Bud Lamb Talks

This is the Breathe Meditation for the week.  Written and produced to help you know, love, and enjoy God, to follow Him with your heart, and to love like Jesus.

For six episodes we are looking at what the Bible says about how we can weather unavoidable headwinds and hardship.

In this episode, we learn the greatest things are always hedged about by the hardest things.

Over forty years ago I underlined this verse in my well-worn Bible.

…the hill country shall be yours.  For though it is a forest you shall clear it, and to its farthest borders it shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, even though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong.  Joshua 17:18  NASB

This is what I call my “life verse”: a Bible verse that has become prophetic, encouraging, and inspiring.

With almost every setback, betrayal, or self-inflicted gunshot wound God has guided me with this verse.

It points me to follow Jesus with my heart and to adopt His ways come hell or high water.

The hill country speaks of headwinds and hardships I’ve encountered and continue to strive against.  They are heavily defended and resistant yet, the verse inspires hope.

In my old worn copy of Streams in the Desert are these words inspired by Joshua 17:18.

The greatest things are always hedged about the hardest things, and we too shall find mountains and forests and chariots of iron…

The very hardships that you are enduring in your life today are given by the Master for the explicit purpose of enabling you to win your crown.

Do not wait for some ideal situation, some romantic difficulty, some far-away emergency; but rise to meet the actual conditions which the providence of God has placed around you today.

Your crown of glory lies embedded in the very heart of these things - those hardships and trials that are pressing you this very hour, week, and month of your life.

Go with God.  He goes with you!

Prayer

Thank You, God, that hardship need not be something to avoid at all costs, but an opportunity to grow in my devotion and follow-through as a follower of Jesus.  You are with me always!

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This is the Breathe Meditation for the week.  Written and produced to help you know, love, and enjoy God, to follow Him with your heart, and to love like Jesus.

For six episodes we are looking at what the Bible says about how we can weather unavoidable headwinds and hardship. In this episode, we learn about deep water.

It’s not uncommon that Jesus invites us to put out into the deep water and let our nets down for a catch of fish.  Luke 5:4b paraphrase

Peter and his friends got blanked the night before.  Jesus knows where the fish are.  Testing their patience, He asks them to go out again, to deep water, and let the heavy nets out again.

What is Jesus asking you to go out again to do?

If it’s not fish what is it?  

It may be unfinished promises or projects, poorly executed promises, half-hearted commitments to family, friends, or co-workers.

Listen to that tap on your shoulder -- that one thing that nags and lingers whispering “unfinished” in your heart.

Name it and then ask, “Jesus, what would you have me do?”

What work is involved in the depths of deep water?

It may involve detoxing from old habits, untangling the mess by slowing down or declaring a season of study, meditation, or service.

What are your modern-day heavy nets?

Most likely these are the nuts and bolts of your life.  Perhaps it’s your morning private time with God, time with your wife and kids?  Maybe it’s following through on the pace of your life, health, or finances?

For a few days, take these three questions to God.  Ask Him to help you answer them. Only God, your best friend, sees the pickle you are in and can help you.  Sit with Him as you pray, listen, and take notes.

You must stay close to Jesus.

Listen deeply every morning, afternoon, and evening.  Remember, He not only knows the depths you are navigating and the weight of the burdens you are carrying…  But He also knows where the fish are.

Prayer

Where else can I go God but to you?  Some things are going well for me while in other areas I am drifting or playing in the shallow end of the pool.  I am willing to go out again, into deep water, and do the heavy net work so long as You go with me.  Thank You!  Amen

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This is the Breathe Meditation for the week.  Written and produced to help you know, love, and enjoy God, to follow Him with your heart, and to love like Jesus. For the next six weeks, we will look at what the Bible says about how we can weather headwinds and hardship.  Jesus will teach us how we too can be overcomers!

One of our spiritual ancestors, Elijah, found himself in deep trouble and had to run for his life.

He ran himself into exhaustion until he came to a cave where he stayed for 40 days. 

