in the hearts and minds of the children knowing the other parent loved their sibling more than them?  What does it do for a child’s esteem to know they are not loved or favored or valued?  In the case of Esau, knowing that his mother didn’t love him the way she loved his brother, he made some unhealthy choices down the road.  She helped Jacob steal the blessing from Isaac before he died that was to go to Esau.  He was so angry that he began to think of how he might kill his brother (Gen. 27:42)

One of the conscious effects of not being favored or experiencing the blessing of a parent is to do the exact opposite of what they want us to do.  In Esau’s case, he learned that his parents didn’t want the boys to marry a Canaanite woman.  So what he did was to go and do exactly what his parents didn’t like and married Mahalath, a Canaanite woman. (Gen 28:8-9)

As parents when our children are doing the exact opposite of what we communicate as important in life, it may indicate that our children are not feeling valued or are not experiencing our blessing and have taken a path to go in the opposite direction of our desires to express their anger. This path can take many destructive choices.  Rejection of our faith.  Drugs.  Smoking.  Drinking.  Flunking School.

On this journey, it’s important as a parent to seek to treat all of our children equally and give them equal value and equal blessings.

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Dealing With Fear? You Are Not Alone

Posted on January 9, 2014 by James Gorton

Fear.  Being afraid.  It’s an emotion induced by a perceived threat.  That threat can be anything.  When a stimulus occurs our reaction to that stimulus evokes emotions of fear that cause us to fight or to flight.  Fear causes us to motivate ourselves to deal with the stimulation, or to run from it.  The stimulus can be anything.  Snakes.  Spiders.  The response to someone we love.  Fear of the outdoors.  Heights.  Water.  Enclosed spaces.  Needles.  Blood.  Social rejection. Failure.  Public speaking.  Cockroaches.  Flying.  Driving.  You name it, any stimulus can create a fear within any of us.

Fear can manifest itself throughout our lifetime.  We can get to the age of 99 and still carry around in our mind stimuli that creates fear responses.  Take for example Abraham, who at the age of 99 was married to Sarah.  God had told him earlier in his life to move from his family of origin to the wilderness west of his homeland.  He told him to look around because God was going to give him all the land as far as he could see.  Unfortunately there was a famine in the land and so Abraham moved his family to Egypt where there was food (Genesis 12. 13-15).  Because he was afraid of what the Egyptians would do to himself if they knew she was his wife (she was very beautiful, but was 90 the last time Abraham did this-she kept her beauty even in her old age), he told them she was her sister.  Abraham not only did this once, but later in life he did the same thing in front of King Abimelech. (Genesis 20: 1-13)

Fear can cause us to run from our problems.  It can cause us to compromise our moral and ethical standards.  It can cause us to lie so that we don’t have to face the terrible assumptions we have conjured up in our minds.  It is for sure debilitating and causes us to take our eyes off the Lord and onto ourselves and our circumstances.  Fear surfaces when we focus on the situation, the stimulus and not on the power to fix the situation.

Jesus spoke to this issue of fear and worry and says, “Don’t worry about your life as to what you shall eat or what you shall drink or what you shall put put on. . .” ( Matthew 6:25-34)  His solution to fear and worry is to focus first and foremost on Him, His Kingdom, and His righteousness.  When we focus on the stimulus of our fear, we will be like Abraham who at the age of 99 still feared what would happen to him if foreigners found out he was married to a 90 year old beautiful woman.  I guess the one positive thing about this is that at 99, he still had a wonderful perspective of his bride.

On this journey throughout life, times of fear will inevitably surface.  Remember where to put your focus and cause the fear to melt away.

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Through a Child’s Eye

Posted on January 8, 2014 by James Gorton

Over the past holidays, Victoria and her family came to visit.  During the time they were here, we all decided to go to the Phoenix Children’s Museum.  We loaded up the SUV after the afternoon nap with snacks, plenty of diapers, change of clothes, blanket, baby wipes, safety pins, aspirin, a stroller, two car seats, and the kitchen sink.  I have forgotten how much needs to come with a 4 year old and a 10 month old.  Off we went for an afternoon of kid play.

We pulled into a parking lot of an old three-story school-house and unpacked the car with all the necessary equipment for a 2 hour expedition to wonderland.  The first contraption is pictured below with wonderful nooks and crannies to crawl and climb in, complete with a flying bath tub.

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It was complete with a car (bike) wash that I had to take my 10 month grandson through two times.  What fun for kids to experience life from their point of view.

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What to me was the most interesting though was when Brayden came across some PVC pipe that had air being pumped thru the pipes.  You could put a ping-pong ball in the air stream and the ball would become suspended in mid-air.  Look at the eyes of amazement at what was taking place.  I quit looking at the ball and focused my attention on what he was seeing.  It caused me to see the experience in a whole different way.

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Isn’t that what Jesus said, when he talked about children by saying, “Unless you change and  become like a little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)  Children look at God’s creation and just wonder in amazement.  They don’t come with skepticism or negativity.  They don’t question what they are seeing.  They just accept and appreciate what they are seeing.  Unfortunately the world and those around begin to put spins on life and cause us to see life from a distorted perspective.

On this journey, when you find yourself around little children, take some time to recalibrate your perspective by seeking to see life and the Lord through a child’s eyes.

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Stalemate

Posted on January 7, 2014 by James Gorton

Over the Christmas holidays, my oldest daughter came from Chicago (-5) to sunny Scottsdale (70) with her dog Tiffany.  Tiffany is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel like Monty, our dog.  They get along fairly well except when it comes to food.  Monty gobbles us his food and wants more.  On this particular day, Deborah had just fed Tiffany, or at least put her food in the bowl.  We came around the corner and saw this site.

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As you can see, Tiffany, on the right, is not interested in eating her food at the moment, but she sure is not going to let Monty eat it either.  Stalemate.  Neither of them budged.  They sat there for several minutes with no one making a move to eat the food.  She was determined he wasn’t going to eat the food, but she didn’t want the food either.  Cavalier King Charles standoff.

How often do we experience the same type of picture in our relationships with others.  There is a difficulty or an obstacle blocking us from having connection with one another and neither party is willing to budge to seek reconciliation.  The longer the standoff, the more distant we become to our significant other.  Assumptions build in our mind and the problem increases in intensity and complexity.

Jesus spoke to this stalemate in Matthew 5 and Matthew 18 when it comes to problems that come between friends, spouses, business associates, children, relatives, etc.  In Matthew 5:23-25 I am the one who has wronged another person.  Jesus mandate to me is to go to the person I have wronged and apologize for what I have done before doing anything else.  I need to GO.  It’s my move

In Matthew 18:15-18 the situation is just reversed.  Someone has wronged me.  So what is my responsibility when it’s not my fault?  Jesus says in the passage that it is my move to go the person who has wronged me and face them with the purpose of seeking to be reconciled with that person.  Again it’s MY MOVE.  I need to GO.

On this journey in 2014, it’s my commitment to break down the pride in my life and take the first move irrespective of what the problem is and not find myself in the picture of two King Charles dogs not willing to give an inch.  How about you this coming year?  What will be your resolution in dealing with problems that come your way?  Transformation can only come when we allow God’s word to change the way we have done things.

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