my wings are made of faith

Wasting Precioius Time

I wasted a lot of years letting past relationships play into how I dealt with things in present relationships. Who knew that a bad relationship with a parent could bring bad patterns into every relationship you develop in your adult life, for instance? A relationship with anyone from a teacher, spouse, pastor, employer, and child can suffer  from the way you learned to react to issues with parents, for example.  It is for this reason, that we can take a good long look at the issues that come up in our relationships over and over, and identify when we have the same old reactions each time things begin to fall apart. Then we can search scripture to see the way God would have us deal with those repetitive issues. 

I don't know that everyone feels at some point like they are in a revolving door, stuck with the same old things going wrong each time they attempt to have a close friend, intimacy with a loved one, or a conversation with a child.  Does every job end up with an employer who takes advantage of you.  Maybe you have had more than one job where other employees succeeded in putting a large share of the work load off on you.  Whatever it is that seems to happen again and again, may require a "Heavenly Father" intervention.  And it starts with praying for the other person. It ends with finding the image of God that best describes how we should choose to develop our relationship, not what our heart says. 

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Luke 11:13.

When I look back and think about how I fell into letting old feelings of abuse, cause me to mistrust people, or react to someone as if they were my father when he was mean, when actually the situations might not have merited the same fear or mistrust....I just wonder how feelings had so much power over me. I have said before that the Lord spoke to me when I was driving down the road feeling sorry for myself, and saying,  "God how could you...." To which God replied to my heart, "I AM NOT YOUR (earthly) FATHER." It came from out of nowhere, because I hadn't thought of my father recently, at the time.  I had expectations that it was  God taking things back from me, when my car broke down, or I lost a job. Where did that sense of having things taken away come from?  My  Father of course. God wanted me to know that he isn't like that. It was a wake up call to know God didn't want me to build my vision of a loving father on anyone but him. That day turned my relationship building completely around.  I realized for the first time, that God is the only one upon which I can honestly build any concept of relationships.

When I have counseled through the years, I have discovered others who never stopped to see that repeated failures can come out of  false concepts.  If you journal, a great journaling project is to alot several pages to listing the charcter of God, as Heavenly Father.  A good place to start is with the statements of Jesus concerning his Father.  And secondly, when scriptures speak of God wooing the nation of Israel. Changing my expectations of relationships, definitely changed my relationship disapointments.

And not the God that "religion" often teaches - the condemning, out to get you, God. Rather, the one who is actually in the scriptures.  The one who gives unconditional love. If I can reject the feelings, and choose to pray that God will help me be more like him, I can expect that some unique things may happen that heals the breaks in my relationships.

Dear Father, mold me ever more in your image, that I might always bring healing to the relationships in my life. Help me give more grace to all who are around me. May your gift of the Holy Spirit open my eyes to the way you desire me to act, rather than react out of feelings, and misconceptions. AMEN

The Will Of God Is Not Complicated

I have a dilemma, for which I did a word search in Bible Gateway, to find God's will on the subject. Praying that the Lord would open my heart to his message, I actually found an answer in about the 3rd verse I read, and found confirmation of God's will on the matter, just a few verses further down. But my heart was not at peace, because I felt like God wanted me to know more about "HIS WILL."

In general, I discovered that:

~ There are a lot of verses which said it was God's will that Israel be his people, that they might serve him, and he would provide for them.

~ There were also a lot of verses that indicated that his people would have joy, and pleasure in his gifts, blessings, and provision. That it was his will that we expect him to provide. Jesus derided some for not accepting this fact as second nature. Without second thought.

~ I found verse after verse through out the Old and New Testamensts, that included Salvation as a primary element of God's will for us. It was and is, and always has been his perfect plan.

~ I noticed that when anyone was in God's will, or had discovered God's will, they were filled with praise, and glorified God, for making his will known.

~ It was appearant that God wants us to know his will. And that great men of God, didn't proceed until they knew God's will.

~ A lot was said about safety as long as you were in his presence, and in his will.

But even in all that, I still felt that I hadn't found what the Lord wanted me to know concerning my dilemma about his perfect will.  And when my husband asked me was I almost finished with my post, I could only say, "the Lord hasn't told me yet what to write." To which he responded, "I hope he tells you before midnight." I said, well, he has until 6:30 am. To which we both laughed.  I almost changed subject headings and then this verse jumped out at me. Not new to me, but definitely, not the bit of info I had expected from the mouth of God concerning my dilemma.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. I Thessalonians 5:18

What a direct verse! It is personal, ending in the word "you."  This was the verse that God wanted me to see.

The will of God is for me to give thanks, even for the dilemma, the thing that steals my joy, the battle that looms ahead, the problem I cannot solve, the day Satan reveals my shortcomings before a crowd, the hours that I falter and stumble  - weak in faith. 

God wants me to give thanks, when I cannot see his plan, his direction, his salvation from what assails me. What I realized, that when seeking the WILL OF GOD, the simple place to start once you know his WORD of TRUTH, is to give thanks in your situation.  That's not so hard is it? A starting place, the point where you begin the race. God was saying to me: Cynthia, its not complicated. Let's start here!

So tonight, at my point of need, I claim his word of truth that he gave me in those first few verses, and I start my quest to work out my faith in that WORD, by being Thankful.

The question is, what can I be thankful for? I certainly am not thankful that I have a dilemma to face.  So what then?

1. I am thankful, that I have a savoir to go to with my problem.

2. I am thankful, that I have a reference tool like Bible Gateway, in fact that I have the Bible period.

3. I am thankful, that all of the things I found great men of God discovered about the Will of God, are still true for me. Especially that I am safe in his presense.

4. I am thankful, I don't walk this path alone.

5. I am thankful that God goes before me, and that I can have hope, can plan for a future, am his child, have the Holy Spirit to guide me....

I see where this is going. The more I begin to think about what I am thankful for, the more pours out of me to the point of being joyful, and finding something to praise  and glorify God about, even in my situation. This is certainly a great starting point. At the end of this session, I now have peace of mind. God is so good, isn't he?

(Who knows, by the time this is over, I might even be thankful for my dilemma. LOL)

Precious Lord, I THANK you for guidance and the Still small voice of your Spirit. I thank you for the freedom you bring, the Faith you encourage, the treasure of hope, and the security that your will is meant to give me your best. How could I want for more. AMEN

God Asks Us to Find the Moderate Choices; Come Back From the Extremes

Let your moderation be known unto all men.The Lord is at hand. Phillipians 4:5

A few months ago, a digestive issue that had plagued my husband for years became so bad as to interrupt our daily lives to the extreme. In fact, because I was beginning to experience his symptoms, I suspected it had to do with our diet foods. It really began for me when the sweeteners used in our foods changed to a certain brand that everything on the market decided to use. Generally used in drinks, it began to appear in everything, even foods that we used to not expect to need a sweetener.  Even as most processed foods began to add sugar to non diet foods, diet foods began to add the sweeteners. In an honest attemp to eat in a way the nutritionists were directing him to eat that would eliminate sugar, Jimmy concientiously checked every package of every food he purchased. His doctors treated only his symptoms, as they most ususally do, and no one was interested in getting to the cause. That is, until the elevation of his symptoms sent him to a specialist, because his doctor presumed, of course, that something serious in Jimmy's body was causing the interruption in life.

The specialist was a wise young lady.  They did the expected tests to rule out cancer, etc. and then she sat down with us to really listen to the answers to her questions.  What he ate and drank certainly came up, and he admitted that he had cut back on diet drinks at my insistance to only 5 a day. She said with some firmness and amazement, "YOU CUT BACK TO 5 A DAY!? 2 is the maximum number of diet sodas your body can possibly handle!"  A revelation to even me, although I knew they were toxic somehow. " (He was drinking 10 or 12.)

 She explained that the sweeteners were not digestible, and the body could not process them.  She pulled up information on her computer that indicated the chemical makeup of a lot of things, and explained simply that the build up of these products in our systems was toxic to the walls of the intestine.  We surprised her, when we explained how many of the foods we had available had begun to add them. Even cold cuts, and sliced meats. She ckecked her computer and she was surprised to realized that her diabetic patients were so much in jeopardy.  She told us that so many of her clients lately were undergoing tests to determine why they were having to take so many medications to treat digestive issues. She said that many were diagnosed with things like irritable bowel syndrome, when in reality it was that they drank too many of the wide variety of drinks, including sports drinks and flavored waters that claim to be zero calorie for the sake of hydration and weight control. Or just because they thought that as long as they were getting water, and vitamins they were drinking something safe. When in reality, more than two, the body simply stored the unusable sweetener in the bowels and they became irritated and sore. The breakdown in the body's system to be able to process our necessary food was eventually lost once the effects of those drinks took their tole over several months or years.  She suspected that the documented rise in the number of bowel and digestive disease prognosese was actually due to people taking in too much of these chemicals.

 After 2 weeks of not eating anything with these sweeteners in them, mine and Jimmy's symptoms had begun to resolve themselves. It was enlightening to Jimmy. Enough to help him change his habits drastically.

When I speak of these issues, I am not playing doctor or trying to be "holier than thou."  I am simply relating to you areas where I have personally discovered that not everything that is processed as food is worth eating or drinking. Any food that is eaten out of balance can become toxic to us. Breads and rice would be my husbands greatest culprits.  Real food, but dangerous if he isn't providing the balance from proper amounts of proteins and low carb veggies and berres etc. I noticed years ago, that too many carbs affected even my emotional well being.

What has this to do with scripture at all? We are told to do all things in moderation. That's what. To avoid the extremes in everything we do, and to moderate every action. Food is no exception. My dear mother, died in part due to her fear of everything. She was on the opposite extreme. That too was sin.  Finding middle ground is how scripture directs us to make all of our decisions.

What else in life might you apply this guide to which would greatly improve how you live?  I have found that it works on almost everything.

Lord, help us to recognize the middle ground in everything from politics to foods we eat. From how often we go to our technical devices, to how often we watch a sports on TV.  How many pairs of shoes are too many, and what kinds of food we eat.  Help us live a life of moderation in all things.  Give us wisdom to see it, the ablility to make the wise decision, and to see when whatever we do that is not in moderation might affect our family, and daily activities. It is about living life more abundantly.  And it is about being blessed by everything you give us to make life healthy and happy. In Jesus precious name, AMEN

Struggling With Decisions is a Good Time For Journaling

Someone I know is struggling at a “change point” in life, and feeling lost.  This person feels as though so much of life has past and looking back causes a sense of having lost time as well.  Moving forward feels painful. Not enough of the past was as productive as was hoped, and not knowing how to move forward is causing a feeling of losing time in the present. Considering the impact on others,makes moving in any direction complicated.

When I was at one of these points in life, several things would have been or were helpful.  Knowing now that change points in life run the gambit from traumatic to exhilarating, I want to make a list of those helpful things, to share with this person, and hopefully with anyone else who is stuck at a change point.  (Also, if there is someone out there who is counseling others, I hope that they will recognize these times in life as highly important to the person going through the process. I couldn't find a couselor who understood.)  The decisions made during this struggle will affect the whole of the rest of anyone’s life.  No one wants to look back in 20 years and feel like his/her mark on life was fruitless. Allow me please to direct this help information as if directed to “you.”

1. Reaching out for support is probably the first step. No doubt, praying has already been a part of what brought you to the “change point” anyway.  So, I am presuming that God is already a vital part of the process. Therefore, remind yourself that you are not going it alone.  But then, reach out.  Avoid “advice”
   if the person thinks they have your solution. Don’t expect them to know what God has in mind for you.  That is between you and God.  Rather, ask for prayer and directional perspective. Something like: “do you have any general ideas of where to look for direction on life changes?”  A question this specific will cause your advisor to think twice about what you really need from them.

If you pray before you approach them, that God will inspire them, God will use their clarity of mind, and distance from your circumstance to visualize your need without the clutter of your own dilemmas. God might give them some Holy Spirit inspired creative ideas to share with you. A book, a verse of scripture, a friend who just made the same change who is willing to give wisdom, names of schools, cities where you would fit, jobs which expand your present skills…on and on.  In fact, you might give them a list of things on your mind, and ask them to consider if they might have some insights on any subject on the list.

When I reached out, I felt I needed to relive my situation to them, and then ask for help.  There was no one  prepared to help me.  I never felt so alone.  If you need to share by telling someone what in your past hurts, consider that the person you are telling might not have the skills to cope or help you.  Be careful who you tell. Consider leaving out the details of the past.   

Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom. Proverbs 13:10

It Is God Who Gives Success, when we trust him.

