Stephen De La Vega

  Tell my feet not to falter Tell my lips what to say Tell me walk on these waters Tell my hands what to pray Overwhelm, when I’m overwhelmed Overcome, when I’m overcome These are lyrics from a song called Companion by Tom Mottershead . Sometimes life overwhelms us. It overwhelmed Job whose experience with naysayers was featured in Resolution 9, Rise Above the Naysayers . We ended Resolution 9 with encouragement to entrust ourselves to God. Job realized: He doesn’t have the perspective to understand the why. Nothing can compare to the authoritative power of God. His limitations should be accompanied by humble trust in God’s wisdom and character. And he said this in response: My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6 Job bowed in humility. He lost everything and he would never fully understand why. We don’t understand the why behind the winding in the ...

Paul was a man on a mission. Why wouldn’t he be? He was commissioned by God. God chose Him, told Him what to do, and empowered Him. Paul committed to God’s plan and got it done. He was a doer and he pursued God’s plan with boldness and tireless passion. The sobering truth is God also commissioned us… Maybe we see Paul as a superhero, or, humanly speaking, a really, extraordinary person.   The one-of-a-kind guy we’re tempted to emulate using the social media shortcut.   He’s a luminary we might celebrate in history books, but maybe not the type we’d ever attempt to become ourselves.   He’s just too far off the charts.   I mean, it’s nice to dream, but we’re not Jesus, right? No, we’re not Jesus and we really are severely handicapped when it comes to living as He did.   We are “prone to wander…to leave the God [we] love,” as Hymnodist Robert Robinson penned in 1757 ( Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing ).   But Paul, though human like us, someh...

My son participated in a community-wide summer youth orchestra and concert. During his practices I went to the gym after dropping him off. One week when I entered the locker room to stow my gear, I noticed a man looking a bit lost. There were other men nearby, but for some reason, he approached me and told me his lock didn’t fit on the lockers. He’d been trying a locker with a bent padlock loop so I tested his lock on another locker…right next to my usual one. It worked and he was pleased and thankful. On my next visit to the gym, I noticed his lock on my favorite locker. “Really?,” I thought. “Of all the lockers in this room, he took mine?” I saw him after my workout and we chatted a bit. His name is Will. I found out he usually exercises in a gym 15 miles south of mine, but his daughter was also in the same summer orchestra as my son. (Still, I wondered why he chose my locker.) The third time I saw him at the gym (using my locker), I handed him an announcement car...

Just over a year ago I published my first blog post:  Even on Garbage Day, God Loves Us . 22 posts later, it’s still one of my favorites. I didn’t know what to expect when I launched my blog. Questions circled in my head. The most important: Does God want me to do this? Let me first say thank you for reading. You have truly been kind and faithful readers. I appreciate you all, and I hope my blog has been as meaningful for you as it has been for me. I plan to keep writing. My commitment is to write until God tells me to stop. …until God tells me to stop . That’s a loaded phrase, maybe packed with assumptions. God has different plans for each of us, but can we really know what He wants us to do…specifically? What has God planned for us? How can we know the path He designed for each of us? Here’s what I discovered: God is actively telling us His plan. Knowing it is easier when we listen and watch. Ears that hear and eyes that see – the LORD has made ...