To finish well

My salvation is all about His grace.  My growing in faith is also all about His grace, in that He provides the opportunities for me to benefit from.  In the end, however, there is a part that I must play; decisions I must put into action that will determine my rewards, my capacity for joy.  All will be full – but some will be fuller than others because of things done in this life or more to the point because of the motives of our hearts.  Was it for His glory or our own?  Time will tell.  And so we push on to finish the race He has set before us.  I pray I may finish well.

morning musings

God is the one I want to please which means doing what He says and as He says it.  I can’t pick and choose what to obey and what not to obey.  When I ask for wisdom or a direction and He answers then I must obey – no excuses!  I cannot judge others when I too fall short of His glory.  Love is the motivation, for God, for others and lastly for myself.  It’s easy to write these words but quite another thing to put them into action which is why I so desperately need not just His assistance but His very existence in my life.  Like a spiral going up, each time I call out to Him because of some transgression, He and I get just a little closer.  He knows I am but dust and it is His Spirit in me that gives me life, hope, joy and peace.

A new beginning

I started a new book today, Big God by Britt Merrick.  He wrote this book during a time when his 5 year old daughter was struggling with cancer.  She went into remission but the cancer came back and eventually took her life.  I watched this family, from a far, as they went through this time in the valley of the shadow of death and found my faith strengthen by their living testimonies.  I hope to share little tid-bits along the way. . . and so we begin.

“I have hidden Your Word in my heart”.  In difficult times, when we have read our Bibles, we can fall back on His truth, His promises and what we know about His character.  Verses like Phil 4:6-9 can shape and protect our hearts and minds and prevent us from going to the dark places.  We need to intentionally choose to trust in His Word.  It is living, active, inerrant, infallible, authoritative and true.  As A W Tozer once said “We can’t expect those without faith to understand the power of the Word because it is through faith that the Word is revealed”.   The Bible tells us about Jesus, and reveals the character of God so that we can know that He is good and faithful.  Therefore, Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you.

The starfish story

As I started my quiet time this morning I thought about how easily I am distracted (by the cares of life and puppy dogs wanting in and wanting out) and my prayer was that I would keep my focus on Jesus.

                                                            

In my reading I was impressed by a line – that the same God who cares for everyone without exception, loves each individual with an exceptional love.

Because we are the recipients of this exceptional love, it frees us to love others.  The author makes a distinction between actions done in love and activism.  Where an activist may want to heal, restore, redeem or re-create, those acting out of love point through their actions to the healing, restoring, redeeming and re-creating presence of God.

As I mused on this I thought of the starfish story.  Sometimes we see all these starfish, the distractions and cares of life that seem so overwhelming that we miss that one we are to minister too, that one whose life we can touch with a word of healing or a smile of affirmation.  Nothing we do out of love for Him will ever go unnoticed.  It’s not our responsibility to clear the beach, just be there for the one (or ones) He has placed in our life.

How cool is that!!!

At our group last night, a couple of the women are doing the Beth Moore study on 1 Thessalonians.  We were taking about prayer and one them mentioned Beth saying that each morning our Father is just waiting for us to get up and talk with Him.  It reminded me of something I had read recently by Tozer  “Did you ever stop to think that God is going to be as pleased to have you with Him in Heaven as you are to be there?” 

The idea of Him really desiring and delighting in us - in me - and being in relationship with Him, is beyond explanation or my limited understanding.

This morning as I woke up I thought of how complete and whole God is.  He needs nothing.  He is the Great I am, the Three in One, the beginning and the end, an unbroken fellowship of unity and communion.  And still He desires to be in relationship with us, so much so that He has provided the way, the only way, for that to become a reality. Jesus is the way.  The way of returning into the completeness, the wholeness and holiness of God, where we too can experience that unbroken fellowship and communion with the lover, the desirer of our souls.  How cool is that!!!

The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.  Zeph 3:17

A thought and a prayer.

Father, it’s hard to see the bread of life when your stomach is empty  - but that is my heart’s desire.

To cultivate an appetite for Jesus.  Out into the deep, where my feet don’t touch, not to struggle but to float.  Beyond the gift to the Giver.  As we seek Him, He reveals Himself to us through His Spirit.  Not demanding but asking in faith, knowing He is good and can be trusted.

