I am blessed to married to a good and godly man for fifty-three years. His name is Gaylon, also known as my boyfriend. Gaylon is quite a negotiator. There was a time when a person could negotiate with the salesperson when buying a vehicle. Gaylon was a master negotiator. He wanted the car, but he wanted it on his terms. If the salespeople offered a certain amount, he would offer several thousand dollars below that. At times, I have looked at him like, “Are you crazy?” It is amazing how much he has saved on vehicles through the years, because he negotiated until he got what he wanted with the terms that pleased him.

There is a story in scripture of a young man who kind of wanted to negotiate with Jesus. He wanted eternal life, but he wanted it on his terms. We know him as the rich young ruler, and his story is found in Matthew 19:16-22.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit we are pretty selective about how we view Jesus. We often pick and choose the images of Jesus that appeal to us and make us feel good. Just prior to this story are verses where children are brought to Jesus, and He blesses them. One’s mind cannot help but picture a sweet scene where Jesus is laughing with the children and then pronouncing a blessing on them.

Right after that we see a side of Jesus as the uncompromising negotiator. He does not change the scripture or truth so He can add another follower. This Jesus can seem too radical, too firm to suit our tastes. Jesus wanted the truth to be unmistakable, and Jesus is known for powerful, unvarnished truth-telling.

The young man walked up to Jesus and asked Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus answered the young man by saying and naming several of the ten commandments. The man replied that he had kept all these commandments since he was a youth. He was proud of his good works.

The Gospel of Mark tells us something very important: ^“Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. “There is still one thing you haven’t done,” he told him. “Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” – Mark 10:21

It is important to know that Jesus loved the man. The conversation Jesus had for him was not snippy or controlling. Jesus spoke the truth in love, but He spoke the truth. He wanted the young man to know that following Jesus it is not about rule following and trying to earn one’s way to heaven. It is about a life that is totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. It is about following Jesus, not about following rules.

The rich young ruler was upset, sad, and walked away. “Jesus, I want to follow You, but only if I can do it on my terms.”  Dearly beloved, is there anything, any hindrance, that you are unwilling to give up to follow Jesus? You may not be wealthy, but if there is something that inteferes with total surrender to Jesus, laying it down is a vital part of following the Master. He must have your all. And he calls gently to you: “Come, follow me.”

There is much negotiating in the Church today. We want to make people feel good about the love of God, but not teach what following Christ means. There, I said it! The Bible tells us that the man walked away sad, rather than lay down the thing that Jesus said to lay down. Jesus did not run after the young man and say, “Wait a minute. What will it take to get you to follow me? I’m sure we can come up with a solution that works for you and me.”  Jesus stood firm in truth.

When we read this man’s story, it beckons us to ask ourselves: What part of my life am I unwilling to give up in order to follow Jesus? What do I love more than I love Him? Following Jesus costs us everything, but we gain far more than we ever give up.

The entirety of our lives must be submitted to His lordship. Do not turn away sad like the rich young ruler. Joyfully lay down anything that stops you from a life following Him. It is not a negotiation.

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. ²⁵ If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” – Matthew 16:24-26 NLT

Do you ever feel you are in “just Nazareth?”

Jesus faithfully served at home in Nazareth for thirty years before being released into the call of God on His life. Nazareth was…“just Nazareth.” It was no special place. The city of Nazareth was a small and insignificant agricultural village in the time of Jesus. It had no trade routes and was of little economic importance. It is believed that the population never exceeded five hundred while Jesus lived there. It was “just Nazareth.”

In “just Nazareth,” Jesus most likely learned to be a carpenter’s helper since his earthy father Joseph was a carpenter. He learned to live in a family and what it means to care for those in the household. He learned to submit to parental authority. He learned how to be around regular, everyday folks. He learned to do life. It was not wasted time.

When the time came, God said, “You have completed this assignment, and now it is time to move from “just Nazareth.”  Jesus was released and went about doing the work for which He was born, and He fulfilled His purpose.

From the time I felt God calling me to teach His Word, both at home and around the country, until that actually happened was quite a stretch of years. At the time, it seemed like it would never happen and was just a dream. During that time, God taught me so much from His Word, from other speakers, and from my local congregation. I learned how to be submissive to those who were in charge of meetings to which I was invited. I learned that God wanted to purify my heart. I needed maturity. I needed a servant’s heart.

