Devotionals for the Heart: Failure

The Remedy for Failure
A devotional by Chaplain Paul Anderson

“And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.”

–Mark 9:18 (KJV)

There are some people in this world who do not or rarely fail at anything. I am not one of them. Failure is humbling and humiliating. It is embarrassing to the one who failed as well as those who had great expectations.

In Mark chapter nine, Jesus Christ enters a scene where a crowd had gathered around His disciples. They were contending with them because they had publicly failed to exorcise a suicidal demon from a young man. Can you imagine, or remember when you approached a task with confidence and through no fault of your own, failed? It can be frustrating and demoralizing.

I spent 20 years in the Navy as a chaplain. My first three years were with the Marine Corps. I did a great job and loved the challenge. The Chief of Chaplains personally selected me for my next assignment in Washington, D.C. I excelled in that job too. While in the second job, I became eligible for promotion to Lieutenant Commander. I thought that I would be a “shoo-in”, even though it was a competitive process. I was not selected. It happened again the next year. Just like He did in this story, Jesus showed up for me.

When He approached the crowd and asked what was happening, the crowd gave a negative report. They said that Christ’s disciples failed! In a stroke of masterful leadership, Jesus, without condemning the failure, stepped into the gap of expectation. He shifted the focus from the disciple’s failure to the faith of the father whose child was possessed.

Once the father articulated his faith filled doubt, Jesus rebuked the demon. In so doing, He demonstrated three spiritual leadership lessons:

Lesson #1: He turned a public failure into a teachable moment.

Lesson #2: He met the needs of the father, the boy, the crowd and the disciples. Everyone left the scene, whole, with restored confidence in the power and grace of Christ.

Lesson #3: He raised the level of spiritual preparation that the disciples would have to pursue to meet future challenges.

Failure often teaches more indelible lessons than success. Easy, immediate, and frequent success can lead to an inflated sense of capability and arrogance. In this story, after Jesus healed the boy, the crowd dissipated, and Jesus came into the room where the disciples had retreated. They asked Him why they had failed. They had done what they had seen him do. What made the difference?

His answer gives a key to the ascending levels of spiritual power. The disciples were learning the basic math of spiritual leadership and power. Now, Jesus was introducing them to Algebra in preparation for the Calculus that would be required to lead His church into the geometric impact that they would have on the world.

From day one, Jesus had shown them the power of plenty that lay just beyond the surface of their efforts. Miraculous demonstrations of God’s provisions won their trust and allegiance. They gained power through their proximity to Him. Now, He was preparing them to suffer the cost of leadership and power.

Isolation, intense expectation, and condemnation often typify the atmosphere that surrounds top tier leaders. Athletes, tycoons, evangelists and other apex leaders graduate into an accelerating vortex of ever-increasing challenges and expectations. 

Fasting and prayer were the spiritual disciplines that would prepare the disciples for their future trials and victories. Fasting and prayer are the antidotes for arrogance, the fear of failure as well as the corresponding highs and lows of leadership. Lessons learned in the trenches and valleys are the vehicles that transport us to our peak performances.

Fasting and prayer drive us back to the foundries of faith where once again we are tried and purified in the fires of failure. It is there that our characters are refined and displayed. It is through increasing expectation and fatigue that strength is formed.

Fasting and prayer is where divinity introduces us to vision, providence, and possibility. Faith is the key that opens the transparent veil between what we envision and what we can grasp. Fasting and prayer is not simply deprivation, it is preparation.

Getting ready for your greatness? Do what Jesus taught his disciples to do: fast and pray.

Let’s Pray: Dear God, if we have failed, help us to learn. Strengthen us so that we can fast and pray. When we do, speak to us through our hopes and dreams. Open our eyes so that we can see what lies ahead and face it without fear. Bless us with Your guidance, wisdom, faith, and fortitude, as you did for the disciples with whom you lived. Live similarly within us. In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

~*~
Author Bio:

Chaplain Anderson served for 20 years as a U.S. Navy Chaplain. Over 26 years of active duty, he was promoted through the ranks from Seaman Apprentice (E2) to his final rank as Commander (O5) in the Chaplain’s Corps.

Prior to his Naval career, Chaplain Anderson pastored in the Allegheny East and Potomac Conferences of Seventh-day Adventists. His undergraduate preparation for ministry was completed at Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Md.

He has subsequently earned four graduate degrees: a Master of Divinity from Andrews University in Michigan, a Master of Education in Counseling and Personnel Services from the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland and a Masters of Sacred Theology in Religion and Culture from Boston University. His Doctor of Ministry degree was conferred by Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.

