Debbie W. Wilson

Refreshing Faith

God’s Favor Can Be Confusing

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The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Luke 1:28

When you think of being highly favored what comes to mind? Do you picture ease, prosperity, and perfect relationships? I do.

The angel called Mary highly favored of God twice in one meeting. Yet her life was full of daunting challenges, losses, and misunderstandings.

When Mary came back from a three-month visit with her cousin, she told her fiancé she was pregnant—and God was the father. Joseph didn’t believe her. He looked for a way to divorce her. (It took divorce or death to end a New Testament Jewish engagement.)

Confusing Events

If an angel called you highly favored, if God had picked you to carry His child, wouldn’t you think He would have told Joseph before this tense misunderstanding? After all, Joseph was the designated head of the house. This event involved him in a major way.

Since God set the bar on sexual purity, why would He let others believe Mary was sexually loose?Continue Reading

Impossible to Love

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Who are you having a hard time loving? To love somebody who is hard to love is a gratifying experience. When we deal with people as God deals with us, we experience a strength and nobility from being like Him. At Lighthouse we help people discover how they can love when it seems impossible. Some with this challenge are spouses who’ve been betrayed, and children who have been mistreated. Many come to us who feel unlovable and incapable of loving or being loved.

God called the Biblical prophet Hosea to love someone who would seem impossible to love. God told Hosea that he was to love this woman he would marry even though she would repeatedly betray him and give birth to several children fathered by her lovers. How could he love her? How did Hosea, and how do we do it? The answer is; we can’t! Like Hosea, we must learn how to let God’s love fill us and flow through us.

1. Hosea walked with God in the hard places. It was an impossible assignment: Go marry and love someone who will squander your love (Hosea 1:2,3). One would think that because of Hosea’s honorable track record as a prophet, God would have given him a loyal and supportive wife. But Hosea discovered that a person who walks with God in the hard places of life experiences a depth of God’s love that isn’t usually found in the comfortable places in life.Continue Reading

Rejection

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Troy Aikman, former all-pro quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, spoke through tears at a recent news conference of his memories and sadness over being released by his team. The Cowboys said they wanted to go in a different direction which didn’t include Troy Aikman. A perky nine-year-old girl told me how hard it was to eat her dinner, seeing her dad’s empty chair. He left the family to pursue other interests. Several other couples have told me they have felt abandoned by their spouses even though they are still living together. They share responsibilities but not their inner thoughts and so they feel they are unknown and rejected.Continue Reading

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