We all have times we feel we are in “just Nazareth,” but rest assured that God uses these places to prepare us for our divine destiny. Never despise “just Nazareth.”

“The Lord will work out his plans for my life…” – Psalm 138:8

Recently, I have seen discussions on faith and fear. Some declare that faith and fear cannot coexist. Others say that fear is a sin. There were those who rebuked any believer who had fear, saying it should never be in the life of God’s people.

Can faith and fear live together in the Christian? Yes, yes, and yes. Faith and fear are not mutually exclusive. Fear is one of the enemy’s most popular weapons that he uses against us. Worry, anxiety, and fear can overwhelm us with a thick shadow of darkness, controlling our every move and decision.

I often hear Christians rebuked when they struggle with fear and faith. Perhaps a challenging circumstance has entered life, a circumstance that could be long-term or with an unclear ending. Since the person is a believer, they pray and ask God’s intervention, and have faith that He will do just that. Yet, all through the day, those circumstances scream, “You will not come out of this! It’s over! This is going to end badly for you! There is no hope it will turn around.”  Fear has raised its head.

That believer is experiencing both faith and fear.

My home is designed with a split bedroom plan. The master bedroom is on one end of the house, and the two guest rooms are on the other end. Between those two guest rooms is a hallway, so one can walk to either room, and one can easily walk back and forth between the two rooms.

Faith and fear are like those two bedrooms, with a hallway in between. Let’s name one of the rooms fear and one of the rooms faith. There are times I find myself in the fear room, and there are times I find myself in the faith room. The question is, “Where will I abide?”

Many years ago, the doctor informed me that it was more likely than not that I had ovarian cancer, and it had spread to nearby lymph nodes. To say we were shocked would be an understatement. Surgery would be done two weeks later, and an oncologist would be present to see how many organs were affected. That was a loooooong two weeks!

Many times, during those two weeks, my emotions would draw me into the fear room. It was a dark room. As a believer, I had to make a choice to walk the hallway to the room of faith. Where would my residency be? Could I trust God that He had my life in His hands?

It became an epic battle to take my mind and body out of the room of fear, enter the hallway and walk over to faith. I did that more times than I can count. It was a constant battle of the mind. It was not until the morning of the surgery that I felt perfect faith that God was in control of the situation. Notice I did not say that God told me how it would turn out, but that God reassured me that I was in His hands.

Every believer must exercise hallway faith. All of us will have situations where the ending is uncertain. Fear will invite you to take up residence in its room.  Over and over, you will be faced with the choice of entering the hallway to walk in faith. Do it! No matter how many times fear beckons you to come and dwell in its room, enter the hallway! There is peace in the hallway! There is faith in the hallway! There is God’s will in the situation once we choose to enter the hallway and trust God!

God does not lose faith in you when you are fearful. Peter left his fishing boat to follow Jesus. Things got tough for the followers of Jesus as the crucifixion neared. Peter had enough faith to leave his boat to follow Jesus but operated in total fear when confronted about being a disciple. Because of fear, Peter denied our Lord. God did not give up on Peter. Later in the book of Acts, that same man who had been fearful, stood and preached a powerful message, resulting in three thousand salvations.

Transformation happens when we enter the hallway of faith. We conquer fear!

What are you facing today that seems overwhelming? Fight for faith. Choosing not to allow fear and anxiety to control us is not always easy, and it often comes down to a choice. Enter the hallway today! God will meet you in the hallway and give you the strength to walk into the room of faith. You are more than a conqueror!

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in You.” – Psalm 56:3

I was born in the South, raised in the South, educated in the South (yes, we actually know how to do that), went to college in the South, got married in the South, raised a family in the South, and will be buried in the South! I am not complaining. I love the southern way of life.

If you live in the South and you want to refer to a group of people, you will say “y’all.” Here in the South, a shopping cart is called a “buggy.” If someone tells you to “mash the button” that simply means that you need to press the button. “Cut off the light” means to turn it off. “Pull the door to” means to close the door. Those that are “fixin’ to” do something means they are about to do it. My southern husband of many years likes his tea extra sweet. In the South, college football fills Saturdays in the fall while good bar-be-cue is served. Yum!

While I do love living in the South, there is one thing in particular I dislike – bugs and insects. We can have roaches about the size of a small skateboard, scorpions that give a healthy sting, spiders that love to visit your home, and ants, ants, and more ants. Having lived in several southern states, I’ve experienced all of the insects I listed and then some. At the present time, the main pests we encounter in our home are ants.

