Oaks of Righteousness

Day 1

Chapter 1 - Begin with God

Oaks of Righteousness was written to address one of the most perplexing issues Christians face when adversity strikes them or a loved one. Caught off-guard, usually surprised, unprepared and ill-equipped, you and I want to know why pain and suffering is happening to us. Once we hear what the crisis is and get an understanding of the conditions, the next common question is, Where is God in all of this?

We all have asked these questions, with others, quietly to ourselves and to God. Why is this happening to me, God?

What should I do?

Why would a loving God bring pain and suffering into my life?

What about God’s grace and mercy?

Isn’t God supposed to be delivering us from trials, pain and suffering?

Why doesn’t He answer my pleas?

You are right in asking God questions in the midst of distress, but you need to be asking the best questions. Most of the time we try to identify the issue or problem, and come up with a solution and act on our decision. That is not wrong, but it is not the best starting point. Most of us aren’t qualified to handle the actual crisis. Nor are we skilled in spiritual counseling. Asking questions expecting simple answers creates confusion, stress, and animosity.

The best starting point should begin with leaning on who and what you put your trust in most, to solve your problem. Often we will trust people we know who have gone through the same crisis, or a professional who is educated and trained to provide solutions. We may rely on our own ideologies, experiences, and information we have gathered from the media, internet, books, training programs, and workshops. All of these options are good and should be explored. But there is something better.

A true start at the beginning of a crisis should be to identify, solve, and take action for a solution and not to find a quick fix. Bouncing from one information source to the next until you find the most comfortable one you understand can be maddening and counterproductive. Spiritual caregiving needs the best starting place as well.

Prayer is always the best starting point. You must look at the intention of your prayer and what you are asking God for. We may fire prayer arrows into the sky, bow on humble knee asking God to remove the pain and suffering from us, or plead for mercy of a loved one in crisis. For me, so often when I go to prayer, it takes me a few minutes, but usually more minutes than I permit myself to take, to settle my thoughts and concerns of the day. This helps me focus on God before I pray while reading scriptures. This approach refocuses my mind and lets the Holy Spirit prepare me.

And yes, I know what you are thinking. Sometimes reading scriptures seems dry, boring, and hard to understand and simply something we are supposed to do. Unfortunately, we don’t know the best starting place to read the Bible in times of crisis. Thus, when meditation and reading the word of God are perceived to be annoyances and wasted time, we finally choose to do something else, because we don’t have the patience to slow down, stop or wait on the Lord.

Observe people when they first hear bad news. How do they think, how do they act and what do they say? Mentally they can be scattered by emotions, comments, fears, and worries. This is called acute anxiety which eventually leads to chronic anxiety, distress, and depression. When I experience anxiety in my life or with others, I have forced myself to stop everything I am doing and ask God to speak to me. I force myself to wait on the Lord. It doesn’t always work, but over the years I have gotten better at it.

We may organize prayer chains and prayer circles, fast and seek spiritual counsel. We may privately or in groups, study the Bible on a certain topic such as grief, divorce, wayward children, and sin. Again, these are all good first steps to take as a caregiver. There are times God will answer your prayers immediately or direct you to find solutions through others. But don’t expect God to be your spiritual ATM where you input requests and within seconds expect a favorable return.

Too often we unrealistically demand a solution to meet our unrealistic expectations.

Some days the word of God jumps off the page and smacks you with a truth you needed to hear. Other days, words are a foreign language. There will be times you neglect the scriptures because you have no time due to caring for a loved one. There will be times when your efforts seem to go unnoticed or ignored by God. There are times when life seems out of control. We experience pain and suffering, and realize the desires of our hearts aren’t being met. There may not be a short-term solution. Too often we unrealistically demand a solution to meet our unrealistic expectations. Our faith is being tested and we don’t like the test. We likely will fail solving it our way, because we don’t know how to solve it God’s way.

There was a great English philanthropist, evangelist and powerful man of prayer, George Muller. His early life was not marked by righteousness—on the contrary, he was a thief, a liar and a gambler. By the age of 10, Muller was stealing government money from his father. A rebellious teen, he was playing cards with friends and drinking as his mother was dying.