Each new idea, every problem to be solved, even the day's mundane chores, should all be commited to God. Why? Because, once we trust him for the day's work, the Lord get's busy bringing our commitments to fruition.

Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5.

We think we understand this verse, until things don't go the way we think they should. That of course is when our trust is challenged. Try this the next time you ask God to bless an endeavor, and things seem not to be going as you expected.

1. Affirm in prayer, that you know you commited this endeavor to the Lord. Tell God that you are trusting him because He asked you to both commit your way to him and to trust him.  Say something like: "God, even though it looks like everything is not going to come to pass, I rebuke the lie, that refutes your Word, and I determine to continue trusting you.  I accept that you are working to bring it to pass, and await the blessing you have promised.  Let my heart and mind not be turned to the lie, but help me believe the truth in spite of the circumstances."

2. Make certain your heart has a determination - that God, not you, are responsible for bringing an objective to pass. So many of us, say to ourselves, "If I just trust God more and try harder, it will happen." That is totally the opposite of what God wants us to learn about trust.  It is God, not us, who holds the responsibility for something coming to completion. Yet it seldom means sit on our duff, and expect miracles to happen.  It means proceed with confidence, no matter what.

It is wise of course to know if your endeavor is something God actually wants you to do. But if you are afraid to establish what to do, until you have a sign from God that it's what he wants you to do, you would be perpetually at a stand still.  You know for instance when you wake, that if you have children, God wants you to be a good mother. No question about that.  If you have a job, you know that God would want you to be the best employee you can be. If you are a teacher, God wants you to do the best teaching job possible.

You also know what gifts God has given you, with which to serve him. You can always move forward doing what he gifted you with, and ask with no reservation, that God bring the use of that gift for someone's good, to fruition. 

However, if you know that God has impressed you to stay away from buying a new car while your budget is tight...commiting your determination to disobey him, will be equivalent to not trusting him. Therefore, he is not going to bring it to pass, because you proceeded knowing God"s will, but trusted yourself instead.

We can relieve ourselves of a lot of feelings of failure, if we become aware who is responsible for our success. If God does not make our way successful, we don't fail, unless we are doing it under our own power.  I am having a difficult time making this clear. God holds the resonsiblility for our being successful.  If he doesn't make things happen, he, not us, has failed. But does he ever fail...NO. So if it isn't happening...either your faith is being tested, or you have moved into "I can do it myself " mode.  Or you have moved forward against his will.  If you really believe, God has called you to it, then put all your trust in Him making it happen. Move only as he opens the doors. So the third element of relying on this verse, is to

3. accept his timing.  This is probably our greatest falling off point. God's timing seldom fits our schedules.

I love the saying that some are posting which says: "If God isn't opeing doors, serve him in the hall."  At least one said: " If God doesn't open your door, serve him on the porch."  Trust is being who he gifted you to be with confidence, no matter where you are. Allow God alone to move you. But also, expect good things from him, and beware when Satan wants to shake your faith. Learn to see him causing the difficulties, and know it's Gods job to turn even Satan's bad, into good. And just keep putting successful expectations on God's shoulders. He said to.

Lord, I thank you, that when you have allowed me to be tested in this subject several times lately, you have proved your willingness to prove your Word.  I have learned that, if I pray, Thank you Lord for what you are about to do, even though it seems to be impossible, I determine to trust you with the results, the progress, and the completion of my success.  I have determined to not push through when my doors aren't opening. I have determined to wait upon your timing.  Thank you Lord, that when I have tested your Word, you have brought amazing good things to pass. Much love, Your adoring Child. Praise to the Trustworthy Lord of my life. AMEN

 

Trusting God 14 Different Ways

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

Prov 3:5 KNJV

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man

Psalm 118:8 KNJV

Blessed is the man who trust in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord

Jer 17:7 NKJV

He will not be afraid of evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord

Psm 112:7 NKJV

The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe

Prv 29:25 NKJV

Vindicate me O Lord, For I have walked in my integrity. I have also trusted in the Lord; I shall not slip

Psam 26:1 NKJV

He has put a new song in my mouth--Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord

Psam 40:3 NKJV

He who heeds the word wisely will find good  and whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he

Prov 16:20 NKJV

But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that i many declare all Your works Psm 73:28 NKJV

But I am trusting you O Lord, saying "You are my God"

Psalm 31:14 NLT

For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land

Psalm 37:9 NLT

Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion; they will not be defeated but will endure forever

Psm 125:1 NLT

So do not throw away this confient trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it bring you!

Heb 10:35

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint

Isaiah 40:31 NLT

Here are (14) fourteen scripture on trusting the Lord. 

For three years, God has been dealing with me about trusting Him. It is so easy to read the words of the scripture about trust. But the real power of the livng Word comes when we apply it to our lives.

It seemed like Lori lived Psalm 112:7 NKV and kept her peace. It seemed Christy lived Prv 29:25 and was kept safe. on a boat. Cynthia shared you and I can live Isaiah 40:31 and be refreshed.

Extending trust is a learned behavior...even to the one person in the entire universe who is the most trust worthy. I don't like that God would put so many scriptures in the Bible about trusting Him if He expected us to get it the first time. If you are struggling, take courage, look at how far you have come and praise God for your growth. Then commit to keep at it. 

Fourteen verses on trust. One a day for two weeks. Which one speaks to you? And why?

Father help us see where we can trust you more. Give us the courage to start extending you the trust you deserve. Give us the peace that trusting you brings. Amen

Weary and Seeking God's Refreshing

A number of times in life, God has seen me whining about my circumstances, and has reminded me that there are people all over the world handling difficulties worse than my own struggle. God isn't dimenishing the value of my struggle in his eyes. He is just helping me gain perspective on it. We all tend to get trapped in an inward view, when we are in the throws of our struggle, because it often consumes our time, and holds our focus. And when the day is done, we are often too weary to look around us and find ourselves in a place of refreshing.  Allow me to relay this story about King David in one of his many hours of struggle.

But before you read, realize that the life of David has parallels to the life of Christ, so you may see this story first as a foreshadowing of how Jesus walked among his followers, as members of his own Jewish heritage sought to kill him, and he told Peter to put away his sword. He said he was prepared to live through and even die, knowing it was God's will, when the naysayers came out to meet him. The picture type will be easy to see.  But taking that out of the picture, we see David being pursued by his own son who wanted to claim his throne. David had dealt for years with Saul and his attempts to kill him, and now his own son! So when one of Saul's family came out to curse at him, he said it was of no comparison to the fact his own son was trying to kill him. Notice that he says God might have sent this man to curse him. Is your first impression to think, "that doesn't sound like God. Why would David say such a thing?"

Denial is a Form of Resisting God's Healing

There are so many facets to the process of healing.  Scripture speaks of Jesus performing several specific kinds of healing, but it also says that he healed in diverse ways, according to the need.  It had been prophesied that this would be an attribute of a righteous savoir.

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; Malachi 4:2

Our needs for healing come in so many ways, that the questions can be asked. “What do you need Jesus to do in your life to make you whole in body, mind or soul, but also, in life’s circumstances.  Have you ever considered Christ’s intervention in your circumstances a form of healing?  He did.

This is how scripture described his ministry of healing:

1. Sickness, like viruses and bacterial illness, and disease like cancers and things that debilitate the body

-  And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. Matthew 4:23

2. Oppression, like discouragements, hardships, poor self-image, nightmares, and any other way in which Satan’s lies can falsely affect our psyche or adversely affect our circumstances. Emotional healings, financial oppressions, and others.

­-How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. Acts 10:38    

3. Destructions: the circumstances of life that hinder us from being or feeling whole.  Stresses or nutritional shortages, or needs for security. Like when storms destroy your home or you have been robbed.  Jesus is ready to restore us to a point of being healed. Would you have considered you need healing if you have been robbed?

-He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Psalm 107: 20

We can be healed from anything that breaks us down or destroys our welfare.

What comes to mind, is how many people I know who never ever consider asking God to intervene to heal where Satan has oppressed, or life has dealt destruction. To most of us, either situation seems out of the realm of God’s healing touch, and we quickly take a stance of denial.  I have seen it happen so many times. 

How many times have you heard, “Oh, I’m OK, we just have to work our way out from under some debt.” Or “It’s nothing that time won’t take care of.”  Is there someone you know who has a denial statement.  They just don’t think lifes stresses are making them sick.  Now think, how  might have you missed the blessing of Christ’s healing intervention?  Is there a circumstance in life which you place out of the realm of healing, without even realizing Christ’s power is waiting to be applied. If it happens to you, it affects you. If is causes you to lose peace or limits any lifegiving need, it has affected you. Jesus knew our whole being is tied to what happens to us and around us in life.  And he understands that things affect us, that we need his HEALING from far more than germs and hurtful things. 

His is a ministry of renewal.  And as you notice, it was given by the Father, even to Jesus, through the Holy Spirit. Notice that it is prophesied  to be healing in his wings.  It implies that he will lift us to fly with him. It is key that we think of healing as a flight to freedom experience.  It is a Biblical, holy mental image of wholeness.  Like the eagle who is able to fly with strength and power .

 I have discussed on occasion that the eagle flies with the least wing movement of all the raptors while in migration.  Flattened out wings allow the power of the wind to lift them to new heights, and carry them forward,  like an airplane.  It is a picture of Christ, who helps us to learn how to be lifted by the Spirit, who in turn, is symbolized by wind.

A person who is depressed feels like they are in a pit and can’t get out.  The flight image is pure, because, when you can’t climb out of a hole, with wings you can fly out.  What about when you can’t swim through the waters - whatever issue in which you are in over your head…feel like you are drowning? Only birds, like cormorants and anhingas, emerge from below the water with their wings.  The image is one of overcoming and sustenance.   And God chose to call it “healing.”

 Broaden your image of what exactly it is that God desires to heal you from, to lift you from.  In short,  people often resist the healing  of God by being in denial about what constitutes a need for healing.  Be informed, know what the scriptures say.  And open your understanding to God’s viewpoint.  His healing power is waiting…”in his wings.” 

Precious Lord,  your ministry of healing us is as broad as every circumstance in life.  We always think of healing as being for sickness and emotional pain. But we often forget how life itself affects us, and leaves us very much in need of your lifting intervention.  We often deny our need until we are deeply embedded, and feel we have no recourse.  How many times would you have healed us, but we wouldn't understand the whole concept of what you desire to heal.

I need your healing power...I claim it today, and ask you to bring healing into every area of my life.  AMEN

 

God Wants You To Have a Strong Voice

On Monday, Christy introduced the element of deliberate breathing to ease our anxieties.  When I was on a deadline down through the years at work, I would tend to hold my breath.  If I just realized it, I would benefit greatly by taking every opportunity to breath in extra deeply. But here's another suggestion about when to become aware of how you are breathing. Know those days when you are around someone who is so about drama that they aren't happy until they have involved everyone in the room.  If they can't get the focus on themselves they make your day miserable? Have you been there?

Well, if you think about it, your levels of annoyance rise, and you find it difficult to keep your thoughts on track.  Without realizing what it is doing to you, you begin kicking yourself for getting drawn in - to the point of letting it affect your work.  First thing you know, you are anixously having to redo work.  The best remedy is to Breeeeaaathhhe. In, then out, slowly...In, then out, SLOWLY.  And while you breathe, repeat your favorite verse. Choose the one that gives you peace in stressful situations.

Our high school choir director taught deep breathing as a means of strengthening our diaphram for singing with power and projection.  He wanted us to do the exercises before we fell asleep every night. I did it so often that it became a natural part of my going to sleep every night for years afterwards. I also found that telling your body to relax during the process actually works.

I have started with my feet and concentrated on relaxing only my feet. I would roll them around at the ankles and think, my feet are relaxing, and without a pause, "my ankles are relaxing".  I would continue up my legs, lifting first one leg slightly and saying, "my calves are relaxing," and then the other leg. Continuing to breathe slowly and deliberately, I focused on every muscle, especially if it was tight or stiff.  I frequently fell asleep before I got to my eyelids.  It felt especially good relaxing my neck and jaws.  If you should decide to try this exercise, and make it past your eyelids, don't leave out your brain. Make it the last thing you speak to..."I rest my brain, I relax my brain...Lord give peace to my brain."  Even if you don't go to sleep, you have trained your body to do something other than what you have taught it to do all during the stress of most days. 