Be on guard

Guard your relationships (and your heart) from harmful influences.  Maintain balance.  The internet can be a good thing or a bad thing; your job can rule over you or you can rule over it.  Anything in life can be a weight or a wing.   We have control, a choice, over what we allow into our lives.  Are my choices, my values, guided by a biblical world view? We can accept His provision and be grateful or reject it and complain.  We can choose life or death.  He accepts us as we are, at whatever level of commitment we are able to bring but He will always desire more because full surrender is where fullness and peace and joy and love abound.  The deeper we go, the more He covers us until we are completely drowning in His grace.

Morning ramblings

Love is a choice.  Talking with a friend last night about an intense exercise program and what we say to ourselves.  The story of the little engine that could came to mind.  When some challenge arises, we can rise to the occasion by telling ourselves “I can do this”. Or we can let it defeat us by telling ourselves “I can’t do this”.  Sometimes love is like that.  And sometimes just saying the words is not enough.  I need the Father’s help and more – not just His assistance but His existence in my life.

Another thought this morning is that I want to go deeper and that requires discipline, being intentional, making the effort.  Deeper in the sense of connection, of knowing and being known. As an introvert, I find this difficult.  The desire is there but sometimes the cost is just too much.  Connection for me is being comfortable with someone, not feeling the need to speak and yet communicating.  Words so often fail me.  I say something without really wanting to speak and yet wanting to be heard.  To fill the empty space between.

Sometimes prayer is like that.  I’m never sure what to “say” but would much prefer to just be still and listen . . . or to just be still.  What a comfort to know that my Father is always present with me in the moment.

Those who fear Him

This morning Psa 147:11 caught my attention and I thought how amazing that God would take pleasure in “those who fear Him”.  Fear can mean to be afraid or it can mean to reverence, and when it comes to God, I think both are an appropriate response.  Too often we try to bring Him down to our level in an attempt to understand Him or to somehow have control over Him.  And while He did become human, He was, is and will always be God, the creator of all that is seen and unseen.  Unless He reveals Himself to us (which He has) we could not begin to know Him.  It is here that I find that holy tension – that He desires to be in fellowship with us and yet He is so beyond, above and separate from us.

In the garden “those who fear Him” got perverted and fear took on a negative connotation.  Rather than drawing us into fellowship in became something that separated us.  We believed the lie - that we could be like Him and that somehow He was holding out on us when in truth His desire was to bless us, to provide for us and to be in relationship with us – on His terms, not ours.

Jesus came to bring us back into the center of relationship with the Father once again; to restore all the previous blessings and privileges that belong to “those who fear Him”.  The Psalms give us a glimpse of what those blessings are.  I am so grateful to be among "those who fear Him".

The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His mercy.  Psa 147:11

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope in His mercy, Psa 33:18

The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him,
And delivers them.  Psa 34:7

Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him. Psa 34:9

Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him,  Psa 85:9

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;  Psa 103:11

But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children's children,  Psa 103:17

He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.  Psa 145:19

Morning reflections

I listened to a talk this morning on addiction.  The speaker ended by saying the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection.  And I thought how addiction is like sin, in that it separates us from life sustaining relationships – with the Father and with each other. 

Later I read, in a book on redemption, how Jesus descended from a perfect fellowship with the Father and the Spirit to endure every kind of humiliation and pain – for us - so that we could once again have fellowship/connection with the Father.

I think that being created in His image in a sense means we were created for fellowship, for relationship, for an intimacy of souls connecting on a deeper level of understanding and acceptance, a transparency and freedom of knowing and being known.  Our souls are restless for this connection, which only comes through God’s gift of grace poured out at the cross.  

Just another day . . .

I was talking with Brant yesterday about being ordinary (common) and how the world seems to say you have to be extraordinary to really be a success. The world seems to hold in high esteem those who excel in some area or profession.  I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with wanting to be extraordinary but I wonder if we don’t set ourselves up for failure and in so doing miss a higher purpose.