Sometimes we need to Sit & Listen

Sit & listen isn’t what Elijah had been doing and yet when he became ready to really hear from God, it was sitting not running that was the hot ticket.  Listen to what the Bible says…

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. 1 Kings 19:11-13 TLB

Sit & Listen

It’s so counter to how we want to respond.  If you’re like me or Elijah we want to run from it, avoid it, or pretend it’s not there.

Sometimes we need to listen to the wind rather than fix the problem.

Perhaps, after sitting with it for an hour, a day, a season - holding the situation in a sacred space of calm sitting with God we can begin to whisper, “God, what would You have me do (if anything)?”

Prayer

In many ways, I’m a runner Lord - from my problems, consequences, from You and the last thing I’m comfortable doing is sitting and listening to You!  Yet, it seems my way rarely really fixes things.  Help me slow down, sit, and listen.

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This is the Breathe Meditation for the week.  Written and produced to help you know, love, and enjoy God, to follow Him with your heart, and to love like Jesus. For six weeks we are looking at what the Bible says about how we can weather headwinds and hardship. 

In this episode, we are learning from Peter and how he was able to weather wind and waves…

A fierce storm attacked the disciples made their way across the lake. About 3 am Jesus came to them walking on water in the middle of a fierce storm

Peter, the impulsive one, called to Jesus, “Lord if it is you, tell me to come to you by walking on water.”  Jesus replied, “All right, come.”

Peter jumped out of the boat and, eyes fixed on Jesus, walked toward Jesus!

Peter heard the wind saw the waves became afraid and began to sink. Peter then eyes locked on Jesus cried out “ Jesus, save me!”  Jesus reached out and steadied Peter and they both git back into the boat.   Matthew 14:28-32 paraphrase

Perhaps you have been walking on water with Jesus with your taxes, or your spouse just had a stroke, or an unforeseen issue with your car, kids, or marriage and you too hear the wind, see the waves, and are beginning to sink!

Notice Peter’s response. 

“Jesus save me!”

Yes, we too can begin to sink, to try harder, to scramble back into the comfort of the boat and it’s illusion of perfect safety.

How can we avoid headwinds & hardship?  

We can’t.

How can we stop sinking?

Refocus on looking at the situation and fixing our eyes on Jesus.

“Jesus, save me!” affirms that He will keep in perfect peace those whose hearts are fixed on Him. (Isaiah 26:3)

Jesus is growing us up.

At every age and stage, God seeks to develop ever-increasing situational trust in us. 

Lean into the lesson of the Wind and Waves

Grow an intimate moment-to-moment reliance and awareness that in the boat or on the water you are not alone, He is always near, He will help with just a whisper.

Do not be surprised that later today Jesus invites you to get out of the boat onto the water with Him.  It could be when you get a letter from the IRS or Social Security Administration saying they are making changes to your account.  It could mean death comes to the door of another close friend.  It could be at night when fears are racing.

Pray

Lord, Jesus Christ, I don’t like headwinds or hardship.   I want to avoid them altogether, or at least to stop sinking as quickly as possible.  Help me learn to simply cry out. “Jesus, save me!”

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This is the Breathe Meditation for the week.  Written and produced to help you know, love, and enjoy God, to follow Him with your heart, and to love like Jesus.

For the next six weeks, we will look at what the Bible says about how we can weather headwinds and hardship.  Jesus will teach us how we too can be overcomers!

Jesus tells us that “in the world, you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 AMP

Years ago I was sitting in a recovery meeting reciting the Serenity Prayer with 60 or 70 other men and women, who like me, were confronting the stiff headwind of recovery.

The phrases “...accepting hardship as a pathway to peace” and “taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is” stopped me dead in my tracks.

Out loud to myself, I said “I DON’T WANT HARDSHIP!!!  I WANT IT EASY.”

You see, I, like many – if not most – of us don’t like hardship.   We want to avoid it altogether, or at least to get out of it as quickly as possible.  And, we don’t want to take this broken world as it is…  We want to fix people, places, and things.

