Crown Me Lord, Crown Me!

James 1:12

"Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."

1 Corinthians 9:25

"And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown."

Revelation 3:11

"Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown."

2 Timothy 4:8

"Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing."

Let me tell you, jewelry is something that I understand. I absolutely love beautiful jewelry. I always notice the jewelry that other women are wearing, and I love to wear it myself. I like the real, expensive kind; and the fun, inexpensive kind. I even have jewelry girlfriends. We always make a point of admiring each other's accessories when we see each other. It is all in good fun, no jealousy of any kind involved.

Less than a year ago, I had my wedding ring reset in a sparkling new setting. When I first picked it up, I was almost ashamed by how extravagant it was. But the jeweler promised me that I would get over that feeling quickly. He was right. I did. Here I am, it has not even been a whole year, and I am already planning ways that I can improve my wedding ring. Yes, the same one that I thought was too much jewelry less than a year ago. Talk about a naturally sinful heart. I don't need a better example than that!

Believe me, I don't consider this something to be proud of. Rather, I am pretty embarrassed to admit it. I do at least realize that no matter how much jewelry I have, it will never be enough to satisfy me, if that is what I am trying to get satisfaction out of.

I figured out a while ago that I was unable to be satisfied by anything but the riches of Christ. God was merciful to me in an odd way. He gave me everything I thought would bring me satisfaction relatively early in my life. And I was still desperately striving for something more. That is, until God decided to get my attention. Now, everything but Christ seems pale and shabby.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I still live in the flesh and am plenty influenced by it. But I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. And I don't want nothin' else but Him.

Even though my earthly jewels will ultimately fail to satisfy, I look forward to the jewelry I have waiting for me in heaven. The kind that you wear on your head. The crown kind. I want to do whatever is necessary in this life to ensure that I will have crowns aplenty in the next. I am not kidding. The thought of spending eternity admiring the crowns on the saints around me, and not being delighted with my own, is appalling!

I'll pay the price, I'll endure the trial, I'll take the test, Lord. I see how fleeting it all is down here anyway. I want my jewels laid up in heaven. Lots of them. Really. Put me to work!

Hail to the Chief!

I took an online personality test. I was so shocked by the outcome, that I am going to post my results here.



Apparently I am a Chief personality, along with only about 1.5% of all women, and only about 4% of men. I suppose that makes me special! (Oh, I just love to be special!) Especially in the eyes of an unthinking and unfeeling personality profile program!

I have never thought of myself as a Chief. But I can see that I have very strong convictions. And I am comfortable leading a group. And I am quick to advocate my point of view (but only in a ladylike and genteel way, mind you!) So I suppose it might be right. I guess its just shocking to have someone show you a picture of yourself. Particularly when you didn't expect the given outcome.

By the way, a shout out to Classic Mama for pointing me in the direction of the personality test!

Old Like A Garment

Isaiah 51:6

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
And look on the earth beneath.
For the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth will grow old like a garment
And those who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be abolished."


Psalm 102:25-26

"Of old You laid the foundations of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of you hands.
They will perish, but You will endure;
Yes, they will grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will change them,
And they will be changed."

Hebrews 1:1-12 quotes Psalm 102:25-27

2 Peter 3:10

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

This post is not going to be about the "End Times." There is no doubt that we are currently living in the end times. I can say that with certainty, not because I get carried away with trying to figure out the "signs" and "disasters" that happen. But because we know that Christ was sent to Earth in the "fullness of time." (See Galatians 4:4) Everything after His death IS the end times. But they might go on for another thousand years. I don't think we need to worry about it. That is God's business. What we do need to worry about is living each day we have in this life to the glory of our Father in Heaven. And living it in obedience to His commands.

Rather, this post is intended to counter all of the cultural hysteria we are constantly subjected to on the subject of global warming, from a Christian perspective. Now, I don't really have an opinion about whether global warming is scientific fact, or a big hoax. And if it is occurring, which I am willing to admit that it might be, I don't particularly get passionate about whether it is man made or a naturally occurring cycle of nature. I don't think it matters.

Sure, we should be good stewards of our natural resources. Being wasteful is foolishness. I think all of us should do our part to take care of this planet. But I KNOW that all of our best efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle are going to be pointless in the end. Let me reveal the surprise ending here......(drum roll please)....this earth is going to get old and worn out. And at some point, the time of which only the Father knows, it will be totally destroyed.

I'm sorry if you find that shocking, but it is plain old Biblical truth. Just read those scriptures at the top of the page. The end has been revealed. Earth will grow old like a garment. Picture that old worn out sweatshirt at the back of your closet. The neck is probably stretched out. It might have a few stains, a couple of loose seams. The fabric might be getting a bit thin in places. Then again, considering the affluence that most of us are surrounded by, we might not really have a good idea of what a worn out garment is like.

But God has already told us that our Earth is going to get old and worn out. In Isaiah 34:4 the heavens are described as "being rolled up like a scroll" in the end. We shouldn't be surprised by the deterioration of this planet. But more importantly, we should never live in fear of the future. I think that is what the basis of all this global warming hysteria really is. All of those doomsday predictions are designed to scare us half to death.

There is absolutely no reason that we should let ourselves get carried away by fear over global warming, or any other future disaster for that matter. All of it is completely under God's control. He planned all of it from the very beginning. He is not shocked or dismayed by any of it. All of it is part of His plan, and will ultimately bring about His glory.

How do I know? Because I read the Bible. Take a look at Psalm 46. I am going to quote a few excerpts, but you really should look it up and read the whole Psalm.

Psalm 46: 2-3,7,10

"Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its swelling."

"The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge."

"Be still and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!"

There you have it. Does the part about the mountains being carried into the midst of the sea sound familiar? Sounds an awful lot like some of those scary global warming predictions to me. I'm not saying that those predictions are going to happen, what I am saying is that even if they do, those of us who have been redeemed and called on by name shouldn't be scared about it.

Isaiah 43:1

"But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name;
You are Mine."

Seek My Face

Psalm 27:4

"One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in his temple."

Psalm 27:7-10

"Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When you said, "Seek My face,"
My heart said to You, "Your face, LORD, I will seek."
Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the LORD will take care of me."

This Psalm means so much to me right now, as in this exact moment that I am typing this on my computer. My spirit is feeling so troubled, and has been for about 2 weeks now. There are plenty of reasons for it, I could just take my pick and make this post about any of them, really. But one thing has been weighing on my heart tonight, and I feel like this Psalms addresses it perfectly.

About a year ago, it was as if God did command me to seek His face. I don't mean that He appeared to me or communicated to me in some mysterious or supernatural way. He just grabbed my attention, completely and consumingly. He fueled a desire in my heart to seek Him with passion. And I did. Just like in the Psalm. My heart said, "Your face, LORD, I will seek." And the result of that seeking of God's face has been abundant blessing. I have written in other posts about how I feel like God has poured the Spirit out onto me. I was unprepared for how profound it would be. I feel like a different person, an alien, a strange duck, set apart, lifted above, all those things. And it is awesome. It is amazingly awesome. I don't ever want to lose it or go back to being just another pew sitting, powerless church-goer.

And I know that God will be faithful to me. I know He has not poured Himself out on me just to abandon me and leave me. But I feel like I am about to be tossed to some wolves. I really do feel like I am about to be uprooted and tossed out into the wastelands.

Here's why: we are changing churches. I don't want to. My husband does. And there is no way that we can go to different churches. And he is the one who gets to decide this issue. I'm not open to debate about that. He just is.

