Beyond the Mantra

~ Written by Cassie Rayl

Our culture has adopted the mantra, “I am enough” as a way to achieve self affirmation. However as Christ followers, we must remember there’s a difference between self affirmation and living as if we don’t need God. I am not enough—you are not enough—but Jesus is.

I’m not enough. I see this small but heavy fact in every aspect of my life; as a believer, wife, mother, friend, and leader. Even in the most mundane tasks, I often look back on my actions and think, “I didn’t do enough. I could have done that better.” It’s taken me nearly three decades—and I’m still a work in progress—to not cry every time I admit I’ve fallen short in some way.

The fact is when I fall short, I’m reminded of my need for Jesus. My need for Jesus reminds me on a daily basis that I was created for him—he was not created for me. I never want to be enough because then my life won’t be a testimony to the power of Jesus and the strength of his love and grace.

I challenge each of us to focus on Jesus when we need a little extra affirmation. To run to the Bible and the Savior’s grace before clinging to a well-spun lie. Romans 3:23 says we have all fallen short—none of us are enough. And yet within that truth is the most beautiful reality we often forget on a daily basis. Jesus is not grouped into that verse. He has never fallen short, and he never will.

We might not be enough this side of heaven, but Jesus is, and he is all ours. We need only to let him transform us.

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God’s Diorama

~ Written by Viki Rife

There’s something appealing about a diorama. A visit to several museums over the weekend reminded me how much I love them. Whether it’s a bird’s eye view of a city, a recreation of a historic community, or a fairy garden, miniatures that allow us to see “the whole picture” can be a real delight. I’ve always wished I could insert myself in the scene. It would be pointless, though, because I would not be seeing all the adventure, only limited parts of it.

I’ve always thought of our world as a kind of diorama from God’s point of view. He sees the whole big picture. But He chose not to just see the big perspective. Jesus inserted himself in the world’s scene so he could experience what it’s like to live our lives with a limited perspective. The Father sees the whole picture of what he’s doing, but Jesus knows firsthand what life looks like from our vantage point. Although we can’t see what’s over the next hill, Jesus longs to remind us that the Father can. And he is our perfect advocate, because he knows both the Father’s vantage point and our own. I hope dioramas always remind me of this beautiful dynamic!

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Is It Enough?

~ Written by Cassie Rayl

“We won’t have enough.” I cringed as I muttered the words, my eyes begging the calculator to do the math differently. Our car had just been totaled, and as newlyweds neck-deep in school loans, the prices to repair or replace the car were equally impossible. Peter and I had a second car, but it was one car ride away from breaking down itself.

I choked on my prayers that night. I accusatorially repeated myself to God as I bemoaned what I felt were our impossible circumstances. “We don’t have enough for this, Lord. With school loans, hospital bills, rent, and groceries, the last thing we need is to buy another car. You promised you’d provide for us, but honestly? I’m not seeing it.” He’s been faithful before, he’ll be faithful this time, I mentally chided myself. You’ve gotta trust he knows what he’s doing.

The next day, friends of ours offered to loan us their vehicle while we made a decision on how to best handle our car troubles. My worries were only pacified for a few hours as I started trying to plan ahead. Thank you for this mercy, Lord, but we can’t keep this car forever. What’s going to happen when we have to give it back?

God led me to 2 Corinthians 9:8, which says, “And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others” (NLT). We’ll always have everything we need? If that were true, why hadn’t God provided us with a car?

I realized God and I had two very different definitions of providing for our needs. I wanted Him to grant us a car of our own so that we could be more self-sufficient and comfortable. He knew we needed a car, and we were given a car to use, but we still needed to depend on him for tomorrow’s unknowns. Through that season, we learned His faithfulness doesn’t make us comfortable. God’s faithfulness makes us long for him even more. Hallelujah, even when it takes us out of our comfort zone, his faithfulness never fails!

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There He Is!

~ Written by Cassie Rayl

“My friend Michael Jehrig lives there!” My sister would announce proudly every time we passed the large log cabin on the hill. Whether we were passing the home in the wee hours of the morning or in the middle of the night after a long road trip, we all heard about Michael Jehrig. To my knowledge, I’ve never met the kid. I don’t know what he looks like. After living in the same town for 15 years, I don’t think I even had the smallest desire to meet him. But if I did conjure up the need to meet him, I knew where he lived, thanks to my sister.

