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A Heart Set on Pilgrimage

~ Barbara ~ Leave a comment

Pilgrimage is a curious word. When we grasp its concept, it will enrich our perspective and allow us to attune our spirits to what is eternal and put the temporal in its rightful place. Our choice is to live for now, enjoying its pleasures and accepting its challenges, or we travel through life toward an unfathomable destination awaiting us.

In 1678, John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory describing a man named Christian and his journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. Christian overcomes many obstacles and resists temptations because he is astutely aware that life is a journey and his destination is real.

When our hearts are set on pilgrimage, like Christian, we look forward to our future with confidence and have strength for the journey to get there.

We find benefits of a pilgrimage perspective in Psalm 84:5-7:

  • Our strength is in God. We are not meandering on earth, stumbling and fumbling, but have supernatural strength to survive and thrive despite obstacles and disappointments.
  • When we meet sorrow, we pass through our valley of weeping—it is not our destination. Rather than camping there, we turn it into a place of life-giving springs!
  • We increase in strength, step by step and day by day, because we press forward to our eternal destiny.
  • We will appear before God. Our tears will be wiped away, our sorrows erased, and our hearts made glad.

 Fellow journeyers, persist and move forward with your hearts set on pilgrimage.

There is a River

~ Barbara ~ 1 Comment

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
Psalm 46:4

I whisper to my soul, “There is a river,” and my heart stills. With those simple words, I am assured, satisfied, quieted. As an earthly resident of a heavenly city, I treasure the assurances I find in the following verses of Psalm 46.

  • “God is within her, she will not fall.” The kingdoms of this world are in tumult—wars erupt and evil devastates the land and its people. But there is a city of peace where God dwells and prepares for our arrival. I see hints of it in the rivers that flow out of it and reveal God’s grace.
  • “God will help her at break of day.” Every morning God is present to support us, to show us His lovingkindness, and to give us guidance and strength. He keeps us safe until the day we go home and see Him.
  • “Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; He lifts his voice, the earth melts.” Chaos seems to reign on earth—it is undeniably present, but it is not sovereign, God is. The warfare that rages is not against a nation’s armies or our “enlightened” political ideologies, but against evil forces that are not human. All these kingdoms will fall and then… God will lift His voice and, at His word, the world as we know it will melt.

There will be a new world. Our life will be one of peace, and joy, and remarkable revelations of truth. All will be made clear and beauty will abound. We will enter the city of God and drink from its streams because “There is a river,” and it will make us glad.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, 
since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18

Generous Compassion

~ Barbara ~ Leave a comment

God’s compassion overwhelms me. His gentleness, kindness, and humility make me uncomfortable. He is too generous for my proud heart. As much as I treasure the following verses they are difficult to accept. Ponder with me the depth of God’s compassion.

The Lord longs to be gracious to you;
    therefore He will rise up to show you compassion.
Isaiah 30:18

God longs to be gracious to me! He is not the harsh judge I imagined in my childhood. He looks at me with compassion and longs—yearns, wants, desires—to show me grace. He rises up to bless me! He sees my need and stands from His throne to pour His grace into my life.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left,
your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,
“This is the way; walk in it.”
Isaiah 30:21

The Lord is conscious of the direction I’m going and the confusion I feel. Rather than leaving me to figure things out, He comes beside me and whispers to my heart. when I veer to the right or the left my God speaks wisdom to me and corrects my course. “This is the way, Barbara. Walk in it.”

You give me your shield of victory,
and Your right hand sustains me;
    You stoop down to make me great.
Psalm 18:35

God’s shield and right hand protect and support me, which are awe-inspiring blessings. It would be enough for God to give me victory and nourish me, but He does more, and the next phrase is hard to receive. He stoops down to make me great!

Selah—pause and calmly think about these verses.

Oh, my Lord, You care so deeply for Your children! How woefully unaware we are of the intensity of Your compassion. How generous is Your grace, how humble Your heart! Our best praise is inadequate to express the depth of our gratitude.

God’s Palms

~ Barbara ~ 4 Comments

“I will not forget you!” God.
Isaiah 49:15.

Stop for a moment and look at your palms. The lines you see are called palmar flexion creases. The three deep, prominent creases should look familiar to you since you were born with them—they were formed at around the 12th week of gestation. The creases allow the skin to adapt when our hands are active—stretching, folding, or fisting. Without them, our skin would sag.

What would we see if we looked at God’s hands? Figuratively, according to a song we’ve sung since the 1920s, we would see the whole world.

Literally, would we see creases like ours? We may, since we are made in His image.

When we meet Him, I expect we will see the nail holes that make it possible for us to stand in His presence.

But if God extended His hand to us today, palm up, we would see something for our eyes alone—our name. Right there, “Barbara Higby” is prominently engraved on God’s palms. My name, and yours, is inside His grasp, present during every God activity. Read it for yourself in Isaiah 49:16:

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

Our names are etched on His palms—permanently, no ball point pen or felt-tip marker. He sees our parameters, our beginning and our end, our restrictions and freedoms, what lies before us and the experiences of our past.

When God opens His hands, He sees us, our name and the life He created.