This is a great midday exercise, too.  Regular practice of deliberately telling your body to relax, makes the process go more quickly the more you do it.  I also practiced relaxation when riding my bike. And I found that the deep breathing on my bike really did strengthen my diaphram.  There were other advantages to these execises as well. A strong diaphram, helps eliminate the whiney feeling symdrom.  When you feel like others are running over you, you can get a stronger firmer voice in the face of someone who belittles you, for instance.  It's amazing when you decide to speak with power to someone who is attempting to control you. The shakiness and whine leaves your voice, and you speak with empahsis, firmness. When you frimly say "No!." you benefit emensely. You would be amazed how this overcomes someone's attempt to rule you.

Deep breathing also helps alleviate fear. So if you find yourself in a very scarey situation, remember to fall into the pattern of what you practice before sleep. Concentrating on the breathing tends to refocus the brain from the fear. And it seems to be one thing you can do simultaneously with other things. For instance, if you needed to swim for your life, deep breathing would help settle you and give you strength to succeed. In fact, if you see most situations that tend you make you feel sheepish, or small, fearful, or manipulated...as times when you feel like you are drowning, you will resolve to not drown in those situations.

These exercises are often practiced in group therapy sessions too. Therapists realize that many people who are in therapy, are there because they haven't found their own voice, and certainly haven't found the power to use it firmly and with strength of conviction.  Breathing is a powerful tool.  Practicing it is how you learn to control it. It is an element of learning to have inner strength. Prayerful breathing gives the savoir permission to aid you into wisely using one of the life-giving elements meant to enrich our being and our health.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Ephesians 6:10

Never forget that the Holy Spirit himself is represented in scriputure as the wind. And when Jesus endowed the saints with his indwelling power, He breathed on them. The parallel correlation is real. Inner power, and breathing go hand in hand. Think of the spirit like being the breath of your soul, in the same way as oxygen invigorates your body.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: John 20:22.

Lord, in the garden of Eden you breathed into us the breath of life, and man became a living soul.  The connection is more real than many of us realize. Empower us with life, and a strong voice, both to sing praises, and to stand up to one who tries to control us. May we not give that control to anyone but you. In Jesus precious name and by the power of the Spirit...we accept the power you give. AMEN

What Could Be Worse Than a Case of Negativity?

When my mother was in the late stages of her alzheimers, in the 5 years before she died, her levels of fear increased exponentially until it became Paranoia.  Though it was a nightmare for us to deal with her, I can not even imagine what it might have been like for her.  What is sad - her paranoia, paired with her inability to process the sounds and images around her, made people not believe her. So when she was trying to tell us about things that were actually happening, we didn't believe that either.  I was mortified later when I figured out some of the things we should have believed. Purhaps we could have eased her mind a bit.  What has any of this to do with our subject this week - negative self talk?  A lot.

In the last few months before Mom passed, she didn't know who I was most of the time. She was afraid of everything! I brought her into my home. It was not long however, before we discovered that the paranoia was going to win against all efforts we made to make life easier for her. When she didn't know us most of the day, and decided that my home was hers, and my husband was hers, and the food we bought was all hers, etc. etc., she began to try to make us leave our own home.  She wouldn't eat the food I made or drink the water I poured for her. In fact, her mind was so paranoid, that I began to fear her. She thought she had a need to be afraid of me, totally unfounded, but she did things in preparation to "defend herself." One night she reached for the broom as I came near her. Totally in tears, I took her back to a facility where they put her on a calming medication, that brought out the sweet in her, but made her incapable of doing so many of the things we retrained her to do. Like taking a bath, and putting on clean clothes. Her life was reduced to sitting in a chair.

Before she could enter the care facility, she had to go through a program for 2 weeks where they determined what meds would best help her be calm. At that facility, her doctor sat down with me to discuss what got her to a place of being so combative and so paranoid.  She had in his opinion become a mentally ill, paranoid.  I told him of my abusive father, and how some of her fears developed from her disability.  It made sense to me that life"s struggles had changed her. But he said that all the earlier negative things in life, and her general negative attitude about them, had become her whole mental attitude, as the disease progressed. What could be worse than a negative self talk is that the paranoia it causes over takes everything you know.  He warned that if I had her personality, I should do everything in my power to learn to smile every chance I got.  The more you train your brain for joy, the more joyful you are likely to be when you can no longer control it, he said.

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Ephesians 4:23

Learning from our mistakes, or Actively turning to the Spirit of God

We all have to learn from our mistakes. It is a part of growing up. As much as it makes my heart cringe to think of what the consequences could have been, I realized that falling down the stairs was something my grandchild had to do in order to understand why we continuously told him to be careful.  When he rushed for the stairs following anyone who happened to go down them, we jumped, over and over fearing his fall - until the day he actually fell, when no one could possibly get to him. He was so intent on going downstairs, that he would never patiently wait for someone to help him down. But then it happened. His shoe caught in the carpet,. Even though he had been holding the rail, he tumbled, head over feet. His mother scrambled to him screaming from the top, as I ran in terror attempting to catch him before he hit concrete on the bottom.  Both of us calling upon God to help. And there it was. By God's grace he landed on the bottom step in a horribly contorted position, eyes wide open in fear, and looking as though every bone was broken...but he was safe. All I could say was, "Well at least maybe we won't have to constantly tell him to be careful on the stairs. That should have scared him enough to know what can happen."

Yesterday, Ryder headed for the stairs on the deck, 13 in all, when I had my hands very tied up with a large tray of things I was taking back into the kitchen after our dinner. His older brother had already gone down and was watering my plants. When Mr. Independent headed to the top of the steps, he wasn't thinking of his fall.  But the moment I reminded him: "Ryder, stop, you might fall," he stopped.  And he backed up.  I called for Dakota to drop the hose and come help him come down, and Ryder, against his ususal character accepted his brother's help.  In fact, he wouldn't proceed until he had a firm grip on the rail, and his brother's hand. So different than before his fall.

We continue like this into adulthood, doing what we see other's do, going where others are going, being influenced to move out of impatience and desire, driven by a desire to be independent and accomplished - without even realizing that the path the world is on is totally originated and kept by the devil himself.  He loves to see us trip over our own attempts to gain, and grow, to go falling into failure.  If we don't learn from our mistakes he will continue to take us to the same path over and over, telling us to just try harder, that we will finally prevail, if we work at it. Now, there is a great deal of good to be gained by being practiced in doing something which God backs us in...but we tend to do the thing God is steering us away from, over and over, with the anticipation of change for good.

This week we are dealing with how to overcome the past. How to break free of its hold on you emotionally, physically, and of course spiritually. It occurs when you realize and redirect your attentions to the one who is in control of your paths. The choice is yours entirely. I cannot emphasize enough that not making the choice means Satan is making your choices for you. He won't reveal that he is, but scripture says he is.

2.Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 6 … hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.  Ephesians 2 excerpts.

(please note that the author is talking to Christians who are only acting like "children of disobedience" and directs them to see themselves as sitting in heavenly places.)

This very familiar chapter is usually one we look to for understanding on salvation. But if you look carefully, it explains without a doubt that in Jesus we have power to go from constantly having the Spirit calling us back from tragedy and remorse, to living with a listening ear toward the Spirit's direction.  The exact opposite of being towed along mindlessly by Satan and the ways of the world.

On Tuesday, Julia explained how Abraham and Sarah lived out their faith, well aware of everything that seemed to be against them, but wholly on a path to recieve the promises of God.But not without failure earlier in life.

  Noah built an Ark, in spite of the things people said over the great number of years it took for him to build it. Even Jesus died on a cross declaring the injury would bring blessing to all of us, and his disciples had great difficulty knowing how this could possibly be true.  Faith is a separation from everyone, everything, every plan, every belief that has us going back to Satan's paths.  I don't mean going back to sin acts,  necessarily. We can be doing every good work that we can possibly imagine, and still be on Satan's path.  Unknowingly, unwittingly, failing and falling and always rushing headfirst into life that confuses and weakens our faith in God.

Christy is so right! Sometimes it takes severing ties with people to break the power of Satan over our daily walk.  Whatever it takes, BREAK HIS POWER.  Wake up and don't go tumbling down the stairs of life again.  Make an active decision to not go plowing into life without care for the conseqences, like a baby learning why to be afraid. You know why to be afraid.  Why are you more afraid of the consequences of doing what Christ calls you to, by faith, than afraid of what Satan leads you to again and again, which keeps hurting you? Why?

The Garden Provides Us Sustainance for Body and Soul

This year, I have learned so many things from gardening that parallel the images of God's goodness, and also the values of how to live life abundantly.  I would go on all day if I tried to speak of all the blessings and how God has spoken to my heart.  But, there are a few things I have learned that really stand out:

1. I have decided that container gardening has a lot of advantages.  If a plant doesn't do well where I first place it, then I can move it to where there is more sun, or it isn't getting drowned each time it rains.  I have learned to watch how my plants respond to the staying wet or being allowed to dry out between waterings. And much of that is more easily controlled if my plant is in a container.

      - parallel lesson: I do better if I am within a given set of boundaries, and if I am free to be moved by God into better circumstances.  I flourish when I am not standing in the things that drown out my blessings from God, when the things that hinder me just drain away, and I don't hold on. I need good drainage, like many of my plants, and a controlled environment in which to grow.

2. Bigger is better with container gardens.  Last year I put up the same old little planters that had failed me year after year. Except for a few wire baskets that I had a great deal of difficulty finding liners for last year. But once my make-shift liners were in place and I bought soil to fill the large planters, (because I couldn't find enough good soil to dig up), I discovered that what I planted in them did really well. Unlike the same in the small ones.  So when I ran across some really large planters which no one else had bought, whose price was ridiculously low, ($1 to $4 each), I stocked up at the end of the season.  Planting them this year has proven to me something about how much plants love a big container. The more generous the container space, the better my plants have grown.  And, they all had plants that survived through the winter!

     - parallel lesson: God isn't stingy where he plants us. He prefers we understand the generous heart he has toward our growing in his grace. He wants us to be planted in pots big enough to make it through the tough times. When the freezes come, he wants us protected til spring. And in turn, God desires we grow big enough to be able to share.  Some of my plants have had to be split apart, making from 4 to 10 more plantings.  I have already made plans that next year, when I have more than I know how to keep, that they must be shared.  And Lord willing, I will share them in very big planters. I realized I have been limiting the blessings of God, unwittingly, by seeing myself planted in too small a pot. I want to forever have a new image of the place where God has planted me, as an enormous place of blessing. Especially in these late years of my life, he really wants to bless and multiply me where I am.

3. Early, in the spring, I sought out the things that survived the winter and nurtured them.  And I did something this year I never had time to do before.  Where my ajuga was coming up in a tight little clump, from where I left it to fend for itself every year, I took the smallest sprays that had produced roots, and dug them up. I replanted them in their very own place. Some, I planted in pots or planters. Some I worked the earth til it was soft and gave them room to send out shoots of their own. Some I just moved further from their parents, so they could have more space and fill more of the area where I planted them.  I set them about all over the yard. Some with more sun, some with less.

 I learned, that they really get colorful with a little more sun, and if planted in soft earth their plants begome twice to 3 times the size I had ever seen them before.  I learned that if they are in planters rather than beds, they put on way more runners and put out twice as many shoots.  Because the shoots are seeking good earth, they multiply profusely until they find a place to root of their own.

     - Parallel lessons: God sometimes moves us for our own good. When the ground where we have been trying to grow is too hard,  a little soft earth lets us become healthy and productive again.  God knows when and where to move us.  And as always, a little more exposure to the Son, revitalizes us. But when we are productive, yet it seems our work is in vain - purhaps the Lord knows when we need to produce more offspring, rather than being complacent with just witnessing to our nearest neighbors and friends. Sometimes we need to draw our loved ones close, until they are ready to put down roots.  The time will come when God will cut off the new shoots and send them off to produce on their own. There is a time when we need to give, so that others may grow, to keep them close and feed them the things the Lord teaches us. And the time will come when they in turn will go out and mature and put out shoots of their own. But when God places us in the place where he would have us grow and produce, we should rejoice that he has blessed us with new surroundings, and people and grace for every need. As parents, and teachers, neighbors and friends, we are able to affect lives just by being planted in God's better place.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: II Corinthians 9:8

Thank you precious Jesus, once more, for your garden of grace.  I never go to the garden without knowing that both the susenance for my body, and for my soul can be found there. I am a growning living thing, a very real part of how you made the earth to prosper and live on. Help me realized that my ultimate health comes from the principles you put in motion, that make a garden grow. AMEN

In Tune or Enslaved

Someone taught me years ago that to be perfect in God's eyes, means to be in tune with him.  To resonate on the same frequency as the Holy Spirit.  Although I can't remember who held it up, I totally remember the tuning fork this person tapped to the table over and over, as we listened to the two prongs ring the same note. Musical intruments sound amazing when played if in tune.  You want to leave the room if they aren't.  An instrument is perfect when it is in tune. WE are perfect when we are in tune with his design for us. We are his instrument to be played. Perfectly paired with God.

Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. Deuteronomy 18:13

But there are things this verse does not mean. It does not mean that we have to perfectly keep the laws, or be perfect at all things we do, or perfectly fit into some box that people have designed. To be the best always, or on top 100% of the time. Or to never fail, or falter. Yet that is the image we get stuck in our heads. Even knowing perfectionism is unhealthy we promote it with our actions and criticisms. We impose some degree of expectation on our work associates and friends, or spouses and family members, always requiring something in our world to be perfect. We verbalize what we think is God's perfect person and ask others to step in to the image. Whether we know we do it or not, we set standards that exceed reality.

God's expectation for each of us is different than for every one else, yet his criteria for perfection is the same - have a heart that desires to be in tune with him. It's that simple and he repeats it in example after example.  I can do that if I let  him :

1.design his expectations for me, and

2.encourage me to meet the challenges with his power, not my own. 

In tune with how he designed me and only me, not someone else. Any other  attempt is an illness called perfectionism.

Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord our God. I Kings 8:61.

If we fall prey to the expectations of anyone except God, we allow ourselves to become enslaved, to ideas, images, and degrees of good that simply aren't God's.  God knows how he made us, and he knows how to challenge us to new heights. He also never cares if we fail as we learn and grow. He loves to encourage us to growth through the struggles of failure. None of this is what God requires for perfection, however. The 10 commandments aren't a picture of perfection, the beatitudes are not a picture of our perfection. No amount of goodness is the image of God's perfection. In fact, our Christ-likeness is not a result of our own attempt to be like Christ. We were made in his image, and our Christlikeness, is a result of his renewing that image within us. Again - God's picture of  our perfection is that we have a heart in tune with him. Dozens of verses say it over and over.

God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect. Ii Samuel 22:33

It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. Psalm 18:32 

 

As with so many scriptural principles, the responsibilty for our perfection doesn't fall on us either. We can forgive ourselves of falling short even when we feel we have lost our resonance with the Spirit.  It is God's responsibility to create in us his ideal.  As long as we have a willing heart, God will work his renewing miracles.  Why do we struggle so with this. I do. It is a daily push pull in one form or another... On my emotions, on my self worth, on my relationships. Until I just do what I do, thinking only, "What is the Lord asking of me at this moment?"

If we fall into the trap of having perfect expectations for ourselves we will also enslave those around us.  They will fall victim to the extremes of the falicy. The joy of striving for excellence, of pushing ourselves beyond good measure, of knowing we never left a job undone, or half done is not perfectionism, until we become extreme in some element of it.  Being driven is a long way from being persistant.  Being tenacious is not the same as being malicious. And being thorough is a long way from being manipulative.  One is Christ-like, one is full of self motivation.

The same is true of falling victim to those self-motivated actions in others.  To someone who attempts to draw you into their perfectionism, draw clear boundaries, and learn to say "NO" clearly.

Lord, break the chains of perfectionism in our lives. Live out your perfect image in me, for I offer an willing heart, a desire to be in tune with your and your perfect will for my life.  Help me shush the voices of influnence that nag at my image of what is perfect.  Give me wisdom to reject the false images around me, and mostlly help me not to  impose a false image of perfect on others.  In Jesus name, Amen

 

 

Listening for The Spirit Is Knowing Where We Won't Find Him

 

One of my favorite concepts in scripture is about the Voice of the Holy Spirit .  The clearest comment about what we would hear is found in the story of Elijah who heard God speaking to him following 3 distinct traumatic events.

 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? I Kings 19:11-13

When we desire to hear the guidance of the Father, the voice of his Spirit indwelling us is still, and small. One of the ways we can know that what we are being told from a million directions to do or not do, will generally be loud and in the midst of chaos.  Two things we can know from Elijah's example: It's hard to hear the voice of God in the middle of the chaos. And two, since God isn't found in the midst of all the chaos, he wants us to distance ourselves from it, and find a quiet place to hear  him. 

How to Speak the Truth in Love

After 20 years of marriage all I could see we had accomplished was 3 incredible kids and building a giant wall between us, my husband and I.  How could two people who honestly loved each other be so hard on each other that we needed that wall? I was genuinely afraid to pull it down too. There had been so much dynamic painful issues in our marriage, that I just could not bear being hurt even one more time. I was very much aware of my proverbial wall. It was as real as the fact that I had to do something about that wall or die.

...but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— Ephesians 4:15

My husband was not really aware how much he was hurting me.  How empty I felt, helpless, hopeless, EMPTY.

I had spent that 20 years trying to please him, saying, "If I just do this or that, maybe he will be happy. If I , If I, If I..." Changing, Changing Changing. The result was I became more and more the person he required me to become, and I hated her.  She was so far from the real me that I didn't know myself.  I hated constantly playing the role. And the worst part was, this woman my husband created out of me, wasn't even someone he liked. I still wasn't good enough. And the moment I couldn't play the role, Jimmy exploded.   

Jimmy was a rage-aholic.  And beleive me, that is as bad as any other addiction. He had an addictive personality. Although he finally stopped smoking, he still drank colas like they were a drug. He went from being nice one instant to being off the charts angry in a split second. It made no sense. Always, when we had what I considered a good day, of romance or fun, or accomplishment, I let my guard down, and BANG! Something I said, or did sent him into an in your face screaming rage, full of threats and hurt.  And I often didn't know what I had done. I found myself actually hiding from him, or emotionally hiding from him.  I would cry for days sometimes and wonder what on earth God expected of me.  I honestly didn't believe God truly expected me to continue to be submissive to this kind of behavoir. Surely, he had some responsibility to God, but I was to the point, I didn't care what God thought.  I WAS DONE.

I faced God with my confusion, and found that He was asking me to take down the wall, and let him work on my marriage. In addition, he was going to let me have some say in what it meant to  take down that wall.

BEST THING EVER FOR MY MARRIAGE!!!!

For years the "wall" had made me feel safe, had been the place I ran to survive. I lived in survival mode so much with my father, that I hadn't learned how not to live in survival mode. So now I was going to have to learn. To GROW UP. Here's how.

1. Commit your safety to God. Decide the wall is coming down, and you are willing to let God test your faith.

2. Tell your partner about the wall, your decision to pull it down, how unsafe you feel, and exactly what things  scare you about your relationship.

3.  Set boundaries.  Explain that you will no longer accept that behavoir any longer. Draw specific lines, no beating around the bush. Say: "You will no longer do ..." whatever it is that causes you fear, or anxiety, or like you are being forced to change for your partner.  

4. Set an unmistakable, un-negotiable consequence. For me, I explained that our marriage was over, if things didn't change. Final. I laid out things I would no longer accept in our marriage, PERIOD. EVER AGAIN. 

5. Set a time frame. 3 months as a trial to see if your partner is willing to take the challenge to work on the marriage. 6 months for final decision. 2 weeks question/ answer to lay ground work.  Zero opportunity to be a rage-aholic for instance.  In an abusive situation the one thing that must be a final is the abuse. Verbal or physical. Neither is allowed.  Not under any circumstance. It ends or the break in relationship is final. Absolutely no "I'm sorry," and taking them back. 

Prayer Needs a Place and a Purpose

I have never had so much success scheduling a particular time for prayer. Either I establish myself there to pray and my mind goes blank, or something gets in the way of that particular time.  So I tend more to dedicate my time for prayer to being willing to respond to the call of the Lord to pray.  And being willing, I find that the most effective prayer, for me, needs a place and a purpose.

Now, my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and let Your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place. II Chronicles 6:40

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice."  ...7:12

Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. 7:15

A long time ago, when I owned my shop, my life was a hectic mess some days. There was little time to breathe once I got there, except when friends came in to share a prayer request.We ususally prayed together, or I took time immediately upon their leaving to speak to God specifically about that one thing. But the kind of prayer that had me meeting one on one with my friend Jesus required that I find a place where no one would bother me.  And there was only one place. We had a nice large oval tub, and the morning sun danced on the textured glass over the window in the bathroom. It inspired me. That was my special place.  There was something fundamental about being there with nothing else available to steal away my thoughts.  I spent a lot of mornings just before going to work taking time to meet God, asking his blessing on us, and seeking his will for my day there.

I had a friend once who made a closet into her place of prayer. In it she had a short table, a pillow for her knees, a short stool, a Bible, notebook, pen and candle. She closed the door and sought Jesus there every chance she got.

Most of the time down through the years the purpose for my prayers revolved around my family, or business, or church friendships and souls being saved. In our community, everyone knew everyone. So even though we attended different churches we all prayed for one another. It was never difficult to have a purpose. But I learned that having a general purpose called for praying in specifics. God wanted me to know when he answered my prayers that a specific answer would absolutely have come from him alone. I shared this concept with many who brought me requests, and some would come with their specifics prepared. We would be so excited to rejoice and praise the Lord when he answered specifically and we knew it. So in a way my shop became a place for prayer. And the purpose almost always revolved around the needs of people.

As time goes on, these things change. These days, I have so little contact with very many people, that I gain a great deal from journaling when I pray.The purpose of most of my prayers revolves around a deepening relationship with God. And my journals serve 2 purposes:

1. When my heart is burdened and God calls me to prayer, I like to journal about how the situation is presenting itself. What scripture of direction, or promise the Lord is giving me, how open I am at the time to what the Lord is doing in my life, and how I feel about things. I might also give my expectations...so I may see later how those were changed by God's answer to my prayer. Since I began journaling, I am more focused on the purpose for my prayer. I may not journal my ususal requests for blessing on my family and friends, unless there is a special need.
2. When I have no real burden or heartfelt purpose, I pick up an old journal and look through it, seeking places where prayers have been answered, and I scribble dates and praise in the margins. Sometimes, in my new journal, I will write about where the Lord brought me from, what he taught me, and how life is different since I first started to struggle or pray.

Jesus took his disciples to the Garden Of Gethsemane when he prayed. There he taught them how to pray, but he also taught them about a place to pray.  He said that the Temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations, but that its keepers had made it den of theives. So he didn't go to the temple. He found his place in a garden. I have always dreamed of a hidden place tucked away in a garden to pray...and sometimes I do sit on a bench and visit with God and I am blessed just being with him. But, for the times when I really learn the value of prayer, it is whereever I am that I can take notes on the process, discover the purpose, and return to a place where I frequently find God is There.

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” Matthew 26:36

I have learned to call any place where I meet with Jesus and we go to the Father, my Gethsemane. For that reason, one of the places I journal is online. Often, what I write there is less about the prayer itself and more about what God shares, what I learned, what the word is saying to my heart.  I call the blog A Garden Called Gethsemane. I don't update the graphics and modernize it...because it is a place for my comfort, not that of someone else. I don't promote it much, because it is where I go, not where God told me to have others go. However, I learned a long time ago that another sacred element to prayer is sharing it. So I put it out there, I cast the bread upon the waters so to speak.  The key to prayer is to find the place, time, structure that is best suited to you, that suits your purpose, and gives you a point in time when you can say, "I met with my savoir today."

Lord deepen the experience of prayer for all of us. Make it a place or time when that experience bears fruit. In Jesus' Name, AMEN

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoying the Phases of God's Blessings

As a gardner, I begin looking as soon as the first daffodil pokes its head through the dirt for the signs of other perenials and bulbs to show that they are alive. Sometimes I take pictures of the first time I spot the new sprouts and again when they have made stalks, then when they have set buds, and finally when they have bloomed.  Of course, if its a veggie, I take pics of the fruits as they grow. There have been times that I was anxious, and assumed the yucky dead looking thing down in the dirt was too far gone to produce. Boy have I been surprised this year with my dahliahs. I just poked the dead stuff back into the soil, and wondered what I would plant in their place.  And then one day, a bird had pulled that nasty string of yucky rooty stuff out of the ground. What possessed me to not throw it away? Dunno. But I did it just in determination that it was going to stay there a little longer. 3 times we replanted it. And then I made a wire cover for the pot. I was determined that if they were going to have a chance, no bird was going to uproot them until they did.  My husband couldn't wait to tell me one day that my perseverance had paid off.  I don't know how, but in that dirt under that weedy mass of roots, developed a fat little oval bulb, that turned into a real plant, and slowly by surely, it's about 8 " high now. I was so glad the day I had to remove the wire covers because I was confident the dahliahs were actually growing.

