DayBreaks for the Week of 1/15/24: Preaching Where You Walk

One day St. Francis of Assisi, invited a young monk to join him on a trip into town to preach. The young monk was so honored to get such an invitation from St. Francis that he quickly accepted. All day long he and St. Francis walked through the streets and byways, alleys and suburbs, and they rubbed shoulders with hundreds of people.

At the end of the day, the two headed back home, however, not even once had St. Francis addressed a crowd, nor had he talked to anyone about the gospel. The young monk was greatly disappointed, and he said to St. Francis, “I thought we were going into town to preach?” St. Francis responded, “My son, we have preached. We were preaching while we were walking. We were seen by many and our behavior was closely watched. It is of no use to walk anywhere to preach unless we preach everywhere as we walk!”

It’s no secret that we, both as individuals and the church, have forgotten what it means to preach the gospel, what it means to bring to others the good news, what it means to evangelize. Evangelism has become a dirty word in many churches, and if it isn’t outright dismissed altogether, then it is relegated as a task for only those who have been ordained, or for those who are professional speakers, who make a living giving their testimonials and asking for altar calls, or for those who are missionaries overseas. The idea of witnessing quite frankly terrifies most Christians.

Yet, I can’t help but wonder: which is easier – telling someone else about what Jesus has done for us, or living like Him? Of course, if we aren’t living like Him, then no matter what we might “tell” others, it won’t matter a bit if we aren’t seen to be living like the One we proclaim.

Today, my friends, you can preach where you walk and where you work. Will you do it? That’s the question of the week!

PRAYER: Let us be bearers of Your name and message today both in how we live and what we say! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2023 by Galen C. Dalrymple.

DayBreaks for the Week of 7/09/23: You Will Never Know

Mark 4:8-9 (NLT) Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”  Then he said, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”

One of William Barclay’s friends tells the story of a church where he worshipped that had a lonely old man, named Thomas, among the parishioners. Thomas was so old that he’d outlived all his friends and hardly anyone really knew him or paid him much mind. When old Thomas died, Barclay’s friend was concerned that no one would show up for the funeral so he decided to go just so that there would be someone who would follow the mortal remains of the old man to his final resting place.
The day of the funeral was miserable – even by English standards, and as it turned out, there was no one except this one man who bothered to show up. The service concluded and when the hearse reached the cemetery, a soldier stood waiting at the gate. The man deduced that the soldier was an officer, but there were no insignia nor rank badges on his wet raincoat. Still, the soldier came to the grave side for the ceremony and when it was over, he stepped forward and before the open grave swept his hand to a salute that was worthy of a king. The friend walked away with this soldier, and as they walked, the wind blew the soldier’s raincoat open to reveal the shoulder badges of a brigadier general.
The general said, “You will perhaps be wondering what I am doing here. Years ago, Thomas was my Sunday School teacher; I was a wild lad and a sore trial to him. He never knew what he did for me, but I owe everything I am or will be to old Thomas, and today I had to come to salute him at the end.” Thomas had no idea what he had done for this man.
The simple fact is this: no preacher or teacher, no friend who shares the good news or who lives it out in front of others ever does know what becomes of the seed that has been sown. We don’t have to know.  Our desire to know would only feed our pride and ego.  Perhaps that’s why God doesn’t let us know.  Our job is simply to keep sowing the seed, leaving the rest to God and trusting that God can see, water and nourish that seed for His glory, not for ours. We can with confidence leave the rest to God. And that is good news for all us tenant farmers who are planting seeds in the soil He created.

PRAYER: Father, produce a harvest for Your glory through our meager and paltry efforts, and help us to never, ever stop spreading the good news!! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2023 by Galen C. Dalrymple, ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for the Week of 5/21/23 – It’s Not an Either/Or World

It is so easy to forget that what we see and experience every day, while real, isn’t really that important.  How many of the things that you do and decide today will matter 100 years from now?  OK, maybe that’s a bit too far out.  How many will really make a difference in 10 years?  5 years?  Next year?  See what I mean?  We are so fixated on what we can see, rather than on what is most important.  We see ourselves as physical beings.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin tried to correct that incorrect perception when he suggested that “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  Well put.