A headwind can come out of the north with a bitter cold brought on by holding on to some addicting habit that sucks the warmth from your soul. 

Or out of the east like hope staggering to rise like Lazarus from the dead, years of chronic pain, or becoming more and more familiar with grief as we grow older. 

The fast west wind of youth when you are stalled or drifting in your faith or your career, your fidelity, or putting out into deep water learning to stay close to Jesus. 

Headwinds racing out of the south can be a form of God calling us up and out – a burning bush experience, a Goliath standing in the way of duty, a betrayal, or even a self-inflicted wound. 

Yet it is the Headwinds that help us soar.

They are the lift facet of the Holy Spirit. Headwinds develop holy resistance that forms the muscles of a spiritual endurance runner, the Force that forges endurance. It is a friend, not a foe. 

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The day Jesus was crucified and died may have ended with a long dark sleepless night for His disciples.  That first Easter was greeted by the dawn of a new age.

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Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone was rolled aside from the entrance.

Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them his message.

That evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors, in fear of the Jewish leaders, when suddenly Jesus was standing there among them! After greeting them, he showed them his hands and side. And how wonderful was their joy as they saw their Lord!

He spoke to them again and said, As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. Then he breathed on them and told them, Receive the Holy Spirit.  John 20:1, 18-22 (TLB)

He told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and earth.  Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and then teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you; and be sure of this—that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”  Matthew 28:18

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Imagine  Can you imagine the shock and confusion that rocked Jesus’ disciples when Jesus walked into the room?  

Action  How would you respond?

Ask Jesus  How would you have me continue on with Your mission Jesus?  What “next step” do you want me to take?

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Jesus’ longest day. His life was draining out of Him. His breathing was hard and heavy. He pushed up with His feet nailed to the cross in order to simply take another breath. Distraught family and friends looked on with horror, grief, and confusion, wondering How much longer can Jesus live?

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That afternoon, the whole earth was covered with darkness for three hours, from noon until three o’clock.

About three o’clock, Jesus shouted, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for Elijah.  One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine and put it on a stick and held it up to him to drink.  But the rest said, “Leave him alone. Let’s see whether Elijah will come and save him.” Matthew 27:45 TLB

The light from the sun was gone—and suddenly the thick veil hanging in the Temple split apart. Luke 23:45

When Jesus had tasted it, he said, It is finished, and bowed his head and dismissed his spirit. John 19: 30

Then Jesus shouted, Father, I commit my spirit to you, and with those words, he died.

When the captain of the Roman military unit handling the executions saw what had happened, he was stricken with awe before God and said, “Surely this man was innocent.”

And when the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw that Jesus was dead, they went home in deep sorrow.  Meanwhile, Jesus’ friends, including the women who had followed him down from Galilee, stood in the distance watching. Luke 23:46 - 49 

When evening came, a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, one of Jesus’ followers, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, placed it in his own new rock-hewn tomb, and rolled a great stone across the entrance as he left. Both Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting nearby watching. Matthew 27:57-61

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Imagine You have followed Jesus in the crowd up the hill, watched Him drop the cross then climb onto it as they nailed Him to it. Hear the ring of the hammer on the nails as the people grow silent. What runs through your mind?

Ask Jesus Help me whisper Father, I commit my spirit to you each time I find myself exhausted and at wit's end.

Action As I close my eyes, help me meditate on the truth that I will never be separated from God again.

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TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE

Jesus is crucified on a hill in between two thieves who, I imagine, were screaming with pain, asking for mercy, and watching how Jesus responded to the slander of bystanders.  How Jesus carried Himself spoke to the heart of one of the thieves.

Slowly read and reflect on what follows…

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Two others, criminals, were led out to be executed with him at a place called “The Skull.” There all three were crucified—Jesus on the center cross, and the two criminals on either side.

And the soldiers gambled for his clothing, throwing dice for each piece.  The crowd watched. And the Jewish leaders laughed and scoffed. “He was so good at helping others,” they said, “let’s see him save himself if he is really God’s Chosen One, the Messiah.”