Chaplain Anderson also completed four units of Clinical Pastoral Education at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He also holds certifications in Suicide Awareness and Prevention, Civil Mediation, Alternative Workplace Dispute Resolution, Temperament Analysis, Marriage Enrichment, Workforce Diversity, and is a certified Life Coach.

You may connect with Chaplain Anderson via email at this address, psanderson75@gmail.com.

Devotionals for the Heart: Power, Compassion and God's Heart for Humankind

God's Power and Heart of Compassion for Humankind 
A devotional by Malinda Fugate

Key Scripture:

Matthew 8

If we open the pages of the Bible to Matthew 8, we are ushered to a front row seat where we witness Jesus Christ heal a man with leprosy, restore mobility to the servant of a centurion from afar, relieve Peter’s mother-in-law of fever, and drive out demonic spirits from numerous people.

As we continue to read through the chapter, we see Him calm a raging storm and send evil spirits into a herd of pigs. As these things unfold, we are confronted with three major truths about Christ:

Major Truth #1: Jesus has the power to heal.

Skeptics have argued since the days Christ walked on earth that He was merely a man, a good teacher at best. But through miraculous acts of healing, the Lord demonstrated power that could only be done by the Son of God. He provides care better than the most skilled doctor, defying laws of nature and physics to do what can only be done through divine power.

Major Truth #2: Jesus has authority in Heaven and on Earth.

Matthew 8:5-13 highlights an encounter with an official in the Roman army who had great faith in Christ. When Jesus offered to come to his home to heal his paralyzed servant, the official declined. His reasoning? As a person in authority, he understood that commanding words have power, and this was especially true of the divine power of Christ. He trusted that it would only take a word from Jesus to heal the servant and that’s exactly what happened! This healing demonstrated the authority of Jesus. The driving out of demonic spirits and the calming of the storm would also serve as evidence of Jesus’ authority on earth and in the supernatural realm.

Major Truth #3: Jesus has compassion.

The power and authority of Christ is worthy of every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that He is Lord. But the most remarkable thing the healings of Matthew 8 show us is the incredible compassion of our Savior. Jesus didn’t wield His power with the heavy hand of a tyrant. Instead, He actively loved the people God sent Him to save. He sees our needs and provides gentle, kind care. He removes hindrances and brings us closer to our Heavenly Father. Jesus overflows with love for us and shows us in many ways, including healing.

My Conclusion:

Jesus Christ reigns in Heaven and on Earth, and so we rightly declare that He is worthy of glory, honor, and praise. But it is His love that moves our hearts to worship in a way beyond description, exceeding what can be articulated with words.

The precious relationship that we have with our Savior is like no other. Such a powerful love can’t be matched, imitated, improved, or replaced. Nothing can take it away or destroy it. We are secure in the love of Jesus Christ who gently holds our hearts in His strong, capable care.

~*~
Author Bio:

Malinda Fugate writes from the heart. 

Though she serves full time as the Children’s Education Director at a church in Southern California, she is also a crafter of words published in books.

Her writing includes children's faith resources, commercial copywriting, and various faith-based stage and screenplays.

Malinda invites you to explore the various 3:16s in the Bible with her new book, The Other Three Sixteens (published by Ambassador International in May 2020).

She also invites you to read her previously published books: Bible Time for Active Kids, which is an activities-based devotional that is available for purchase on Amazon.com, and The Pen and the Sword: Connecting With the Word of God, which is an interactive creative writing journal.

Malinda earned a communications degree with a theatre emphasis from Azusa Pacific University, and then worked behind the scenes at the Los Angeles Salem radio stations, including The Fish and KKLA.

When she's not writing or working at church, Malinda might be creating art, reading, or exploring the many adventures to be found in the Los Angeles area. 

She lives by the beach with her pup, Yoshi.

Visit Malinda online via https://www.malindafugate.com.

Testimony Time: Peter's story about the American Dream and God

Today, I'm going to share a story with you about how God radically renewed a man name Peter. No, not the Bible character (Peter, follower of Jesus Christ) but a current-day character (Peter J. Wenzell of Georgia, U.S.A.) whose life was transformed by God's love.

Enjoy!

~*~

Peter J. Wenzell's story about how God transformed his life:

For the first 50 years of my life, I lived what some have described as a “charmed existence.” 

