Daily Archives: March 21, 2012

Confessions of a Christian Wife, Proven Path Ministries

Slowing Down

 

Slow never killed time. It’s the the rushing and racing, the trying to catch up, this is what kills time — ourselves.

Why in the world do we keep wounding ourselves?

Life is not an emergency. 

And this, this is the only way to slow down time:

When I fully enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.

Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.

In this space of time and sphere, I am attentive. I am aware. I am accepting the whole of the moment, weighing it down with me all here.

~Ann Voskamp

I read these words and I breathed deep. This is something I fight often. This feeling of “rushed”. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have heard my husband say, “Nicole, slow down“

I will get myself in a tizzy, my stomach tied in knots, my fingers just wiggling, and my mind racing, as I try to remember what I need to get out the door in order to accomplish all that I feel must be accomplished this particular day. I can’t enjoy the present moment because I can’t get the fear that I will forget something that will be needed to take care of that moment up ahead.

 

 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city,

and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 

Instead, you ought to say,

“If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 

But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

James 4:13-16

 

It should have been a sign to me a long time ago that when my stomach knotted up, and my words became harsh, and my patience became short, and my flesh crawled… that this “rushing” was arrogance, that it was indeed evil. But some how I have always managed to ignore the signs.

Even when I received a clear rebuke, a clear warning, “Nicole, slow down”

I would huff and ignore it and continue in my “rush”

I have no clue how many amazing moments I have completely missed, I have destroyed, I have trampled, I have ran over… in my “rush”. How many times have I wounded little hearts in my, “Not now! I don’t have time!”

God forgive me…

                       How thankful I am for His grace, for His mercy, for His forgiveness…

How thankful I am for their grace,

                                                     for their mercy,

                                                                 for their forgiveness… my little hearts (and my big heart)

How thankful I am that He is willing to say, “Nicole slow down” over and over and over and over again.

Life moves so fast…

Today I just want to slow down and be still and know that He is God.

I don’t have to “rush”… I just need to trust.   

 

 

 

Devotional Studies Through the Bible, Proven Path Ministries

No Other

 

You shall have no other gods before Me. 

Exodus 20:3

 

Commandment number one: You shall have no other gods before me.

In truth if we were to be judged by the Law of God who among us could get past this very first commandment? How thankful I am that Christ stood in my place. What I see in this commandment is that our God never denies that there are other gods. The word gods in the Hebrew is elohiym and it means rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, godlike one. This is also the same word used for the One True God. However these “little g” gods are not omnipotent or omnipresent or omniscient, they are created beings, not creators.

As a matter of fact in John 10:34 Jesus says that we are gods, “Jesus answered them, ‘Has is not been written in your Law, I said, you are gods’?'” Jesus is quoting Psalm 82:6 “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.'” We are gods because we rule over others, we sit as judges over others, and because we are sons of the Most High.

However, we are not GOD.

Nor will we ever become Gods or attain to God-ship through some mystical process of perfecting ourselves.

We are created beings. We have a Creator.

He alone is GOD. 

This is why God declares in Isaiah 2:22, “Stop regarding man, whose breathe of life is in his nostrils; for why should he be so esteemed?”

This is why the Creator God declares, “For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God…” (Deuteronomy 10:17).

We are to place neither man nor any other being before our God. We are not to worship man and we are not to worship any power or supernatural force, no matter how intriguing it may appear. We are not to put our trust in ourselves. We are not to set ourselves up as God. The very desire to do so is what brought upon the fall of all mankind.

 

The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die!

For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened,

and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

Genesis 3:4-5

 

Oh precious ones, we may be created in the image of God but we are not “like” God.

 

To whom will you liken God?

Or what likeness will you compare with Him?

Isaiah 40:18

 

We cannot even fathom the likeness of the glory of our Creator God. He is holy. He is unique like none other. There is none to liken Him or compare Him to. He is God. He is incomprehensible and He will not share His glory with another. He says “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another…” (Isaiah 42:8).

 

So my friend, when we read…

  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,

and we saw His glory,

glory as of the only begotten from the Father,

 full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

 and when we read…

Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life;

no one comes to the Father but through Me.

John 14:6

and when we read…

Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself,

with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

John 17:5 

….what must we know if God has already told us that He will not give His glory to another and we are to have no other gods before Him? There is only one conclusion, for our God does not lie, and He does not contradict Himself in anyway. The one and only conclusion is that Jesus is indeed God.

 

Oh Father,

I worship You. Thank You for taking on flesh and standing in my place for judgment. You knew I had been deceived and You were mindful that I am but flesh. Your love for me is breath taking. I cannot comprehend it no more than I can comprehend all of who You are. You are my God. The God of gods and I desire to honor You and walk faithfully in Your commands. I place no other god before me as I surrender to You in and through Your Son Jesus Christ.

 

My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,

Amen