He doesn't really want to change churches either. But he has gotten to the point where he doesn't see any other way to deal with the situation. I'm not going to give you the details. That is not what this post is about.

But I have no confidence in the church we are going to start attending. We went there as newlyweds, and I was spiritually starved.

That is why the words in Psalm 27 are so powerful. "Do not hide Your face from me." "Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation."


"Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the LORD will take care of me."

O LORD! Take care of me. I don't want to be forsaken.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

This is not a post about anything spiritual. I just want to tell you that I am scared to death of spiders. I mean, running out of the bathroom naked and screaming, because there is a spider in the bathtub, kind of scared of spiders. This goes way back into my childhood. I lived in an area that was infested with massive spiders. There was no way to keep them out of your house. And they bit. Yes, really. They would bite me while I slept. My parents have pictures to prove it. They also had a nasty habit of hiding in unexpected places. I am not exaggerating.

So today, there is one of those tiny little jumping spiders hanging around my desk. He won't go away, no matter how many times I try to scare him off by thumping my pen near him. He has even jumped up on my arm a few times. If I were predisposed to see "signs from God," everywhere I looked, it would be very tempted to interpret this little spider as some kind of divine message. But I am not. I just think it's odd.

I don't find this kind of spider scary, by the way. Only the big ones, with long legs. The kind that are really quick and horribly ugly. It is making me nervous just to think about them. I stepped on one in my kitchen a few years ago. I couldn't even walk in the kitchen for two days.

Blind Faith

I happen to drive a very large vehicle. I also happen to have a very small garage in which to park my vehicle. I also have a fairly narrow driveway, which further complicates getting that big vehicle inside the small garage. But I do it every single day, most days more than one time.

When we first moved into this house, it was a real challenge. I didn't even think it was possible for me to get the big ole thing in the garage at all. But somebody showed me how to do it, and I believed it could be done. So I started practicing. At first it took several tries to make it into the garage. I would have to pull forward, brake, back up, stop, check my mirrors, pull forward and back up again until I finally got it right.

But over time it really did get easier. I started to notice certain points that I had to get just right, and if I did, then my car would slide almost effortlessly into the garage. Whenever I have friends in the car with me, they are amazed that I can park it so easily. Because it really does seem effortless now. But that is certainly not how it started out. I have white stripes on each side of my car to prove it. (My garage is painted white!)

Last night I got home late, after dark. It was pouring down rain. I could barely see out my windshield. But even in that downpour, I didn't even think about it. I had practiced so many times that I just parked that humongous car in that tiny garage with hardly a thought.

It got me thinking that faith is a lot like that. It seems so hard at first, maybe even impossible. We read the Bible, and through it God tells us to trust Him, believe Him, love Him, have faith in Him. But trusting and having faith can be huge challenges. It takes practice. It takes trusting Him in small things, seeing them through and then trusting Him again in the next instance. And after a while, you find that even in the downpour, even in the blinding, furious storm, you can trust Him. You can do it effortlessly. You hardly even have to think about it. It just comes naturally. Kinda like when I backed that monster sized vehicle through that narrow garage door last night.

Ephesians 3:16-17

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."

Repairer of the Breach

Isaiah 58: 9-12

"Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
You shall cry, and He will say, "Here I am."

If you take away the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
If you extend your soul to the hungry
And satisfy the afflicted soul,
Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
And you darkness shall be as the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually,
And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Those from among you
Shall build the old waste places;
You shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach,
The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In."


I read this passage of scripture last week and it grabbed my attention. I have not been able to get it out of my mind. There are a lot of reasons for that. I don't think I could cover all of the riches in this passage in one post. Well, I could, but then I would have to neglect other things that need taking care of around here!

I have been experiencing a great churning of my heart lately. I don't know how else to describe it. About a year ago I experienced something that I have a hard time describing. The closest I can come, is to compare it to an explosion that happened inside of me. A spiritual explosion. I have been set on fire for God and His Word. I know that this is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit because I know that it is not from within myself. And that all things related to faith are a gift from God, and not of our own doing, or earning.

I have been at a loss as to why this powerful thing has happened to me. Part of the reason is because I don't sense this same thing happening in the people around me. I'm talking about people who are Christians, and love the LORD, and seek Him diligently. I don't see in them what I am experiencing in myself. And that makes me think that God is working this mighty work in my heart for a specific reason.

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe this is how all Christians are supposed to feel all the time. And maybe what I am experiencing is supposed to be the norm for Christians. But if it is supposed to be, I don't think it is. I see so many fellow believers struggling with unbelief, prayerlessness, doubt, dissatisfaction and just plain old lack of interest in things spiritual. I feel like I am the one who is out of the ordinary.

I'll tell you this much. I don't ever want to lose this. It is better than anything else I have ever experienced. I can understand why Christians are able to willingly become martyrs. I can say with conviction that God's lovingkindness is better than life.

So back to the purpose of this post, being the Repairer of the Breach. I suspect that God may be preparing me for some kind of ministry. I haven't been able to confess that to anyone yet. I don't want to get ahead of God. I also don't think that being called to ministry means being called to some kind of flashy, high-profile position. I think that right now I am being faithful by leading two Bible Study groups. I have also been actively pursuing relationships with other godly women. I have also started taking a writing course, which could certainly prove to be something that God uses me to minister through. I just don't know yet.

But I do know this. That nothing can change or shake the plan of the LORD. And I can rest assured that by obeying Him, I am pursuing His plan for my life. What it looks like now and what it looks like five years from now may be drastically different. But He will accomplish what He will accomplish. I don't have to worry about missing some mysterious "signs" or "clues" that God has laid out for me.

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15

"I know that whatever God does,
It shall be forever.
Nothing can be added to it,
And nothing taken from it.
God does it, that men should fear before Him.
That which is has already been,
And what is to be has already been;
And God requires an account of what is past."

So where does that leave me? Well, with a churning heart for one thing. And also with a realization that if God is going to use me, I have a lot of work to do. I feel like I am getting a late start. Why have I wasted so much of my life just flitting from thing to thing? I haven't even read the entire Bible!


But I would love to be called a Repairer of the Breach. What a title.

Bathsheba

I thought I might start explaining a little bit more about why Bathsheba's Children is such a meaningful phrase to me. I will probably expand on the idea even more in the future.

Here it is: I am Bathsheba. And I have had children in sin and I now have children that are "Jedidiah" (beloved of the LORD). No, no, not literally. But figuratively. I never had an extramarital affair with a powerful leader, I never got pregnant with an illegitimate child, and my husband was never killed in an underhanded plot by my lover. And then I never became the wife of one of history's most revered kings. Those things I do not share with Bathsheba.

But here are some things that we do have in common. I have been blessed to be raised knowing how to behave according to God's law. For part of my life, I took that knowledge and completely ignored it, and instead did what felt right to me at the time. I then spent a lot of effort trying to hide those actions from the rest of the world (that would be my friends and family.) You see, like Bathsheba, I had a need to appear one way to the world, even though my behavior was completely different from the image I presented.

Bathsheba certainly had a more compelling motivation for secrecy than I ever did. If my sins were made public, I would not have been drug out in public, stripped naked and then stoned to death. But I would have felt very ashamed. And I know that I would have disappointed people who loved me very much.

I also produced "children" while I was in sin. These children were things like: shame, confusion, fear, duplicity and stress. Not to mention the fruit of my sins: anger, disappointment with myself, guilt, fear of discovery and feelings of worthlessness. If you have read my post entitled Heart of Stone, you may be beginning to understand why my heart was so cold. I had a lot of emotional baggage that I was trying to deny existed. If I let emotion into my heart, I would have had to feel all of those negative feelings along with whatever else. That's why it was much easier to feel very little at all.

