Overwhelmed by Blessings

Within a very brief conversation with Norman this morning, I became overwhelmed with emotion of the blessings we enjoy-blessings of prosperity, health and family.  I have had many reminders of those blessings in the last few weeks, as I hear stories from others about hardships their family and friends have faced.  A Mother struggling daily to care for her young daughter with cancer, the pain and heartache of realizing your child has a learning disability that went undiagnosed for three years of school and the effects of poverty and illiteracy in a neighboring family are all situations that are very real and personal in my life.

While I am still at a loss to understand why our family is so blessed, I am reminded of the blessing of obedience in Deuteronomy 28:

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today,

The Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.....

The Lord will grant you abundant propserity-in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock

 and the crops of your ground-in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you.

Lord, I am incapable of obedience without the surrendering of myself to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life.  Thank you for your inumerable blessings personally and in my family.  Continue to reveal the areas of my life that I need to surrender in obedience to your transforming power.  Amen   

The Mirror of Intentions

Do not merely listen to the word, and so decieve yourselves.  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  James 1:22-24

Have you ever taken note of how many mirrors are in your house?  And, how we search for something to see our reflection, if there are no mirrors availalbe, car surface, windows, etc.  Why is it important for us to take a look at ourselves from time to time?  What would be the purpose of taking a look at ourselves, seeing something out of place and then doing nothing to correct it? 

As I listened to the Pray-as-you-go devotion this morning, the scripture of Luke 8:21 reminded me that there needs to be an intentionality about obedience to God's word.  As discussed in Mulholland's book, Shaped By the Word, Wesley's third guidline for approaching scripture is with a "single eye, to know the whole will of God, and a fixed resolution to do it.....an inner decision, down in the center of your being, that whatever God speaks into your life you are going to do." 

Not one of us (ladies) would look in a mirror and see lipstick on our teeth and not rub it off-there's an intentionality to using the mirror to correct.

Dear Lord, change my heart so that when I approach your living Word, I can see your direction for my life and intentionally make the corrections that will set me free to live the life that you created me to live.  Amen

What About My Needs?

How can I account for this generation?  The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents, 'We wanted to skip rope, and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk, but you were always to busy'....Opinion polls don't count for much, do they?  The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Matthew 11:16-19 The Message

As I come to this passage this morning, I am challenged to ask myself, "How have I tried to manipulate my relationship with God?"  Many times I have come to Him, expecting, demanding that He "fix" something.  I realize that putting expectations on my relationship with God misses the whole point. 

Reading through Mulholland's book, Shaped by the Word, I am challenged to come to the scripture (His Living Word) as "realizing the text as the matrix of our entrance into relationsip with God, as the context of our opening ourselves to God in loving, responsive yieldedness, and as the environment in which God meets us in vital, transforming relationship and begin the work of speaking us forth to be God's word in the world."

It's not about what I want or think I should be, but what God can be in and through me for the world....yielding myself to His transforming work through His Holy Spirit living in me.

To hear with my heart, to see with my soul
To be guided by a hand I cannot hold
To trust in a way that I cannot see
That's what faith must be

That's What Faith Must Be, Michael Card

Through Different Eyes

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
While I know this verse as well as I know my own name, I've never taken the time to comtemplate the "love" that God has for the world...a love so different that He would sacrifice a life so precious to Him, that of His only Son. As a child of God, I am also called to have that same kind of love for "the world".

But what about 1 John 2:15? Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

It's all a matter of perspective-seeing things through the eyes of God-being able to filter out the evil and see through the filter of the love of God.

Yesterday during prayer time at church, I found God speaking to my heart to pray for protection for Mrs. Ray, the mom of a man in our church, who had been the victim of a robbery in her home twice in the last several months. She is a sweet, soft-spoken, gentle woman-much like her son. As another person and myself prayed for her and for her protection, I was suprised when I started praying for those that had actually committed the crime. Where did that come from? How could I pray for someone who broke into a gentle, kind woman's house?

As I listened to God speaking to my heart this morning through this scripture, He reminded me that the love He was speaking about in John 3:16 is the kind of love that prays for all-even those that break into a sweet, gentle and kind woman's house.

Dear Lord, please help me to continue to see others as You do. Open the eyes of my heart and use Your Holy Spirit to give me the same type of vision of love as You have for "the world". Amen

What's the Plan?

I have a hard time moving forward if I don't have a plan. I'm paralyzed and confused unless I have some sense of how I'm going to accomplish those things that lie ahead. If I'm asked to take on a new challenge, it is imperative that I first get a handle on the purpose and how it fits into the "big picture".