My formative years were filled with athletic success, as I played top-tier Jr. “A” and D-1 NCAA college ice hockey. These are leagues that are both very prestigious and are 1-step away from the NHL. As a player, you dream to play in at either level. The teams that I was drafted by were the Cornwall Royals, Detroit Jr. Wings, and I accepted an offer to play for the University of Michigan. Later years involved starting a small business from scratch that became very successful.

As my annual income increased to substantial levels, I was never one who had any problem whatsoever spending almost every penny of it on expensive material items like sleek sports cars and oversized luxury SUVs. Our main family home was in a high-end subdivision, in the “right” suburban Atlanta town. My beautiful wife Adele acquired an extensive wardrobe that filled to overflowing a large walk-in closet. The sheer volume of our kids’ toys, bikes, water skis, hockey equipment, and miscellaneous other sporting goods made it virtually impossible for us to park any of our cars in the garage.

I had successfully ticked most of the boxes necessary to achieve the American Dream. And yet, something was missing. To fill the emptiness, I turned more and more to alcohol. I knew I was steadily descending deeper into alcoholism. My excessive drinking was often accompanied by volatile, unjustified, angry outbursts directed at my wife and kids at home.

For years, I lived a shameful lie. Having at best a lukewarm faith in God, I attended church with my family once or twice a month, mainly out of a sense of obligation (I was what they call a “cradle Catholic”), or just to keep up appearances to help maintain the ruse.

Then the physical pain began. One day, I was unable to finish my daily six-mile run due to what I thought was a groin pull. But rather than getting better, the situation deteriorated so rapidly that between the ages of 50 and 51, I had five spinal-fusion surgeries and a hip replacement. Still, none of these highly invasive procedures resulted in even the slightest reduction in the severe, nearly debilitating, lower back pain that dominated every single second of my days.

Then, at a follow-up appointment with my doctor, the X-ray technician took an image of my upper rather than lower back, which revealed the real culprit of my agony — a spinal tumor. Nearly two painful years later, the tumor began to hemorrhage and I was scheduled for immediate surgery at the renowned Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

That surgery both saved my life and left me paralyzed.

As the surgeon broke the dire news to me, “Who I was” and my version of living the American Dream slowly dissolved right before my eyes. In that one gut-wrenching moment, I lost everything that defined me. After tasting the raw, genuinely fearful emotion of helplessness, I launched into a fit of rage, directed primarily at God. Why had He allowed everything in my life to be lost?

Over the subsequent days, I descended steadily ever deeper into depression and despair —sometimes to the point of contemplating suicide. In desperation, I decided to devote some of my newly acquired “spare time” to search for answers to life’s existential questions. My number one question was focused on finding out whether or not God and Jesus Christ were real. My gut feeling was they had long since been proven to be nothing more than ancient fairy tales or common mythologies. I naively believed that mainstream science – armed with the scientific method – had long since demolished the “god hypothesis” and the Christian worldview.

I spent months researching both sides of the issue, reading the arguments for scientific atheism as well as the works of Christian apologists. I also began to delve into the Bible, to see for myself what it had to say. It was a lengthy process, but through my research, I became convinced that science does not disprove the Christian notion of a purposeful, infinitely loving and supremely intelligent being. In fact, I found the theist’s arguments more well-reasoned and the facts in evidence more supportive of their premises.

I was beginning to believe that God really does exist and that He is who the Bible defines him to be and who Jesus Christ revealed Him to be.

Out of options, I decided to sweep together the shattered pieces of my broken life, and then I handed them off to God. But before I did, I wrote out and then formally confessed every sin I was directly responsible for and the negative impact it had on others. Almost instantly, I felt a lighter load, a freer, less chaotic sense of reality. A fresh start of understanding and forgiveness permeated the warm, glowing feeling of peace I was experiencing.

From there, it was as if I was gently lifted out of bed, caught up in the love of Someone or some Power so great and so pure it was something I had never associated with being part of a relationship with God. God, I discovered, was love! God is love!

My next move came more naturally than breathing the pristine air around me. I asked whether I might give myself to Him, as broken as I was. I told Him I could no longer bear the weight of all the sins, wrong living, purposefully hurtful actions, all the baggage that came with my alcoholism, the inability to accept my paralysis, and more.

The answer came immediately: “Is it not already lifted from you?” And indeed it had been!

So it was on bended knee (figuratively), I gave my life to Jesus Christ, devoting myself to serving Him in any way the indwelling Holy Spirit should guide me. I have woken up each day happy, and I go to bed each night with my inner void filled by the love and beautiful truth that comes to the broken, once saved.