Ants are always on the search for a tasty food source, and when they find one, they let their friends and family know where to go for dinner! The way the ant communicates is to emit a scent known as a pheromone. They leave it all along the trail and then the other ants know where to head and the exact path to take. Now you know why you see a trail of ants from the back door to the garbage can, up the garbage can, and even into the garbage can. (Been there, saw that!) It is fascinating to watch a video of how quickly that pheromone trail develops.

Ants can also emit an alarm pheromone when they are in danger. If you see an ant bed outside and you step on it, thousands of ants begin to feverishly crawl about and even crawl on top of each other trying to locate the disturbance and stop it.

To me, the most fascinating of all the pheromones is the propaganda pheromone. Certain species of ants rely on stealing larvae from other ant species. They raid colonies and spray massive amounts of propaganda alarm pheromones. The deceptive pheromones overwhelm the attacked colony workers, and their alarm response causes them to attack their own nestmates instead of the enemy.

The attacking ants then steal the larvae and take it back to their colony where, once they are born, they perform worker functions for the nest. They become slaves. The attacking ants go after the larvae, after the young.

We are seeing propaganda pheromone happen before our eyes with our young ones. The whole purpose of the propaganda pheromone given by the ants is to capture the eggs and raise the young ones to become slaves. Church, we have to reach the younger generations. We often need to change the method but never the message. I don’t always like smoke machines, louder music, pastors with holes in their jeans, and various lighting effects. You want to know why I do not like those things? Because I am seventy-two years old!

My husband was a pastor for more than thirty years. I remember when we transitioned from not singing just hymns but to also singing new worship choruses that were projected onto the wall. Some people thought we had lost our spiritual marbles. I remember people being upset because a woman could be permitted to wear slacks to a worship service. We lost families over these kinds of changes, though the message was never changed. (I am not talking about sinful or sketchy things, but preferencial things.)

Church, we must be willing to do research, listen to young people, and see how we can reach them. Never change the message, but a change in the “how” might be needed. I know this kind of blog will be controversial to some and might even aggravate a few. So be it.

I probably don’t have too many years left on this earth. I don’t want to spend them complaining about today’s youth. I want God to show me how to reach them. I want to learn all I can about how to reach them with the truth. I want to listen to how they are experiencing the challenges of life. I want to hear their stories and tell them mine.

I am tired of the nest of God’s youth being invaded by pheromone propaganda. Church is more than a good Sunday service. The Church is an army. It is time for the army of God to go to the enemy’s camp and take back what he stole with his deception and lies. Truth sets free and destroys propaganda pheromone!

^“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God.” – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. (NLT)

Since I am usually at the gym about the same time each day, I can count on seeing a familiar sight. There is a woman who makes her way into the gym at the same time I do, and she has done that for quite a long time. I am not sure of her name, so I’ll call her Rhonda.  I have watched her over time. She appears to be in her seventies. Rhonda’s gait is slow. She does not have on the sleek gear of so many who are much younger than she is.

There was a brief period of time when I didn’t see Rhonda, and I didn’t think too much about it. I figured that like so many who attend a gym, over time she just stopped. After a couple of months, I saw Rhonda slowly walk into the gym one day. She had no hair on her head and was very thin. My assumption was that Rhonda was being treated for some kind of cancer.

Rhonda, who was dressed a bit dowdy, slowly walked into the gym, made her way over to a recumbent exercise bike, and began pedaling at a very unhurried pace. As I looked around the gym, Rhonda seemed a bit of an oddity compared to so many other gym folks who were sharply dressed and moving at a challenging pace. Yet, it was Rhonda who caught my eye. Through all her battles and hardships, she still showed up. She still stayed in the battle. Rhonda modeled faithfulness.

There is a wonderful story in scripture about a woman whose life did not turn out as she expected, yet she modeled faithfulness to God. Her story takes place as Simeon is seeing Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. Jesus was the Messiah for which Anna had long prayed for and awaited.

“Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)

Anna’s story is given in a few short verses but let us not underestimate her. Hers is a story filled with deep truth.

Anna married and after only seven years of marriage, her husband died. There is nothing recorded about Anna having children. She is most likely in her early twenties, and has already been dealt a couple of huge, life-changing blows. She was childless, which was difficult in Biblical days, and she was a widow. All of Anna’s earthly hopes and dreams turned into nightmares. Gone were the things that would have made her feel at home on earth.