Sometime in his 20s, at school Muller met a fellow student who invited him to a Christian prayer meeting. There he was welcomed. He began regularly reading the Bible and discussing Christianity with the others in those meetings. One evening, seeing a man praying to God on his knees, Muller was convinced of his need for salvation. As soon as he got home he asked God to help him in his life and to bless him wherever he went and to forgive him of his sins. He immediately stopped drinking, stealing and lying, and hoped to become a missionary.

He began preaching regularly in nearby churches and continued meeting with the other churches. Muller impacted tens of thousands of orphan’s lives and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who heard the gospel and gave their lives to Christ. This man of faith lived for over 90 years and is proclaimed to be one of the greatest servants of God because of His understanding of the Bible, his faith in God and his belief that God was faithful to answer his prayers. He raised nearly $8 million to feed, clothe and house orphans in England over 30 years. He established 117 schools that educated 120,000 children.

What struck me was George Muller and I had a few things in common. I became a Christian when I was older, after being a rogue earlier in life. I was inspired to be a missionary but few other people encouraged me to be one, so I poured my passion into Christians in the marketplace. My wife and I established the White Dove Foundation and we focused on developing education programs for children, orphans, and young women.

At age 70 Muller became an evangelist, traveling throughout Europe and the United States sharing the gospel. He led a life of caring for those with physical and spiritual needs. It sounds romantic, but this man suffered greatly to do the will of the Lord. His suffering made him one of history’s greatest men of God. When I read that Muller became a full--time missionary at age 70, I immediately began praying that God would use me in my 60s.

George Muller was truly a Christian caregiver in many ways. We can all learn much from a man who always started every day, every relationship, every problem, every difficult time, and every need by searching the scriptures for a promise from God that would meet his need. He would find those verses, and then pray on them until he discerned the will of God. Muller acted on God’s will, not his own.

Wouldn’t it be great, if we took his approach and instantly knew what to do and then do it? God doesn’t work according to human logic. Thus, God gave us George Muller to consider following his model as a faithful prayer warrior and evangelist.

Spend time praying with a listening ear for the voice of the Spirit of God, not your voice or the voices in the world. Thus you will find peace, hope and joy in your work and God will be glorified in your role as a caregiver. Use scripture to cement the truth. 2 Timothy 2:7: Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

You can mirror Muller’s approach as a caregiver by relying upon God’s word and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform the way you think. As the word of God transforms your thinking, the Holy Spirit will renew your innermost being. You will find peace, restoration, and a new personal identity. You will gain a deeper understanding of the calling and assignments God has planned for your life.

To be the Christian caregiver God has called you to be, can only come from God through prayer and His word. While there are many professionals, authors, speakers, books, articles, blogs, and media sites that are valuable and helpful, the words of the world are not a substitute for the words of the Lord.

To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.

—Tia Walker

1.Can you identify God’s calling in your current season of life?

2.Do you find yourself comfortable and unwilling for God to stretch you for His assignments?

Day 2

Chapter 2 - God’s First Step in Revealing His Agenda

My favorite sport is football. Because I was not a very good athlete, I loved to strategize and coach. A few years out of college, I got a coaching position where I was the offensive coordinator at my old high school. I had taken coaching courses in college and I had a great head coach who mentored me when I came on board. The first thing he taught me in my role was how to develop a game plan. It was my job to use our best athletes to execute our best plays to defeat our opponent.

I would start on the weekend watching game film, studying our depth chart and watching game film of the other team. Monday I would share my game plan and then we practiced what we were going to do all week for the Friday night game. When the game started, I could usually figure out the opposition’s defensive game plan in the first quarter. We didn’t win every game and sometimes I was outcoached, and at times our players didn’t execute well, but I learned to always stay with the basics, play to win and never quit. I stuck with the game plan and didn’t over-react emotionally nor over think a situation.

Win or lose, we always played with a ferocity and commitment to not back down. Sometimes our play calling broke down. Sometimes our players’ execution broke down. Sometimes the other team broke us down and sometimes we broke them down. It was more fun breaking than being broken and that is what made my coaching years so enjoyable.

I never thought about it at the time, but I was a caregiver to the team’s offense and specifically to the quarterbacks I coached. Football is a rough sport mentally and physically. You can’t get too emotional and you can’t relax on a play. Players get hurt, substitutes are inexperienced, and rainy or cold weather and a wet field caused slippery footballs. Conditions out of our control often change the complexion of the game, no matter how well you are prepared.

