>I opened up the mail the other day and I read “Are the stressful events in your life drawing you closer to God?” This was the heading in some mail from Marriage Today with Jimmy and Karen Evans.

I almost laughed out loud.

Hmmmm, do the stressful events in my life draw me closer to God?
Well I suppose if you count me filling up my journal pages with all the the things that I think are wrong with my life and with just life in general and asking God when or if He’s going to do something about it as drawing closer to Him… I would say yes.

However, somehow, I don’t think that what was what the question meant.

As I read further Jimmy Evans went on in the letter to say, “When you’re under stress, the enemy can tempt you to doubt God’s goodness or His motives. Many people think it’s wrong to doubt and are hard on themselves for having doubts about their marriage. Doubt is something God wants to use for your benefit, not make you feel guilty about. He wants to strengthen your faith and show you just how trustworthy He is.”

As I continued skimming through this intriguing piece of mail I read, “Doubt isn’t sin until it causes you to disobey God in unbelief. Doubt and unbelief are not the same thing. Unbelief is what happens in your heart when you don’t bring your doubts before Jesus.
Doubt says, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. It’s so hard to trust God.’
Unbelief says, ‘I won’t do this! There’s no way God can help me.’“

I continued skimming through this mail and then laid it down where I could come back to it… I knew I would need to.

It’s been a stressful time. Life has been hard. My family has been through a lot, not in just the past few days, but the past few years. I know that most likely your family has faced it’s own struggles as well. In these days of struggles. These wilderness years, I have had many moments of doubt, many moments of confusion, many moments of weak flesh, many moments of frustration… but my Redeemer has always seen me through.

I was reminded once again as I listened to the Precept video on Isaiah 53 that I am to count all suffering as all joy. Enduring whatever suffering I am going through for the joy and the hope that is set before me. I was reminded that if I am suffering it is because God is at work in me.

I was reminded that Jesus was not a victim. He willingly subjected Himself to suffering so that God would be glorified, so that I would be saved, so that you would be saved.

I had to ask myself-  “How often do I take on the victim role when suffering comes my way?” I have to admit that when suffering hits I seem to immediately respond as the victim, not the suffering servant that I am called to be in Christ.

>This week has been and will continue to be a week of dumping burdens.

I know what I am supposed to do with these burdens and even though I rest on one day and lay them down at my Saviors feet and cast them upon His strong shoulders… I will catch myself running to them and grabbing them back up and trying to carry them all over again in a spilt second.

When I grab all these up I find my focus scattered.
I find myself unable to even think straight because I am trying to keep account of all my burdens.
In my inability to focus I become unable to hear my family clearly and I can’t find enough quiet in my own head to complete a single thought and then I find myself frustrated and spewing irritability on everyone.

Believe it or not I think I have discovered that these times are what set me into a migraine. It begins with me being dizzy and light headed and unable to focus my eyes and then the dull throbbing begins behind my eye and wraps around my neck and up the back of my head to my forehead.
Yes, I do believe that our attitude physically affects us.

My husband and I just finished having a conversation about attitude and about the fact that we are in complete control of how we choose to respond to certain things. You see I have chosen to respond to some of the things he has said to me this week with hurt and anger and I have chosen to hang on to each instance so that I could let the justification of my irritability build with what I call hard core facts.

>This could be part of my rebellion issue popping up or it could be simply a “pet peeve” or it could be righteous indignation…

There is something in Christendom that makes my neck tighten up.

The ever present, “I don’t care who this offends but I blah, blah, blah”
or the great threat, “Let’s see who really loves Jesus and re posts this” or “forwards this”
or even the “If you care about (fill in the blank) then you’ll re post/forward, etc”

I could be reading the most awesome email and then if I get to the bottom and read one of these it loses all sincerity to me.
I then delete it.

I just don’t feel that I ever need to announce that I don’t care if I offend you because of my convictions. The way that I live out those convictions should declare that in itself.

I also don’t feel I need to prove my love for my Savior by cowering before a post threat… I just don’t see how re-posting or forwarding an email is living out my faith before men. It’s pretty easy to hide behind a computer screen and just press send.

You see that post might have said a really good thing, but if I re-post it because some person demanded me to prove something to them… then I am obeying man and not God. If the post is of God and it moves the Spirit within me, I’ll re-post it because my God led me to, not because my loyalty was threatened by man.

I can forward a thousand and one emails and re-posts every thing I read and still deny my Jesus before men. I can declare on my facebook page how much I love Jesus… but it means nothing if I have not loved Him enough to obey Him or to share His love when face to face with another human being.

