DayBreaks for the Week of 9/4/22 – First Sight

John 9:6-7 (NLT) Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!

The text above describes the healing of a man who had been born blind.  One of the easiest things to do is to read a familiar text and pass it by too quickly.  Let me ask you to do something: re-read those verses and try to imagine yourself as the blind man.  The entire episode must have been somewhat bewildering.

First, a stranger who is passing by, without even being asked, stops to make mud with spit and starts to smear it on your eyes.  You wouldn’t be able to watch him do it, so try to imagine what was happening in the man’s mind.  From a Jewish culture standpoint, saliva was believed to have healing properties, but still – having mud made from spit smeared onto your eyes could not have been a very pleasant thing. 

Then, the man gives you orders.  You’re still blind, so someone had to lead him to the pool of Siloam.  This took faith on both the part of the person who would lead him to the pool, and also on the part of the blind man.

But what I really want to consider is what the man must have thought when he first opened his eyes and saw things clearly.  He’d never seen another human.  He’d never seen color.  He’d never seen a tree or a dog or a house.  He’d never seen anything.  And all of a sudden, his retinas are receiving images and the optic nerve is firing and the brain is trying to make sense out of this new deluge of sensory input.  But somehow, the man makes enough sense out of it to find his way back to Jesus.

That’s how it is when we begin to see the truth…we want to find our way back to Jesus!  When we start to see the reality of what we are and what we’ve done and when our hearts and minds can make sense of it, we know where we need to go. 

But I wonder: how many of us really are seeing clearly?  Can you make sense of what you’re seeing spiritually in your life?  One thing is important if you are just starting to see truth about yourself: don’t shut down because you don’t like what you’re seeing.  Instead, keep your eyes wide open…and find you way to Jesus who will help you make sense of your life.

One more thought: the day will come when our eyes open and we, too, will see Jesus for the first time. Be ready for it – place your faith in him – and he will be a joyous sight to behold!

PRAYER: We sometimes don’t want to see all the ugly truth about ourselves, and we’ll close our eyes, so we don’t have to see it all, Lord.  Help us trust that no matter what we see, if we find our way to you, we can be healed and forgiven!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2022 by Galen C. Dalrymple.

DayBreaks for 2/1/22 – No One Went Away Broken

Luke 4:38-41 (NLT) –  After leaving the synagogue that day, Jesus went to Simon’s home, where he found Simon’s mother-in-law very sick with a high fever. “Please heal her,” everyone begged.  Standing at her bedside, he rebuked the fever, and it left her. And she got up at once and prepared a meal for them.  As the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed every one.  Many were possessed by demons; and the demons came out at his command, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But because they knew he was the Messiah, he rebuked them and refused to let them speak.

“No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed every one.”  It must have been an incredible sight.  Consider that in those days there was poor sanitation, lack of medicine and healing skills, poor water quality, poor preservation of food, insects everywhere, etc.  There must have been vast masses of people who came to Jesus for healing!!!  We should not underestimate how many there must have been.  And what an amazing statement: that not one who came left without being healed and made whole! 

Coming to Jesus must change a person.  It is not possible to remain unchanged.  We will either leave healed (or in the process of being healed, as with the 10 lepers) or we will go away with a harder heart, or even sad (as the rich young man who came to Jesus). 

There are many illnesses.  We are all sick in one way or another, or in many ways, to be honest.  If it seems that we leave his presence without healing, why is that the case?  Whose fault is it?  We are told in other places that he could not do miracles in his hometown because of a lack of faith there.  That can be one problem.  But what of those who come to Jesus not as first option, but as a later option?  I’m sure that some of the sick that day had tried other options, too.  Yet Jesus healed them.  What great comfort for those of us who have tried many other solutions for the many pains of life only to find that Jesus is still willing to heal us even if he is our last resort!

We see his compassion clearly here.  His mission, as noted in the end of the passage, was to preach the good news, but he found time for healing.  It was, after all, part of his declaration and statement of his mission in coming to earth, the gospel, the good news, as found in earlier in the chapter (vs. 18-19). 

Let’s not neglect any of the aspects of the good news He came to share with us in our living out of the gospel!

PRAYER: Father, thank You for Your willingness and power to hear ALL who come to You!  Help us engage fully in the living and teaching of the complete good news!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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

DayBreaks for 1/1122 – Jesus Reverses the Flow

In the gospel story captured in Mark 1:40, Jesus heals a leper. You know the story, but sometimes we can miss significant facts that give us more light about what really happened.

