Whispers of Truth

Grace is simple, but it is also an extremely difficult concept to grasp. As our children have gotten older (15-18), we have tried to make Christmas not so much about getting as giving. As a result, we’ve tried to avoid giving meaningless gifts just to give gifts and we’ve tried to give more. As a mom also known as the “Christmas grinch,” I have to admit that it has been rather appealing to me; the older I have gotten, the less inclined I am to enjoy the trappings of commercial Christmas, thus the lack of inclination to put up a Christmas tree and buy an obligatory gift for anyone and everyone has earned me this moniker. I could be pious and say that the cause of all of this is an appreciation of the grace bestowed upon me by Christ, but I won’t because it really isn’t true. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know about grace. One of the children came home from winter retreat to find that my husband and son had put up a Christmas tree this year (because they liked it and

I have been silent for a long while and with good reason—rebellion is never an easy road to travel, and I’ve been walking on it for a while. This year has brought much change to my life. As the year began, I found a renewed interest in the Word and stepped out and took a risk at the urge of the Spirit and began blogging about what I was reading and what God was working out in me. A short six weeks later, He placed a new call on my family’s life, and I don’t for one minute believe that it was incidental that the call came at a time when I felt the power of the Spirit moving strongly in my life. As a believer, Christ has called me to take up my cross daily and follow Him. Christ struggled under the cross He carried to Golgotha, but for some reason, I expected mine to be a lot easier to bear. Change is never easy, and I didn’t expect that this change would be, but it became overwhelming for me when my focus shifted from the call to the difficulty of carrying out that call. As a result, w

Moses had issues, but let it never be said that Moses lacked passion for his people and God. Even though was raised as an Egyptian by necessity, he knew his Hebrew heritage, and when he saw that his people were mistreated and suffered at the hand of their Egyptian taskmasters, he killed an Egyptian and tried to hide him in the sand so that no one would know what he had done (Ex. 2:12). The very next day he saw two of his Hebrew brothers fighting against each other and tried to intervene to bring peace. They promptly set him in his place: “Who made you a prince or a judge over us?” (Ex. 2:14). Moses, fearing retaliation, fled Egypt and escaped to Midian, where he met Jethro and his daughter Zipporah, whom he married. When God called Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, Moses temporarily left his family behind. When Moses led his people across the Red Sea and the Egyptians washed upon the seashore, Jethro heard what God had done for Moses and His people, and he met him in the desert wi

When we encounter anything contrary to our comfort, for most of us the knee-jerk reaction is to complain about it to anyone and everyone who will listen. We complain loudly and bitterly and often. Even if complaining really doesn’t change anything, it gives the illusion of action—not passively taking whatever is troubling us lying down. The children of Israel had the act of complaining down to an art. A mere three days after seeing Pharoah’s army drown in the Red Sea (Ex. 14), they found themselves at Marah, where the water was bitter and undrinkable (Ex. 15). I can almost hear their reaction: “Moses! What are we to drink? This stuff is nasty! What are you going to do about it?” Fortunately for them (and us), God is gracious, and when Moses cried out to him for help, he showed him a piece of wood to throw into the water to make it palatable. Act II of the same play occurs midway through the second month after fleeing slavery in Egypt. While in the Desert of Sin (been

While we know few things in life for certain, we live as if we do. If we were really honest with ourselves, there is nothing about the physical world in which we live that is absolutely certain. I think about this sometimes as I drive across the longest curved truss bridge in the U.S., Tallassee’s Benjamin Fitzpatrick Bridge, which was dedicated in 1940. Other bridges like it, built in the same time period, have collapsed or been torn down, and the amount of traffic flowing across our bridge simply weakens it over time, but I take it for granted that each time I make the trip that it will offer safe transport. God is the only One who knows anything with certainty because He is God—sovereign and omnipotent and omnipresent and all the other qualities that we as humans are not. In Genesis, when speaking with Abram before cutting covenant with him, God tells Abram that he can “know for certain” that the nation that would issue from him would be enslaved, that the nation that ens

As much as I could wish it were true, life does not get easier with age, and Christianity is not a panacea either…as much as I would like for it to be. Wrestling with God over issues and circumstances seems a necessary part of walking the road of faith because events and people inevitably enter our lives and wreak havoc in places that we could never have foreseen. Sarai did not wrestle with God physically, as Jacob did, but she wrestled with Him spiritually in regard to the promised heir. Honestly, just reading about Sarai makes me feel tired because I see so much of myself in her. She knew God’s plan was for Abram to bear a son, and she knew that God had closed her womb, and yet she decided to take matters into her own hands in order to make something happen (Genesis 16). The resulting chaos has echoed through the ages, and all of Sarai’s manipulations did not help one bit; in fact, it made things far worse. I can relate to Sarai in many ways. Like her, I am sometimes seeming

(from The Revelation to John) 1. The time is drawing near. (Rev. 1:3b) 2. Jesus has the keys of death and hell. (Rev. 1:18b) 3. The overcomers get to eat of the tree of life with God’s permission. (Rev. 2:7) 4. Did I mention the tree is in Paradise? (Rev. 2:7) 5. The one who persists and overcomes won’t “be hurt by the second death.” (Rev. 2:11b) 6. I’ve always wanted to eat manna. (Rev. 2:17) 7. He’ll give me a white stone with a secret new name written on it. (Rev. 2:17) 8. I’ve always been bossy, so authority over the nations sounds like it might be right up my alley…(Rev. 2:26) 9. He’ll give me the morning star. (Rev. 2:28) 10. Jesus will confess my name before God and His angels. (Rev. 3:5) 11. So that no one will take my crown. (Rev. 3:11) 12. God will make me a pillar in God’s temple, and I’ll get to stay there, and God will write God’s name all over me, as well as the name of God’s city, New Jerusalem, and Jesus’ new name. (Rev. 3:12) 13. Jesus says I can sit down

