Back to the bench

Psalm 37:7a – “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him”

This week, I have felt so busy! I’m starting to work more. My kids are still doing all that they do. My house still needs to be cleaned. We are getting ready to leave for spring break. Satan is still beating down the door of my heart. Man, crazy stuff!

But this morning, while I was asking God to show me what He wanted me to do for this blog today, He whispered this to my heart, “Be still.”

What? Be still! You know all that I am responsible for! But all the while, He just wants me to clear my mind and be still sometimes. No, this should not be an avenue for sleep. Although, if I had not had my coffee in reaching distance, I might have attempted that road.😊

We have all had times when our walk with The Lord was calm and peaceful. We walked with Him and listened to Him. But then we get distracted. Just like the devil wants. When we are distracted, we can’t be productive for Him.

So, here I am, princess. Trimming the bushes along the path of the garden in my heart. It was once a peaceful path, but now is quite overgrown. I want to get back to that bench where I just sit and listen to Him while the worries of the world pass me by.

Ups and downs

Ephesians 4:22-24 – “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

It is so easy to slip back into the “old self.” I have been saved for a really long time. But like every one else, I ebb and flow. I have mountains and valleys.

It is funny, not funny ha-ha, how when you ask God for something and He opens the flood gates of Heaven and then you find yourself saying, “Wait! Maybe not that much God!” This is the time I find myself slipping back into one of those valleys where I ignore things because “I am just too busy.” “I’m way too tired.”

Have you been there?

One verse, particularly, stuck out to me this morning – “to be made new in the attitude of your minds”. Here is my challenge for myself today. I have got to allow God to do His thing and change the attitude of my heart so that my service to Him is pure. And I consider my job opportunities as service to Him. He provided them, so He must want me to serve Him in this way. But my service is nothing if my attitude stinks.

So today, despite my ever growing to-do list, I choose to have a more pure “attitude of…mind”. I choose, princess, to allow God to do something amazing in me. It might be touching someone’s life or it may be getting my list marked off. Whatever He chooses to accomplish in me today, I want to do it with a heart and mind pleasing to Him.

Singing in the Wings

Psalm 63:7,8 – “Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

I love these verses. They are so beautiful. They hold such a loving and special picture.

Life is rough sometimes. Things don’t always turn out like we think they should. It is so easy to slide down into depression. We look around us and see all that we do not have and forget to look at what we do have. Even in the darkest hours, we still have Jesus. The devil has the capability of using this promise against us, if we let him. He will say, “Well, wouldn’t you rather just go and see Him?” He tries to get us to give up the fight. Yes, we want to see Him, but that doesn’t mean we quit fighting and living.

As long as God gives you breath, you must keep going. He is not finished with you yet. He still has work for you to do.

But He doesn’t ask you to go at it alone. He is your help. Look back at the key verse for today. “I sing in the shadow of your wings.” God has His mighty wings around you, protecting you from the outside world. Yes, sometimes He allows things to get through because He knows that constant protection does not allow for strengthening and growth. He protects us just enough to cause us to sing. I love to sing. And the thought of singing in His wings makes me smile.

Hold onto Him. Let Him be your flashlight if you are walking through a dark place right now. Cling to Him and ask Him to put your feet on solid ground. I guarantee He will lift you up. You just have to ask and trust.

Peace

Peace. Often we think of peace as that time when there is no war (or fighting in our home). But peace is more than the absence of conflict. In my study Bible, peace is defined as the “profound well-being of soul that flows from the experience of God’s grace.” How beautiful is that!

Peace is something we all want to experience – every day, if possible. Well, princess, it is possible.
Romans 5:1 – “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”Jesus. The way to experience that “profound well-being” is through Jesus. Salvation is our avenue to peace.

And guess what! This peace comes with fringe benefits! Woohoo!
Proverbs 14:30 – “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” See, faith in our Lord Jesus brings peace, which brings life to the body. And this is not only physical life but spiritual life as well. On the other hand, envy or jealousy will bring death. This is death that rots you from the inside out. Bitter, yucky stuff.