If Anna married at sixteen years old, which would have been about right in that time period, she would have been twenty-three when she became a widow. As we read the verses of her story, we find that Anna is now eighty-four years old. She has been a widow for more than sixty years.

After becoming a widow, Anna dedicated herself wholly to the Lord. I am sure Anna was grieved when she lost her husband and grieved at never having a child to call her own. It would have been so easy to check out of life naturally and spiritually. Anna decided to cling to God. She never left the temple in Jerusalem but spent her time worshiping, fasting, and praying.

Perhaps Anna was given living quarters at the temple because of her designation as prophetess, or she may have lived closeby. What stands out is that her devotion was constant, and her devotion was rewarded when she saw the baby Jesus when Mary and Joseph brought Him into the temple. Her many years of sacrifice and service were worth it all when she beheld the promised Messiah, the One for whom she had waited so long.

Anna was called a prophetess. The word prophetess comes from the Greek word “profhtij” which means “spokesperson” or “inspired speaker.” A prophet or prophetess spoke what God told them to speak or enlightened them to know, and then shared His word with others. I wonder how many people who were desperate to hear from God, heard from Him through Anna? I wonder how many things changed as a result of Anna’s life of prayer and fasting? How many lives were impacted because Anna dared to be a prayer warrior even when life was unfair?

I’m not quite to age eighty-four, but like Anna, I want it to be said of my life through every season, every hard place, every setback, Barbara Benton spent her days still clinging to Jesus, still worshiping Him, still waiting on the promises of God, still having a word in season and out of season, still glorifying God, still offering hope.  I want an Anna anointing! How about you?

One of the most memorable days of my life is February 8, 1973, when I became a mother for the first time. There was much joy and a little bit of “I hope I know what to do with this child.”

Our first son was bottle fed, and it was a lot of work – washing bottles, sterilizing bottles, mixing the formula just right, warming the bottles to the perfect temp, feeding the baby, burping the baby.  It was almost a full-time job to keep our son fed. We followed all the books and gathered all the information, so we would know exactly how to feed him.

Within just a few days, I realized something was off. The formula that Michael was drinking seemed to pass right through him. There was a lot of mucus in his diaper, and things did not look right. (Just telling it how it was.) This problem happened right after every feeding. Maybe I didn’t know what I was doing after all.

At his one-week-old checkup, Michael really had not gained any weight. I explained to the doctor what was happening. The doctor explained to me that the problem was the formula we were using. It did not work for Michael, and he needed to try soy milk. We adjusted, and in no time at all, things changed for Michael, and he began to thrive.

I had been relying on a formula that I thought would surely bring about the desired results.

Sometimes, I think we have our Christian walk down to a perfect formula. Don’t tune me out as I attempt to paint a picture. We often try to boil it down to simple formulas.

1. Marry another Christian + Pray together = A happy marriage.
2. Pray every day + Read the Bible = A good Christian.
3. Pray for the sick + Anoint with oil = All will be healed.
4. Give money to God’s work = No financial issues.
5. Worship music + Lifted Hands = Always being cheerful and joyful.

Our faith walk is more than formulas. It is a FAITH walk. I believe that faith sometimes involves wrestling with God. Faith, at times, is a struggle when life does not quite work out like I thought it would. Faith is clinging to a God I cannot see and a God that I sometimes do not feel. Faith is overcoming my thoughts when those thoughts want to contradict that God is a God of love, as I see so much pain in the lives of my friends and family. Faith is continuing to pray day after day and month after month and seeing no change in situations.

Let’s not confuse knowing formulas with knowing Jesus. Let’s not confuse following the rules with having a deep, intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. God and the Christian faith cannot be contained by human formulas. Though some of the things in the formulas above are good spiritual disciplines, they should go hand-in-hand with the understanding that faith is a daily walk with a God who can be trusted even when the formulas do not seem to be working. 

I want to move beyond a vending machine prayer life. If I can just put the right spiritual coins in, I will get what I ordered. If I have the perfect words, or the correct posture, or spend enough time in prayer, then things will happen. God has reminded me recently that prayer is much deeper than a formula. Prayer is an intimate talk with the One Who loves me deeply.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 states it so well:

“Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
    and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
    and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
    and the cattle barns are empty,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
    I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
    He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    able to tread upon the heights.”

