Tag Archives: Big Daddy Weave

The Creator God Thinks We’re Valuable

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by Sandy Kirby Quandt

In Psalm 8 David looked heavenward and marveled that the Creator of the Universe would be mindful of man. He asked, “What is man that you consider him?”

Last week I mentioned reading Chuck Swindoll’s Living the Psalms. Encouragement for the Daily Grind. About Psalm 8 he says, God overlooks man’s puny, weak, frail humanity and takes thought and care of us. God remembers and pays attention to us. God values us.

Isn’t that remarkable? And if the all powerful El Shaddai says we are valuable, then we are valuable. Amen?

Our value is not measured by what the world around us measures as worthy and valuable. The world measure worth in money, possessions, position, power, authority and influence.

We are not valuable to God because of our usefulness. We are valuable to him whether we are productive as man considers productivity or not. God loves us regardless. He views us as special.

Because God loves us above the rest of his creation, he takes a personal interest in each of us. None of us is unimportant. None of us is overlooked.

Next time we look heavenward and consider the work of God’s hands, let’s thank him once again that he is mindful of his puny, frail, weak creation enough to care for us, and to send his son into the world to die for us, so none may be lost.

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on the subject. If you think others would appreciate reading this, please share it through the social media buttons.

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

Your glory is higher than the heavens. You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority—the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Psalm 8 (NLT)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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Clear Out the Debris

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by Sandy Kirby Quandt

It took over a month, but most of the debris in our neighborhood as a result of Hurricane Harvey has been picked up. I imagine those who were impacted the worst wondered day after day when someone would come through and clear out the debris that sat in front of their homes. Reminders of destruction. Reminders of loss. Reminders of pain.

Each day I drove past one house in particular that suffered extreme damage, I wondered how they felt having their destroyed possessions piled up on the curb for passersby to see. Refrigerator. Dresser. Desk. Cabinets. Carpet. Children’s toys.

You get the idea.

All this led me to think about the debris each of us carries around as part of our story. The pain. The hurt. The betrayal. Sometimes we do an excellent job of allowing Jesus to come into our life and clear out the debris to make room for healing and restoration. Sometimes we do not.

We may clear out the debris from the house, but we leave it piled up on the curb. Reminders of the destruction. Reminders of the loss. Reminders of the pain.

Only Jesus can completely clear out the debris and give us hope, life, mercy, and grace that is greater than all our sin. Only Jesus gives victory over the storms that destroy. Only he can bring the restoration we each so desperately need.

Jesus can clear out the debris of our life, but first we’ve got to be willing to toss it to the curb, and let him take it away.

Knowing Jesus can clear out the debris of your life, do you find it easy or difficult to allow him to do so?

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on the subject.

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I, the Lord your God, will make up for the losses caused by those swarms and swarms of locusts I sent to attack you. Joel 2:25 (CEV)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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God Is Faithful

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by Sandy Kirby Quandt

As I sat outside with Baxter in the windy and rain-free morning sunshine last Wednesday after four days of constant flooding rainfall, courtesy of Hurricane Harvey, I praised God for this faithfulness and prayed for those so horridly impacted by the destruction.

Pilot and I were spared with very minimal damage. Many, many others unfortunately were not.

Isn’t it peculiar how a few short hours and a shift in the wind can shift our perspective?

Monday evening after three very long, hard days of dealing with incessant rains which caused water to leak into our living room, and maybe a grand total of six hours of sleep during those three days, I felt depleted physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Almost.

Prayer partners worked overtime on our behalf. Thank you, Jesus.

 

We knew the same Jesus who stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee could calm our storm. We knew the Maker of the Wind could blow the bands of rain stuck between two high pressure systems out of our area, or better yet, simple remove the storm’s power altogether. We knew this. What we didn’t know was when.

Although Monday night was bleak, Tuesday dawned with promise. The rain didn’t come down so hard. There were breaks between downpours. The water that came into our house slowed. The end looked like it might be in sight. Praise God.

So Tuesday evening, after four dreadful days, God decided it was time.

No matter what storm each of us faces in our lives when we know the Maker of the Wind and Master of the Waves, we can be confident God is faithful and he is able. Although we may wonder when he’s going to rescue us, his timing is perfect. Just because we can’t see God working, that doesn’t mean he isn’t.

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on the subject. If you think others would appreciate reading this, please share it through the social media buttons.

On one of those days Jesus and His followers got into a boat. Jesus said to them, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” Then they pushed out into the water. As they were going, Jesus fell asleep. A wind storm came over the lake. The boat was filling with water and they were in danger. The followers came to awake Jesus. They said, “Teacher! Teacher! We are going to die!” Then Jesus got up and spoke sharp words to the wind and the high waves. The wind stopped blowing and there were no more waves.  He said to them, “Where is your faith?” The followers were surprised and afraid. They said to each other, “What kind of a man is He? He speaks to the wind and the waves and they obey Him.” Luke 8:22-25 (NLV)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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Be Overwhelmed

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by Sandy Kirby Quandt

When was the last time something caught your breath and overwhelmed you? Hopefully, it was in a good way, not in a devastating manner.