But, because we see ourselves as human beings, rather than spiritual ones, we have a tendency to think that what we do each day doesn’t really make a very big difference in things at all.  We are wrong.  “To his followers, Jesus hinted at the effect they were having on the world beyond their vision.  ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,’ he told one group as they returned from a mission trip. They had been walking over hot sand, knocking on doors, asking to see the sick, announcing the coming of Jesus.  All their actions took place in the visible world, which they could touch, smell and see.  Jesus, with supernatural insight, saw that those actions in the visible world were having a startling impact on the invisible world.

“The world we live in is not an either/or world.  What I do as a Christian – praying, worshiping, demonstrating God’s love to the sick, needy, and imprisoned – is not exclusively supernatural or natural, but both working at the same time.  Perhaps if Jesus stood in the flesh beside me, murmuring phrases like ‘I saw Satan fall’ whenever I acted in his name, I would remember better the connections between the two worlds.”  – Philip Yancey, Rumors of Another World

The real answer to the questions I asked earlier about what difference your decisions and actions today will have on the future is that none of us really know, only God.  But my guess is that they are a lot more important than we’ll ever know in this world.  They may affect someone’s eternity – either for good or for bad.  What you say today has heavenly weight.  What you do today has eternal implications.  This world, and our actions in it, are inextricably linked to the next. 

Sobering, isn’t it?

Luke 10:18-20 (NIV)  – He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.  However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

PRAYER: Father, give us the wisdom to live wisely in this world, to remember that what we do every single day has eternal implications. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2023 by Galen C. Dalrymple.

DayBreaks for the Week of 2/13/22: When Cats Bark Like Dogs

Matthew 5:13-14 (NLT) – You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.

There was a mother mouse who decided to teach her children about the world. So she gathered all of her little mice and set out for a walk. They walked down the hall and turned to the right. Then they went down the hall and took another right. And suddenly they found themselves in front of the family cat dozing in the sunlight. The mother mouse was scared. But she didn’t want to give in to her fright. So she signaled to the children to be very quiet and to follow as she began to tip-toe quietly and slowly past the sleeping cat. Just as she was about to get past the cat, the cat’s eyes popped open, and raised its paw.

The little mice were petrified. What would their mother do? Well, just as the cat’s paw started to come down, that mother mouse looked the cat right in the eye and started barking like a dog. And do you know what? The cat was so startled and frightened that it jumped up and ran away! The mother mouse, wiped her brow, shook a little, and then turned to her little mice and said, “Children, I hope you learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes it’s good to know a second language!”

It’s the same way with us. It’s good to know a second language. Salt and light are the languages of God; the language of Grace; the language of hope and love. And when this language is translated into action it becomes the most beautiful language ever spoken. We’re called to be salt and light and to speak the language of God as we live our faith. We’re called not just to speak the Word, but to live the Word as our primary language!

If your language is more like that of this earthly realm than the heavenly one, how will to world ever know that you know Jesus?

PRAYER: Let us live Your Word constantly! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2023 by Galen C. Dalrymple, all rights reserved.

DayBreaks for the Week of 12/12/22: The Impact of Just Three Years

Socrates taught for 40 years, Plato for 50, Aristotle for 40, and Jesus for only 3. Yet the influence of Christ’s 3-year ministry infinitely transcends the impact left by the combined 130 years of teaching from these men, who were among the greatest philosophers of all antiquity.

Jesus painted no pictures yet some of the finest paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci received their inspiration from him. Jesus wrote no poetry but Dante, Milton, and scores of the world’s greatest poets were inspired by him. Jesus built no buildings but St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome and Notre Dame in Paris are some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, Jesus composed no music still Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, and Mendelssohn reached their highest perfection of melody in the hymns, symphonies, and oratorios they composed in his praise. Every sphere of human greatness has been enriched by this humble Carpenter of Nazareth.

His unique contribution to humanity is the salvation of the soul! Philosophy could not accomplish that. Nor art. Nor literature. Nor music. Only Jesus Christ can break the enslaving chains of sin. He alone can speak peace to the human heart, strengthen the weak, and give life to those who are spiritually dead.