But if you will remember the story of Bathsheba, you will remember that her first son with David died as part of God's judgment on David's disobedience. I don't really want to elaborate on that point right now, because I am still mulling over some of the implications of that event. Suffice it to say that God has also removed the "children of my sin" from my life.

It is what happens to Bathsheba next that still leaves me with tears in my eyes every time I think about it.

2 Samuel 12: 24-25

"Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her. So she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. Now the LORD loved him, and He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD."


Here's the thing. David had lots of other wives. Any one of them could have born David's successor to the throne. But they didn't. It was BATHSHEBA that God chose to bless as the mother of the next king over his people, Israel. And it was Solomon that became the greatest, wisest, most blessed king ever to rule over God's people.

GOD DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT!!!!!!

He didn't have to choose to bless Bathsheba that way. But He did. I just cannot get over how amazing that is. She was the least deserving of David's wives. The rest may not have been perfect, but there is not Biblical evidence to suggest that they were as scandalous as Bathsheba. But SHE was the one God chose to bless with Solomon.

God chooses to bless, and greatly use, scandalous sinners like Bathsheba. And he chooses to bless, and greatly use, scandalous sinners like me, and you, too. Do you get how awesome that is?

Why does He do that? Well, one reason is that all of us are scandalous sinners whether we like to admit it or not. Believe me, 5 years ago I would have been highly offended if anyone had suggested that I was Bathsheba (despite all of the evidence that I listed above, I spent a lot of time in serious denial!) And God delights to use the weak, the least, the longest shot. (Gideon, Moses, Esther, Joshua, Matthew and especially Paul are all great examples of this.) When God uses those who are weak, they provide the best reflection of His power and glory.

But I think the biggest reason is just that He loves us so much. Think John 3:16. His love for us is so powerful and effective, that He doesn't just choose to forgive us when we sin. He turns it around and says "Guess what, my little child, watch me show off in the ways I am going to bless you. You haven't even comprehended the amazing blessings that I am waiting to pour out onto you."

Oh yes, He is that good. And oh yes, we are that undeserving.

I am going to save my "Solomon" descriptions for another post. I think that is enough for now. Here's a closing thought:

Philippians 3: 12-14

"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

So be it Lord.

Light in a Dark Place

Esther 2:7

"Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This girl, who was also known as Esther,"

The name Esther, and Hadassah, are translated as "star." I have always preferred the translation, "Light in a Dark Place."

What a great name meaning! It never occurred to me until very recently that my name, Hadassah, could actually be a literal translation of what God had in store for my life. Now, please don't get me wrong. One thing that is neat about stars is that the sky is full of them. They do not shine into darkness by themselves. And I don't think that God has any intention of making me shine by myself. I have been so encouraged lately to find so many women who share the passion that I have for God.

But I do want to be a light in a dark world. Even in the sky that I am placed in right now, surrounded by other lights, I see an awful lot of darkness. It doesn't take much looking around to see it. Off the top of my head right this instant I can think of women I know who are struggling with homosexuality, adultery, eating disorders, substance abuse, depression, abandonment, anger, jealousy, and divorce. And I'm only thinking of the women in my circle who do not know Christ. The Christians I know are struggling with some pretty scary things themselves.

There is a big difference in the two groups though. One group has real hope and the ability to overcome those struggles. The other, well, I hope that they can get help. But really, unless they let God fill up the voids in their lives that those problems are either a result of or the motivation for, chances are that they will end up replacing one problem with another.

That is why it is so important for us to be light in a dark place. There is darkness all around us. If you can't see darkness around you, I would suggest that you either aren't really looking, or that your world is much too small. Light is useless if it does not shine into the darkness.

Matthew 5:14-16

"You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

John 1:4-5

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."

John 3:19-21

"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

John 12:36

"While you have light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light."

Ephesians 5:8-11

"For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them."


Psalm 119:105

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."


Ever since God began to shine His light into the deepest parts of my heart, I don't think it is even possible for me to hide my light from the world. Part of the reason I have been writing this blog is because if I did not have a chance to get this out there, I would be unbearable to be around. I really don't want to talk about anything else besides God and what He is doing in me and for me.

But I realize that most people do not appreciate having God shoved down their throats. I think it is much wiser to be pleasant to be around, and able to engage people on a variety of subjects. The light of the Lord always shines through in every situation. But it is often not because I am talking about it specifically.

For instance, when I was visiting a large city this summer, my husband and I met up with some of his old friends. They are not Christians. After spending several enjoyable hours together, one of them said to me. "I admire your faith, I can tell that you have something real going on inside of you, I think its really neat." Now, we had not talked about anything even remotely religious. Just chit chat. But the light shone through me. I just can't hide it.

Light in A Dark Place. I want my light to keep growing brighter. There is so much darkness around me that needs the light.

Heart of Stone

I have been so anxious to get to my computer all day and get this post up. But it has been one thing after another all morning. So here I am, taking a deep breath, and here we go...

Ezekiel 36:26-27

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them."

Jeremiah 24:7

"Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart."

If you have been reading this blog, you may have perceived that I can be pretty emotional. Well, that has not always been the case. I feel like I really did have a heart of stone for most of my life. It has only been in the past 4 years that I have learned how to really feel things deeply. I like to say that God has been working on giving me a heart of compassion. But really, compassion is just a part of the whole spectrum of emotions God has placed into my heart.

The process of removing my stone heart and replacing it with one of flesh has been pretty painful for me. But I can see very clearly that if I had not been made to go through some painful experiences I would not have accepted the heart that God had in store for me.

My heart of stone was bound up in such a way that I felt very little emotion at all. That was a very safe way to live my life. I didn't let myself get hurt by very much, and I certainly did not plug into the pain of those around me. But because God loved me enough to pour his grace and overwhelming love into my heart, I am a changed person. I feel thing very deeply. In fact, I like to joke that maybe God has given me a little too much compassion. I find tears welling up in my eyes amazingly often when I am having conversations with other women. Sometimes it really hurts to feel so strongly. I suffer when those I love suffer. I even suffer when I hear about people I barely know suffering.

BUT, the most awesome side effect of all this emotion is the way that scripture has become ALIVE when I read it. I no longer can read the account of Hagar and Ishmael without weeping. Abraham's emotional turmoil as he is preparing to sacrifice Isaac is almost more than I can bear. And today, when I read the account in Matthew about Jesus being betrayed by Judas and then being abandoned by his disciples, I could barely see through my tears to read the words on the page. Jesus loves me that much! And I accuse God of not caring! Woe to my foolish human nature. How I wish I could see things as God does.

And then, I will read something in Psalms, and I will want to explode with joy. The love that I now understand makes me want to jump up and touch the clouds above! Sometimes I'm pretty sure that I could reach them, too! That is how real my joy is.

I was thinking about a hymn that I love last night on the way home from the evening Bible study.

"O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise!
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace."

That caught my sentiment exactly. My one little tongue is inadequate to sing the praises of God that flow through my heart. I would need at least a thousand of them to do it justice.

Back to the suffering for a moment. Even that drives me to God for relief. When I see or experience suffering it makes me long for eternity. I know I have expressed that in several posts. I don't know how else to deal with the horrible circumstances that I hear about sometimes. The truth is that man is not created to handle such pain. We were created to glorify God and enjoy eternal fellowship with Him. And because this world is under the curse of sin, it won't happen to us in this earthly existence. But thank the LORD that He loved us enough to create another way to it.