Since that time, I have been hospitalized over 30 times due to various infections and other paralysis-related issues. My life as a paraplegic hasn’t been an easy one, but it was my suffering that caused me to seek God diligently. In return, He has given me a foretaste of Heaven, and I am now living in the warm, loving Light and peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Pictured: Mr. Peter and Mrs. Adele Wenzell

~*~
Peter J. Wenzell’s Professional Bio:

(2013-Present): Founder/Director of The Center for Quantum Consciousness & Digital Analytics (TCQCDA) in Cartersville, Georgia. (TCQCDA) is a research group which studies quantum mechanics and digital information’s role in creating our reality, specializing in QM’s role in consciousness and the digital simulation hypothesis.

(1996-2013): President/CEO of International Restaurant Management Corporation (IRMC) was a start-up firm for the management, design, and operation of branded franchised food courts, restaurants, bars, gift stores inside airports across the US.

(2000-2013): IRMC merges with MSE Branded Foods to expand its operations into airports. Sales grew to $18M per year.

(2010): Wenzell becomes paraplegic-chest down. This is the impetus to accept Christ and to conduct an extensive search for evidence of the Christian worldview he cherishes.

Present-Day: As a writer, Peter is a frequent contributor to Quora, and to various Christian blogs. Readers may email Peter at this address (pete.qcdia@gmail.com).

Words of Faith: Zillah's story about God's healing power

The Prayer of Faith
A Words of Faith story by Zillah Williams

A few years ago I was struck down by depression—not just low spirits but a debilitating and prolonged bout of fear and gloom. It was this problem that led me to learn about faith—specifically, what James in his epistle calls The Prayer of Faith: “And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven” (James 5:15) NIV.

Until then, my understanding of faith had been similar to that of the dad in Adrian Plass’s book The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37¾ (1987). If you have read the book, you will remember that his wife and son discovered him one day concentrating hard on a paper clip, “willing” it to move.

The teaching of the late Canon Jim Glennon showed me that “willing” myself to be healed was not faith. For twenty years, he led a healing ministry at St. Andrews Cathedral in Sydney, Australia. During that time, the Cathedral was packed for the Wednesday night healing services. The teaching that he gave at these services was written up and distributed to members of the congregation. Gradually, through reading copies of these weekly talks, I came to understand what faith—the Prayer of Faith—really means. Jim Glennon didn’t simply tell people what to do, he explained how to do it.

His teaching was basically this: know the promises of God; receive the promise that fits your situation; thereafter, thank God for the answer.

It’s really so very simple. Jim would say, “You have what you accept” and “Believe it before you see it.” As Oswald Chambers said: “Seeing is never believing.”

Through Jim Glennon’s teaching I took the words of 2 Timothy 1:7 as my promise for healing from depression—“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (KJV). I spoke the promise over to myself constantly—and I mean constantly—for I don’t know how long, until the depression left me.

George Müller, the German evangelist and man of faith who provided homes for hundreds of orphans in England during the nineteenth century, operated entirely by faith. He never begged for money to feed and clothe his orphans. He simply made his needs known to God and trusted Him for provision. And the provision always came.

Jim Glennon learned to trust God in the same way as George Müller did. It was about twelve months after he began the Healing Ministry at St. Andrews Cathedral when a group of young people in the congregation offered themselves for missionary service overseas. Jim was impressed and told God that he, too, was willing to go to the mission field. He was spoken to by the Holy Spirit who told him his job was to “learn how to pray.” And that is what happened. He learned the secret of the Prayer of Faith and spent over twenty years teaching others. At the end of his ministry, he said: “Let your problems enable you to trust, not in yourself but in God, and make it a way of life. It is simple. It is straightforward. You will have to persevere, but it will work for you in the same way as I have found it worked for me and for many, many others.”

Through accepting God’s promise that He’d not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind and unceasingly thanking Him for it, I was gradually healed. Exactly when the healing fully occurred, I’ll truly never know, but heal, I did.

~*~
Author bio: 

Zillah was born in England, emigrating with her parents to Australia in her early teens. Before she took up writing Zillah was a librarian in Sydney. 

Now she is a writer and also engages in proofreading and copyediting. She has written articles for Christian magazines, five novels for young adults and, in 2015, a romance novel called I Only Want to Dance With You, published by Elk Lake Publishing.

She is interested in the healing ministry of the church which led her to compile and edit a book of sermons by the late Canon Jim Glennon of St. Andrews Cathedral in Sydney—Healing is a Way of Life.