Norman and I had a chance to discuss some future plans on a recent roadtrip this past weekend.  Even though there wasn't specific decisions made, there was agreement on some steps we are going to take to get our personal things in order.  This discussion was precipitated  by the sudden death of his brother, Gene.

As I make this a priority in prayer for our family, I know that God will provide the wisdom and guidance we need as we simplify our lives and use the resources that He has so generously provided.

The scripture presented this morning (http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/) was Romans 8:28-30.  I'm sure many people struggle with the words in this passage (foreknew, predestined, justified and called), but I see it as an awesome plan that God has laid out for his children.

For those God foreknew (My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. Psalm 139:15), he also presdestined (had a plan) to be conformed to the likeness of His son.

How can we be transformed into the likeness of His son without the saving blood of Jesus?(justification).

C.S. Lewis said it best in Mere Christianity-
"Christ says give me ALL.  I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You.  I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill  it.  No half-measures are any good.  I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there.  I want to have the whole tree down.  The moment you put yourself in MY hands, that is what you are in for.  Nothing less, or other, than that.  You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away.  But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. 
Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me,  I will never rest, not let you rest, until you are literaly perfect-until my Father can say without reservations that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me.  This I can do and will do.  But I will not do anything less."

Lord, please help me surrender myself to the plan that you have already laid out so that I will be transformed into your image so that others can see Your glory.Amen

Change of Heart

I've wanted for some time to start my blog, but, this morning has brought such a rich time with my Savior that I feel I must write it all down...and so, today starts my journey into documenting the things that God is teaching me on my journey.

I started my time with Him by listening to the daily posts on http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/. The scripture was from Luke 6:6-11-one of many stories of Jesus in the synagogue with the Pharisees and teachers of the law.

As I listened to the scripture, I was reminded of the things we are taught to believe. I have found it very fascinating to listen to the many essays on the NPR broadcast, This I Believe. Through my own journey of life, I have found that many things that I was taught to believe have been challenged as God continue this transformation process. For example, being raised Baptist, I found that I had to overcome a lot of judgement that was deeply engrained.

I had the same thoughts about the Pharisees and teachers in this passage in Luke. They were taught from a very early age about things that should be done of the Sabbath- "They were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they watched him closely".

While I would like to think that I would be more like Jesus in this passage-looking to do good, no matter what day-I'm afraid that most of much of my life might have been spent as the Pharisees and teachers-looking for reasons to accuse .

I know that God is working to change my heart. He called me several years ago to open the eyes of my heart. With that call has come a deep hunger for his Word. I am in the process of studying Shaped by the Word, by Robert Mulholland. It is a powerful book that calls us to approach the scriptures from a formational standpoint as oppossed to an informational one (another way God is opening my eyes).

As I Googled "Change of Heart", I found this wonderful story about Payne Stewart. I know that God had him on a similar journey as He does with all those who become believers.

"Although Stewart grew up in a Christian home, faith was not the focal point of his life. He was preoccupied--even consumed--with achieving success in the world of professional golf. He accomplished many of his goals. But as time went on, Stewart realized that fame and fortune didn't bring him the fulfillment he was looking for. As a parent, Payne wanted to give his children the solid values he had been raised with. Friends encouraged him to take a deeper look at his own faith.

Major league baseball player Orel Hershiser gave Payne some inspirational books to read.
"Payne and I started reading devotionals together," Tracey remembers. "But before long I noticed that he was much farther along than I was. He'd read the Scripture from the devotional every night before he went to bed. He also began reading the Bible. Nobody tried to talk Payne into what he should believe or how he should live out his faith; he simply set out on his own journey with God. The Scriptures themselves were the most powerful influence on Payne's life."Stewart once said, "I'm not a 'Bible-thumper'--I can't get up there on a rock and tell you what it all means, because I don't know. But I'm learning, and I like what I'm learning."

Tracey explains, "Payne was very much a 'Christian in process,' not someone who felt he had arrived spiritually. He never pretended to have the answers and probably didn't know what some of the questions were. But his faith was genuine, and as he understood the Bible, the issue wasn't about how much faith he had but whether his faith in Christ was real. And everyone close to Payne knew that his faith was real."

My prayer today is that God would continue to change my heart-David said it best in Psalm 51:10-

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

I know that can only come through the work of the Holy Spirit as I continue to surrender myself to that transformation of becoming more like Him each day. Amen