First, ancient midrashes (teachings) from the ancient Jewish scholars identified four types of miracles that could only be done by the Messiah. One of those types of miracles was to heal a person of leprosy.

Leprosy was deadly – in fact, it was very akin to a living death once one had it. You were cut off, isolated. You were not to be touched because it would cause others to be unclean and could pass the dread disease on to them. As often as not, no one spoke to lepers or got anywhere close to them.

So, Jesus encounters this leper, and the leper starts begging Jesus for a healing. That is certainly understandable – who wouldn’t want to be healed of a living death with daily reminders of the inevitable as bit-by-bit body parts would fall off.  
Jesus does the unthinkable by not only speaking to the man, but touching him. Normally, the uncleanness and disease would pass to anyone who touched or was touched by a leper, but in this case, Jesus reverses the flow, like switching electricity to run in the opposite direction.

That’s the second point: Jesus was spotless. Sin free. Instead of becoming infected by the leper, the leper becomes infected with the healing and wholeness that Jesus alone can impart.

What parts of your life do you need Jesus to touch and make whole? He’s not too holy to reach out and touch you. On the contrary, he wants to touch you and make you whole. And aren’t we all living in a “living death” until Jesus passes wholeness and his sinlessness is credited to us by that touch?

PRAYER: Jesus, there is so much in our lives that needs your touch and the healing that comes with it! Jesus, touch us, touch those who read this that desperately need your touch today. Let them feel your hand upon their shoulder and know that you can heal their brokenness, too. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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

DayBreaks for 12/30/21 – Being Willing

Leprosy was, and is, a horrible disease.  There was and is no cure for it.  While the term leprosy was applied to numerous skin diseases, none of them were pleasant, not only because of the disease itself, but because of how the leper was treated.  People under the Jewish system were not allowed to be in contact with those who were leprous.  It was a sentence of isolation, and even though the leper healed by Jesus “lived in the village”, he would have been unable to touch others, or be touched.  He could speak to them, see them as they went about their daily lives: hugging, shaking hands, putting an arm around one another’s shoulder, working together, playing, but he could not participate in any of those things.  He was cut off from human contact of any physical sort. 

The man’s faith had held strong, though.  He’d not given up hope, especially when Jesus came to the village.  He begged for healing, issuing a bold statement of faith.  But he put a curious qualifier on it: if you are willing.  It makes sense, doesn’t it?  After all, how can we know the mind of Christ?  How can we know his will in all circumstances?  Have we ever prayed for something that we thought was his will, only to find out that it wasn’t his will at all because he didn’t grant that request?  I have done so many, many times! 

I don’t know, but I suspect that this man, though he begged for healing, was willing to accept Jesus’ mind-set and decision on this matter.  He was already a leper…what did he have to lose by asking, except perhaps a little pride if his request was denied (but he probably had little if any pride left anyway). 

But the best news is Jesus’ response: I AM WILLING.  What that tells us about Jesus is wonderful: 1) He hears us; 2) He is moved by our begging (the parable about the woman who kept imploring the judge for a boon); 3) He is willing to heal and make us whole; 4) He not only is willing (who among us wouldn’t heal the suffering if we only had the power), but He has the power to heal

I’m sure the leper was thrilled by Jesus’ three words.  I would have been.  I wonder if I would have been as accepting if Jesus said “no” to my request.  It’s hard to accept a “no” for something we really want.

PRAYER: Father, many have been the times when I’ve prayed for something and instead of asking for it if it is your will, I am trying to instruct you what to do.  I’m sorry for my pride.  Please help me be willing to graciously accept your will!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2021 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 12/14/21 – Everyone Means Everyone

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 think my favorite four words from this text are the last four: and he healed everyone.  He’s not in a rush.  He didn’t live by a wristwatch or smart phone alerting him to appointments, places he had to go, things he needed to do.  Jesus never seemed to be pressed for time, have you noticed?  He spent countless hours alone in prayer.  He fasted in the wilderness for 40 days, ignoring all the other things he could have been doing. He waited 30 years to begin his ministry.  He lay in the tomb for 3 days when he could have risen up immediately.  But he didn’t. 