I’ve never considered myself to be extraordinary at anything.  In fact I’m about as ordinary as they come.  But I’ve always strived to do my best because whatever I do, I do unto the Lord.  I no longer feel the need to be extraordinary but to be the best ordinary that I can be; depending on Him to make that happen.  Because ultimately it’s Him I want to please . . . not the world.  And isn’t that what makes us holy.

My reading this morning talked about holy, in regards to holy matrimony – being set apart for a higher purpose, not common (ordinary) or every day, but special and unique.  (Love Dare/Heb 13:4) This is how we should see our spouses and perhaps even one another because this is how our God sees us because of Jesus.  It’s His love for us that makes each of us extraordinary and that’s more than enough for me.

A morning muse on freedom

I started this morning reading the Love Dare devotional and came across the verse from 1 Peter - Yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.  (1 Peter 2:16)
I started thinking about and looking at liberty/freedom and read the following:
True liberty is living as we should not as we please.
"Free in yourselves, free in your conscience, free in your mind and heart.”  Spurgeon

I then read from a book by Frances Chan about Ester Ann Kim – a woman who was imprisoned for her faith and knowing she would be imprisoned, how she prepared herself and how God used her to be a light in such darkness.  This sentence really spoke to me:
“Her obedience to Christ only increased her ability to hear the voice of the Spirit, and consequently filled her with overwhelming love for the people she came in contact with.”

And then, in the quiet, I thought:  We have been set free to obey – and it’s a gift, not something we earn.  Thinking about the dogs and having them on a leash or not.  Bob’s desire to please, because he craves attention, has earned him the privilege of not always having to wear a leash.  He has learned to come when called (which keeps him out of trouble).  Autumn, on the other hand, wants to do what she wants to do, which sometimes causes her to run off and because of that, we usually keep her on a leash.  Shadow, because of his compliant nature, always stays close and comes when called and never has to be leashed.

God has set the standard whereby we can be free and has provided the means to real freedom, through the cross and through His indwelling Spirit.  The cross set us free from the leash and His Spirit guides us as we learn how to walk in true freedom.  It’s a day by day journey, but one we do not walk alone as we listen for His voice.

a morning muse

If God’s part were to scope up all the sand along the shore of a beach and to carry it – then my part would be to pick up one small tiny grain of sand and hold it in my hand . . . and even in this I would need His help . . . And He would carry me too.

Brave and fearless

"He wants those who belong to Him to be brave and fearless."  was a quote I read this morning.

Father, when I hear those words, that description “brave and fearless” I don’t know that they could apply to me.  I often times feel so weak and fearful – where I want to run and hide myself in You . . . to just lean against You and breathe.  I’m just an ordinary person, who believes in and trust in an extraordinary God. . . that when the time comes that I need to be brave and fearless, You will provide the strength necessary to accomplish Your purposes in and for me.  Until then, I’ll remain a caterpillar waiting to get my wings and learn to fly.  Or maybe I am learning to fly, but just don’t know it.  Either way, Father, I’m relying on You.

In the quiet

As I sit here this morning, in my quiet time with the Lord, I feel such a peace.  Percy’s sleeping in a chair next to me, the three amigos are cuddled up on the floor surrounding my chair, I can feel the warmth from the gas heater at my back, the rain is gently falling outside, Brant’s dozing in the other room or on his cell phone – I haven’t a care in the world, at least for the moment.  No doubt about it, I am blessed!

A memory of His grace

"When we acknowledge that our hearts are deceitful and our lives are full of weakness, stubbornness, ingratitude and foolishness we discover to our surprise that in Christ none of these can separate us from the love of God.  In those moments Jesus becomes more precious to us." (John Newton)

        I recently had a conversation with a dear friend regarding addictions and was sharing how I had once be addicted to cigarettes and how God had literally delivered me from it.  I had struggled with it for years and tried numerous “cures”, including prayer, but nothing had ever taken the cravings away. 

I recalled how I had heard a Christian speaker talk about people who quit smoking – and how some people quit just by their own will power, their own internal fortitude – something I found myself to be lacking in.  But at the same time when I realized I couldn't it opened the door so that He could.  Something in me changed and I was no longer bound by the shame I felt in being addicted.

I came to a point where I knew He could (and would) deliver me.  He used the prayers of another but I know it was only the means through which He worked.  I was surprised at how easy it was to let it go and I have been free for about twenty years now.