I like to look at the things I pray for like a seed I plant, or a baby plant I planted last year that has been wintering. And I love watching the phases of God's answering that prayer. Just as I go to my heavily mulched items, meant to protect them from the hard freezes, and at first sign of life, I pull it away so the newest foliage can feel the warmth of the sun, I earnestly look for the first signs that God is answering my prayer.  God knows how much I love watching him make things happen, so he does often give clues he is at work.  I find trusting him to bring something to completion means noticing the little light of hope he gives, and giving him praise. 

I learned how to wait on the Lord when witnessing to people as early as in my teens. I took the words of  I Corinthians 3:6-7 to heart.

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. ⁷ So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

 I realized that God didn't intend for me to be the sole exposure an individual seeking God needed to have. I realized it took me some time to accept Christ, and it would take others some time to faith it all out too. So I got into a pattern of taking the opportunities God gives to witness, and then wait on God to help the little seed sprout, and if I have an opportunity to water, then I will share more. Sometimes, God also lets me continue to be involved to reap the harvest.  I totally love the light of Jesus that appears in their eye.  It is like the bloom on a flower that has opened to full blaze. Or that lovely red tomato begging to be picked. You just know the Lord has brought his work to its fullness. It is totally up to him to reach a person's heart.

I have had my share of frustrations with prayer.  There have definitely been days I wondered if I prayed wrong, or was asking for something God was prepared to say "NO," to. And he does that sometimes...say no. But I learned to look for the little clues, pull back all the hinderances to his blessing and just tend the planted seed. Its the same as with witnessing. God takes his time to make His answer to your prayer be an act that yields multiple blessings.

I like living, praying, and exploring life on God's terms, more now than ever.  I believe that it is a great thing to test God, when we pray. He genuinely likes for us to prove him on his promises, and to allow him to make wonderful proofs to us that he is real and is at work in our lives.  If you are ever anxious about your prayers being answered, approach the answer to your prayer by going back to God and say, "Lord give me a peak into the blessing you are about to give me." Or "Lord, Show me something about yourself as you answer my prayer."  Or, "Lord, open my eyes so that I might see you help my little prayer grow from hope into a vital reality." It really isn't necessary to remain in the dark about his working on your behalf.

Just like I decided, that even though there was nothing that looked like a dahliah in that pot, I was going to at least protect it, we need to put on our sheild of faith, so the devil's unearthing bird, can't dig out our seeds of faith. Get defensive about your prayers. Give God the time to do it according to his eternal plan. That dark quiet time, when a seed is just a seed covered by dirt, may yeild nothing if it isn't given the environment to be a fertile seed.  Be determined to protect and water the seed of faith you planted, but find joy in watching the plant grow and develop into God's best blessings.  Genuinely watch for God at work. Ask him to show you each enduring step to his answering your prayer. You will discover that the answer to your prayer is much bigger than the thing you are asking for. EVERY TIME.

Father, thank you for making the answers to our prayers be something we never dreamed of or even asked for sometimes. Thank you for the incredible way you let the wheels of time, produce incredibly beautiful things. In Jesus Name, AMEN

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The Healing of God is Newness of Life

I mentioned once before that I grew up with an abusive father.  My childhood was genuinely good when he was not abusive, but it was nightmarish when he was. It is difficult to talk about, and I have found that most people don't really want to hear about it. It makes them more uncomfortable than me.  But for the sake of illustrating the truth found in Christy's subject this week (week 18) I want to share something specific from that past.

Many years have past since I was in my early 20's and my husband and his family were the outside influence which finally brought a stop to Daddy's ability to continue his abuse in the night hours, so that it remained a secret to all who knew him. They intervened and put a stop to it, to the point that my father had to move away, into another state. The years of fear were finally over. Since he took most of his things with him, I didn't have occasion to be reminded daily of how bad it had been. Let me quickly say that he never molested any of us children that I am aware of. But as we grew older and sought to defend our mother from the very physical and mental/verbal abuse she endured, he often beat my brothers and myself physically, and did odd things, like burning my face with his cigarettes. Please be aware, that I am not going down memory lane....I was healed of that. Thankfully, God gave me complete healing and I no longer have dreams or sad memories of all those scarey times. Praise His Name. Time however, did not heal the wounds, God did.

In later years, when my children were still young, we moved to the same state as my dad, and we had opportunity to visit with him for a number of years before he died, without my children ever knowing much about what happened in my youth. I wanted them to know the man I loved as a child, not the one I feared. He took them fishing, and spent time with them, and that is how I want them to remember him.

When he passed away, we went to clean out his home, which was on land that had belonged to his brother while he was alive, but had passed to my cousin upon the brother's death. My cousin had kindly allowed that Daddy continue to live there until his death. But once both dad's wife and Daddy had died, my cousin feared there might be things, which his children would find in the house, that might harm them, if they found their way in. So he searched through the house and discovered the medicines left behind, some fireworks, matches and Dad's 22 rifle. My heart skips a beat just saying the words.  His 22 rifle.

When my cousin met us at the house so we could enter and clean it out, he asked me to come into the bedroom and get rid of something for him, because he didn't want his children finding it and getting hurt. I said certainly and followed him to the closet, and when he pulled down the gun, I was unable to see it until he turned around. The instant I saw it, my legs buckled underneath me, and I scarcely breathed as I said: I want nothing to do with that gun. That is the gun Daddy held us hostage with when I was seven. A strange look came over his face, becauses he didn't know that side of Dad. I told him to see if one of my brother's wanted it, but I hoped to never see it again..EVER. Except for the bed being directly behind me, I would have hit the floor.

My counsin said that, judging from my reaction, what I said must be true, but that just was not the man he knew. I told him I was totally glad it was not, or his children would have not been safe. I certainly had not been safe most of my childhood with him. But I didn't intend to stand there and start bashing him to someone who never knew his dark side.

Now, my point is this. Objects absolutely do hold attatchement in our brain, that will steal away the preciousness of life if you let them. I am a strong believer that you cannot simply do away with things and expect the very deeply ingrained memories a thing might evoke to be healed. Sometimes, if your attitude is one of hiding from the thing that causes you hurt, you are only putting on another worse problem, which is denial. As you eliminate items that remind you of pain, you must actively put on new life, and fill the void left with God's healing.  As time goes on, it is easier and easier to forget the details of our years of fear. But it isn't because I am in denial of it's pain. I dealt with the pain.

The Healing of God is Newness of Life

I mentioned once before that I grew up with an abusive father.  My childhood was genuinely good when he was not abusive, but it was nightmarish when he was. It is difficult to talk about, and I have found that most people don't really want to hear about it. It makes them more uncomfortable than me.  But for the sake of illustrating the truth found in Christy's subject this week (week 18) I want to share something specific from that past.

Many years have past since I was in my early 20's and my husband and his family were the outside influence which finally brought a stop to Daddy's ability to continue his abuse in the night hours, so that it remained a secret to all who knew him. They intervened and put a stop to it, to the point that my father had to move away, into another state. The years of fear were finally over. Since he took most of his things with him, I didn't have occasion to be reminded daily of how bad it had been. Let me quickly say that he never molested any of us children that I am aware of. But as we grew older and sought to defend our mother from the very physical and mental/verbal abuse she endured, he often beat my brothers and myself physically, and did odd things, like burning my face with his cigarettes. Please be aware, that I am not going down memory lane....I was healed of that. Thankfully, God gave me complete healing and I no longer have dreams or sad memories of all those scarey times. Praise His Name. Time however, did not heal the wounds, God did.

In later years, when my children were still young, we moved to the same state as my dad, and we had opportunity to visit with him for a number of years before he died, without my children ever knowing much about what happened in my youth. I wanted them to know the man I loved as a child, not the one I feared. He took them fishing, and spent time with them, and that is how I want them to remember him.

When he passed away, we went to clean out his home, which was on land that had belonged to his brother while he was alive, but had passed to my cousin upon the brother's death. My cousin had kindly allowed that Daddy continue to live there until his death. But once both dad's wife and Daddy had died, my cousin feared there might be things, which his children would find in the house, that might harm them, if they found their way in. So he searched through the house and discovered the medicines left behind, some fireworks, matches and Dad's 22 rifle. My heart skips a beat just saying the words.  His 22 rifle.

When my cousin met us at the house so we could enter and clean it out, he asked me to come into the bedroom and get rid of something for him, because he didn't want his children finding it and getting hurt. I said certainly and followed him to the closet, and when he pulled down the gun, I was unable to see it until he turned around. The instant I saw it, my legs buckled underneath me, and I scarcely breathed as I said: I want nothing to do with that gun. That is the gun Daddy held us hostage with when I was seven. A strange look came over his face, becauses he didn't know that side of Dad. I told him to see if one of my brother's wanted it, but I hoped to never see it again..EVER. Except for the bed being directly behind me, I would have hit the floor.

My counsin said that, judging from my reaction, what I said must be true, but that just was not the man he knew. I told him I was totally glad it was not, or his children would have not been safe. I certainly had not been safe most of my childhood with him. But I didn't intend to stand there and start bashing him to someone who never knew his dark side.

Now, my point is this. Objects absolutely do hold attatchement in our brain, that will steal away the preciousness of life if you let them. I am a strong believer that you cannot simply do away with things and expect the very deeply ingrained memories a thing might evoke to be healed. Sometimes, if your attitude is one of hiding from the thing that causes you hurt, you are only putting on another worse problem, which is denial. As you eliminate items that remind you of pain, you must actively put on new life, and fill the void left with God's healing.  As time goes on, it is easier and easier to forget the details of our years of fear. But it isn't because I am in denial of it's pain. I dealt with the pain.

We Are Ambassadors

Each time I blog, I try to remember that I am called by God to be an ambassador.  Jesus commanded that we go into the world and tell all people the good news.  Often the emphasis falls on that we should tell people about Christ, but sometimes, not so much emphasis is put on the part that says the message is GOOD NEWS.  The word gospel means good news. Jesus intended that people see the story of his life's work as worthy of being repeated. Fire and brimstone preaching has often been held as a productive means of getting people to an altar. But Jesus seldom preached fire and brimstone. In fact the bulk of his ministry focused on healing people. The greatest need in their physical lives, was healing. And Jesus understood this. But he also paired healing with faith. So much so that in order to be healed, a person must first believe.

I try to keep in mind that what Jesus portrayed is what he wants me to portray. I found my inspiration today in two verses in Proverbs.

There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. Prov 12:17 -18

But a faithful ambassador brings health. Prov 13:17 

When we post, we want you to begin to have faith that what God has in mind is your health and well being. Body, mind, spirit and soul.

It is easy to see the evil in things, and to see our daily battle to the point it overwhelms. I have had so many teachers who continually point to sin and focus on all the ways sin hurts and turns us from God. My mother was this kind of person. God bless her, she always portrayed a God who punished our sins. She really never experienced the freedom of his grace. It is true that sin turns us from the path of God's best. But we can complain about sin forever, and sin won't go away until we aren't looking so hard at sin, that we forget the remedy for sin. I believe that God wants us to focus away from the devastation of sin on our lives and focus toward our hope. That hope is that Jesus really is able to bring us out of the grips of sin and all of its evilness, to really make a difference in our lives. According to our two verses, a wise speaker will promote his listener's health.

Knowing Jesus should bring results into our lives that give someone else hope. I beleive that Jesus healed people because it was an evidence that God is at work. Jesus himself was rebuked for focusing on the healing of his believers.

 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’ Matthew 9:5

Matthew, Mark and Luke all give versions of this verse. Its truth impacted all three men, so much, they all remembered nearly identical versions. The point is that if  Jesus is who he said he was, his power on our lives is sufficient for all things that promote abundant life. He wasn't being selective toward our sin. "Oh, I only came because you are such sinners...." NOT THE CHRIST I KNOW.

Health should be as real as our salvation. So why isn't it? I believe it is at least in part becasue we focus more on sin. And also because we fail to live by our faith, first. One real fear I have about our giving you guidance for health, is that we neglect to link it to faith properly.  Or that your perception of our instruction becomes an "if you do this, than God will give you health." Jesus did not tell people to go eat right to be healed. He said, "be healed by your faith." Then he made sure they had food before they left him. I guess what I am saying is, that in order to be in line with Jesus, we must make sure you understand the order in which Jesus placed these truths. Healing was a gift based on faith. Not something we work for.  But Jesus never wanted us to throw those gifts to the wind.

Example: A person is healed of a lung cancer that was most likely caused by smoking. But immediately return to smoking.  Do they expect that the gift of healing is also a miracle of making the effects of smoking null and void?

I presently know someone who has been gifted a new heart. She has never been a healthy eater. Her doctors remind her that she is disrespecting that gift, and thier efforts to save her life, if she will not change her eating habits. First the gift by faith, then respect of the gift by honoring it to good health.