The point is he came for us…to be Immanuel (God WITH us).  In ministry it is hard to find the time to be WITH those we are to minister to.  We find every other reason to be invested in the study, to go to the Christian supply store, to meet with other pastors, to go to conferences, to do everything except be present.  The same is true for every life – it is hard anymore to find time to BE with others.  Instead of talking, we text.  Instead of spending time with real people, we spend it with animated video games or staring at a television.  We find all sorts of ways to avoid being with others (perhaps as a self-defense mechanism).  Jesus didn’t.  He took the opposite approach.

But the best part of those last four words are this: he didn’t fail to heal a single person.  There is no one or nothing that Jesus can’t heal.  He can heal the pain of your divorce, of your sexual infidelity, of your addiction, of your rebellion.  He can render the disease of pride, anger, unforgiveness, lust, greed and envy null and void.  There is nothing that he cannot and will not do to bring us back into fullness as humans and into a personal relationship with him.  He proved that on the cross.

PRAYER: Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed!!!!  In Your name, Amen.

Copyright 2021 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 10/19/21 – Troubled Waters

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. (John 5:2–4 NKJV)

There’s a definite sequence here that we’d do well to understand. The people who were around the pool had problems. They were sick, blind, lame, paralyzed and who knows what else. They knew and understood the challenges that come from changes and the unexpected things in life.

But here’s the sequencing that is so important:

FIRST: before someone could be healed, the waters had to be stirred up. When things were calm, nothing was happening. The water had to start to swirl and splash around.

SECOND: once the water was troubled, the next essential ingredient to the healing was the faith of the sick that believed healing would come if they could just get into the stirred up waters.

In life, we may prefer smooth sailing on still water, but things don’t change when it is that way. It’s when things are stirred up and become “troubled” that healing can come. But we need to believe in the power behind the healing, too, and in his desire for us to be healed.

Don’t fight against troubled waters. Instead, leap into them filled with faith that healing awaits.

PRAYER: Jesus, our preference is for quiet and calm in life, but don’t let us use that as an excuse to find the healing in the troubled water that surrounds us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2021 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 9/20/21 – Getting the Sequence Right

Mark 7:32-35 (NIV) – There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

There are certain sequences in life that are unavoidable.  Life comes before death.  Childhood comes before adolescence and adulthood.  Being a child comes before having children.  Being a parent comes before one becomes a grandparent.

In the text from Mark 7, there is another sequence that we would do well to consider, understand, and incorporate into our lives.  The man was deaf, and could barely speak, when he came to Jesus.  Notice how Jesus approaches the situation:

FIRST, he puts his fingers into the man’s ears,

SECOND, he touches the man’s tongue.

Children hear before they learn to speak.  If we can’t hear, we will not likely be able to learn to speak, because we speak by imitating the sounds we hear: “momma”, “daddy”, “dog”, “cat”, and the like. We imitate those sounds before we can read them.  We must first hear.  Once we hear, then we can speak. 

It is especially important for Christians to hear what Jesus has to say before we attempt to speak for him, or in his place.  Yes, we are to be his ambassadors and that means we speak what he has instructed us to say, but if we haven’t heard from him, we should keep our mouths shut!  We should not be offering, “The Bible says X, Y, and Z, but here’s what I think…”.

The first step in communicating is to listen…then to speak.  Let’s get the sequence right!

PRAYER: We are too prone to quick to speak on your behalf before we have heard from You!  Teach us discipline, give us patience, to wait to hear your voice before we open our mouths!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2021 by Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 1/27/21 – Busted Parts and Beautiful Things

From the DayBreaks archive, January 2012:

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. – Isaiah 42:1-3

Julie Pennington-Russell, in Our Friend Calling, wrote: “I have a friend. He’s a man in his late 60’s. Rugged, burly, brilliant guy. He’s always reminded me a little of the Marlborough Man. He studied at a prestigious university in the East some years ago, and then he moved to Texas to work on his doctorate. But somewhere along the way he became addicted to cocaine–just tumbled into that dark hole. Lost his family, lost his place in graduate school, lost big pieces of himself. But somehow he washed up on the shores of a good church. And when he did, he was so fragile–he looked like he’d been “rode hard and put up wet”–as they say in Texas. But the folks in that church put their arms around that man and slowly he started to heal, and eventually, miraculously, even reunited with his wife and children.