It is one thing to talk about the impact of Jesus on the world, but the far more important question is: how have you let him impact you? Why was his impact so great? Because he was not just another human, but Lord of all Creation!

As great as his impact when he came as a babe in a manger has been, when he returns it will be even greater. We need to be ready!

PRAYER: Father, we thank you for Jesus and pray that we’ll be wise enough to not just let him impact our lives, but to be Lord of our lives!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2022, Galen C. Dalrymple.

DayBreaks for the Week of 10/16/22: The Fateful Journey

The other day I was driving in town and watching the cars around me. I wondered where the people inside them were headed. What was their intended destination?

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, a thought hit me with visceral force: all the people you see are heading toward death. Don’t ask me why that thought came to mind or why it struck me so strongly. Sure, we know that everyone will die – but we push that thought so far down in our conscious mind that it seldom comes to the surface. But that day it did.

For some, the exit from this life may be way down the road, but for others, it might be just around the corner. Even as we get older, we know the offramp is getting closer and closer, yet we choose not to meditate on it. The simple fact is that none of us know when we will reach the exit. But reach it we shall.

Was my mind just being maudlin? I think not. I think God wanted to impress on me that urgency of life and of finding eternal life. How many of the people that I saw driving in their cars that afternoon were on the straight and narrow and how many were on the wide, twisty road that leads to perdition? I don’t know. God does, but I don’t. And that’s why I need to take this revelation to heart – there is a job at hand for each one of us that claim the name of Christ. We aren’t here to just live out our days, and then die and go to heavenly splendor. We’re here to help others find the right road, the good road, that will lead them to eternal life and joy.

The message to me couldn’t have been much more clear: get busy telling the good news and begin living it as if you really, truly believe it, because everyone you see is driving toward death.

As a result of my experience, I’m starting by reminding myself that everyone I see is on that journey – including me and including you. I’m trying to let that awareness sink deep into my heart and the daily practice of my life in such a way that I’ll be more eager and open to share the glorious news of who Jesus is, what he is like, and what he has done for the person in the car on my left and on my right, in front of and behind me.

How close are you to the offramp of your life? Who, in the final analysis, will be able to say in glory one day that it was you who showed them the map to get to the glorious land where there is never darkness because the Lamb is the light:

PRAYER: Lord, forgive me for my blindness to the reality of the destination of all mankind and for my reluctance to tell people about Jesus. Create in my heart a true belief that the fields are white unto harvest and that you want me to be part of the plan to bring others to you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2022, Galen C. Dalrymple.

DayBreaks for the Week of 4/25/22 – The Day the World Grew Dangerous

Christianity is unlike any other religion for many reasons.  First, it’s not a religion – it’s about an intimate relationship with God, but we’ll not go into all the other differences, except to note that unlike other religions, Christianity can trace its origin to one particular event in one moment on a single day in history: the resurrection. 

When Jesus appears to the women at the tomb, he is very nonchalant in the Greek when he said, “Greetings!”  It’s as close as you could come to saying something so ordinary, like: “Hi!  How are you doing?  Nice day, isn’t it?”  Almost as if Jesus were saying, “You were expecting this, right?  I told you I’d do this!”

John Ortberg wrote about it in Who Is This Man?: Sunday changed everything, but not in the way many people think.  From our point of view 2000 years later, many people think of Easter as a comforting story that says, ‘Spring is coming.  Flowers are blooming.  Life is eternal.  Everything is going to work out.’  But the response to the resurrection on the first Easter in the Gospels consistently includes fear.  In fact, people were more afraid after the resurrection than they were before.  And none of the gospel accounts have Jesus or the angels saying, ‘Now you don’t have to worry about dying anymore.

“What Jesus does say to his followers is that there is work to be done.  In effect, ‘The cross didn’t stick.  Their plan to stop my movement didn’t work.  It’s going to go on.  Matter of fact, my plan to love even  your enemies, to be willing to sacrifice, suffer, and even die for the sake of love has been vindicated by my Father.”