Personal interaction was important enough to God that He left the glory of heaven to take on humanity and this flesh in order to share His love with us face to face. God did not have a Written Word face and then have a completely different Human Interaction face. His life lived out His Word.

When we become believers we are sanctified in this Word and we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we too should be fleshing out the Word of God and others should be able to behold His glory in us.

Jesus didn’t have to stand up on a soapbox and shout that He didn’t care who He offended and He didn’t have to threaten anyone to spread His message. He just spoke and did what He did and didn’t change according to where He was at or who was listening.
He simply lived out His Word.

May we too, as His disciples, follow His example and live out His Word.

May we not just be computer christians, blogging believers, facebook faithfuls, email evangelists, or testimony tweeters.

Let us also manifest and magnify the glory of our God and declare His gospel and let us praise His name outside the gates. Let us also, when we are given the opportunity to be face to face, and look another human being in the eye, be bold and confident enough in the truth that we know to share the only Name that eternally saves.

>Last night I ran from massive multiple tornadoes on foot all night long. They were everywhere. Yes, for those that don’t know I do live right in the middle of the April fury. Our home somehow managed to get missed by less than a mile, but the damage was all around us. My husband had been home from work only 3 hours when the first tornado ripped through his work. My dad called as He watched one coming down across the street from his place of work right before they all ran across the street to seek shelter in a basement. We spent the day and night running back and forth across the street to our neighbors basement. 

It was a day that our children will never forget especially since after it happened they went with us to help those who were directly hit. They saw first hand how we can lose everything in mere seconds. I pray that this taught them to not put their treasures or hope in the things of this earth. We used this storm to help teach them this truth. We also used it to teach them that sometimes it takes God allowing these kind of things to happen to wake people up so that they remember that the only thing that lasts is Him. 

I suppose all the thunderstorms that have come through here as of late renewed this day in my mind and so I saw tornadoes and debre flying in the air all night as I ran to seek shelter. The funny thing was in my dream the storms were all around me and trees falling and being ripped up and yet my hair was not even blowing. I was completely protected.

Then would you believe that I wake up this morning to the sound of thunder once again. I go outside to see if the wind and rain is going to blow me out of my sacred spot and I step out the door and just sit on the steps to listen to what was a gently rolling thunder.

Then too close for comfort lightening strikes and this crazy loud crackling thunder explodes and I physically jump up off the steps and my heart is pounding like mad in my chest. I am thinking to myself, “God that is so not funny!” Then I am immediately reminded of the awesomeness of my God and reminded that I need not take Him lightly in anyway. He is God.

Yes, the fear of God put in me in an instance. My mind goes to the mountain in Exodus when God was spoke to the people as a whole and when His voice thundered they all came to Moses and said “you talk to Him and then just tell us what He said…” I have to admit that this morning I sympathized with them… 

After my heart stills I sit back down outside under our breezeway and contemplate whether it is safe to bring my stuff out and then another lightening strike and simultaneous crazy loud crackling thunder explodes and shoots light out of the “off” bulb above my head… yeh, I go in the house.

I now crowd in my kitchen corner (because it is conveniently located next to the coffee pot and I don’t have to stop my study time to refill my cup… just reach over). I am in Isaiah 55 today and then I am directed in my homework to research the times I have seen covenant in my studies these past few weeks. I love studying covenant, because our God is a covenant keeping God.

With my very recent morning experience this one verse spoke volumes and immediately sent me into a song of praise 

>I have made lots of decisions without ever consulting the Lord. Before December 9, 2001 it never even occurred to me to seek God’s advice in anything. The only time I prayed was when I wanted Him to do something for me and it was never to seek His will, just to get me out of this mess the way I thought He should do it. This prayer was usually a time that I would attempt to bargain with God.

You know the classic, “Dear God if you will do this then I will do that… I promise!”  

You see I didn’t know God well enough to seek Him before I made the bad decision that I was now asking Him to fix. Pro-active prayer was not on my mind at all. I just went through life as I wished and expected Him to do what I wanted Him to when I asked Him to do it. Then I would discount His existence and reality when He failed to comply to my demands. 

Wow… yeh… I had alot to learn…
How very thankful I am for the patience of my Creator and Eternal Father.

I wish I could say that after December 9, 2011 I finally got it. Nope. Not!
However, the learning process had finally begun. I finally had stopped and said, “God, I am missing it and I know it. Please teach me!”

Even as a (to the best of my known ability) fully surrendered bond-servant of Christ I have made decisions without consulting God first. How easy it is to think this is what I am going to do and I don’t need to pray about it. Most of the worst ones were in my early times of learning but I catch myself still falling into this trap.