Aside from the personal nature of my new heart, I think that I have begun to see more of what God's heart for us must be like. He looks on our suffering with compassion. He loves us with love so strong that He died on the cross for us. A cold, stony heart cannot begin to comprehend those powerful emotions. But a new heart, one made of flesh, can begin to.

Entreat Me Not to Leave You

This is one of the most beautiful expressions in the Old Testament, in my opinion. You will often hear it read at weddings, and although the original context has nothing to do with a husband and wife, the statement is so lovely, I can understand why it is done.

Ruth 1:15-18

"And she said, "Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods, return after your sister-in-law." But Ruth said:

"Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried.
The LORD do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me."

When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her."

First of all, WHEW!, I could read that and just cry over the beauty of it. What a precious promise to make to another woman, the woman who is in essence, your own mother.

But stepping back from the beauty of it for a moment, I started wondering about the practical reasons why Ruth might feel so strongly about staying with her mother-in-law. Certainly it is possible that Ruth had deep and profound love for Naomi. In fact, I think it is pretty clear that she did feel that way. But perhaps there was more to the story that is not recorded in the Biblical account.

Maybe Ruth came from a family that she did not want to go back to. Maybe they were cruel people. Maybe Ruth and her mother did not get along. Maybe Ruth's father was an overbearing and demeaning man. Perhaps they were very poor and she did not want to become a burdensome mouth for her mother to feed. It could be any number of reasons.

Think for a moment about what a dramatic decision Ruth was making. She was leaving her country of origin, her home where she belonged and had roots. She was leaving all of the comforts of familiarity to travel to a foreign land, where she would not only be a stranger, she would be unprovided for and vulnerable. Women really needed the protection of a husband or a father in that time. And she was not traveling to Bethlehem with any of that assurance. She was risking so much to follow Naomi to a place of uncertainty.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Ruth by suggesting that she had more motive than just love for Naomi. Like I said, that could stand alone as the sole motivation for the decision she made. But there is a part of me that suspects there was more going on in Ruth's life. And I think it is an important thing to consider.

Clearly, God had a perfect and beautiful purpose for bringing Ruth to Bethlehem and ultimately to Boaz. He has a perfect and beautiful purpose for each of His children. But God uses circumstances that we just see as ordinary every day life, or mundane insignificant details, or the way things just "happened" to work out, to bring about His plans for us. It is so tempting to look back at the lives of the people who's stories are recorded in the Old Testament and forget that they were real people just like us. They had all kinds of motivations and circumstances in their lives that God used to bring about His plan, and ultimately, His glory. Things were not happening in their lives by chance or accident. But they probably didn't see it that way as they were living through the day to day details of it.

Maybe Ruth's mother was dead, and her father had remarried a woman who held Ruth in contempt and was jealous of her beauty. That might not seem like a circumstance divinely laid out by God, but it certainly would accomplish His plan. That plan being to get Ruth to Bethlehem, hence to Boaz, and more importantly, into the lineage of Jesus Christ, God's Son.

The point I hope I am making is this:

Everything in our lives is part of God's plan for us. He is totally sovereign over ever single detail. Even the things that make no sense to us, or seem too insignificant to be of any consequence are part of God's plan for our lives.

I can look back at my own life and see decisions that I made, which seemed very small at the time, but resulted in huge changes later on. For instance, I can trace back the way I met my husband to being at a party, and being offended by something a particular woman said, and deciding that I didn't want to be part of her circle of friends. That small thing led to another thing, which led to other things, which ultimately led me to meeting the man that God intended for me to marry. When that first woman left a bad taste in my mouth, the last thing on my mind was that her obnoxious behavior was going to lead me to holy matrimony.

That is why when I look at the story of Ruth, I wonder what else was happening in her life that motivated her to make the decision she did. I don't think it takes anything away from her to consider her story in that light. After all, I believe that she was a very real person, who lived in a real life, and experienced that life just like any other person would. Things were happening to her that she couldn't see the end result of. I'm sure that the exact same thing is happening to me, and to you, right now, today. Don't miss God's hand in your life because it seems mundane. Sometimes His plan is in the mundane, because that is how we experience life. And God has intentionally set out to make Himself known in ways that we can experience! The instances of God appearing personally to someone, or even sending one of His angels to announce His plan are pretty rare when compared to the unknown multitudes of people whose lives He has laid out in intimate detail.

So don't be discouraged! Even when we can't see the end result God can. And believe me, nothing that we can do is going to mess up God's plan. It just doesn't work that way. He is totally in charge all of the time. I don't know about you, but I find that very comforting.

Trees of Righteousness

Just a quickie note. I memorized Isaiah 61:3. I will often make up little songs to help me memorize verses. Silly, but very effective.

"That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."

That is my prayer for my children, that they will grow into trees of righteousness, planted by the LORD, so that He will be glorified. I'm going to pray it over them every day.

I love them so much.

Fountain of Water

John 4:13

"Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

I stumbled onto this verse quite by "accident" this morning. Sometimes when I am prompted to look up a verse during my morning Bible Study time, I get interested in it and keep reading. This can mean that sometimes I take twice as long to finish my study as I should, and I also usually take a few interesting detours along the way. But it's lead to some great discoveries.

I used to think that reading the Bible was boring and I could never understand why people would want to spend much time doing it. It is hard for me to even imagine that now. The only thing that gets me to put the Bible down are the demands of my day to day responsibilities. I feel like I can't get enough of it. I know without doubt that it is the work of the Holy Spirit. I thought the verse from John 4 described it so perfectly.

I feel like I have a fountain of water springing up inside of me. It is the greatest feeling I have ever experienced. I can honestly say that I understand the concept of godly jealousy for the first time. I want everyone around me to be filled with fountains of water just like I am. I can't believe that I lived so much of my life without it! What a sad waste of time! But, all of this has come about in me in God's perfect timing.

Not only that, but I know that I would not have been so happy to drink the living water if I had not run around sipping out of other cups for most of my life. Believe me, I know that all those other drinks just leave you thirsty in the end. God graciously allowed me to chase after all the things I thought I needed, only to find that they were all terribly disappointing once I had them. I am so grateful that I learned this lesson relatively early in my life.

This is the way that I experience the Bible now that I am filled with living water. I kept reading past the verse I quoted at the top all the way until the end of John chapter 4. The last story in that chapter deals with Jesus healing the son of a nobleman. The son was deathly ill, and his father sought Jesus out in another town, in order that his son might be healed.

John 4: 49-53

"The nobleman said to Him, "Sir, come down before my child dies!"
Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives." So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, "Your son lives!"
Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives." And he himself believed, and his whole household."

And then I just started crying. I was just overcome by emotion. Jesus met the physical needs of that man, and he met the spiritual needs of that father and his whole household. God is better to us than we ever deserve. But He loves us so much that He does it anyway.

Ancient of Days

This is a total ripoff of some of Beth Moore's material from Breaking Free (the Bible Study, not the book.) My study groups are in week 4 right now, and one of the things we discussed today was God as the Ancient of Days. There was a sentence in the lesson that was a very minor part of the overall point, but I just loved it.

"He's never had a wink of sleep, and nothing has been hidden from His sight."

Me, I miss more than a wink or two and I am a total disaster. I just do not do well with sleep deprivation. It makes me grumpy and short tempered and predisposed to see the worst in every situation. Thankfully, God is NOT like us.