Announcing Michael’s residence became a common routine for our entire family. We used the home as a land marker and memory jogger. At some point, I didn’t even notice when I started announcing, “Chelsie’s friend Michael Jehrig lives there,” whether I was with family, friends, or business partners.

In much the same way, I pray talking about Jesus is as common in my rhetoric as talking about Michael Jehrig’s house was to my sister’s. I hope those around me get a kick out of hearing about Jesus with the same amount of excitement every time simply because it’s important. I know that if I ever needed to meet Michael, Chelsie could lead me right to him.

I pray I live in such a way people know I know Jesus and I’ll gladly point them to him every chance I get.

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They Don’t Belong Here

~ Written by Viki Rife

I have to admit, I’m a sucker for fox pups. A mother fox uses our barn every few years to raise her litter. When I watch these furry little balls of energy playing on the lawn by the barn, my heart melts. I love how the first time the mother brings them out, they have to leap high with each step just to get through the grass. I love watching them wrestle with each other, tumbling over and over as they roll down the hill. I hold my breath when a car whizzes down our road, hoping they don’t run in front of it.

As I enjoy and protect the young foxes, however, I manage to deliberately forget they won’t be cute balls of fur for very long. A time will come when I’ll hear a neighbor complaining about losing their free-range chickens. Or, as happened a few years ago, we’ll wake up to find the remains of a fawn in our yard. Cute, fluffy little foxes become sly and wily big foxes who can do a lot of damage. I know the foxes don’t belong in our neighborhood, but I overlook that knowledge and let them stay in our barn.

Unfortunately, I often view my pet sins as innocent bouncy balls of fur, instead of foreseeing their sneaky, deadly outcomes. I give them a safe place to grow, and I even enjoy their antics for a season, until they are big and strong enough to bring consequences into my life. They are so hard to get rid of once they’ve taken over! Lately I’ve been using the fox metaphor to keep reminding myself: “This seems like a tiny, innocuous sin, but someday it will get the best of you. Don’t let it stay in your barn. It has no place in your life.”

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Run The World

~ Written by Viki Rife

The day started with an early morning phone call from a neighbor who had an emergency and needed help. When I got back, I had a half hour left until my alarm, so I crawled back in bed. Immediately the phone rang again. A friend had to take her child to the hospital and needed someone to pray with her. I finished that conversation and headed for the shower, only to receive a tearful call from another friend whose boyfriend had broken up with her.

When I finally made it to work, I had a message that an initiative we had been working on wouldn’t work, and we needed to develop a Plan B. I hadn’t factored that extra time into my weekly plan. At noon I met a friend for lunch. She spent the time explaining to me that if I didn’t cancel my weekend plans to accompany her to a protest, I must be racist.

And so the day went. I arrived home that evening exhausted and emotionally drained. Curling up in my favorite chair, I poured out my frustration to God.

“I can’t do this!” I told him. “How am I supposed to manage all this?”

I’m almost certain I heard a tender chuckle as the Holy Spirit planted his thoughts in my head: “Who do you think was running the universe before you came along?. Why don’t you let me take it back?”

Humbled and at peace, I sat and enjoyed the quiet with my Lord as he took back what was his to begin with.

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Aunt Bertha

~ Written by Viki Rife

She wasn’t really my aunt, but all my childhood I called her Aunt Bertha, a common courtesy for missionaries who worked together. Her apartment was always open to my family. She especially took an interest in me. When I was young and fighting health problems, our family traveled to her city and stayed with her for treatments and my surgery. When there were complications with the surgery, she was like a second mother to me, letting my mother get some rest. I trusted her with all my heart.

When we moved to her city several years later, I would stay at her house when my parents had to travel so I wouldn’t miss school. We’d ride our bikes (she never drove a car) to market and to care for her ministry responsibilities. The conversations during those bike rides were deep and inspired me in ministry.

Aunt Bertha had a problem, though. Her rheumatoid arthritis was progressing, and she was finally told she needed to leave the mission field. She returned to the US, moving in with her brother and family.

I was fifteen when my family had a chance to visit her. She lay engulfed in a hospital-type bed that seemed to fill the room. My heart was broken, and in my teenage awkwardness I couldn’t really converse with her. My parents were puzzled by my lack of engagement.

The problem was, at that moment I became very angry with God. Here was this precious woman who had done so much for His kingdom, lying helpless! Is this how He rewarded His faithful ones?