The one that weighs the heaviest on me to this day is the decision to have my tubes tied. Today as I consider this decision I cringe. I had been walking with the Lord faithfully for almost three years when I chose this step, yet I know that I never one time asked God if this is what I should do. I just put my foot down, said it was the plan, and delivered my youngest and had them immediately take me back for the tubal.

You see my first child, was a wonderful precious child, that literally did not sleep for almost three years. When I found myself pregnant with my second, I told God He was crazy and was trying to kill me. Before I even knew who my Bekah would be I shut the door on any future consideration of another child. I basically said, “well God I’ll take care of this myself”

Now 7 years later I would give anything to take back that decision… or simply to know that it was God’s guidance that led me to make it, not this ever present reminder that I never even asked Him what was His will. Now I will never know if He had a son for me, that man-child, to carry my husband’s name to a next generation, or another beautiful girl to melt my heart with her giggles of joy.

I have often prayed that God would just take it upon Himself to reverse my decision, to just throw down His Godly gavel and shout Over-ruled! And heal my womb and bless me with life again… but He hasn’t. But I love Him still. I will bear the indignation of the LORD and keep this as my reminder to pray in all things.

This morning as I was working in my Isaiah Precept homework I read

>I have spent the past week preparing myself to receive the worst news today.
This morning on the way to the hospital, as I was singing songs of praise to my Creator, my Maker, the song by the Sidewalk Prophets, You Can Have Me, came on the radio and as I drove and sang, I prayed.
I was ready.
Or at least I told myself I was.
I was ready to go through whatever God had waiting for me with these tests.
I told Him that I would count it all joy.
I told Him that I would be honored to know the joy of His suffering.
He could have me.
I would go through whatever He needed me to go through to conform me into the image of Christ.
I would go through it with grace and be a testimony of His love in the midst of whatever trials this life brings.
I was geared up and ready to fight for the glory of Christ and the increase of His kingdom. If it takes death working in me to bring eternal life to someone else, God I am ready…
Or at least I believe I think I am…

After the first test, they said there was no reason for the second.
They said this with a smile… so I assume it was good news.
So now I wait for the final word… but it all looks very positive, so many prayers have been answered.
Thank you for yours 🙂

But now… after having geared up for the fight… I feel almost as if God did not count me as worthy to carry this cross.
I know.
How crazy is that? To desire to be able to rejoice in the fact that I was allowed to suffer for His sake…
Well maybe it’s not too crazy.

The truth is death still works in me so that life may work in others. Death works in us every time we have layed down our own wants, desires, and needs for the benefit of another. It’s just that as for me, it doesn’t look like it will be this way at this time. Oh, but I think, maybe, I am a little more confident in my question that if He were to ask for my life, would I freely give it as He gave His…

Have you ever considered an illness in that way?
As a way to bring glory to God, instead of an attack from Satan?
This was my choice in this possibility.
I would count it all joy to be an example of living in dying because I know that to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil 1:21).

Yes, Father of Love You can have me

>This morning are my tests.
I am about 15 minutes from jumping in the shower and getting ready and heading to the hospital to go through another mammogram and then follow the mammogram with an ultrasound.
Possibly in less than 12hrs I will know if this situation is behind me… or if this is just beginning.

It has indeed, as a friend described it, been “a cloud hanging over me.” I know that God is sovereign. I know that He is in control and I know that He already knows what the results of these tests will be, but nevertheless, the fact that I am clueless creates the cloud.

I have been a little scattered this week, more than usual, I am at norm always a little scattered. So it’s been a week with a report like scattered clouds with a chance of approaching storms…

It’s been a strange, at peace but not, kind of week.

I stand in the peace of my God that is mine by the grace of my God through my faith in Jesus Christ… this peace that surpasses all understanding. It’s so great that we don’t have to understand the peace of God to rest in it.

I received a text from my husband this morning that just placed me in perfect peace. He told me that he had prayed over me until he fell asleep, began again when he woke up, and he prayed for me all the way to work, and was praying for me still, and if I needed him I was to call and he would leave work to come and be with me.

There just is nothing like knowing your husband is praying over you. The power of a praying husband brings a peace like no other can, not the pastor, not the Sunday school teacher, not the CBN prayer line…

>I had another crazy sleepless night, part due to some of the loudest crackling thunder I have heard in a while that seemed to last all night (and has as a matter fact rolled back in again) and the other part due to another crazy dreams nights.

Let’s see last night I went to New York with our young singles class for a conference and  somehow got lost and Melanie (one of my students) found me and got me back with the group (what’s funny is that this really happened at Passion in Atlanta one year, Leah thanks again for coming to my rescue!) and then the next thing I know we are in some foreign country repelling down ancient monuments into the depths of the earth and then I am swimming away from ocean crocodiles… and that’s just some it. It seems that every time I woke up to a crackling thunder once I dozed back off I was swept off into a whole new night time adventure. Which could be fun except you wake up feeling as though you never actually went to sleep.