He created sleep, rest, and periods of restoration for our benefit, because we need them. But He does not. God is in charge all of the time, from everlasting to everlasting. What a wonderful thing. God is not just with me today. He is the Ancient of Days.

This is another point I need to put in my list of things to remind myself when I start struggling with doubt.

That's all for today. I am in serious need of some extra winks.

I'll close with one of the sweetest verses that I have come across to describe true Christian brotherhood and sisterhood. Not because it really has anything to do with the Ancient of Days, but just because I like it so much.

Philippians 4:1

"Therefore, my beloved and longed for brethren, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved."

Praise Him!

Praise him! Praise him! Jesus our blessed redeemer!
Sing, O earth, his wonderful love proclaim!
Hail him! Hail him! highest archangels in glory;
strength and honor give to his holy name!

Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard his children,
in his arms he carries them all day long;
Praise him! Praise him! tell of his excellent greatness;
praise him! praise him! ever in joyful song

Praise the LORD! My evening Bible study has doubled since it started (Beth Moore's Breaking Free.) I'm a little concerned that the new members have missed the first 4 weeks of lessons, but I figure God is sovereign in adding them to our number in His time. I am delighted! This was the group that I thought was going to be small!

Hilarious!

Have you ever gotten really tickled reading something from the Holy Bible? I did last night. I read two passages in Numbers, of all places, that had me laughing all night long. Neither of them were dealing with issues that were particularly funny, but the way they were phrased just tickled me to pieces!

Here is the first. Let me give you the context. (This all comes from Numbers 11.) Moses has lead the people out of Egypt and they are camped in the Wilderness of Paran (wherever that is, forgive me, but the geography of the ancient middle east is beyond me most of the time.) They have already complained about lack of food one time, and so God has provided manna for them to eat. Now, they are desperate to eat some MEAT! As the Bible phrases it they "yielded to intense craving". That sounds kind of like how I feel when there is chocolate in my house! This intense craving caused them to grumble and complain to the extent that they were weeping at the doors of their houses. Hah! I have yet to be that desperate for chocolate, but I should probably hush, because the day may come!

I'll be serious for just a moment. All of this weeping had some serious consequences. The "anger of the LORD was greatly aroused; Moses was also displeased." But it is Moses' response to God that just cracked me up. Maybe it's because I have felt the same way before.

Numbers 11:11-15

"So Moses said to the LORD, "Why have you afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me "Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child" to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying "Give us meat, that we may eat." I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now--if I have found favor in your sight--and do not let me see my wretchedness!"

It is cracking me up all over again just to type it. I can so relate! When my oldest is crying all over me with some ridiculous and impossible request that is completely out of my control to grant, and the baby is screaming bloody murder for some mysterious reason, there have been times when I wanted to say "please kill me here and now." The "if I have found favor in your sight" is just icing on the this-is-too-much-for-any-sane-person cake! (Don't misunderstand me, I love my kiddies, but if you are an honest mom, you have been there too. Or maybe you are just blessed with more well behaved kids than I am!)

It gets even better. Wait until you hear how God responds to their whining.

Numbers 11: 19-20

"You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you,"

That was such an unexpected sentence that it cracked me up all over again! Can't you just picture an angry mom saying the exact same thing! "You want cookies! Fine, you eat every cookie in this jar until your stomach hurts and you never want to see another cookie again! You eat those cookies until your face turns green and you want to puke them all up in the kitchen sink!"

Please, please, all two of you who read this blog, don't report me to the authorities. I have never said or done that to my babies. But I'll admit, there have been moments...

So then the story takes a decidedly unfunny turn. Well, really none of the situation is funny. It's not really funny to grumble and complain against God. But I think you have enough sense to get what I am describing--the humor that sometimes occurs in our every day interactions with God.

Here's the part that is deadly serious.

Numbers 11: 32-34

"And the people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers); and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was aroused against the people, an the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving."

Yup, nothing funny about that part. Point noted, don't go around arousing the wrath of the LORD. Can I just say that I am very thankful to have been born in a generation under the covenant of grace?

Don't Tell My Heart...

...my achy breaky heart. OK, I'm really sorry about that. I really am very sorry for reminding you of that horrible line from that horrible song. If you have no idea what I am referring to, then consider yourself blessed.

But I was thinking about "the heart" earlier this week and that song popped into my head. And in a weird way, the sentiment of the chorus of that song could almost describe the very thing I was thinking about. Bear with me and allow me to quote some of the rest of that song. It's been a really long time since I heard it, so don't hold me to a word for word recitation.

Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
I just don't think he'd understand.
Cause if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
he might blow up and kill this man.

I promise I won't quote that song anymore for the rest of this post! But the general idea of it, that our heart a) doesn't understand things and b) can kill us, or lead us to death, are very serious issues and worth exploring.

I have got what I consider to be a profound and palpable faith. What I mean is that it is the real deal, not just something I toy with, and that you can (at least I hope) see real evidence of it in my day to day life. We did a program at my church about 5 years ago that was designed to pinpoint what our individual spiritual gifts were. My two strongest were faith and discernment. I have no idea what the results of that program would be if I went though it today. I am light years ahead of where I was then as far as my spiritual maturity goes. But I think it was actually pretty accurate in detecting faith as a spiritual gift of mine.

But despite that, I still struggle with some areas of doubt. There are certain issues that constantly come up in my mind and I have to struggle through them every single time. They don't just quietly go away on their own. My faith is ultimately victorious, but still, a struggle is involved. As my spiritual maturity has increased, these doubts and accusations against God have become much rarer, but they still pop up from time to time. When they do pop up, I am able to overcome them, but it takes a conscious effort to do so.

The issue of hell and eternal damnation is the biggest of these doubts. I am not ashamed to admit that, although I acknowledge the reality of hell to be very real, I have a very hard time coming to terms with it. I know exactly what the root of this problem is. I (and I believe, much of humanity) have a very skewed understanding of God's holiness versus man's depravity. Both of those are big issues, and I'm not going to attempt to cover either of them right now.

Rather, I am going to share with you the verses that allow me to be at peace with the issue of hell. You might not struggle with the exact same issue I do, but I am willing to bet most of us have something that causes us to doubt. Something that we have a hard time coming to terms with. I hope that ultimately all of my doubts, which stated bluntly could be called accusations against God, will be completely wiped away. But until then, these are the verses that I call to mind whenever my doubts start worming their way into my mind.

Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths."

Psalm 46:10

"Be still and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!"

Job 11:7-9

"Can you search out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?
They are higher than heaven--what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol--what can you know?
Their measure is longer than the earth
And broader than the sea."

Genesis 15:6

"And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness."

Exodus 33:19

"I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

Exodus 34: 6-7

"And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,"


When those reminders are not enough, and my heart continues to doubt; when I am tempted to lean on my own understanding, and look at reality from my human perspective, instead of leaving things to God and His higher judgement, then I call to mind these two final verses.

Jeremiah 17:9

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked"

Mark 9:24

"Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief."


It is the verse from Jeremiah that usually does the trick. I am reminded that my heart, in other words my emotional human understanding, is deceitful. And oh yes, left to its own devices is indeed desperately wicked.

Once I remind myself of that, I am able to rest in God's sovereignty in all areas of life and eternity.

My New Lenses

2 Corinthians 4:16

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

The Bible is full of references to people being "blind, with scales on their eyes, unable to see." When we become a Christian, we are given the ability to see things that we were, quite literally, blind to before our salvation.

Isaiah 44:18, 20

"They do not know nor understand;
For He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see,
And their hearts, so that they cannot understand."