In the decades that followed, I couldn’t think of her without feelings of pain and anger. God just didn’t make sense. I served him, but there was an underlying root of distrust.

One day I attended a women’s retreat where the speaker was a missionary to the same country. She shared that before she ever left for the mission field, she had the opportunity to meet a former missionary who was in her last days on earth. She shared that the veteran missionary told her that her disability was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her. “The past ten years have been the best of my life!” she told the new recruit. “I have gotten to know God in a way I could never have imagined. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world!”

At that moment, my bitterness melted away. God had taken care of Aunt Bertha in ways my physical eyes could not see. Since then, I’ve watched His faithful ones suffer and seen similar responses. We can see their suffering, but until we experience it ourselves, I don’t think we can ever know how God cares for His own.

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Why Can’t I Soar?

~ Written by Viki Rife

Out for a walk during a break at the South Focus Retreat last week, I passed an animal that had been killed on the road. I didn’t think much of it until on the way back, I saw a bald eagle land near it. The
eagle tried to pick up the roadkill, but could only get it about six inches off the ground. The eagle flew less than a foot before it sank to the ground, the meat still in its claws. As I approached, it tried time and time again to fly with its burden.

It reminded me of the conversation I’d had earlier in the week with a friend about Isaiah 40:31, which talks about how those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength and will soar with wings like
eagles.

This eagle certainly wasn’t soaring. Why not? Because it was trying to carry something much too big for it! Does that sound familiar? It sure struck me. God says we will soar with wings like eagles, but even
eagles can’t soar when weighed down like that. Our worries and cares were never meant to be carried by us. God wants us to put our hope in Him so we can truly soar.

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Comfortable in the Rubble

~Written by Cassie Rayl

Her mind had to be running in a hundred different directions. She knew the cultural expectations. The woman was more than aware she had broken the Law. When the religious leaders found her committing adultery, she must have started envisioning the pain of countless stones hitting her body.

She had committed sin; her crime was known. Death by the hands of those more righteous was her penalty. And yet, this rabbi—Jesus, son of Joseph—spoke words which somehow kept the righteous ones from carrying out their punishment. Whatever he said made the ruckus stand still, but she wasn’t sure what was to happen next.

The screaming and taunting may have died down, but she had already sealed her own fate. She knew she was as good as dead. Even though there was an unusual sense of peace and introspection in the air, I imagine she kept her eyes closed—begging for time to speed by and death to come quickly.

But it never came. Instead the gentle, firm voice of Jesus spoke to a broken woman in front of a shrinking crowd. “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” He asks. When she responded that no one had, Jesus responds simply yet profoundly, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

I’ve sat in the rubble with that woman before. I know what it’s like to stand condemned. How many times have I gone before Jehovah, the Holy Judge, and ignored the grace in his eyes? Somehow, I’d forgotten that his love is deeper than my sin, and he truly can turn my life around. Sometimes, it can seem easier to swallow punishment rather than accept grace.

Yet, if we, just like the adulterous woman in John 8, look up and focus on Jesus, we quickly realize he wants to give us life! The only thing holding us back is our hesitation to trust that his mercy can truly make a difference.

What hope we’d experience if we simply trusted the Judge.

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They Have My Back!

~ Written by Viki Rife

When our church opened up again after the shutdown, a friend who was going through a rough time asked to come with me. Naturally I said “yes,” but wondered how I would juggle my usual Sunday interactions while keeping her from feeling abandoned in this strange, socially-distanced world.

Sure enough, we had just found a seat when someone asked me to help them find something. That mission accomplished, I was just heading back to sit down when someone stopped me to ask a question. Others joined the conversation and it was important enough I didn’t feel I could leave.

You know how awkward it is, though, to be left alone in a strange place with a bunch of people you don’t know. Every minute seems like an hour! You’re not sure what to do with your eyes, how to not find yourself staring at people as they pass by, etc. I was gone for over ten minutes!

There was no need to worry. What I love most about our church is that we truly act like family. Each time I glanced over to see how my friend was doing, someone had stopped to talk to her and get acquainted. Probably at least five people engaged her in conversation during that time.

When I sat down, my friend leaned over to me and whispered, “I feel so welcome here!” As the service began, I found myself gratefully worshipping the God who brought my brothers and sisters together at our church. They saw my friend was alone and went out of their way to help. I don’t have to minister to people by myself. They didn’t act as if she was just my responsibility—they took it upon themselves.

They have my back!

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