So you might be asking yourself, “How do I claim this life after accepting Jesus as my Savior?” Glad you asked!
Proverbs 3:7,8 – “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” Ok, so before you start thinking that following Christ is a weight loss and health thing, let’s get this clear – Jesus will help you in this area if you ask Him, but following Him is not an automatic weight loss key.
“Do not be wise in your own eyes” – don’t think you are all that and a bag of chips. You are a sinner saved by grace just like the rest of us. And you will mess up. You do not have all the answers. Once you realize that, life goes a lot smoother.
“Fear the LORD” – God does not want you scared of Him. Rather, it is a very healthy respect. He has done so much for you that you do not want to do anything to hurt Him.
“Shun evil” – In your innermost being, you know what is right. Don’t do that which is wrong when you know what is right. Stop choosing to sin. Yes, I know – easier said than done.

We all have glimpses of peace. Times in our life when we have it all together. That is usually when the bomb goes off and every thing is scattered. The only thing to do is hold on tight to the Anchor. Don’t let go! Peace will come again. You just have to choose to allow God to line things up so that peace may reign once again.

The Lamp

Psalm 18:28 – “You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.”

Yesterday morning, we were on our way to school. Thanks to daylight savings time, it was still very dark. But it was that time of morning when the sun just begins to come up into the horizon. The time when the sky begins to show color but everything else is still dark. My daughter says, “Look mom. The night is still on the houses and the trees.” My 9 year old was seeing what God sees every day.

In our life, all too often we let the night rest for too long on our heart. We hold grudges, stay mad and get easily frustrated. We don’t want to see the Light that is available to us. We like the dark. We can easily hide in it.

But nothing grows in the dark. Oh, you might have some cooky plant that grows by moonlight but hello! It is moon LIGHT! God is so merciful that He sends us light even in the darkest part of our physical life.

In all of this, you cannot turn on your own light. You can’t make the sun rise. You can’t make the moon shine brighter. And you can’t flick on the switch in your own darkness. I don’t care what anyone will tell you. You must choose to allow God, who created the Light, to turn it on in you. He is the only One with the power.

And it is God who keeps your light going. When you start holding the light and wondering off the path, your light grows dim because only He can make it brighter. It’s like holding an old fashion oil lamp and only the Father can trim it and make it burn brighter.

So today, princess, if your path seems a bit dim, run to the Father and let Him trim your lamp. He wants to make your path as bright as possible.

Answered prayer

Philippians 4:19 – “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
I am excited today. Earlier in the week I cried out to God to help me find some work that would allow me the flexibility to care for my children at a moment’s notice. I am in the health care field and sometimes I am able to find these opportunities. I had been unsuccessful at finding anything significant. Oh, I has tons of offers to work 40 hrs.+ per week. But that wasn’t going to fit in right now.

God has provided 2 opportunities for me! 2! Now, I don’t know how this will all work out, but I do know this – I have a promise that God will supply all of my needs. He knows that we could use some extra income right now. And He is providing.

I get all parts of excited when I see answers to prayer. Not only in my own life but also in others. A little boy at my kids’ school was surprised in chapel yesterday by the return of his dad from Afghanistan. Makes me want to cry just thinking about it.

Don’t doubt it , princess. God is still in the answering prayer business. He wants to supply your every need. You just have to turn it over to Him and let Him do His thing.

I’m not perfect at it. I still want to fix things myself. But He hasn’t given up on me. So, I daily make the choice to surrender to His will.

Keep moving.

Run

Hebrews 12:1 – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

This is my son’s Bible verse to learn at school this week. We were sitting around the dinner table last night going over it and discussing its meaning.

The writer of Hebrews just finished the “Faith chapter.” (You have to say it in your deepest “James Earl Jones” voice.) Don’t get me wrong. The people spoken of in the previous chapter did some amazing things and showed tremendous faith. But they were also just people. People going around living their lives and BAM! God intervenes and does something totally out of left field.

So here we are surrounded by these “great…witnesses” and what are we encouraged to do? Run. Run with all you have. The writer says to “throw off” anything that might keep us from doing our best. You see, he wrote this because he knows that we all have sins and baggage from the past that is going to slow us down.

First of all, the baggage. Forgive and forget. Like Pumba, from the Lion King, says, “You gotta put your behind in the past.” Leave it there. Don’t carry it around and let it drag you down. You can’t go back and fix it anyway!