"He feeds on ashes;
A deceived heart has turned him aside;
And he cannot deliver his soul,
Nor say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?'"

This scripture from Isaiah is referring to a man who cuts down a tree, and with part of the wood he makes an idol. With the rest of the wood he builds a fire and roasts meat. But then he bows down and worships the idol. And he is unable to even see that the idol is a lie, it is made out of the same piece of wood he just used to build a fire. He is figuratively and literally, BLIND.

I like to think of salvation and sanctification this way. When you are saved you receive sight. And with that vision you can see well enough to get along. Your blindness is removed, and the world is made visible to you. But it is still not entirely clear. Some things are fuzzy, you can't quite make them out, maybe you aren't quite sure what you are looking at all the time.

As time goes on, and the process of sanctification progresses, it is like you get prescription contact lenses, and you see the truth, the true reality of life, more clearly than you did before. You see things in light of God's truth, not the lies that the world spins. Gradually, as you study God's word and learn more about Him, the strength of the prescription increases, and the world around you becomes less fuzzy. You start to see details that you missed before. You might see further into the distance than you could previously. OR maybe you begin to look at the things that are very close to you and see them with new clarity.

My contact lenses of sanctification have allowed me to see both the far and near more clearly. I see the things near to me; like my sin, my behavior patterns, my day to day choices and priorities. And if they are in error, I can SEE that I need to change them. That kind of vision has taken hard work. But God has been so gracious to me, allowing me to see it bit by bit, so that I have not been overwhelmed by it.

But it is the long distance sight that has had a really dramatic effect on the way I perceive everything. That is what the verse at the beginning of this post is referring to. I have begun to see eternity. I have started to view everything that happens to me, those around me, and the world at large in light of eternity. I suppose there could be a danger in that. We certainly don't want to stop living our daily lives, or minimize the struggles and pain that we go through in this life. But we have eternity waiting for us. An eternity of celebration, joy, peace, delight, pure love, supreme satisfaction, rejoicing and worshiping. We will never be parted from those we love. There will be no endings, no goodbyes, no separation, no longings or unmet desires. Everything will be better than we are even able to imagine right now!

When I focus on eternity, the problems of today seem less important. The stresses become less threatening. The challenges are already overcome. That potential disaster lurking on the horizon may descend on me, but it won't last! Eternity in heaven will last. "For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

These new contacts I have are pretty amazing. I just pray that they keep getting stronger. I want my vision to grow to the point of crystal clarity.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that thou art--
thou my best thought by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, they presence my light.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
may I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.



Ephesians 4:23

"and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."

Ephesians 5:8

"For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light"

The Holiness of God

I have never read through the entire Bible from cover to cover. I have done tons of Bible Studies, but I have never completely read the Bible. About a year ago I decided that enough was enough and I needed to get to it and get the Bible read. My goal was to have it finished by the end of 2007. I'm not even close. But that is OK, because I have spent many months of 2007 facilitating Bible Studies that were all very edifying. And just being a mom has taken up a lot of my time. But I'm not giving up, I'm still going to get it all read.

By the way, I really think that Christians should spend more time reading the actual Bible, and less time reading books written about the Bible or inspired by the Bible. Those books are usually excellent and can be very helpful. But I have found that the Holy Spirit has blessed my actual reading of scripture much more than my reading of someone else's interpretation of scripture. They are both good, but one is better.

So anyway, in my quest to read the whole Bible, I read through Leviticus the other night. I hope you have read it too. (I was talking about it in a MOPS group yesterday and I got a bunch of blank stares. Oh well! ) Leviticus deals primarily with the ceremonial law that God established during the time of Moses. It is really specific and very weird to an evangelical Christian living in the 21st century. But like all scripture, there are many lessons to be taken from it. Consider these two passages.

Leviticus 8:18-21

"Then he brought the ram as the burnt offering. And Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram, and Moses killed it. Then he sprinkled the blood all around on the altar. And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burned the head, the pieces, and the fat. Then he washed the entrails and the legs in water. And Moses burned the whole ram on the altar. It was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses."

Leviticus 9:12-14

"And he killed the burnt offering; and Aaron's sons presented to him the blood, which he sprinkled all around the altar. Then they presented the burnt offering to him, with its pieces and head, and he burned them on the altar. And he washed the entrails and the legs, and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar."

Eew. Gross. I get queasy when my steak is too rare. While I was reading these passages (and I purposely tried to pick two of the more graphic passages) I just kept thinking about how disgusting I would find all this blood, and gore and cutting up of animal body parts. Really, this was not a grocery store package of meat neatly wrapped in plastic and sitting in a white styrofoam tray, complete with a pad underneath the meat to soak up any offensive looking blood. These were real live animals being slaughtered and cut up.

I imagine that the smell of blood would be overwhelming. They didn't live in a cold place that would naturally dampen down the smell of blood and body parts.

BUT, I bet they had a pretty good understanding of what sin was. They had a very graphic and up close view of the price that had to be paid for sin. Notice, that they would lay their hands on the head of the animal to be killed. It doesn't get any more up close than that. I doubt that they found these animals adorable and cuddly, the way that we sometimes think of animals in our culture, but still, the picture of what was necessary for atonement was very clear.

Blood and death were required in order for the people to approach God. And that blood and death was necessary because God is so holy. I think we lose that sometimes in our modern culture. We tend to focus so much on God's love and His grace, that maybe we don't spend enough time contemplating His holiness. I think both are essential to a clear understanding of God. You can't really appreciate His grace until you begin to comprehend his holiness.

That is why the Old Testament has been so intriguing to me. I feel like I have a good understanding of grace, but I need a better understanding of holiness. I will have to spend some time elaborating on that in another post. My little ones are going to be up soon.

The Best Present Ever

This happened very soon after the message that Paul Kooistra delivered on prayer. (See my post entitled Prayer-it is so cool.) Because I don't believe in coincidences, I feel like this was something that God set in motion to teach me a valuable lesson and to encourage me at the same time.

My husband and I were eating at a Mexican restaurant on a Sunday night. He happened to pick up a copy of one of those free newspapers that sit in wire baskets near the doors of some businesses. It was a weekly publication aimed at college students and it had articles about bands, bars, albums, entertainment, that sort of thing. I don't remember the exact name of it.

Anyway, on the first inside page was a big ad for one of my favorite places to eat. I love the pizza there and so the ad caught my eye. But to my horror, it was an ad for a "Live Girls Gone Wild" taping to be held at that restaurant (which becomes a bar at night.) Just in case you don't know what that is, let me fill you in. Girls Gone Wild (GGW) is a series of soft core porn videos that are sold on late night tv and online. It is mostly footage of very drunk young women pulling up their shirts and exposing themselves to the camera. There are also scenes of scantily clad young women "making out." You get the idea. I have never actually seen a GGW tape, but I have seen commercials for them on tv, and they don't leave much to the imagination. The GGW franchise started out by going to college spring break destinations and taping drunk college students who were in the midst of a party atmosphere and probably thought it was a great prank to flash the camera. What many of them didn't realize was that they were being targeted by professionals bent on exploiting their drunken state and general bad judgment. I'm sure that many of the stars of GGW tapes regretted their actions immensely when they had sobered up and had a chance to think about it. But the damage was already done. And they were now stars of soft core porn that was being aggressively marketed and distributed world wide. There have been many lawsuits resulting from these tapings, but so far the only images that have been successfully challenged are images of girls who were under the age of 18 when they did the flashing, etc...

