What if?

Slow down and take time to be with me.

Slow down and stop running. 

Be still. 

Breathe.

Listen.

Rest.

This is what I hear the Father saying today.  He’s been talking to my heart lately about the things I do to refresh myself.  He’s been daring me to find out if spending time with Him could be better than picking up a book or flipping on the television.  I’m being honest here – I’ve spent most of my life finding rest for my soul in a plate of nachos and a good book.  I love the Lord and I love spending time with Him, but I think this may be one more wall in my brain that needs to be torn down.  Early in the morning and last thing at night seem like natural times to seek the Lord, but there are lots of times throughout my day when I turn in other directions for rest and relaxation.  Still…there’s that quiet voice in my heart saying “What if you turned to Me instead?”  What if I found relationship with Him on a whole new level when I let Him into all of my day? 

Abba – my loving Father God, Jesus – most faithful Friend and Lord, Holy Spirit – Comforter and Helper to You I pray. Please help me believe You to be this big in my life!  Please help me trust You to be all I need all day.  Please help me be brave enough to lay down my crutches and really walk with you.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Waiting for "Well Done"

Have you ever found yourself incredibly discouraged by hearing someone else’s success story?  All of the long nights and endless days are reduced to a couple of sentences and it seems as if the hard times really didn’t last very long.  It’s kind of like watching Julia Child.  You see her begin to make a really complex dish and then after the next commercial break, suddenly she is pulling the finished product out of the oven looking picture perfect and saying, “Voila!  Bon appetit!”   We’re all sitting there thinking, “I’d be a chef, too, if it were really that simple.”  The problem with all of this seemingly instant success is that it is incredibly discouraging to those of us living in real time, isn’t it?  We are waiting on some situation that involves people dear to us to be resolved and it seems like it will never happen.  We pray, we cry, and we resolve to leave it in the Lord’s hands and then, bam!  The smoke alarm is going off and we are calling our 911 prayer line again.  That is where I am today - opening the windows to clear the smoke out and getting on my knees again to put this dish back in God’s oven, trusting His timer to be the right one.  As dearly as I would love to already be at the “Voila!” moment, I know the Father is asking me to trust Him for as long as it takes for this dish to receive His “Well done.” 

What I hear the Lord saying today is simply, “Don’t faint.  Don’t let go of my promise.  Keep holding on and trusting that I am holding on to you.”  Hebrews 10:23 puts it this way, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”

Yes, He is!  Keep holding on.  One day, we will have a joyous celebration when all of the works of the Lord are complete, and all the waiting will be worth it! 

Leaping Over Walls

For a while now, I’ve been aware of walls in my thought patterns.  Barriers that only exist in my head and yet, they still keep me from doing things I need to do.  For example, I have a wall in the area of my head where I plan meals, buy groceries and cook.  The reasons for this are mostly fear-based.  I’m afraid I’ll spend too much.  I’m afraid no one will want to eat what I make, including me.  I’m afraid it won’t be healthy enough.  When I hit this wall, I usually sit there and beat myself up for not having licked this thing 20 years ago.  This is one of those places where I need the Lord to step into my everyday life and set me free.  Today, I am choosing to believe that the amazing God who has saved me from my sin is also willing to help me live moment by moment.  Regarding this wall, His answer to me is to step past the fear and just do it.  Make a plan.  Stop sitting there stewing and wishing for perfect.  My family will be blessed if I make them food – period.  It isn’t just fear that makes a wall.  Wishing for perfect is another wall builder for me.  Last night, my ideal was sitting down to dinner together.  Unfortunately schedules didn’t come together and I only had one family member out of four around when it was dinnertime.  I was frustrated and hungry (never a good combo!) and then I realized, my daughter and I could just go ahead and eat.  The rest of the family would eat later and it wasn’t the end of the world.  Again, I heard the Lord saying: Just do what you can.  This may sound really lame and obvious, but for me I’ve felt like each day was an obstacle course.  I thought for a long time it was because of all that I had to do, but now I am beginning to wonder how much has been the mental/emotional baggage I’ve been dragging around as I tried to do what needed to be done perfectly.  Today the Lord is saying to me:  Just do it.  Just do what you can.  And finally:  Just do what I give you peace to do.  How many times do we tie ourselves up in knots doing things that we really aren’t called to, but they sounded like good ideas?  I’m not saying there won’t be times when we are called to do something out of our comfort zone, but if God is saying “Go for it!” we will have peace even as we push ourselves. 

Abba Father, thank you for being so faithful to speak to us right where we are.  Please help us turn to You always, no matter what kind of wall we are up against.  Thank You, Jesus, for being the Good Shepherd who promises to lead us and never leave us! 

John 10:27

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

Psalm 18:28-29

For You will light my lamp;
The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
For by You I can run against a troop,
By my God I can leap over a wall.  

Standing in Grace

This week, I’d like to share with you some verses from Romans, at the end of chapter 4 and on into the beginning of chapter 5 from the paraphrase called The Message.  One of my prayers for this year is to have new eyes.  Looking at these powerful verses through a different pair of lenses has given me a fresh take on the truth they express.  My prayer is that they will bless you, too.

Abraham didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong…sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

There’s a victory being described here that is definitely beyond where I am living currently, but I certainly hope it is where I am headed. 