Dictionary.com defines overwhelmed like this:

  • to overcome completely in mind or feeling:
    overwhelmed by remorse.
  • to overpower or overcome, especially with superior forces; destroy; crush:
    Roman troops were overwhelmed by barbarians.
  • to cover or bury beneath a mass of something, as floodwaters, debris, or an avalanche; submerge:
    Lava from erupting Vesuvius overwhelmed the city of Pompeii.
  • to load, heap, treat, or address with an overpowering or excessive amount of anything:
    a child overwhelmed with presents; to overwhelm someone with questions.
  • to overthrow.

Pilot and I recently returned from the Colorado Rockies where I attended the Colorado Christian Writers Conference.

Our usual route takes us through Oklahoma and Kansas, and at the first sight of the Rockies rising in the distance above the Kansas plains I become overwhelmed in a good way. This year, however, tornadoes and devastating storms altered our route and we drove  through New Mexico.

This route took us past the Capulin Volcano National Monument at sunset, and was worth the alternate drive.

Many times I’ve been overwhelmed.

Standing beneath the towering California Sequoias overwhelmed me.

Waking up and staring at the Bavarian Alps overwhelmed me.

Walking the steps of the Acropolis in Athens overwhelmed me.

Wandering the maze of Knossos on the isle of Crete overwhelmed me.

Praying inside Cologne’s Dom overwhelmed me.

Snorkeling in Mexico as fish half my size swam past overwhelmed me.

The lift and fall of hawk’s wings overwhelms me.

Feeding a momma bison as her baby nursed beneath her overwhelmed me.

The brilliant colors of sunsets and sunrises.

Holding my newborn child overwhelmed me.

We can choose to look for all that God has done in the world around us and be overwhelmed by his goodness, or we can choose to ignore it, believing it to be an everyday common place occurrence.

I wonder if those who look out their window every morning and see the mountains rise before them take those mountains for granted.

Or when a herd of elk stroll past, even notice.

I wonder if those of us redeemed by the shed blood of Jesus our Savior ever take his sacrifice for granted.

You know, we’ve been in church all our lives. It’s common place. Something we do. Why get overwhelmed by that?

Friend, I’ll tell you why we need to be overwhelmed. Jesus didn’t have to do it. We didn’t deserve for Jesus to take our sins upon his perfect sinless self, pay the debt we owed but could never pay so we wouldn’t have to.

That is why we need to be overwhelmed by his love, grace, forgiveness and mercy and the work of his hands. Now and forever. We need to delight ourselves in the things of the LORD. Find pleasure and enjoyment in them.

As part of God’s creation we should feel pleasure in our enjoyment of what he has done.

What overwhelms you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Leave a comment below. If you think others would appreciate reading this please share it through the social media buttons.

 Be delighted with the Lord. Then he will give you all your heart’s desires. Psalm 37:4

I wish you well.

Sandy

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Don’t Allow the Past to Hold You Back

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I have a friend who allows his past to continue to hold him back. He’s unable to move beyond the failure, and move his life toward success.

Another friend swapped one addiction for a different one. She knows it, but is still entrapped.

One friend puts up a big bravado-front, like everything is all honky-dory, but it isn’t. Inside he’s falling apart.

Maybe you have friends like this, too. Maybe you are like my friends.

While our pains are real, and the hurt runs deep, we trap ourselves in shackles of our own making when we refuse to forgive ourselves. Forgive others. Or when we continue to heap guilt upon ourselves. We believe we deserve to feel bad. After all, we messed up. The past looms, unforgiving.

If we are children of the One True Living God, this kind of thinking is detrimental.

We’ve been redeemed. Washed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, our Messiah. Past mistakes, mess-ups, failures are behind us when we claim him as our Lord and Savior.

Others may try to keep reminding us of the times we got off track, but that’s their problem. Not ours. We need to turn a deaf ear to them. (Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t extend restitution or ask for forgiveness when needed. I’m taking about when we keep beating ourselves up over stuff we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over.)

Most of what we do is learned behaviors. Maybe it’s time to let go of the worthless things we’ve picked up along the path of life, and grab onto the Truth. Time to tell the ghosts that haunt us to hit the road. Get lost. Move on. So we can be the person God created us to be.

Christ fought our battle for us, and He won. We aren’t made worthy by anything we’ve done, or ever could do. It’s all about Jesus.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

You know that in the past you were living in a worthless way, a way passed down from the people who lived before you. But you were saved from that useless life. You were bought, not with something that ruins like gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, who was like a pure and perfect lamb. 1 Peter 1:18-19 (NCV)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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