“They’re really going to be ticked off now.  Pilate and the chief priests have already plotted to squelch this news.  They are furious.  They are desperate.  I’ve leaving now.  So you go, you women, you disciples.  Tell them all that the cross failed, Caesar failed, Pilate failed, the chief priests failed.  Now they have you to contend with.”

Ortberg continues: “On Sunday their lives didn’t get safer; their lives got a lot more dangerous.  What got released on Sunday was not comfort.  Also, what got released on Sunday was not assurance about life after death.” 

“What got released on Sunday was hope.  Not hope that life would turn out well.  Not even hope that there will be life after death.  Hope that called people to die: die to selfishness and sin and fear and greed, die to the lesser life of a lesser self so that a greater self might be born.  And many people did.”

What did you celebrate a couple weeks ago?  It isn’t wrong to celebrate the resurrection.  But did you also consider what it means – what the implications are for the rest of your temporal life?  I doubt few of us gave that much thought, but we should.  It was the day the world became dangerous if you wear the name “Christian.” 

PRAYER: Sometimes in our celebrations we forget the seriousness of our calling, Lord.  Let us not fear what man can do to us, but boldly proclaim the resurrection!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2022 by Galen C. Dalrymple.

DayBreaks for 2/25/22 – A Final Message

NOTE TO READERS OF DayBreaks: I have written DayBreaks since 1997…a period of 25 years. I have loved every minute of it. Today’s DayBreaks marks the end of DayBreaks. I shall miss you. For those seeking another blog to bring light into your day, I highly recommend Ann Voskamp’s blog: Blog – Ann Voskamp

That being said, I want to share what Ann wrote yesterday in her email newsletter as it is so fitting not only due to the events of the last couple days, but for life in this world. It expresses the sentiment of my heart at this ending of DayBreaks:

“You woke up to that new headline too — one we’ve been seeing looming on the horizon for the last several months, and l’m with you — my heart cracked too.
“In the face of pain, may the people of God be found at their post, on their knees in prayer.

“Because we know prayer isn’t just the least we can do,
and prayer isn’t all we can do, but prayer is ultimately the most important work we all can do.
“Because it’s calling on the One who slays all the dark, wins us all back from the mess, and cuts right through all the impossible knots of desperate things.
“Where there is an invasion on earth, may our prayers war an all-out invasion on the powers and principalities, “against the rulers of the darkness of this world,” (Eph. 6:16).
“Though missiles rain from the sky this morning, rain down Your mercy, Lord.
“Though black smoke rises, our prayers rise higher, surer, greater.
“Though explosions shatter and gunfire rattles, we hold our ground in the face of pain and we move toward the suffering, our hands reaching with bold solidarity.
“Ours is a tired world, Lord, weary of suffering, weary of the dark, weary of all the heartbreak, ours is a tired world,  weary for hope — raise us up with the indomitable certainty that this world is a broken one and You alone are our unwavering hope, King Jesus.
Lord, hear our cry:
“Comfort children who cry terrified, give courage to mothers who gather to calm, strengthen leaders who stand steady to find a way to peace.
“For those who need to flee — may they find our arms a safe haven.
“For those who are hungry — may they find our open hands offering bread for today and living bread for all eternity.
“For all the limping, weary and wounded — may they find us holding on to each other, because when we live like we all belong to each other — we answer so much of the longing in the world… even our own.
“And for all those who despair, both near and far — may they find our hands and feet today to be those of King Jesus, we who get to be His very body of peace in a hurting world today.”

PRAYER: Almighty One, bless my friends who have read my scribblings these past 25 years. May they all come to perfect knowledge of you, Lord Jesus, and find eternal joy and blessedness in this life and the world to come. Keep them by your mighty hand that they may walk with you all the days of their lives!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Farewell.

Copyright 2022 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 2/11/22 – The Real Life

Luke 6:17-19 (NLT) – When they came down from the mountain, the disciples stood with Jesus on a large, level area, surrounded by many of his followers and by the crowds. There were people from all over Judea and from Jerusalem and from as far north as the seacoasts of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and Jesus also cast out many evil spirits. Everyone tried to touch him, because healing power went out from him, and he healed everyone.