Abba, please help us stand in Your amazing grace, instead of being willing to crawl through our days under the burden of condemnation, hopelessness and frustration.  Please fill us again with your Holy Spirit, so we can know Your love in all it’s fullness.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Love Songs from God

Yesterday I woke up to the Lord quietly calling me to Himself with a love song.  It was so gentle, I could have easily brushed it aside and gone back to sleep.  I had a choice – dismiss it as random brain waves or receive it as an invitation from the One who loves me most.  Grace enabled me to do the latter and I am so glad!  I guess I’ve always thought, so stupidly, that I have to get myself together to come to Him – as if I ever could get myself together without Him.  Daring to believe that He was calling for me, wooing me to come to Him – Wow!  That’s a game changer.  You see, for the last two days, I’ve been on the run.  Running from what?  I didn’t know until He stopped me.  Then I could see.  I was running from the pain of trying to figure it all out.  When did I decide that was my job?  Here’s what my Abba, my loving Lord, had to say about that: 

Trying to figure it all out will crush you.  That is what keeps most people from embracing Me.  They have decided they have to figure it all out first.  They think they have to completely understand Me with their minds before they are willing to let their hearts trust.  What faith really comes down to is being brave enough to truly look Me in the eye and see that all I have for you is love.  I’ve made provision for your sin to be covered.  I’ve revealed myself as the One who comes with mercy to heal, restore and set free.  My heart says to My creation, “Come on, come on, into My arms.  Give in to Me.” 

John 1:16-18  “From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”

What Got In the Way?

Last week the Lord spoke these words to my heart:  Something comes between us and a shadow falls on your heart, but My great love never leaves you. 

You might have wondered what could have possibly been big enough to block my awareness of the Father’s love.  Sigh.  First, let me just say that sometimes it is really hard to be so open with you.  I wish I could hide myself and just share the distilled truth I believe I’ve been given without showing you the muddy path to the well from which I draw.  Knowing that we all walk those same muddy paths is what keeps me willing to lay down my mask and let you see me as I am.  My dearest hope is that I can help you avoid or climb out of a few of the holes I’ve fallen into. 

What came between me and my awareness of my Abba and His love?  I had shifted my focus from Him to a person.  My thought life was dominated by how this person had disappointed me, let me down, and not been to me what I had hoped they would be.  I was stuck in a place of finding it hard to let go of how I wanted things to be.  I didn’t want to let go of my claim ticket that said “So and so owes me ____________”, only that little blank would go on for a paragraph or two.  Have you ever wandered this barren land?  It is not a happy place.  It is pretty much the opposite of the picture painted by Psalm 23.  This is where we end up when we seek to be our own shepherds, searching desperately for the way to make sure our needs get met by those around us, or even by ourselves.  In the end, there is nothing but darkness and howling emptiness.  The only way out is to let go of our right to demand that someone be what we need.  Now, here is the part where we get to see how wonderful our Abba Father is.  He doesn’t ask us to deny the needs of our hearts.  What He asks is that we will take those needs and trust Him to meet them.  He speaks to our hearts the incredible comfort that we are His sons, and He will provide for us.  We are not orphans that we should cry at the gate for a crust to be thrown our way.  No!  He promises that every need will be met abundantly if we will only trust Him.  With this treasure before us, it is easy to let go of the little rock we’ve been clutching so desperately.  Now we are able to go beyond forgiveness in the traditional sense of “you did this, it was wrong, but I forgive you”.  We are able to look at those responsible for our deepest let-downs and say, “I forgive you for not being who I wanted you to be for me.  I accept you as you are.  I trust my Abba Father to meet all those needs that you either won’t or can’t meet.  You are released from my debt.  I won’t keep trying to shake you down for something you just don’t have.” 

Is this a one-time deal?  No way!  I have to keep choosing where I put my focus.  Is it on the immense awesomeness of my Abba God or have I allowed a tree to block my view of the One Who made every forest?  This is why worship is vital to the life of our souls.  Not because God needs it, but because we need to remember Who rules, and how wonderful He is and always will be.  He is ALL we need.  Amen.

What Am I Really Hungry For?

This past week I’ve been wrestling with the hunger in my heart to be known and loved deeply.  When I say wrestling, I mean most of the week it had me pinned to the mat, crushed under the weight of this huge craving in my soul.  Now, when I talk about hunger and cravings, I know you ladies know what I’m talking about.  Sometimes it’s our stomachs and sometimes it’s our souls, but there are times when we feel as if the canyon inside of us can never be filled.  When I finally sat down and began to write my heart out to the Lord in my journal, I realized on one level, it is true.  I am a broken human who has a cavern of emptiness in me that no amount of mother love, father love, husband love, child love or friend love has ever been able to fill.  The kicker is that I know it is only the divine love of my God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – that can fill up this huge pit.  I know no human can completely meet this need for another.  My cry to the Father was, “Why don’t I know it right now?!”  Here is what I heard my Abba say:  You have known it and you will know it again, but sometimes you lose sight of it.  Something comes between us and a shadow falls on your heart, but My great love never leaves you. 

As I thought about that, I picked up my Bible and ended up turning to Psalm 115.  I was especially blessed by verses 9 through 13. 

O Israel, trust the LORD!
He is your helper and your shield.
O priests, descendants of Aaron, trust the LORD!
He is your helper and your shield.
All you who fear the LORD, trust the LORD!
He is your helper and your shield.

The LORD remembers us and will bless us.
He will bless the people of Israel
and bless the priests, the descendants of Aaron.
He will bless those who fear the LORD,
both great and lowly.

The Lord remembers us and will bless us.  That’s worth writing up and posting on your bathroom mirror.  He is our helper and our shield.  He is the ONE who truly understands us, knows us, and loves us completely and unconditionally.  At our worst, He loves us.  He has promised never to leave us or forsake us, and even better, He has promised to perfect the work He has begun in us.  His love is Enough.  Thank You, Lord!  We bless You and praise You!