The prophet’s words describe complete economic devastation. Absolute loss. There were no grocery stores. If you could not grow your food or raise your flocks, then you starved. I asked myself after reading this, “What if God never turned around some of the things for which I am praying?” Some of them concern people I love who are facing situations that only God can change.

I think that is how Habakkuk must have felt. Yet, he said, “When all the formulas do not seem to be working, I will look to my Sovereign Lord to be my strength.  He will not let me stumble! He will make me surefooted. I will be a person with a “yet” praise.”

I might not understand all things, but that will never interfere with the love relationship between my God and me. Sometimes my formulas, while they are good, might not bring the change I desire. “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:10)

In recent months, I have seen a deluge of advertisements from gyms and personal trainers. Each person pictured shows us what a beach-ready body should look like. Each of them is forty years younger than me and their pictures seem to boast of ten percent body fat or less. Each displays a beautiful six-pack of abs, perfectly tanned bodies, and smiles with perfectly straight, sparkly white teeth.  If I join their gym, I can look the same way!

As we say in the south, “It a’int never gonna happen!”

About a decade ago, I used to say, that when standing in front of a mirror and looking at my side view, it looked like one biscuit had popped out the package of canned biscuits. I am not personally admitting to anything, but it is possible to graduate to two or three biscuits! In the mirror, I see a woman with lots of white hair staring back, or new lines appearing on my face. At age seventy-two, this is not the body I signed up for!

Society tries to press us into a beauty mold of what we each must look like. We are to work hard on the hair, the face, the body, the clothes, and the teeth. This is what you should be striving to accomplish.

I actually believe those things are important. We are to take care of the physical temple with which God has blessed us. I exercise several times a week, and I am working on healthier eating. Truthfully, I will never look like the model on the billboard and trust me – I never smile, showing my sparkly white teeth, when I lift weights or spend thirty minutes on a bike or an elliptical machine.

I am now endeavoring to allow God to post a proper billboard in my mind. Every day, I need to see God’s billboard for it will teach me not to focus on the flaws I see, but to focus on thanks for what I do have at age seventy-two. If I only see the flaws, based on society’s billboard, I will never feel good enough.

Today, I give thanks to God. I have breath in my lungs. My heart continues to pump oxygen-rich blood through my veins. My legs work when I get up in the mornings. My husband and I can still take care of ourselves and remain independent. I can still get on an airplane and travel a thousand miles and speak God’s Word for a weekend. My lips can still give God praise and share the Good News of Jesus Christ. I can see laughter lines around my eyes and thank Him for the fun times I have experienced over the years.

My plan is to continue exercising for my physical health, but even greater is that I want to exercise daily a heart of thanksgiving for what God has given me. How about you? Who will take a thirty-day challenge and join me in thanking God every day for what we do have? Mark the date – May 21, 2024, and each day thank God for breath, a new day, family, and a host of other things that are so easy to take for granted. This week, try being grateful on purpose – and see how that changes your life. Write it down. Repeat it often. Thanks be to God!

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening.” Psalm 92:1-2

Mother’s Day has just passed, and it always causes me to reminisce about my own mother. She was truly a treasure.

Pictured are two women who overcame in life. This is my mother and my grandmother attending my wedding. My grandmother lost her husband when he was only forty-seven years old, and she was still raising most of her nine children, and she had no money. I am not sure how she made it, but she did.

My mother was one of kindest people on the planet. She did not have much materially but was loved by so many, because she was so kind and caring. My father was a stern, self-centered man, and never treated her as she deserved. She pretty much raised her eight children by herself, kept house, cooked, and put up with so much, including a man who was often drunk and scary.

Let me share a memory of my mom. My mother had a leg amputated because of diabetes that had ravaged her body. She stayed in the hospital a while, and I still remember the moment she came home. It was difficult to get her into the house, and once she was inside, it was a rare moment when I saw my mother cry. Oh, I know she cried internally a lot, but kept it from us. She was faced with the reality that life was going to be even more difficult with only one leg.

Mom soon adapted and returned to the things that she felt needed her attention. Most of her children lived out of town, so the day-by-day routine became hers again. My father had to get up at five in the morning to get to work. Daddy liked a cooked breakfast, and my mother had always gotten up to prepare it for him. He never cooked for himself, cleaned house for himself, or did much of anything for himself. After Mama’s leg amputation, Daddy still did little for himself. 