Next, that “sin”. We all have triggers that the devil is keenly aware of. You know, those buttons we hate for him to push because they get us riled up every time. The writer says don’t get tangled up in them. Don’t fall for the bait. I have to remind my daughter of this a lot. Don’t fall for the bait your brother dangles in front of you that makes you whine!

What I’m trying to say is this, people in the “faith chapter” (did you use the voice?:-) messed up on their walk with God. And God still used them. Don’t think that because you are not perfect that God can’t use you. Throw off all that baggage and don’t fall for the devil’s bait. Run. Run as hard as you can. Run at a steady pace and don’t look back. Run toward the prize – Heaven with Him.

Homecoming day

Lamentations 3:21-26 – “Yet this I call to mind and therefore have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait on him.’ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Today is the 11th anniversary of my Daddy’s homecoming with The Lord.

I will never forget the day that I got the phone call that he was gone. My heart broke. My son turned 3 months old on that very day. I was so sad.

I remember my pastor coming over to console me. I remember him telling me that the sun would still come up in the morning. I wanted to punch him! How could he say that to me?! But looking back, I see he was right. What he was trying to get me to see was God’s mercy and compassion. He was trying to encourage me to keeping moving. I had to – my son was still a baby. He needed his mommy.

I have learned over the last 11 years that grief lingers. I still cry because I miss my daddy. I still have moments when I want to call him and get his advise or tell him about something my kids have done. Time is healing the wound but I will always have a scar.

But – I have hope. I will see my Daddy again – and soon! You see, my Daddy was not perfect, but he was forgiven. He walked with The Lord. And because of that choice he made many, many moons ago, I will get to see him and my children will get to know him. He left a legacy of faithfulness. Not a legacy of perfection. That is was Jesus’s thing.

So on this anniversary, if your Daddy is still around and following The Lord, would you give him a hug for me? Thank him for his example. Hold him just a little longer. And for those of you like me, remember your Daddy today. And thank God for the example that he was in your life.

Hmm….

Hebrews 4:15,16 – “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

If you worked as hard at your job as you do your relationship with Christ, how far would you get in your career?

A serious question to ponder. For most of us, we feel we have to schedule a relationship with Christ into our already full life. But how full is it really? If your like me, “stuff” keeps you busy. Why, just this morning I was having a time trying to find the verse I wanted for this blog post. The devil kept coming up with “one more thing” that I thought I just HAD to do. Guess what? Those things are waiting. I am choosing to be obedient.

But all too often “stuff” gets in the way of our desire to walk closer to our Savior. Jesus understands. Now, does that give us a “get out of jail free” card? Nope. He also knows that we make time for that which is important to us. He wants to be important to us.

He has been there and done that. He knows the struggles we face. He knows those “sins that so easily beset us.”

So make time to develop that relationship. If you have to, schedule into your busy schedule time to read His Word and talk to Him. But, don’t forget to be quiet and listen as well. He has a lot to say if we will hush up!

Go to Him today, princess. And receive the mercy and grace you are in desperate need of. The King is waiting.

A walk through the Garden

Have you ever been to a beautiful, well manicured garden? The kind you might see in a magazine? The plants in those places are amazing!

Now add animals to the mental picture. Animals that don’t bite you or one another.

Add tropical weather. The kind where you feel at the perfect temp all the time – no sweating.

Now put the icing on the cake and have God walking with you through this amazing place.

Wa-la! You have the Garden of Eden. Beautiful, right? All things perfect. All things beautiful. All things peaceful.

So why did Adam and Eve mess it all up? They had a choice. And they chose wrong. See, God didn’t want robot-like people worshipping Him. He wanted their praise out of a willing heart. And when faced with the choice to do what He said or not, they chose wrong. They were just like us – they messed up.

Since this time, people have been trying to get back to the Garden. We work. We fight. We stand up for what we see is right. But all this good will never get us back.

Micah 6:8 – “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Yes, I have used this verse several times in the past. However, it tells exactly how to get back to the Garden. And that’s where we all want to be, right? We want to have that amazing relationship with God. The kind that walks beside Him in the beauty of His creation and discuss everything from the pattern of the leopard’s spots to the forming of the stars.

So princess, on your journey home, don’t forget to walk through the Garden. That is where we learn about the Creator of the Garden and all He has in store for us. Put forth the effort to “walk humbly with your God.”