I don’t know about you, but interruptions can really bug me at times.  If I’m doing something that I am really into, that I dearly love, or if I’m concentrating really hard in thought, I don’t like interruptions.  Perhaps that’s because I’m getting old enough now that I can easily forget what I was doing or thinking when the interruption came barreling down on me! 

Some time ago and over a period of years, I spent my quiet time in what I can “The Jesus Exploration”.  I worked my way through all four gospels, a tiny bit at a time, expressly for the purpose of trying to get to know Jesus and his heartbeat better.  You know one thing that has consistently jumped out at me over and over again?  Here it is: it’s the way he always had time for people – for interruptions.  It might have been little children gamboling around his feet; a rich young man who came to learn what he needed to do to inherit eternal life; a Pharisee named Nicodemus who was full of questions; a large crowd of sick and broken people; a Roman centurion who had a sick servant; a funeral procession along the road out of Nain; or even religious leaders who Jesus knew were plotting his demise.  It didn’t matter who they were – or even what they wanted – He spent time with them.

I think about how often I give short-shrift to the clamoring of those round about me.  I pretend not to hear sometimes.  I pretend not to see.  I don’t want the interruption. 

But is that really the problem?  Is it really that I don’t want the interruption or that I don’t want to have to get involved with other people – especially if they seem to have a problem and I won’t want to get sucked into it?  I fear that it is far more often that I don’t want to get involved.  I want to live my own life in my own way – choosing the interruptions I want to honor and those I want to ignore. 

Jesus didn’t give himself that luxury, apparently.  Should we give it to ourselves?  What we often think of as interruptions may in fact be the very reason for us being in a given place at a given time.  Consider this bit of wisdom from C. S. Lewis: “The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” – C.S. Lewis, from a letter to Arthur Greeves, 20 December 1943 

Perhaps we have been mis-lead about what constitutes our “real life”.

PRAYER: Lord, help us to see interruptions as possible Divine interventions to shake us out of our self-life into the life You intend us to live!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2022 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 2/10/22 – Living the Beatitudes

From Christianity Today, 12/13/21, by Rebekah Eklund

“Helena Jakobsdotter Ekblom (1784–1859) was born in Östergötland, Sweden, the same province from which the Eklund side of my family originated. At an early age she began to have visions of paradise, in which all the promises of the Beatitudes have come to fruition—she saw the poor rejoicing, laughing, and possessing the earth, crowned as sons and daughters of God. She started to preach about her visions, attracting crowds of impoverished peasants, who eagerly received her message, and the authorities, who did not.

“Lena declared, in the words of the Beatitudes, good news to her fellow poor. As in Luke’s gospel, this message carried with it an implied corollary: “Woe to the rich who cause poverty, to those whose laughter is bought by tears, to those whose opulence is built on misery, to the mighty and powerful whose strength is founded on injustice, to those who despise and persecute and oppress the little ones of Jesus.”

“This implied corollary proved deeply challenging to both state and church authorities. As Jerry Ryan wrote, “Viewed through Lena’s eyes, the existing order becomes intolerable, literally revolting.” Her preaching proved so disturbing that she was locked away for 20 years in Vadstena, in a castle converted into an insane asylum.

“Even there, where she found herself among the poorest of the poor, the humiliated and abandoned, Lena continued to preach. She preached of God’s unshakeable love for them, assuring them that even “in their cells they delight in the freedom of the sons of God, that they are the heirs of the promise” (Matt. 5:9–10).

“After 20 years she was released, but she would not stop preaching the good news of the Beatitudes—good news for the poor, bad news for the powerful. She was arrested again, but on the way back to Vadstena, she and her escort passed through a town devastated by plague, and the guards fled in terror. Lena, however, stayed there, tending the sick, comforting the mourners.

“When the plague subsided, she was so beloved by the local people that nobody dared to arrest her again. When she grew old and unable to work, she moved into a shelter for the poor in her home village. Lena performed the Beatitudes in her preaching and in her life—she blessed the poor and was poor; she comforted and she wept.”

Just imagine what this world and its perception of Christianity would look like if the beatitudes touched us as it did Lena.

PRAYER: Speak to our deepest heart, Lord, and change us!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2022 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>