My mother would get up at 5:00 a.m., lift her body into the wheelchair, roll into her small, crowded kitchen to cook for my father. The diabetes had also taken a significant part of her vison, yet she would find a way to cook. Daddy would eat and leave. Mom would clean up the mess and go about her day trying to get things done. She also had a hot meal on the table for Dad, who would come home for lunch every day. 

My mom went to her grave at age sixty-three, still not complaining, and still struggling to do the best she could. It can bring tears to my eyes now to picture her. She had a heart attack as she tried to cover my dad, who was already in bed and was cold. She wheeled into the room to cover him and that was the last act of kindness she would ever do.

In 1970 while I was in college, my mother called to tell me that she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. I was a student at a Christian university, preparing for a life of ministry. Needless to say, I was so excited.

I am still excited when I think of the day Mama called to confess her salvation. Why am I excited? Because now Mama has a beautiful home with her Lord and Savior. Mama can get around without a wheelchair. Mama is not overtired. Mama is enjoying life to a degree she never came close to experiencing on earth. (And I think she is probably hanging out with my son Bryan.)

So, on this Mother’s Day, I honor Ailene Ruth Wells. What an example of grace and kindness she was. What an example of endurance she was. I did not realize until I became a mother just how much she sacrificed for her children. I cannot wait to see her again on a great reunion day in Heaven.

Mama, thanks for a life well-lived.

“Her children rise up and call her blessed… ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’” – Proverbs 31:28-29

One of the things that we do as grandparents is try to support our grandchildren in their activities. We go to plays, choral presentations, grandparents’ day, class programs, graduation from kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and on and on. We want them to know that we are there for them, and that we are proud of them.

More than anything, we attend a lot of sporting events. This is soccer season, and there are weekly games of energetic boys and girls kicking the ball, running down the field, and blocking the goal. It is fast-paced, and everyone gets into it. The adult fans can be quite exuberant.

In the game this past Saturday, there was much excitement. It was a close, competitive game. I watched as the coaches told players where to stand, encouraged them to run after the ball, clapped for them, and corrected them. That is what coaches do. They give guidance to the players. Coaches empower their players by putting them in a position to be victorious.

On the sidelines were lots of fans. They were all yelling, many shouting commands to their own children telling them how to play the game. “Jack, move down the field. Jude, shoot the ball, shoot the ball. Score, score!” 

The coaches were shouting to the players what to do, and the parents were commanding them to do the opposite of what the coach was instructing. I watched as some of the kids would turn when a fan yelled a command, then they would turn and hear what the coach was saying. Some of their faces seemed to say, “Who do I obey, the coach or the fans?” I watched as one little guy tuned in to the coach and tuned out the fans. He had to fight to hear the voice of the coach over all the other voices speaking.

Walking out life as a Christian is remarkably similar. Whose voice will we listen to in this hour? The voice that we listen to is the one that will determine the decisions we make and the paths we take. There are so many voices yelling in our ears. We must tune our ears to THE most important voice for the believer.

The Bible says that we are in a spiritual battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil (Ephesians 2:2-3). All three are whispering to lead us in the opposite direction of where God wants us to go. When I say whispering, I am not saying one will hear an audible voice, but an inkling to make a certain decision or walk a certain path.

How do we tell if the voice we are hearing is the world’s, the flesh, the devil’s, or God’s? By knowing the truth that comes from the Word of God.

We are in a time that Christians cannot be lazy about studying God’s word. It is our final authority on how to play on the field of life.  Our values do not come from movies, influencers, politicians, or educators. Our values come from hearing the voice of God recorded in His Holy Word. Our thoughts, our values, our decisions are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds through God’s Word.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will” (Romans 12:2 NIV).

According to Romans 12:2, renewing your mind means interpreting life through the lens of God’s Word and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, rather than through the lens of experience, woundedness, trauma, preferences, or the opinions of others.

I don’t use The Message bible very often, but I do love the way Romans 12:2 is paraphrased in The Message: “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You will be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

So, whose voice are you going to listen to today? If we listen to the right voice, we will make the right choice.

“Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD” (Psalm 40:4, NIV).

I am blessed to have a husband who is a rather good handyman. In fact, my grandson Andrew said, “Papa can fix anything!”  Truth! Well, at least, he can fix most things.