The quote from Newton just resonated with me of how amazing the love of God is and how dependent we are upon it and how dependable it is towards us and that we rest in His righteousness, not our own.

Out of darkness into light

Sitting here in the quiet stillness I see the moon in all its fullness peeking through the tress one moment and hiding behind them the next - but knowing it’s always there.  Remembering a time long ago, a traveler in the dark, the long and lonely back roads and the moon’s presence keeping company on the way home.  Knowing that I was not alone, am never alone because Your light has driven out my darkness and that You will guide me home.

Giving thanks

Giving thanks is God’s will for us, for me.  I don't always do well with this. Sometimes it seems as though I’m just saying the words out of an obedience, from a desire to please You, my Abba.  Saying the words sometimes causes the feelings to follow.

Being grateful - like love - is an act of the will, a choice we can choose, an attitude we can adopt, a lesson we can learn.  Help me, Abba, to open my heart to the possibilities, to the realities of grateful living.

Eyes to see

This morning I had fixed a couple of sausage patties from Brant.  He’s on the road today and was busy getting ready to leave.  He had taken a bite out of one and put the dish down and, in his getting ready, he now couldn't find them.  We began to search, retracing steps, looking high and low, until we’d just about given up.  As I scanned the counter tops, one last time, there they were – patiently waiting in the dish where he had left them.  We had missed them because also sitting on the counter were the cat’s dishes containing their cat food.  The dishes were similar and because they are always there we “didn't see” the dish containing the sausages. 

The lesson for me is that sometimes I miss seeing something because what I’m looking at is too familiar, like the many gifts God has given.  Because they’re always there, I overlook their unique beauty and wonder.  Lord, give me eyes to see all that I have been missing.

Contentment - Phil 4:11-12

Father, Paul says he has learned to be content – in any situation.  I guess, I’m still learning.  I sometimes feel like I can survive any situation . . . but contentment is not always evident.  Sometimes I’m clinging to You, holding on with a wing and a prayer.  I’m just so grateful that You are always faithful, constant and the rock on which I stand.   If Paul can learn, then so can I because You have given us the same Spirit and You will complete the work that You have begun.  This I believe, this I choose.

I have called you by name (Isa 43)

I remember a time, many years ago when I lived on my own in a small up-stairs apartment over one below.  It was a beautiful spring day and I had the windows open to let in the fresh air and sun light.  At that moment I was standing in front of a mirror, brushing my hair and humming a song when I literally heard someone call my name.  It startled me so much that I let out a little scream of surprise and turned to see who was there . . . but there was no one.  I looked outside and went from room to room, but found no one.

It was during this time that I was working as the music person on an upcoming women’s retreat.  One of the songs we were using was one called “I Heard the Lord Call My Name” and it just happened to be the song I had been humming – some of the words are listed below. 

As I stood there in my apartment wondering what or if I had heard anyone, it came to me, in a gentile whisper, that it was the Lord and that He had indeed called me by name.  I smiled to myself, amused that He would call me at such an ordinary and uneventful moment and humbled that He DID call me and that I was His.

I heard the Lord call my name listen close you’ll hear the same
I heard the Lord call my name listen close you’ll hear the same

His word is Love.  Love’s His word that’s the message that I heard
His word is Love.  Love’s His word that’s the message that I heard

I felt His Love from above settle on me like a dove
I felt His Love from above settle on me like a dove

And to the Father all your days - with the Son and Spirit praise!

And to the Father all your days - with the Son and Spirit praise!

Be still

In the quiet stillness God speaks and breathes new life and healing into our souls. 

I remember the expression “getting in the weeds” when I worked as a waitress.  It meant things were overwhelming, when the demands felt like they were more than one could handle.  It was in these times that I learned it was necessary to take a moment and just breathe; to find or create a quiet spot and tune out all the chaos. Your mind tells you “I don’t have the time for this” but your heart knows you do.  Because in the quiet He is present.  Oh, He’s there in the noisiness of life as well, but unless we take the time to listen, we’ll miss Him, His words of encouragement and peace. It requires a certain discipline and a willingness to “let go” of our control or what we think is our control.  Intentional listening. It only takes a moment.