Healing is totally of God. Anyone who has fought cancer and lost, knows that everything they can do cannot fend off the power of a disease sometimes.  God must intervene for healing to occur. Faith and healing are linked. But we honor the gift by seeking his best, and letting him use our wise choices to bring the abundance of that gift to its fullness. Muscles respond to exercise  (Week 17: Get Moving). Its a fact. But exercise doesn't bring healing, God does. It is because we choose to be faithful in the things which echo God's plan for our bodies to live well, that God is able to bless our health.  It is a pairing of faith with action.  God will bless the action that we perform in faith.

It is the Good News, that Jesus desires you see evidence of his work in your life. that it brings change, and a tendency toward a better life. Our desire is that you move everyday toward a goal of wholeness, that your faith is strengthened, your hope is realized, that your life is enhanced, and the abundance of God's mercy flows into your life unimpeded. Blessings to all who make wise choices based on having sought to know God's design.

We honor you God. We seek your blessing on our efforts to live in faith.In Jesus's Name, AMEN

 

 

Mental Health....The Little I Know Kept Me Alive

I want to be the first to admit 2 things. 1.I am not a mental health professional, but I have learned a few things about how the mind works along the way and 2. I have had to do battle with my own mental health to the extent that I know what it is to come back from the edge of eternity.  OK. I will just say it. I went to the place where you try to kill yourself...because of the months on end of rushing thoughts tripping over themselves in my mind, and I could not stop their onslaught.  Suffice it to say that faced with the illness, I, like so many others, found myself helpless in its grip. And no amount of calling out to God brought peace.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus  Phillipians 2:5

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. II Timothy 1:7

God does not want us to go there. It is not he who takes us to the brink of suicide, and certainly is not he who would carry us into its reality. But I wouldn't entirely blame Satan either. I am not a doctor, but I have some strong feelings about mental health. And I certainly would not impose them all on our readers here. But there were a few things that stand out for me, that I learned, which have aided some others along the way, and I want to mention only a few here today.

1. Mental illness is as much an illness of an organ as heart disease. Unlike the flu for instance, there isn't a medicine that helps it get well in a week or two. My chiropractor once said the nerves die at a regular rate..something like an inch or so a month, let's say. The significance is - when the spine is adjusted and pressure released off those pinched nerves, the feeling coming back initially hurts worse, sometimes, and it is going to take almost as long for the injured nerves to rejuvenate as it took them to lose their feeling. Months to years to heal.

 Injury to the brain is more that kind of illness. Hurt it and it will take a long time to recover. The chemical/mechanical balance that is upset for any one of many reasons is as deadly as it is disquieting. Mental illness is a progressive disease. It happens slowly, and it's warning signs are as recognizable as the symptoms of a heart attack are for the heart's illness:

Symptom 1: rushing thoughts. When your thoughts won't subside, you have pushed yourself past a point of just over doing it a little! You are on the verge of severe mental illness. Be warned. Ask for help.

2. Persons born with mental illness may have a mechanical defect. That is something they must learn to live with.  But those of us that slowly pinch off the brain's ability to function by making choices that harm it little by little, will be like the proverbial frog in the pan.  We bring ourselves to a point of no return, almost without knowing we have done it. None of us believes we could go there. Be we are all capable. ALL OF US. 

3. Having life come at you so hard and furious that you scarcely have time or energy left to consider what it is doing to your brain, isn't really something we can always stop. So if you have gotten to a point where you realize, "I think sometimes that I am going crazy," you are in great company. Christians are just as liable to find themselves feeling desparate, clinically depressed, and menatally challenged to just face the day, as anyone. So-

 the first element of healing is to recognize you are in need, and forgive yourself for letting life take you there.

Ways, to Incorporate Scripture, Which Help You Learn It

Our verse for today: Who can figure it out?

Today has been quite a day. A special neighbor, had stent(s) placed in his legs today.  He came through surgery well, and we look forward to his coming home feeling better. I awoke this morning knowing I would have to seek medical help myself for the inevitable alergic reaction the ravages my body when I unkowingly contact any poison plant while preparing my garden beds.  Weeding and transplanting has given me so much pleasure that even all the swelling on my face was worth it. Thank goodness for shots!!!  Amidst all this, our kitchen fauscett had started leaking in more places than we could fix for less than the price of a new one, so everything from under our cabinets is scattered on table and counters. And the first replacement we bought was wrong, wrong, wrong. Didn't fit, looked too massive, and didn't match the accessories. While my huband lay on his back tightening the last leaks on the new one, he could see through the front door that an ambulance was in the drive of the neighbors next door.  All I could think of, all day, was that God was in control. 

I knew that both my neighbors are looking to Jesus and his word for help today, and I knew that God would provide for the Medical expenses we actually cannot afford. Why...because of scripture that I have learned to trust. God is bigger than all the daily stuff. He doesn't always keep us from it, but he does always take us through it, and his word is a huge part of that process.

So getting familiar with the verses is imperative.  Yet I must admit that I am Memory Challenged.  It takes far more work for me to memorize anything than an average person. Then remembering without refreshing what I learned is totally a wash. So how do I compensate? 

•  I learn the words that make a difference to me, and that have enough impact to stick with me. By learning the clue words and phrases, I can at least look them up when I need them in a concordance or using Bible Gateway.
• I learn of several references that are similar.  This seems to make the concept stick.
• I place the verse that I want to learn in a prominent place where I can see it over and over. Notecard, on mirrors, on desktop note, at stove and or fridge with a magnet, jewelry case, closet door, and near washing machine.
• I use them in art.

Now when I was young I was a slow reader, but I learned, one day, something interesting.  When I looked across from my chair to my open Bible on the organ bench, it was upside down and I could read it, fast! Wow! So every class I taught down through the years, I noticed if students were struggling with reading. Sometimes I would turn their work upside down to them, and read it from the other side of the table. Guess what. If I questioned their work and they pointed out answers on the page easily from upside down, BINGO. 

I began to figure out how I could incorporate that fact in my teaching.  Our AWANA programs put a heavy emphasis on learning scripture, so to help my class learn their verses, I would write them upside down and backwards one the chalk board.  Beleive it or not, it's easy. I encouraged them to do the same, concentrating on each word only long enough to write it and say it. They read the verse backwards. I would then have them say the verse to me with their eyes closed, imagining it on the board or on their paper while it was fresh. If I was busy I had them share with one another the same way. Then as soon as they thought they knew it, I would have them come and stand before me and say it. Sometimes, I had them quote it out loud right over the person(s) already there. In this way they put outside noise away and concentrated only on their verse. Several persons saying the same verse at different paces and different places, actually helped them because the mind was actually taking all this in and concentrating.

Might I say, all this helped me as well.  The teacher can't help but learn. In Sunday School classes, I wrote every letter, or at least every word of our verse, on individual sheets of paper and hung them at the top of the wall all the way around the room. When my students walked in, they were faced with their verse for the day. Often, long before we had actually came to the time to quote our verse, there were some who would volunteer to quote it from memory, just having looked at it during class.

I never learned the principles of memorization so well as the year I was given the lead in a church play.  Week after week others knew their lines while I read mine. But they ususally only had 2-5 at the most.The lead had page after page of lines, and I knew how challenged Iwas. I loved the acting part, however, and remembered that in my Drama class, lines made sense to me in context. I had not struggled with lines when playing a part, as much as dry memorization. So, with a bit of fear I might mess up the whole play, I asked God what he would have me do. He guided me to accept the role.  Months later, at dress rehersal, I not only knew my lines, but of the others as well. I was able to help stumbling fellows through. Yet today, I remember not a word. To make scripture memorizations work, you have to use them daily. Repitition is key for me, but it matters not if I know it word for word. It's hidden in my heart.

I love Your Word, Lord. AMEN

God Makes Himself Known Through His Gifts

When I received the gift of salvation it was by faith. But in the years since, God has made himself known over and over again. And the most precious of his proofs come through his gifts.

I would never be surprised if God answered an outright prayer in a positive way. For instance, his call to go into the world and seek souls lays heavy on my heart sometimes. Knowing that Christ provides the increase, if we plant the seeds in the hearts of seeking individuals, makes me aware of two things:

1. God bids us to plant the seeds by putting his Word out there.  It is up to the Spirit to produce the harvest. But if I pray, "Lord, help me keep your commandment to go into the world," and someone comes knocking on my door, asking questions about getting to know God, to me, that is proof that he heard and answered my prayer.

2. If in due time, someone I am praying for confesses that they have accepted Christ, that is proof to me that the Holy Spirit is doing his job.

No one need know but myself and God that I have prayed or planted the seed, but if they do, it is a witness to God when there are results, so God sometimes wants people to know you are working according to his calling on your life - as a witness of His power on your life. 

But, if there are things about which I do not pray, which remain the desires of my heart...and God provides those things - that is truly proof to me not only of God's existance, but his indwelling presence, and love.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:3-5.

Lately, I was missing my teenage grandson.  He spent a lot of time in our home in his early years, but as with all teen boys, he is busy becoming a man.  So lately it had remained a desire of my heart to see him a more often.

He needs money to go to his prom, and getting a part time job has not worked out, so my husband ,who knows nothing of my heartfelt longing, offered to pay him for work we desparately needed help getting done. And so, I have been able to see him several days and spend quality time with him as we enjoyed some hard work together. And cook a meal and sit down to eat a time or two as well. God made a way to meet the desire of my heart.

I can't begin to tell you how often lately, God has done something that was just to give me pleasure. A gift, that met some hidden desire. Never spoken, just kept inside me. A gift from the Spirit who often proves he knows the depths of my heart.

Accepting Christ is more than a Fuzzy Warm Feeling

I love my grandsons and keep them close to my heart. Just as I love my husband, and children, their spouses and all my extended family and friends. As a child I dearly loved my parents in spite of their flaws, as I hope my children love me. But the kind of love Christ offers through the cross is a kind of love no one else can give.  I can fill my home with lovely sayings, adorn my walls with pictures of Bible stories, much as I do pictures of what I love, and always keep him front and center of my thoughts by referencing his word. These are all things I do for my children and grandchildren. I have never been a big picture hanger.  Just ask my bewildered children.  But I do love albums of rememberence. I still have some of Dakota's messages to me hanging about the house. And as Ryder grows, I hang his little hand prints beside Dakotas, his watercolor scribbles on the fridge and there will be a box of things I will save, just as with Dakota. I update all the family phone numbers. All of these bring memories of days when we laughed and loved and shared wonderful times.  I have what was my hope chest full of my children's childhood memories. Yet all of these things are simply a head knowlege that our love is real. I feel it in my heart and I can even empathize with their pain. I can pray fervently for them. And in our most intimate moments of sharing the scary things in life, wanting to love their pain away will never come close to the love that Jesus gave and gives.

The major reason is that Jesus didn't offer fuzzy warm feelings. He offered himself. And then he gave me his Spirit to not only make sweet memories of him, or mentally challenge me to love him in return. HE GAVE HIMSELF SO THAT HIS SPIRIT COULD INDWELL ME. His love was an action to become one with me. A union of myself and God. Dare I say so. Yes! I dare. A HOLY UNION.  That cannot happen with any other kind of love. There is a type of it enacted in the marriage union.  But it is a type only, because even the best marriage is unable to unite two spirits in more than a figurative sense.  The strongest love between any two beings is never as strong as the one that God gives on a genuinely spiritual level. A dimension that we enter only by his power and because of the cross.  It is one area that science cannot peirce on any level.

The actual union of the spirit with Mary, Christ's mother, that produced the Christ child by miracle, is a picture type of what Jesus was born to be for us.  A means by which we might all be one with God.

...the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. John 14:17

I fear that many individuals who reject Christ, have never understood the level to which God elevates us, by crossing the gap between God's dimension and the human dimensions of body, soul, and mind.  We sometimes don't give God enough Glory for being willing to come literally into our hearts, into our being and unite with our spiritual soul that never dies.  When I asked Christ to take my sins and sinful nature and deal with it according to his own directives, I also asked him to "come into my heart." In the years since, I have discovered what that oneness provides. In so many ways he became everything I need to survive in this world and in HIS. When I say I hear his still small voice, I am not a quackazoid crazy case hearing voices.  I am only recognizing his whisper of love from within.

 He never sleeps, never gives up, never leaves or forsakes, never lets his anger bring us harm, never lacks the power and wisdom to resolve our issues. He is never far away, instead is as close as our heart beat and then some. He IS and always will be one with our soul if we just ask him.