That same wonderful husband, to whom I have been married for almost fifty-three years, treats me so well, and I am most grateful. He is quick to help in the kitchen, the yard, or anywhere else he is needed. Sometimes, when he is working on cleaning the kitchen after a meal, I come to assist.  Often, he will say, “No, you cooked, so I’ll clean.  I insist on helping him, and he will say, “Sit down. This is a one-person job!”

Yep, he is a keeper!

Over the years, we have both discovered that there is something that he cannot fix for me because it is a one-person job. Oh, he tried through the years to fix it for me, and then he discovered that he could not fix it because it is a one-person job.

Let’s go ahead and establish ahead of time, I might hurt some feelings and maybe rustle some feathers. If that happens, I apologize in advance, and if we were together in person, I would pat your hand, look into your eyes and say, “I understand. I love you. It will be okay.” Sometimes, we need a friend to tell us the hard things. Here goes!

Joy is a one-person job.

Finding joy is your choice. I know we have heard joy is a choice so much that we never want to hear it again. Yet, it is still true. Joy is your choice. It’s your decision, no one else’s. You might have experienced tremendous loss, hurt, and sickness, but you can still choose to live a life with joy in it — even through the sad and tough times. My husband is not responsible for my joy. My best friend is not responsible for my joy. Even a bag of chocolate kisses is not responsible for my joy. (Although that bag of chocolate can do temporary wonders!)

To be clear, I am not saying we won’t experience times of great sorrow, sadness, and trial.  I know there are those who live in chronic pain or face debilitating illnesses. There are those facing tremendous loss and unfair circumstances. At some point in the journey of difficulty, one will need to choose not to be eaten alive by despair. Choose joy.

If we want to climb out of the pit of despair, we will have to be intentional about it.

As a child, I was raised in a really abusive home.  It was not unusual for all of us to be abused and beaten. I won’t give the details, but it was brutal. There were many other forms of abuse. It was a hard life.

As I began my married life, I was in no position to create a happy, peaceful home! I was mad, wounded, and miserable. My husband did all he could to make me happy and to bring joy to my life. My husband was a pastor, and church members wanted to be around me, until they didn’t! I chose to allow my past to control my temperament and how I responded to others.

There came a point that I met a woman named Benji. I listened as she gave her testimony. I was shocked at the abuse that she endured in her childhood. Benji’s mother died when Benji was just a child. After the mother died, Benji’s father immediately made her start sleeping in his bed. I will not paint the details, but I’m sure you get it. The father proceeded to board up all the windows and lock the doors and not let Benji out for fear it would be discovered what he was doing. This went on for YEARS.

Without writing Benji’s whole story here, let me give you the ending. A person walking past Benji’s house saw a set of eyes peering through the cracks between the boards. The woman, who had been walking by, went up close to the window, and Benji was able to communicate with her. Benji was rescued and went into an orphanage for a couple of years and found Jesus. Really, it was Jesus who found Benji.

Benji was a joyful, cheerful, loving person who learned that joy was not in perfect circumstances. She spoke of her joyful life and how much she was enjoying life. Benji chose joy over misery, and it awakened me to say to myself, “Joy is a choice.”

When our son Bryan died, I thought I would never stop feeling a level of pain that I thought was impossible for a person to feel. Our world had been shaken to the core. It was months before I felt like I could breathe again. I found myself as tired and depressed as I had ever been in my life. I had on the garment of heaviness, and it felt impossible to take it off. Honestly, I felt like that dark garment of heaviness was mine to keep until the day I joined Bryan on the other side.

As I cried out to God, well into months of grief, I asked God to help me walk out of the joylessness I was experiencing. I did not take this step just because I was a child of God. I looked for reasons to recapture the joy of life, and I found some. I wanted to be joyful for my husband, my children, and my grandchildren. That was enough to keep my commitment to recapturing joy. As I chose joy and walked hand-in-hand with God, that cloak of heaviness began to lift. Do I still miss my son? Of course, but despair no longer cripples me.

Finding joy in your life does not mean you walk around in a perpetual state of skipping and laughing. You might not be grinning and waving to every single passerby, although that would be fun for extroverts. It means that every day that God gives me, I will be grateful to Him, and I will look towards Heaven thanking God for a new day, and I will choose joy, because joy is a one-person job.

“Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD. – Psalm 27:6; The joy of the Lord is your strength. – Nehemiah 8:10”