Tag Archives: faith

The Path of Least Resistance or Life in Christ

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We offer our lives to God for His service and secretly hope that we are not tested nor tried too severely. We say, “God is faithful and God is good,” when life turns out well. “God is sovereign” is the response when life ends. But isn’t God good and sovereign all the time?

The Path

Whether your path this day is smooth and straight or marked by sharp rocks and steep ledges, consider not so much the condition of the path. Consider instead the goal of your pursuit. Is it to have a nice life or is it life in Christ? In our flesh we would choose the path of least resistance – the easier way. Perhaps that is why we face circumstances in which we are not afforded the choice.

The Pursuit

Knowing Him. Loving Him. Living Him.

We go from glory to glory in relationship with Christ ascending unto the heights of the mountain of God. His Grace invites us…who calls [us] to his own kingdom and to his glory (1 Thessalonians 2:12).

Life in Christ is death to the flesh. It is an anti-flesh paradigm: To live is Christ; to die is gain. If we may know Him more deeply on the rock face or in the grassy field, it makes no difference to the one who seeks lockstep with Christ. 

This is the life of the bondservant.

Grace is the empowerment.
Flesh weakened from trial and suffering, Grace is strength to continue.

Grace is the forward movement.
The upward call requires an upward climb; Grace is the acceleration.

Grace is the call.
Pronounced by God, voiced in Christ, Grace is the dulcet tone of the Holy Spirit.

Grace is the sustainment.
Heard in the clarion call from the peak and in the steady confidence of the rear guard, Grace’s truths rally courage.

The Press

“I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians 3:14

Apart from the Grace of God, the bondservant of Christ is not equipped to traverse the narrow, rocky ascent nor skip on smooth and verdant path. For it is Grace alone that empowers, moves, calls and sustains us.

In Grace, we are pursued by and in pursuit of Christ. Regardless of the condition of the path, we press on.


(photo by Dan Dorsey)

© Melanie Dorsey 2011

Wednesday Walking

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Today is Wednesday which means I meet my friend Jen and we walk and run. But what we really do is talk our heads off. 
In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the plan to meet and walk/run each week is really an excuse to talk for an hour and a half. Because when I got back from walking/running with her for 7 miles today, I ran another mile and a half just to make sure I met my running goal for the day!

Jen in the red “Team Andrew” shirt
Me



Our conversations include (not in this order): food, Jesus, potential jobs (Today I suggested we start a personal shopping business,which is kind of crazy because I don’t really like to shop and neither does she.), books we are reading, husbands (how we appreciate their unique strengths ~ seriously), our kids, how we should take better care of our skin in the sun (although I was not wearing any sunscreen and I’d bet she wasn’t either), the extra accumulation of pine straw on the sandy trail which threw me off and I thought we’d gotten lost in the park, my big savings at Publix this week (I spent $58.15 and saved $72.27 (7227 ~ weird), how sore we are after we do the Shred, and something she did on my behalf that surprised me so much I had no words to respond after she convinced me she was not joking! 


I think maybe that sums  up today’s hour and a half convo.


My husband and I are working on having a huge garage sale this weekend. You know the kind that Dave Ramsey describes as one so big, the dog hides?! That kind. 


Well, friends, our family is facing another challenge. I am thankful it is not health related. 
I can tell you this…regardless of what comes our way, our faith endures and we do not quit.


I tried to upload a video I recorded in my favorite park this week (the one I thought we were lost in today) but I cannot get blogger to upload it, so I’m including a link here to my FB page, where you can see it.
And there is an “oops” on the video. I left out a line from the scripture in Hebrews. This is it: “and let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us…”

It’s warming up here in Florida and I’m enjoying it. Our windows are open and I can hear my neighbors sweet children playing. 

Where ever you are and whatever you are doing today, remember you are loved. In fact you are loved lavishly by the God of the universe…our Abba Father.
One of the ways God is loving me is through my friends. I am blessed. 

Faith Under Water

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This morning when I woke up and looked in the mirror, I didn’t look like me. I was me but it was definitely the rough, ragged, barely hanging on version of me. My hair was dirty. My eyes were terribly swollen and I was on day two of a migraine. I had not slept well in a few nights and I had not felt happiness in several days.

In this season of grief, it seems I get 2 – 3 weeks of feeling “just ok” and having some happy moments and even some laughs. Then a crashing wave of overwhelming emotion, sadness and depression knocks me to my knees and under the salty water I am turned and tossed, not able to identify which way is above the water.

I try very hard to get back up and gasp fresh air. But the force of the rolling ocean’s wave is brutal.
While underwater, I cry and pray and plead with the One who created the tides to bring me some relief. I sort by memory the scriptures which promise the ever present fellowship of the Lord and the peace He left us. I consider many times making a call for help here and a cry for help there for something that I cannot seem to give to myself. But I am afraid to divulge too much because I can’t control the response nor the outcome. And I know, too, that as ferocious as the wave is, the water will calm again. Finally the rolling wave will subside and I will stand upright again.

Yesterday I began to consider that the overwhelming wave that comes is sent as an attack by that old enemy and liar, the accuser.
I know that there is a process to grieving and yet I also know that I have been in the Refiner’s fire and God is engraving a message on my heart.
In the *message that I gave at the Ladies Tea in MD last month I spoke of three questions that I had asked of God in the nine months since Andrew’s Heavenly Homegoing.

1. If You are not who I thought You were, then who are You?

2. What do you want from me?

3. What can I expect from You?

So whether I face sunshine, rain or crashing waves, still my faith endures and by God’s grace, I will deliver His message of hope, healing and Heaven’s reward.

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8

*If you are interested in a DVD of that message, let me know in a comment.

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