I am so glad the cross is not just a cause to feel sad and mushy because someone died for me. It is a cause for rejoicing, because he overcame even death because of his resurrection.   Yet God told us not to focus on the Death part of it, but on the LIFE part of it.  So as Easter rolls around each year, I make an extra effort to go beyond just being thankful for my salvation, and the power of the cross over sin (which is a very big deal,) and try to remember why he did it. Partnership with God.

I have looked in the mirror several times lately, and imagined that I could look into my soul. And beyond that to the spiritual part of me that is a part of infinite time, and see my partner there.  I speak to HIM and thank HIM, for being one with me on the journey. I focus on the fact that He is not OUT THERE, but in here, IN ME.

I praise you for knowing, dear Jesus, what my greatest need would be.  For wanting me to be one with your Spirit, united in more than emotion, but a kind of love that endures beyond emotion, and memory.  When my body fails, there will still be US. You and I can walk through the door into the vast realm of glory.  But until then, I praise you for the new life on earth that your death and resurrection gives. The gifts that pass understanding and the miracle of being one with you.  In your precious name, and for your Glory, AMEN

Jesus Was Obedient to God's Command To Rest

We all know that God rested on the seventh day, not because he needs rest in the physical sense, but because setting boundaries for our world was important to him, and because he took time ot reflect before he moved on.  Rest is a very large part of the human existance because our whole being needs it. Think about the words that are derived from the word rest: rest, restore, restoration, restraint. Stopping within a boundary to be revived.  And this one - restlessness, another word for anxiety.  It goes without saying that rest is about more than just sleep, but do we really think, when we are unrested, about what the lack of it is doing to our lives and those around us? Rest is about boundaries, having the mental strength to reflect on where we have been, deciding when to stop, bringing things back to normal,  and taking a stand for our own well being.

Scriptures define the boundaries for our rest with the number 7. It is the number for completion, being finished, and for rest. On the cross, Jesus said:

“It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. John 19:30

Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away...John 19:31

It was because it was the time for the Sabbath, the same 7th day that God established after his work week was finished, that Jesus called for his suffering to end. He made the decision for himself before the Jews went to Pilate. The same 7th day about which so many old testament laws revolve. The same one that is repeated over and over throughout centuries when referencing times frames for the feasts. He decided that an end had come to his work, and it was time to honor God's seventh day, to rest.

And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”Exodus 33:14

Each day we seek rest for our bodies, each week - rest from our work, and periodically we find rest to restore our joy, be replenished spiritually, and to begin again. As I have gotten older I have seen the patterns of life require this third kind of rest as on intervention from God to close the past and begin a new episode in my future. Let us not forget that there is a time when the kind of rest we need is the rest that brings closure to the pain, the suffering, the hardship, the education...whatever period of endeavor that has been a long time coming to fruition.  And we need to pause and let God walk us back through the good and bad of it, and find a new beginning.

Lord, as our readers study your word, make the number 7 jump out at them. May they see the fervant reminder of a Loving God that rest for our bodies, minds, and souls comes in many forms, but is not only available, expected and provided by you, but that you go before us to prepare it and ask us to do the same. In Jesus name. AMEN

 

Finding a Good Balance When Faced With Fight Or Flight

Being a slave to our feelings is being in the palm of Satan's hand.  He is in control of how the world does things.

 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. I John 5:19 NIV

By manipulating circumstances, he can rule us, if he knows what will bring out our anxiety, our fear, our weakness, frustration, or whatever sends us to a 10 on the emotional scale. One of the things we then try to do is to take control of those circumstances. We will do one of two things: Flight or Fight

    1. Avoid the circumstances and make for ourselves a life of survival codes. Do this, don't do that... It's called Flight.

    2. Confront the circumstances head on, usually with all the emotion we can muster.  Ever had a day you just flew at the circumstances with cussing on the mind...ever knew anyone who attacked all their circumstances with cussing on more than their mind? LOL Sure. It's called Fight.

Now, I don't wish to address that much except to say that either stage you might be in would be dangerous and unproductive if ruled by your emotions.  I most often fall into the Flight one, because I have a hard time forgiving myself for falling into the Fight mode.  So do I seek God's control in my life to avoid being in one of these escape modes?  Sometimes its a habit we all fall into. Let Satan take us to Fight or Flight before we seek God in our circumstances. Bad reason to call out to God, but better than staying in Satan's trap.

 But when I stop and think that I am still under Satan's thumb when I am letting him manipulate me to fall into either category... I realize that what I really need is to seek God to take control before I react.  That isn't easy to do when emotions get in our way.  Satan is tricky, and he knows when to push our buttons.  But Satan is not the only one.  People closest to us, or bosses, or any number of people will push our buttons just to see us react.  Manipulation is a powerful tool. 

The balance word for letting God take control is Self-control.  Now hold on before your react...Scripture is composed of verses that say we should teach self-control.  So what is self-control? It is the act of asking ourselves where our actions will take us, and deciding to act in a way that defeats Satan.  At first it takes some practice.  But eventually you can almost hear the Spirit say, "this is leading up to making a choice." The choice we are admonishing you and asking ourselves to make is the one that chooses to give God full control of our circumstances and maintain self-control in the process.  Neither I nor scripture presume that it is possible to have self-control without the power of the Holy Spirit. 

 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life... For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I Peter1:3-8

Self -control is a means of giving God full control.

You might say, I can control myself.  Well, think about it. What gives you self-control. The ability to put a pause before acting out of emotions.  That doesn't happen over night or by itself.  It takes a kind of wisdom, a self talk kind of attitude. Under stress, we often desert that mentality, and what I want in my life is for the Holy Spirit to make the pause.  I want HIM to be the one screaming in my head, not me screaming at my circumstances.  I totally love when the HOLY SPIRIT screams. He does it so well. He screams out scripture, or a thought like: "God can take care of this!"  And the louder he is in my head, the more I love it. Sometimes, he uses someone else to say it to me. A facebook note, a friend who says sweetly, "are you sure?" Or a pastor's daily devotion.

Being wrapped in the wisdom of God, and finding that the best kind of self-control is being able to hear God's voice before reacting out of emotions requires commitment. Now on the cusp of it, it sounds just like another form of controling things. Just another excuse to tuck things in life safely into a box.  Once again, it is one of the opposites of God's unique perspectives, over that of the world.  And shouldn't it be? Remember where we started? Satan is in control of the world's perspectives. Giving our circumstances, our issues, our emotions and all of lifes burdens and joys into the hands of God for him to control brings us in line with creation and has benefits:

    1. Satan loses control.

    2. Our emotions do not control us.

    3. The manipulations of others can not truly control us. (Though Satan goes out of his way to make it seem that way sometimes.)

    4. We gain self-control.

Of Wind and Bee Stings

The word repent in the old languages – Hebrew and Greek forms – carried the meaning to be sorry for one’s decisions to follow one’s own path, rather than the instructions of God. Someone who was repentant would turn from following his own ways and return to following the path of God’s instruction.  Like turning the rudder of a ship, it took a form of action to repent. A sail boat won’t turn itself into the wind. But once the action of turning about was taken, then the Spirit of God was meant to come along side and provide guidance, support, and would energize the repentant one’s walk. The Spirit, who is symbolized in the wind, fits the image of the Wind. The rudder turns the boat about , a symbol of taking the action of repentance, facing it to take advantage of the wind (the Holy Spirit.)  Every sailor knows that progress is not made under man power. The dynamics of the wind’s power so amplifies the sailor’s efforts and speeds the boat along toward the destination, in a way no human power could muster.  Even with dozens of men at the oars, wind in the sails moves the vessel effortlessly in comparison.  But it remains the choice of the sailor to set the sails to take advantage of that power. We as Christians often try so hard to meet God’s expectations under our own power. Often we tire of living in the difficult realm of progressing against the dragging anchor of sin.  If only we would pull up anchor and turn our effort toward using the rudder of grace to turn about. Instead of struggling with life, to be empowered by God.  How do we gain the power of God on our lives?  By repentance.

It is important to see that the act of crying and being sad is not the complete act of repentance. Making the decision to turn about is. It is then that we can release the struggle with our sin and give the Holy Spirit the power to move us forward away from the power sin had in our life. Notice, I am not saying you have the power to stop the sin alone.

For some, repentance comes with emotions of deep sorrow for sin, but for others, feelings of great relief for being released from the struggle.  Paul, the apostle is one of the greatest types of resisting repentance. Of how living for God under one’s own power takes you in the opposite direction from God’s perfect will. His whole demeanor changed when he stopped resisting God.  Saul, whom God renamed Paul, totally believed he was serving God perfectly, piously, and with the utmost fervor.  He was willing to go to great lengths to bring “Christians” to a place of death, in the name of God, because he believed they were not serving God and were leading others away.  But when God himself confronted Paul, he pulled up the anchor of everything Paul had been taught to believe. He commanded Paul to turn completely about, and begin to serve the very persons he had persecuted. 

And when we were all fallen to the earth, (a symbol of repentance,) I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts 26:14

The image God uses is a comparison: Saul’s resistance to believe that Christians were actually true believers was like kicking a cactus-like plant. He was only hurting himself with a hurt that keeps on hurting. Cactus “pricks” continue to dig toward the bone and become festered until the body ejects them or they are removed. It is senseless, God was saying. God wanted Paul to stop hurting himself. It would seem reasonable to ask people to stop hurting themselves by resisting repentance. Yet that isn’t the image most people have of repentance. God was not asking that Paul yield to a form of punishment in order to repent.  I have never understood why established Christian religions add such to repentance. He was asking Paul to cease the senseless acts, and turn his life around, where-in Paul would find God’s constant blessing.

Please note that God wasn't calling a man who was a kind-hearted Jewish saint. Saul was killing saints! His understanding of right and wrong was totally askew!

A mother who sees her child playing near bees, asks that they come away.  Or don’t swat at them, or step on them.  She warns that the child turn away from that act. Often calling the child to herself for safety. A child who disobeys, gets stung. The mother doesn’t then punish the child for discovering the pain of playing with bees. She cradles the little one up, helps them run from the bees, and dresses the wound.  She gives recognition to the pain of the sting, and with hugs and kisses, she soothes and shares information on how wise it is to avoid bees, and other things that hurt.  Next time, a child generally is glad to come running to Mom.  God is like the loving mother.  All he wants is for us to recognize the dangers of sin and run, into his arms. If we are already stung by the pain of sin, God wants to hug us, tend to our wounds, restore us to health, and make us wise to avoid being stung again. Not hurt us some more!

So, often, when life becomes more and more difficult, the harder we try to serve God, it is because we have determined in our hearts what we believe to be right, according to what we learned at church, or from parents, or maybe just by desiring to be zealous for God.  Our intentions may be the best, most religious of anyone around.  But only when we hear God’s voice to repent of following our own way, and submit to turning our vessel about, do we find the wind filling our sails. Sin isn’t always about breaking one of the 10 commandments that we most
often think of as sin. Lying, stealing, coveting…etc.  More often than not, it is breaking the first commandment.  When we fail to love the Lord our God with all our heart.  He isn’t standing over a whipping post saying, bend over… He is saying, “Turn about! And catch the wind!”

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. John 3:8

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Acts 2:2 (at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given to all who believe.)

Unless you are afraid of a little wind in your sails, LIFT ANCHOR AND TURN ABOUT! Don’t let sin's drag anchor your boat to a place of pain. Lift anchor and let God!!

Help me see Lord the anchors of sin in my life.  Whatever has stopped my life from making use of the power of your Spirit in my life, show me, teach me, draw me near, call me away from it, and sharpen my aversion to its stings. Thank you for your ever present love.  AMEN

HE MADE

As  an artist, I often find inspiration in the things God made. The beauty and detail in the tiniest things, including bugs and spiders, snakes and rocks simply amaze me in the intricacies of their form and function. A lot of what is in nature goes to the root of my love of design.  I have always seen God as a designer. The ultimate artist, who  gave us all the elements of art and placed the ember of oneness with that part of himself into us, who love to make, create, design, draw, photogragh and paint.. or by any other means to imagine something and make it
become visual, useful or decorative. I see anyone who is able to take an element and coax it into something else as an artist. Even the gardener who plants seeds, can use the plants as a color palette.  And there are few things so beautiful as a hillside or meadow covered in only one lovely flower or grass. The wood beams of a house, the steel beams of a super structure, the girders and cables of a bridge - all are beautiful to me.  And the persons who use the materials to make them into something new and wonderful are all artists. Within each one is a bit of God’s character, innate, because God chose to create man in his own image.