The soldiers mocked him, too, by offering him a drink—of sour wine.  And they called to him, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself !”

A signboard was nailed to the cross above him with these words: “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!”

But the other criminal protested. “Don’t you even fear God when you are dying? We deserve to die for our evil deeds, but this man hasn’t done one thing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

And Jesus replied, Today you will be with me in Paradise. This is a solemn promise. 

Luke 23:32-43 (TLB)

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Imagine  See yourself as one of the two thieves watching Jesus as life oozes out of you.  What regrets would haunt you?  Do you identify with either of them?  The one that taunts Jesus to do something…or the one who asks Jesus to remember him...

Action  Take a moment to thank Jesus for His grace to the thief, recognizing that same grace is extended to you now.

Ask Jesus  Where am I experiencing the consequences of my own bad decisions?  How would You speak into my pain?  Let me experience Your kindness the way you replied to the second thief’s awareness of who You are.  Show me Your kingdom -- the place of Your rule and authority in my life.

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Many know facts about Jesus. Though all are loved and welcome few know Jesus as their Saviour.  Soldiers and betrayers approached Him in the Garden of Gethsemane as He was about to be betrayed, beaten, and crucified the next day.

Slowly read and reflect on what follows.

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Jesus asked a deep brooding question, “Whom do you seek?”

John 18:7

A short time later Jesus was taken in chains to meet with Pontius Pilot, the Roman Governor. He asks Jesus, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Perhaps Pilot too felt the hole in his heart and was curious enough perhaps to move from curious to a devoted follower.

How about you? Curious? Aware of a deep unfilled longing in your heart? What, or who are you looking for? Are you weary? 

The One you seek has come for you.

Jesus is the One you have been searching for.

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Imagine  If your spouse or child had inoperable brain cancer what lengths would you go to find a cure? Would you consider unorthodox treatment not recommended by Western medicine? Would you travel the world to find a doctor who has found success with a new medication?

This is the story with all of us. We all have a terminal disease called “humanity.” 

Only One can rescue us from the abyss of the unknown.

Action If you knew you would die today would you be certain of what lies ahead for you? You can have the assurance of heaven. The Bible tells us is available to all who come to believe in Jesus and accept Him as their Saviour. 

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.  John 1:12

Ask Jesus Will you be my Lord and Saviour? I believe You are the One.

Begin attending a church. Tell someone you have become a follower of Jesus. Drop me a note at [email protected] or give me a call at 831-566-4131

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Early in His ministry, Jesus spoke sobering words concerning how it would go for His followers.

The day He was crucified His cryptic words likened Himself to “the green tree.” It causes us to pause to consider how Jesus uses suffering in our lives.

Slowly read and reflect on what follows.

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I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Be as wary as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware! For you will be arrested and tried, and whipped in the synagogues.

Yes, and you must stand trial before governors and kings for my sake. This will give you the opportunity to tell them about me, yes, to witness to the world.

Near His crucifixion, beaten and bloody carrying His cross, Jesus stumbles, turns to onlookers, and says these few cryptic and prophetic words, For if they do these things in the green tree, what will happen in the dry?

Luke 21:31

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Years, after Jesus was raised from the dead His tiny band of brothers and sisters, overcame many obstacles but were successful in continuing on in Jesus Way.

Today, the Living Word of God reminds you and me saying “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:12 NASB

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Imagine You are in the crowd as Jesus slowly crawls toward His crucifixion. He IS the green tree and in essence, He says to us “If they do this to Me, what may happen to you?” 

Action Reflect on Jesus’ Passion: betrayal, beatings, harsh words, fatigue, hunger, and thirst, at the hands of fellow humans. Are you ready to follow Jesus in this way?

Are you hearing Jesus's invitation to go deeper?

Ask Jesus Grow a deep soul in me! Help me become a more devoted follower. Take me. Break me. Make me. Mold me.

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