As time has gone on, GGW has started traveling around the country and throwing parties at which to perform their tapings. I can't imagine why any woman would want to go to one, but many apparently do. And although most of them probably don't intend to take their clothes off, inevitably they start drinking and find themselves very encouraged to participate in all of the "fun." Now, I am not going to act like I think all of these young women are innocent victims. Undoubtedly some of them think that being in a GGW video is great idea, and they seek out the opportunity. Maybe even most of them feel that way. But GGW is also notorious for predatory behavior and they are professionals who have pretty sophisticated means of getting what they want. I'm not going to elaborate on that here. There are plenty of places where you can find more information about that online.

So anyway, you can imagine my shock as I read that a GGW party was set to happen in our town, which has a church on every corner, AND at a restaurant that I happen to eat in very frequently. I was more than disturbed about it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I determined that I needed to do something to keep this from happening, but I wasn't sure how to progress. At first I thought that I should call and email all the women I knew, and get us all stirred up and form some kind of public protest. But my husband did not want me to be publicly involved in anything like that. He thought the idea of the GGW party was disgusting, just like I did. But he did not want me to draw attention to myself over it. And as it happened, most of my good friends were out of town on spring break when I saw the ad for the party. It was set to happen 5 days from the time I first became aware of it.

I was casting about in my head trying to decide what I, one little homemaker, could do to thwart this professional organization from coming and victimizing young women in my town. And then I remembered Dr. Kooistra's message about prayer. And I decided that I would pray about it, because even though I was one small person without much power, God could accomplish anything.

I need to digress a little bit here and explain why this GGW party bothered me so much. Yes, it is a gross thing, and I find it very offensive that young women could be so exploited (by their own choosing), but there was more to it than that. I had been a pretty wild child in college. I wasn't the worst of the bunch, and there were a lot of things that common sense kept me from participating in. I'm pretty sure that I would never have taken my clothes off in front of a camera at a party. But there were many times when I was drunk enough, that if someone had wanted to take advantage of me they certainly could have. God was really merciful in sparing me serious harm as a result of my foolish choices. Plus, I couldn't help thinking that a young woman who went to that party and did take her shirt off might become a Christian at some point. And even though she would be forgiven, she would have to live with the thought that somewhere she was featured in a video, being played over and over again, and leading men into destructive lustful thoughts. I hated the idea that that could happen to any young woman in my town.

So I prayed. I mean, I really prayed hard. I prayed about it all day long, as I went about my normal routine. It was all I could think about. In everything that happened to me during those 5 days, a part of me was lifting this matter up to God. I had faith that God heard my prayers and would do something because of them. I realized that I might not ever know the difference my prayers made, but I trusted that they would make a difference. Even if God kept one woman from attending that party, and I might never know about it, I believed that He would be faithful because of my prayers.

I did do one other thing. I called the restaurant/bar where the party was to be held and asked to speak to the manager. In as polite and considerate a way as I could possibly manage, I asked him to reconsider having the GGW party. I told him that they were a very disreputable organization that engaged in predatory tactics to take advantage of young women. I also told him that if the party did happen, I would be unable to frequent that restaurant anymore, and that I hated to make that decision, because I really did enjoy his pizza. He was very polite in return and sounded almost apologetic about the whole thing. But he said that the owner was the one who wanted to have the party and it was out of his hands.

So I just kept praying. The day before the party was to happen, I got my Bible study ladies to pray with me. We prayed that the GGW bus would have flat tires, that the camera equipment would malfunction, and that all the young women who planned to attend would break out with blotchy rashes all over their bodies. (I have heard a great story about a woman who was saved from committing adultery because that very thing happened to her.)

The morning of the party arrived. I was in a frenzy of prayer. I mean it when I say it was the only thing I could think about. I'm sure my husband thought I was acting pretty strange about this whole thing. I even drove by the location of the party and "threw firey darts of prayer" at it from my car.

Mid afternoon I got a phone call. A friend was calling to tell me that the GGW party was canceled. I couldn't believe it! She said that apparently all of the waitresses had refused to work at the taping. They all threatened to quit rather than take part. I was ecstatic! It was like a hundred Christmas mornings all rolled into one. I felt like God had given me a huge present wrapped in exquisite paper with a huge gold bow on top, and just grinned while I opened it. I dropped to my knees and thanked God with the best words that I could come up with. My daughter thought it was great fun, and knelt beside me repeating words like "magnificent, glorious, gracious, miracle." I had literally never dropped to my knees in gratitude before that moment. But it was such a feeling, I can't even describe it. God had answered my prayer more abundantly than I ever imagined. I knew He would be faithful, but I didn't think He would cancel the whole thing! It was almost too much for me!

In reflection, I have to say that the best part is that I did not arrange a public protest. If I had done that, then I would be able to take credit for the result. But God wanted me to know that HE was the one in charge, and HE brought about the request. He did it in a way that was way better than my plan.

I think God works in ways like that very often. Someone without faith could look at the situation and decide that it was a coincidence, that it just happened to work out that way. But we know better than that. Don't miss God's work on your behalf. He really does do things for us because we pray about them. I will never doubt it again.

I have to add one more thing just so you don't misunderstand what I am trying to say. Two weeks later a dear dear friend called with devastating news and asked me to pray that God would spare her from something very specific. I prayed over it just as hard as I prayed over the situation that I just related to you. But God did not do what I asked. It wasn't His perfect will for that situation. But I was glad I prayed about it anyway.


Romans 11:33-36


"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen."

Let us exalt His name together

Psalm 34:1-4, 8-9, 17-18

"I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the LORD;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.

I sought the LORD, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints!
There is no want to those who fear Him.

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears,
And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a contrite spirit."



Now, all those verses may not seem to go together at first glance. You might wonder how having a broken heart and a contrite spirit work alongside phrases such as "taste and see that the LORD is good" and "His praise shall continually be in my mouth." Well, I have an idea about it that I want to share with you. But just as a caution, please see my post entitled Glory to God.

Here is another section of scripture that I think works to illustrate the point I am going to (try to) make. Let me set the scene for you. This comes from Nehemiah chapter 8. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah both deal with the time when the nation of Israel is moving out of captivity and being allowed to return to the promised land. They are trying to reestablish themselves according to God's law, and also rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. After the wall has been built, Ezra calls all of the people together and reads the Law of Moses to them. Remember that before they went into captivity, their society in general had disregarded God and the Law of Moses and engaged in open idolatry. And they have suffered greatly because of it.

Now here they are, trying to do what is commanded of them. They have successfully rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem through much trial, but it is finally done. They are now going to be taught the Law of Moses. Ezra reads it to them.

Nehemiah 8:8-12

So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, "This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep." For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, "Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." So the Levites quieted all the people, saying, "Be still for the day is holy; do not be grieved." And all the people went their way to eat and drink, to send portions and rejoice greatly, because they understood the words that were declared to them."

Did you get it? I can hardly type I am so excited about this. When the people heard the law they wept! Why? Because they understood the words that were declared to them! When they understood God's perfect Law, they understood their great sin. And when they understood their great sin, they wept and grieved. OH! That we may do the same! See our sin, weep and grieve, and come into agreement with God's opinion of it.

But, thankfully, it doesn't end there. What were they commanded to do? Eat and drink and send portions and REJOICE GREATLY! Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength. That is the good news. It hasn't changed in all these thousands of years. We can rejoice greatly because God was merciful to us and allowed us the opportunity to grieve our sins. If he had not graciously revealed them to us, do you think we would see them to begin with? I know I didn't. Sure, I knew that my actions were not according to God's law, I did grow up in the church after all. But it was not until God confronted me personally with my sins that I was able to genuinely grieve over them. To agree with God about how terrible they really were.