“We had this couple in our home for dinner and the man began to talk with Tim and me about where his life was going. “I want to believe,” he said, “that my best days aren’t behind me, and that my life can still count, can still make a difference for God.” He sat at our table with his head in his hands. “I just can’t help but feel like I’ve blown all of my best chances,” he said. That’s when his wife, who’s just this wonderful, middle-aged bohemian Texas flower child kind of woman, reached over and took his hand and said–and I’ll never forget this–she said, “Baby, you’ve got to take your sticky fingers off that steering wheel. If God could yank Jesus out of a grave, I figure he can make something beautiful out of busted parts.” And I tell you what–if I live to be a hundred and ten, I don’t expect to hear the gospel better articulated than that.”

When we are broken and busted, we tend to think that we are useless.  As we get older and feel that we’re defective, we can really despair thinking that we’re washed up and ready for the junk heap.  The joyful news for all of us is that we are never too old for God to use us, if we just stop trying to control our life and let Him take control.  It is hard to pry our fingers off the steering wheel.  We live under the illusion that we’ve done a good job of driving so far so we figure we just as well keep on driving since we’ve relatively okay.   

Deep inside, though, we know we’ve not done all that well.  Could we have done worse?  Probably.  Could we have done better?  Certainly.  But God doesn’t ever make mistakes.  Let Him take the busted parts in you.  Gather them up, put them in His hands, and see what He does with them!

PRAYER: We are like shattered glass, Lord.  We need you to put our lives back together and back on track!!  Make something beautiful out of our brokenness, Lord!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2021, Galen C. Dalrymple  ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 1/12/21 – Getting It Right

From the DayBreaks archive, January 2012:

And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” – Matthew 8:14-17

We don’t know anything about Peter’s wife or his mother-in-law other than that she had been sick and when Jesus touched her, she was healed.  The immediate response to the healing?  To get up and server her Healer.  I sometimes think that if I was the one who had been healed, I might have gotten up and gone out to play golf or basketball or do something other than serve.  I fear that I’m far to selfish.

The wording in the last part of verse 17 is interesting: “he took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”  What does that mean?   Why didn’t it just say that he healed our illnesses and cured our diseases?  Surely that would have been enough, wouldn’t it?  But that’s not what it says.  It says that he took them into himself – almost as if absorbing them in their fullness. 

In the movie, The Green Mile, Michael Clarke Duncan plays a black man named John Coffee on death row who has the power to take disease out of a human body and to “suck” it into himself.  It is a powerful scene where he heals the character played by Tom Hanks and also cures the cancer of the wife of one of the guards. 

Jesus did heal, he did cure…but he took those things upon and into himself.  Surely, this was part of the incarnation – part of his becoming like us in “every way.”

PRAYER: Why, Lord, should you have taken our brokenness into yourself, if not, to know our human condition in all its fullness and ugliness?  For emptying yourself of your glory, and for filling yourself with our disease and brokenness, be glory both now and forever!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Copyright 2021, Galen C. Dalrymple. ><}}}”>

DayBreaks for 4/17/2020: The Hallway Through the Sea #17 – Lift Your Eyes Up

DayBreaks for 4/17/20: The Hallway Through the Sea, #17 – Lift Your Eyes Up

The following is the latest in a series of daily meditations amid the pandemic. For today’s musical pairing, consider Andrea Bocelli’s “Amazing Grace” in Milan. All songs for this series have been gathered into a Spotify playlist.

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.” – Numbers 21:8–9

Meditation 17. 2,016,020 confirmed cases, 130,528 deaths globally.

The journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan could have been short and swift. Instead, because of their own persistent disobedience, it extended over 40 long and arduous years. The people often inveighed against God. In Numbers 21, they are afflicted with serpents in the wilderness. They cry out for mercy. God tells Moses to lift up a bronze snake on a pole and invites them to look for this sign of his provision and healing whenever they are bitten.

It’s a puzzling story. Why a graven image? Why a snake? What message was God sending his chosen people?

Consider for a moment something simpler: the physical posture this required of the sufferer. Imagine a young woman dragging her weary body across the sun-scorched earth of Edom. The snake bites. Where does the young woman look? What would be, in that moment, the most natural thing she could possibly do? The answer, of course, is to look down. To fix her eye on the snake, or on the wound, or to look for more snakes concealed among the rocks.

In order to receive healing, the sufferer has to turn away from the object of her affliction and turn to the object of God’s provision…  (Click here to see the rest of this meditation.)

PRAYER: In this season, countless anxieties and agitations clamor for our attention. Help us, O Lord, to discipline our powers of attention. Help us to lift our eyes away from our passing troubles and to fix our eyes on the one who was lifted up for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.