 For in the image of God He made man. Gen 9:6

One day as I was contemplating how close to God I sometimes felt when I was in “creation mode,” I wondered about what the scripture said, specifically, about the phrase, “He made.”  I thought when I began to search that I would find a set of verses that would inspire me by the descriptions of the grandness of the things God made. I supposed I would use them as a guide to praise the Lord. Wow was I surprised.

In only the second chapter of the book of Genesis, was the first time the phrase popped up. I was so surprised to see what was on the mind of God when this phrase about “designing something” first appeared, that I cried instantly.  It was like a huge hug from God. He was thinking about how to make a woman.

 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. Genesis 2:22 

God was contemplating a gift for man, someone who would complete him, complement him, and balance him and make that union productive. This design was to become a helper in “man”’s” life, but also be a mate for life – two very powerful concepts. He wanted her to be a beautiful design that the man would genuinely love.  I could go extremely deep into this concept, because in this verse is established a truth, about the loneliness of God.  When God made woman he was instilling in her the traits of his own eventual wife – THE CHURCH.  In every way parallels can be made through out scripture to the love of God for his people, and how he longs for that love in return. 

 Knowing this, and all the verses that lead up to the proof of that truth, I was awash with amazement. In those two words were the value of a woman in God’s mind. HE MADE > WOMAN!!!!  We, not man, were made in the image of what God imagined would complete himself.  Man in his own image, woman in the image of  what God wished a lifetime companion should be. WE were designed in a special way. Different than all other beings on earth! Designed from the rib of man.  In essence, God started with his own image, from which man was made, and then he added to that a uniqueness, things that God longed for in his own mate.

Women, have you ever doubted your value in life, your place in the love of God? My understanding was totally reinforced, in the moment I came upon this verse, that as a woman, I am precious in the eyes of God.

Sometimes we become so overwhelmed with holding our own in a “mans” world, we forget to celebrate and pursue with proper ferver, just being women.  I know I have been lost a time or two, understanding how I fit.  But I was MADE for exactly that – to fit.  I am one of those unique puzzle pieces that God is fond of making. I am most often the opposite of my husband, but I was meant to be opposite in such a way as to complement him, complete him, balance him, help him.  Not his crutch, but his flagpole. Strong in the wind, firmly standing where I am placed, supportive even in the storms of life, always there when he is up, or he is down. 

As the Lord spoke specifically to my heart, I thought, "How often have you ever seen a flagpole and thought how worn out the pole looked?" No, we often see tattered flags and think, "My goodness how tattered that old flag looks." Statistically, women out-live men, and we must be ready if that time comes to stand alone. It would seem that without the flag, the pole is useless. But think about it. Even with the flag gone, the pole is still a stantion whose purpose is to fly an emblem. And there may come a time when we stand only to fly the invisible flag of God.

 I was designed that way. Made for a purpose. Designed as a gift, from a definite thought process, to uphold and support someone I love, but not by giving myself away. Rather, made to be powerful as the person God made me to be.  The Bible concept of women is much different than that of the world. And therein lies the majority of our conflict in life.  But focusing on what God thought of me, helps me stand tall, and strong.  I am praising God for giving me more than just his love of design, but by designing me, he gave me power, purpose, and promise.  He MADE ME by his own hands, thoughtfully, craftily, artfully, designed me to be a WOMAN. I still am basking in the joy of it!

 

THANK YOU DEAR FATHER! Praise and Honor to You, who spoke a universe into existence saying:"Let there be…" but YOU paused to actually MAKE ME.  Much love.

Please help a woman who is struggling today, with a sense of pupose, of value, of place, of her future.  Where ever sheis help her know the place she holds in your heart. Then for every man who reads, may he realize that if you found extra value in making women unique, than may they find a respect and honor for that uniqueness as well. May he see the blessing the woman meant for him truly is.  AMEN

(Nowhere in the above did I mean to infer that God didn't design all the things he made. But the scripture itself takes pause to bless us with how God lovingly designed woman, so we should take note. And technically, the mate God invisioned in the church is the BRIDE OF CHRIST. The Israelite people, and the Nation of Jews are also frequently portrayed as a wife. But to keep it simple I used the term God in as the Godhead.)

For futher study on the verses with "HE MADE":

Gen 21:6 And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.”

1 Chronicles 16:26 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the heavens.

Psalm 111:4 He has made His wonderful works to be remembered.

Luke 11:40 New King James Version (NKJV) Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also?

MATTHEW 14:36 And as many as touched it were made perfectly well. (see week 9 of the Wholly Healing series.)

More Than Conquerors

and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Deuteronomy 7:2

I cringe when I read the rathful  statements in scripture.  God asking his people to strike out and utterly destroy people.  But there have been times throughout history that it was necessary to utterly conquer the evils in this world.  I don’t think any of us doubted that unless we conquered Osama Bin Laden that he would have continued to seek to do harm to innocent people around the world.  There are many others even now that are doing the same, and sometimes I am sad that we can’t help them all. So when you see the realistic side of “utterly destroying” people - or things that would utterly destroy you if they could - it is possible to see the side of God that wants certain things gone for good.  No Mercy.

 According to Revelations, there will come a day when Christ utterly destroys the author of such evil, and frankly when I see children abducted or abused, it can’t come soon enough. Julia spoke of mercy on Tuesday, and today I want to speak of its opposite. Learning to know the difference between when to show mercy and when to show no mercy. Oddly the two complement one another- opposites that fit like the puzzles of God to make an amazing whole.

When people are not having a good day, a little mercy could turn their day around. And within God’s law of reciprocity, that mercy given will return to you.  (Give and it shall be given to you… and Cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return to you.) When Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, it was about giving people the grace that Christ so generously gave us. We must step out and be first to make the positive action.  It is our own decision to do what is an action opposite to what we are feeling, which breaks the cycle of hurt and despair.

 But there are times when God wants us to make such a strong stand against Satan’s attack that we can utterly destroy its place in our life – conquer it. Fear is one of the things we have discussed recently - a feeling. The oddest thing happens in our feelings. When people are dishing out stuff that hurts, we feel like dishing back, but we need to respond in love. Yet when Satan is dishing out his stuff, we draw back and take it! We feel like avoiding the
confrontation, or just giving in?  And for some strange reason we think we are doing it out of love???  Think about it.  Abused women take it because they “love” the person who abuses them.  Or from fear of not feeling loved. They have difficulty lashing back out at the abuser.

It’s backwards, don’t you see. It is because Satan is an expert liar. He is the Father of lies,and he is a cunning manipulator.  In life it becomes important to test the things in our life against God’s gage. Is it a time to respond in love even if we don’t feel like loving (show mercy), or is it a time to draw a line and put a stop to the manipulation (be conquerors)? To utterly overcome the lies.

For instance: it is a common occurrence in most marriages that we feel like our spouse is out to get us. Not the horribly abusive ones in this example. The “normal” husbands and wives.  Times when every way we turn we are butting heads. Satan’s lie is that there is malice behind those times when we trip over each other. We FEEL confused about the word LOVE. 

 How many times have I said, “If this is love…” or “I don’t feel loved right now…”  I can’t tell you how many cards my husband has given me that say, “I really do Love you…” because I am always contesting that his actions sometimes don’t make me feel loved. I used to hang on the feelings, and have a great deal of difficulty believing he genuinely loved me. I succumbed to feeling unloved and added to it self-pity, poutiness, anger, anxiety, etc, etc. My feelings were legitamate, and deserved to be heard, but how I dealt with them was yeilding nothing but unhappiness. I learned that:

when I conquer those feelings, I

•  utterly do away with them,
• and believe instead in his love,
• realizing that the stumbling blocks in our marriage are usually straight from Satan to confuse us,

then, I look past my feelings to the truth.

• He does love me.
• And he is a person worth staying with. 
• He’s not perfect, and not a mind reader.   

All we need is better communication - a healthy discussion on why we are butting heads, and how we can utterly destroy anything that hinders our love. It starts with making a decision to destroy the act of butting heads.  Not as easy as it sounds, because God appropriately used the word conquer. It is a battle to rid ourselves of the habits we develop that keep taking us down the wrong paths over and over. 

Planting My Weakness Into His Strength

Focusing on our weaknesses in life is like putting air into a balloon, it will expand until it blows up in our face.  A weak area of our life looms bigger and bigger until it can overwhelm us.  Joseph Prince often gives me strength for my day, and he reminded me recently of something the Holy Spirit taught me as a teen, concerning my weaknesses.  My mother had often sung to us the song about children which says “they are weak but he is strong.” So the idea was strong in my understanding of God. My vision, however, was of a Fatherly God taking my hand and walking with me everywhere I went, doing the things for me that I was too weak to do.  It was a child’s perception. But as I matured and became a teen that image was no longer sufficient, because I was being forced to meet my own needs to have strength in a lot of  areas. My first real struggles in life required that I learn to use that little verse, and learn to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, and focus on his grace, not my weaknesses. I had to learn that the Spirit which I had asked to indwell me was a power to harness to be a new creation, to live a life of being transformed.

Pastor Prince said :

 “Beloved, when you look at yourself today and see your weaknesses, don’t get  discouraged! Know that as you depend on God’s grace, He can and will supernaturally transform these weaknesses into strengths. …

"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”…—2Cor 12:9”              (devotion 1/24/13) http://josephprince.com/”

Although talking about our weaknesses will often be healthy and helpful, it has a tendency to focus on the weakness. Addressing root issuesthat make our weaknesses dominate areas of our lives can redirect us, but what
we often need is something more powerful than discussion. We need power.

If I focus on putting energy into blowing up balloons, myspirits are lifted for a bit, because they are fun and colorful, but the effect is not long lasting.  Talking about our weaknesses has the same effect. It lifts us for the moment, and in fellowship we feel comforted. But the focus again is on the weakness, on us, on our feelings, on the solution, on ideas, on complaints, on failures…etc., etc. But many weaknesses have a tendency to build upon themselves more difficulty than strength.  The more we try to fix things, the more difficult living becomes. And the difficulty “balloons.”

God sees our weakness as an opportunity to use us to his Glory. His Strength becomes perfect in our weakness!! It is an opportunity for him to make a miracle in our lives. To live divinely through us. What he asks us to do is:

1. Step out as if we didn’t have the weakness, and act as if we were God.  Not imagining ourselves
   to be God. I didn’t say that. But allow our faith to help us act not as human, but as divine. Think about how Jesus tackled things. He had no doubts.  He expected his Father to act to meet the need. He was prayerful, but determined to follow through once he knew the Father’s will. Imagine for a moment being Moses with only a rod, tapping a rock and expecting water to come forth.  Get the point? Turning our focus onto God’s power and willingness to meet our needs deflates the balloon, because our focus becomes more positive. We may become elated by the sheer awe of God’s amazing approach to life. Any weakness that has taken on a life of its own, begins to fade away,  and the strength God has instilled in you emerges like a seed bursting forth into a plant, and begins to grow. 
2. Focus on tending the new growth.  It gives us something to do to direct our mind off our weakness, and encourages our strengths. But it also makes the Grace of God visible to others as well as to us. We can watch the supernatural power of God “transform” weakness. 

See all weakness as a packet of seeds, ready to plant in the fertile soil of God’s love, warmed by his grace,  transformed by his son, and a new picture emerges. Rather than a balloon growing into a volatile explosion one day, which says to everyone, you have failed because of your weakness - you have a garden of anticipation for
good things, which nourish your soul and often produce beauty.  All life is a miracle, and that which reinforces life also reinforces growth. Putting your effort into expanding a balloon is just collecting a lot of hot air and happy feelings that are short-lived.  Putting your effort into planting your smallest faith, is expanding your potential for growth and yields lasting benefits for life.

Grace is enough to turn your gaze, transform your weakness. This is one of the laws of opposites in God’s world of balance. His strength becomes perfect when applied to our weakness. Two parts, opposite shapes that link perfectly together to make a whole.  He created in us a need for his strength, so that we might find completeness in fellowship with him.  In so many ways, God desires to be one with us, and we resist. Why? It is an act of a loving God to create us to need him, because he loves being there for us.  His joy is fulfilled in us. And we don’t lose something in the process. Again an opposite, because we actually gain by needing him.

Father, although I love my childhood memory of imagining you holding my hand down through life, I prefer to have a stronger image of you impowering me by your Spirit.  I desire to live life as if I had no weakness because I live in your strength.  I often focus on my weakness and allow it to expand to levels of frustration before I embrace that great life altering truth that you desire to live out your strength through me. I ask Father that I might plant my weakness in your fertile soil of strength, where I may grow in Grace into your new creation. Transform my weaknesses into new life. In Christ's name, AMEN