Now I’m old and gray and only watch football games and yell at the television. Even when watching a game, often my mind drifts to the spiritual significance I could apply from my football coaching days. I can’t just watch a football game for pleasure. Once a game starts, my mind is coaching. Even during timeouts or commercials, I am trying to figure out what I would do as an offensive coordinator.

My greatest achievement as a football coach was coaching the quarterbacks. I coached them to be prepared to be coaches on the field. I was blessed my final two years with one quarterback being named all-state and the following year another quarterback was all-state honorable mention. The young men knew the game plan and they could adjust plays when needed. They made me look good as a coach, but I knew it was their talent and commitment that brought the victories and accolades. I also coached teams that only won 1 or 2 games, thus coaching was humbling and I was only as good as my last game.

We as humans break down. We aren’t perfect. Brokenness is the result of human limitations, sin, and natural and supernatural events that break us down. We need an outside advisor, or a coach to fix us. A caregiver is like a coach or a mentor. God places us in positions to follow His sovereign game plan; His agenda.

The God of the universe is the ultimate fixer, healer, and restorer. God came into human life in the form of a man named Jesus Christ. By His death on the cross, our spiritual brokenness has been removed by His grace and hope in the resurrection. He has renewed, restored, and fixed us according to His blueprint; which is God’s sovereign plan. The only thing we need to do is believe in what Jesus did and repent from our self-centeredness. He must become Lord of our lives.

The starting point for knowing God’s agenda is personally knowing your Father God by developing an association through His son, Jesus Christ, by making Him your Lord and Savior. Perhaps you never have made a decision to invite Jesus into your heart? Maybe you have, but you feel something is missing.

Perhaps you realize you are a Christian in name only, but have never made the decision to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Don’t fret, this book is for you. Perhaps your care receiver or other family members struggle with their faith and beliefs during a severe crisis; if so, this book is for them.

Christ knew that those in the crowd eating fish and chips needed a way to have eternal life.

You can start a new life today with God. God is present as you read and His spirit may be prompting you at this moment to invite Him into your life. Do you know when Jesus fed the loaves and fishes to a crowd numbering in the thousands, not one of those people were Christians? Many, who ate, may have never heard of God, or Jesus, or followed the law of the Jewish religion. Christ knew that those in the crowd eating fish and chips needed a way to have eternal life. His mission was to care for the people to the point of sacrificing His life for their eternal care through redemption. All those in the crowd who believed in Him would have their lives transformed, not because He fed them, but because He loved them.

When friends of a paralyzed man lowered him through roof tiles so Jesus could heal him, none of them were Christians either. But they were desperate and put their faith in Christ. Those friends were true caregivers. They gave their paralyzed buddy a new physical life as Jesus gave him eternal life. When Jesus turned water into wine, it wasn’t at a Christian wedding reception. It was common everyday people gathered in Cana enjoying a newlywed couple’s commitment.

How many wedding receptions have you gone to that water turned to wine? I am sure if a miracle like that happened today, it would become quite a news item and the media would be hounding the reception people for details. Then somebody would write a book about it, someone else would create a blog and of course it would be on Facebook to see how many viewers and likes it would receive. And then possibly it would be made into a movie. But what would the world say about the miracle? It would depend whose plot the media and the viewers were most comfortable with.

In every instance found in the Bible, the main point shows us how God cares for His children. It doesn’t mean God won’t use sorrow to show us His grace and tough love. Every story in the Bible had a starting point. Every one of us has starting points in our journey through life with new seasons starting and ending. As a caregiver, each of us must discover God’s agenda and His game plan for you because we need God to guide us through these critical seasons of life. Too often the circumstances and conditions are beyond our capabilities and out of our control. We must have a starting point. Prayer is the best starting point.

A simple prayer begins with bowing before God, confessing that you are a sinner and cannot earn your way into an eternal connection with God. Only through Christ can you have eternal peace. In today’s world, society has determined there may be many ways to get to heaven. There is a rising number of skeptics and cynics who don’t believe in God, Jesus Christ or heaven. But I believe the Bible is the word of God, inspired by His spirit in the minds and hearts of the writers of scripture. Thus the reason I wrote this book is to help you find Christ in a new way. God may be using pain and suffering to reach you and change your heart.