Lately it seems that my life has a theme: the costliness of following Christ. Maybe that’s not the theme so much as it has been where my focus has been. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I am really not into conflict or pain or hardship and deprivation-- comfortable suits me just fine. Fortunately for me, God hasn't left me to my own limited idea of what my life should be. He challenges me (constantly it seems) in order to cause me to grow and to cause me to realize that I must depend on His strength because I have absolutely none of my own. These are lessons worth learning, and the reminder Jesus give s His disciples in Mark 8:34 is timely: ‘“And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me”’(NASB). As I've studied Kay Arthur's Covenant over the last five weeks, she has made it clear that the covenant relationship we have with Christ is a "walk in

“Dead” isn’t always exactly desirable, but there’s a deadness mentioned in Colossians that is not only desirable but necessary in the Christian walk. In this passage in Chapter 3, Paul is reminding those in Christ to keep seeking heavenly things instead of the earthly things that often consume us, and he is encouraging us to have a mind set on things above instead of the things of the flesh. This can only be accomplished with a prerequisite of death: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3, NASB). The list of things we should be dead to is comprehensive: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which equals idolatry (vs. 5). Lest we think we think we’re above needing a reminder from the Word about practicing such “evil,” Paul continues the list in verse 8: “Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth” and anyone who escaped the first list probably got slammed by the second one. Paul goes on to remind us that we’re al

I firmly believe that one of the hardest teachings of Jesus is found in Matthew 7:1-6. Jesus teaches in these verses that Christians who are forgiven much are not to engage in judging others. The reason Jesus gives for avoiding judging others is powerful—He says that we can avoid being judged by the same standard we carelessly use on others. Ouch! I know that if I have a choice between receiving judgment and forgiveness, I will always choose forgiveness. What this tells me is that I’m often too harsh on others and far too easy on myself. I am quick to see and even point out someone else’s sin in a judgmental way while overlooking things in myself that I should be dealing with. After all, it’s so much easier to see another’s sin than to see my own, and I’m afraid that it’s far more satisfying to my flesh to point that sin out than it is to deal with my own issues. Jesus points out to His disciples in Matthew 7:3-4 that people tend to quickly see even small things in others’ lives while

“Lord, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy." Hab. 3:2 I had the thought this week that we (as people, a nation, and sometimes even the Church) have lost our fear of God. That might sound like a good thing because we think of fear as a negative term, but Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary helps clarify the type of fear I mean: In good men, the fear of God is a holy awe or reverence of God and his laws, which springs from a just view and real love of the divine character, leading the subjects of it to hate and shun every thing that can offend such a holy being, and inclining them to aim at perfect obedience. We reverence very few things, and we lack a holy awe for God because we have so little understanding of His character. Simply put, my awe of Him increases proportionately with my knowledge of who He is. If I understand who He is, then I will learn to ha

          When Jonathan made a covenant with David, he took on the (probably) smelly, grubby, worn garments of a shepherd and exchanged them with his own royal robes. He willingly and knowingly risked the wrath of his father, King Saul, because he loved David. Jonathan subsequently protected David from his father’s evil plots as best he could.           Likewise, Jesus initiated a covenant with sinful man. We were his Father’s enemy because of our sinful nature, yet Jesus willingly took our smelly, grubby, sinful garments and exchanged them with his pure, white robe of righteousness. He willingly and knowingly accepted the wrath of his Father for us because he loved us, and it is His blood covering that makes us acceptable to a righteous God who cannot tolerate sin. Don’t mistake me. There is no comparison between Saul, the King, and God, the Father. But when I look at the picture of Jonathan initiating a covenant, exchanging his robes with David, and taking on the role of interc

          Not many people write letters anymore (if you don’t believe me, ask the struggling post offices all around the country). Rarely is there time for a setting down of thoughts and ideas and plans and hopes and dreams and experiences on a sheet of paper. Instead, we email, text, or call each other in the rare moments we can spare in the middle of doing something else that is urgent or pressing. I’m grateful that God took the time to write letters to us, each one filled with the truth, wisdom, and encouragement we need to know Him and run the race well. In this we are blessed because without His letters we have no way of knowing Christ and His sacrifice for us.           While receiving a letter or talking on the phone with someone we love is pleasant, it is not anywhere near as satisfying as speaking with that person face to face. John expresses this thought in the Second Letter of John when he says, “Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper

A love I didn’t initiate, A plan I can’t comprehend, A mercy beyond compare And one that will not end. A bond between two  That makes two one When one is neither   worthy or pure-- The yoking together of unequal parts to forge a new covenant Between the judge and the convict-- One gives, the other takes Until the taker learns to give. Cut into His hands, Engraved on my heart. Unbreakable.

Psalm 145:14 “The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down” (NASB).           Today’s events proved rather unusual in the life of the Pates. When a voice came over the PA system in the library (where my 9 th grade English class was meeting for library orientation) and said that I had a call, I knew that something was up because that only happens when there is an emergency.   My husband informed me that he had sustained a fall off of a disk harrow at work and had hurt his leg and needed the insurance card. He was calm, so I remained so too and simply prayed for him as my class continued their orientation. Ten minutes later, I took the card out to him and saw that he had massive swelling above his right shin where he had fallen onto a disk as he stepped off the harrow. He spent most of the day in the ER making sure that there was not a fracture, but he is fine—just extremely sore and in some pain. Even so, God is good. Greg had stepped onto a tire that he forg