And after the grief, then came the joy. The real pure joy. The first of its kind in my life. Not transitory or conditional. But everlasting joy with no end. That is why a broken heart and a contrite spirit go hand in hand with "let us exalt His name together." Broken hearts healed by grace, and joy forevermore. What else could we possibly want?

Isaiah 55:2

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."

Just One Me

I got a new purse today.

Don't worry, I promise I am going somewhere good with this, just give me a little while to explain. I found a great purse online last week, and it was marked more than half off! Unable to resist such a good deal, I ordered it and have been anxiously awaiting its arrival. It came today at lunch time. I quickly opened the box, removed all of the packaging material and admired my beautiful new purse, all the while congratulating myself on what a steal it was.

Then I saw something sitting in my cubby that got me thinking. My cubby, by the way, is that spot where all of my purses, diaper bags, folders, and kid's backpacks end up when I come into the house. I'm sure you have one too. Unless you are much better organized than I am. In which case, just pretend with me a moment.

Sitting underneath all of the things accumulated in my cubby was a beautiful black leather purse that I have only used one time. Here's the thing; that beautiful black leather purse is a Chanel knockoff that I bought while I was on vacation in NYC this summer. And I hate it. I am too ashamed to carry it. I don't even know why I got it to begin with. I have never in my life wanted a Chanel purse. Even if I could easily afford to buy one, I don't think I would enjoy spending that much money on a bag. I know myself too well. In a few months, I would be tired of it and want something new, no matter how much I had paid for it.

I was excited about it the day I purchased it. But that didn't last very long. On the plane ride home, I saw a group of high-school aged girls all carrying huge "Chanel" purses. It struck me as very vulgar. Then I got home and read an article online about how knockoffs were stealing the intellectual property of someone. Then I "remembered" that knockoffs are in fact illegal and they probably support some underground businesses that I would want nothing to do with. So, suffice it to say, I did not find that "something-for-nothing" deal from Chinatown quite so attractive anymore.

And then it got worse. Suppose someone actually thought it was real. Did I really want anyone to think that I cared about designer labels and status symbols so much that I would spend thousands of dollars on a bag? Um, no.

Don't get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying nice things if you can afford them. And there is nothing wrong with having a lot of money. There are plenty of people in the Bible that God blessed with great material wealth: Abraham, Job and Solomon were all very wealthy men.

But I knew that the purse was a fake. And it made me feel cheap and fake to carry it. So I had to decide which was worse; wasting the purse by not carrying it at all, or carrying it and feeling guilty about it. Great choices.

And it illustrated a point that is very relevant to me right now, and I hope is either relevant to you or will be at some point. I have spent a lot of my life pretending to be someone that I am not. I grew up in the church. For much of my life there were two of me, the churchy me and the real me. The churchy me was the persona that I presented to the world when it suited my purposes. The real me was the person that I really was in my heart. She was not a pretty picture. She was full of things like rebellion, jealousy, bitterness, anger, guilt, shame and hatred. But despite being full of these things, she looked pretty good to most of the world. Upon very close inspection, she would not have fooled a person who knew what the real thing looked like. Much like a fake name-brand purse.

But God loved me too much to let me continue my life as a fake. He knew that when He got to work on my angry rebellious heart, He could transform it. And He has. I can say with conviction that the person I now present to the world is the real me, because there is just one me. That is part of the beauty of being filled by God and His mighty grace. I now have the freedom to be who I really am. It is so much more fun to rest in His approval and love, than to try and dash after those things by pleasing the people around me.

So I am going to carry around the real purse that I bought on sale with great satisfaction and pride. And as it would happen, I found a darling college student who works in the nursery at church who said she would love to have the fake Chanel. Hopefully she doesn't have the baggage that I have to go along with it. Pun intended.

Matthew 23:27-28

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

Psalm 86: 11-13

"Teach me you way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your Truth;
Unite my heart to fear your name.
I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And I will glorify Your name forevermore.
For great is your mercy towards me,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol."

Psalm 130: 3-8

"If You, Lord, should mark my iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You
That You may be feared.

I will wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
And in His word I do hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning--
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the LORD;
For with the LORD there is mercy,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel
From all his iniquities."

Amen.

Blessed are those

Matthew 5:3-12

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted,
Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Whoa. That is a lot to take in. Certainly too much for me to cover in one post. But one part in particular has been running through my head all morning. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

I do hunger and thirst for righteousness, but I haven't always. For most of my life I thought righteous people were boring people. They had no fun, they sat around and followed directions, did exactly as they were told. (And looked down their upturned noses at the rest of us.) They didn't take risks or do anything exciting. Blah, blah, bland, boring, beige people.

Silly me. I had no idea that it was the righteous who were free to enjoy life. But I don't want to get distracted here, that is not what I want to post about.

I remember vividly the first time that I longed for righteousness. I wanted it more than anything I had ever wanted before. And in that same moment I hated my sin with passion. I regretted every sinful thought, action or intent. I hated, hated, hated sin.

It happened right after my oldest child was born. She was premature, born under dramatic circumstances, and in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in a hospital hours away from my home. She was hooked up to all kinds of machines, with wires, needles and tubes going in and out all over her tiny, helpless body. If you have ever had a child hospitalized with life threatening complications, you will understand how I felt. I was terrified, traumatized and numb all at the same time. I couldn't understand why this was happening to me. I never expected it, it had come out of nowhere and turned my entire being upside down.

I will never forget one morning when I was trying my best to get dressed so I could go see my infant daughter in the hospital. It hurt just to move. (You c-section mamas will know what I'm talking about.) But I did not have the luxury of resting. The only way to see my tiny little girl was to get up, get dressed and get to the hospital. I felt so alone. I sat on the edge of my bed and sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness" with tears streaming down my cheeks. Nobody was around to hear it. I sang it just for myself, and for God. I knew the words were true, even though I did not necessarily feel them emotionally at that moment. Feeling and knowing are not always the same thing.

It was in that moment that I hated sin. Please don't misunderstand me. I know that God was not punishing me for my specific sin. God does not do that. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Romans 8:1 "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." But the reason that painful, terrible things happen in life is because our entire world is under the curse of sin. Someday there will be a new heaven and a new earth that exist perfectly without the curse of sin. But until then, we are called to live this life in faith, trusting God and exhibiting His glory to a lost and dying world.

That day I understood for the first time what it means to huger and thirst for righteousness. I was already a Christian, and had been for many years when my daughter was born. But I had never really been confronted personally with the ugliness and suffering that sin produces. (Remember, not my specific sin, but sin in general.) Sure bad things had happened to me in my life, I had felt negative emotions and experienced negative things, but nothing even came close to hurting the way this did. Seeing your child suffer is unlike anything I can describe.

It was the beginning of tremendous spiritual growth for me. It was hard, harder than I even care to think about most of the time. It would be many months before my life began to resemble anything like the normal life of a new mother. And even when my life did settle down, I was forever a different person. I had been changed in many, many ways. One way was my genuine hunger and thirst for righteousness. And let me tell you, I have been filled. To the brim!

Great is they faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with thee;
thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not;
as thou hast been thou forever will be.
Great is thy faithfulness!
Great is they faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see:
all I have needed they hand hath provided--
Great is they faithfulness Lord unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon, and stars in their courses above,
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine and ten thousand beside!

In case you are wondering, my daughter is perfectly healthy now. But even if she were not, God would still be faithful. I mean that.