John 14:6: Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

As God leads you in your prayer, invite Christ to change your heart and mind. Accept His love and grace and ask Him to forgive your sins because of what He did on the cross; dying for you. His blood and sacrificed body enables and empowers you to believe that Christ has taken away eternal damnation and gives you eternal life with Him in heaven. Your name is in God’s Book of Life.

You may have made a decision previously in your life to become a born again Christian, but it was more of an intellectual decision, or perhaps just an emotional decision. Months and years have gone by, but you never truly developed a deep trusting rapport with Christ. God allows adversity with health crises and perhaps a financial crisis as well. These crises reveal if you are in a spiritual crisis too.

Pray that God will be merciful and forgive you of your lukewarm-ness. Rededicate your life today and start over. Confess that you had made a decision to have a deep bond with God and you want to start over. God will forgive you and renew your heart. Ask Him to come into your life and the life of your care receiver and family. Your job is to follow Him and not your own agenda. A caregiver cannot do it all on her own, she needs outside help and the best outside help is Jesus Christ.

The first steps of knowing God’s agenda for Christian caregivers is that they are truly born again Christians. John 3:16-17: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Understand that your faith and beliefs will have a definite impact on your care receiver and the loved ones surrounding them. I have never had a person refuse to have me pray with them and I have never had anyone not accept my care. They may have felt awkward, insecure, guilty, or embarrassed, but they were always thankful that someone cared enough for them to be prayed over.

You can’t question God’s plan. You have to understand that He knows what’s best, accept it, and pray for strength.

—Unknown

1.Meditate on your prayer life and how passionate you are with prayer.

2.Have you come to a place in your life when you invited Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of your life?

Day 3

Chapter 3 - Seeing Caregiving Through God’s Eyes

We watch the news or read about the evil, the injustice, rampant lawlessness, and the destruction of people around the world that happens every day. Some days it gets very close to home, sometimes in our neighborhoods, and perhaps this evil resides deeply within our families. The media saturates us with news and blogs, websites, Tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagrams about terrorism, famine, war, drought, and corruption. Reality television and documentaries broadcast the many human and natural destructive forces tearing at our security, foundational values and beliefs.

We watch and listen to the media, hoping to hear some solution, some transformation, and something to give us hope. CNN and Fox cannot provide you with what you need. Neither can the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post or Google and Facebook. Our present and future generations will deepen their affiliation with very different gods, time, money, and technology. Newsweek reported that web use is linked to loneliness, low moods, and the loss of real-life friends: The more a person hangs out in the global village, the worse they are likely to feel.

It appears Satan’s plan has taken over many people’s lives, yet people can’t stop worshipping their resources. We become more depressed and we become jaded when good doesn’t prevail. Many Christians are withdrawing and circling their wagons to protect themselves from the outside world. A physical or mental illness can impact our personal world. Crises can also change our identity to a full-time caregiver. Thus life can suddenly change and there is little you can do about it. As society runs from God to their false idols, who will care for the sick, the disabled and the suffering?

We fear what the world, our nation, state, community, neighborhood or family is going to look like in ten or twenty years. We don’t know who is telling the truth, who is spinning the facts, or who is lying to us. We don’t know if there is anyone we can trust. Is there any place that is truly safe to raise a family? Are there any answers to what is happening in the world today? We fear for our children and grandchildren. We fear for ourselves.

How should you view the happenings of the world around you? How do you live your life, worship God and bring glory to God? It is easy to grow cynical and skeptical today. You hear those emotional reactions everywhere you venture. You try to block the noise of the world from your life.

We go along in our suits of armor fighting off the advances of anti-Christian sentiment. But then destruction dents our armor and pierces our helmet and breast plate. It could be a heart attack, stroke, auto accident, or cancer. Perhaps it is a job loss or a divorce, a crime or a bankruptcy. It could be a death, a prolonged or a terminal illness. All of us know these events and conditions happen in life, but we don’t believe they will happen to us in the near future.

I have never heard newlyweds reciting their wedding vows asking, Why is this joyful event happening to us, God? I have never experienced a set of parents with a newborn in the delivery room asking, Why do you love us so much that you brought us a healthy baby?

Of course we never question God when good things happen. We may be temporarily