So I crawl out of bed and head to the kitchen to make my beckoning pot of joe and look out my back door to check on my sacred morning spot. Yes, as I feared. The chair is gone, the table is sideways, and all is soaking wet from the blowing rain storm that swept through our breezeway. So I chase down the chair and set everything back up straight and head back into the house for the fresh hot coffee.

These mornings remind me that my time is this spot is precious. I can’t handle the cold… so once winter hits I have to leave this spot and am back in the house.
The thing about being in the house is all the distractions.
When I go out to my sacred spot it’s just me and God as I sit before Him face to face with His Word. When I look up I see only the horizon and living on a mountain I often see His still breeze rustling the tops of the trees.
In the house I look up and see dishes that need washed, dining room table that needs unearthed, coffee table that needs wiped down, because yes we commit the unpardonable family sin of eating in the living room in front of the tv… gasp!
And then there is the jealous dog that won’t stop trying to jump in my lap and if I leave in the kennel he just whines worse than any of my kids ever have… distractions.
So my sacred spot, is sacred to me.

So after the coffee was made I went out with a towel and dried everything off and brought out my poptart and coffee (this is my personal Lord’s Supper, I eat of the bread and drink of the cup as I come together with my Jesus, my Father, and my Holy Spirit).
I open up my Bible and begin reading in Psalm 22 and then Mark 15 and then to Isaiah 53, of course I am crying by the time I get to Mark 15 and well as I finish reading Isaiah 53 I look up and before my eyes is the most glorious storm cloud pattern. It absolutely took my breath away.

So I began to sing Majesty…

Thank you Ryan Wade for singing this song last night, I love having this song on my heart…

So well, those glorious storm clouds blew in another storm which sent me fleeing my sacred spot and back in the house to save my Bible and notebooks and laptop… but oh the few minutes I had in my sacred spot were wonderful! I praise my God and am so thankful that He is not bound by time and I don’t have to be either. There is no time limit on a life of praise. It is in all things, in all places, in all times, for all eternity.

May you spend today singing Majesty… Majesty… Your grace as found me just as I am, empty handed but alive in Your hands…    

>This is an excerpt, a little sneak peak, you might say into the rough draft of the book I am currently working on Devotions From Exodus. I thought I might share it with you. 🙂

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8

I began this devotion on the fourth commandment of our God and had to stop. As I read it I couldn’t get past the obvious fact that as a modern American church this is the one and only commandment we do not seem to practice, to observe, as it is written. 

As I was discussing this thought on the Sabbath commandment online with family and friends one of them pointed out that this is the only commandment that begins with God telling us to “remember” it. I would agree with her that there must be a very good reason for that beginning. This commandment also is the last commandment that addresses our relationship with God specifically.

Do we as the modern western church choose to ignore this commandment? There are christian denominations that choose to observe worship on Saturday instead of Sunday, but is that the same as keeping the sabbath holy?

What does Jesus have to say about the Sabbath?

In John 5:18 we read that “the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He was not only breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” There is something terribly wrong with this picture.

The Jews are saying that Jesus is breaking the Sabbath. We know that this cannot be true, because Jesus kept the Law of God with perfection. We have to look at the context of this verse and find out why the Jews made this accusation. When we look at the context we see they accuse Him of breaking the Sabbath because He healed a man and told the man to pick up his pallet and walk.

Now the Jews tell this newly healed man that he is breaking the Sabbath because it is not permissible for him to carry his pallet on the Sabbath. If we look back at Exodus 20:8-11, I do not read anywhere that God said, “thou shalt not carry thy pallet”. I believe the Jews made this accusation not because Jesus was breaking God’s Sabbath, but because He was breaking the Jews tradition of sabbath. It was for this that they sought all the more to kill Him. A friend of mine pointed out that in this verse we do not see the Jews even consider giving praise to God for this man’s healing, they are only concerned that he is breaking their rules.

In the book of Matthew we read more of Jesus and the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:1-8 we read of the Pharisees accusing the disciples of Christ of breaking the Sabbath because they have picked grains of wheat to eat in their hunger. Jesus then points out to the Pharisees that the priests of the temple do themselves break the Sabbath as they continue to perform their temple work on that holy day. He then tells them that something greater than the temple is here. In Matthew 12:8 Jesus declares “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Then in Matthew 12:9-14 Jesus goes on to heal another man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees then question Him about whether or not it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. If I was Jesus I would probably be rolling my eyes at this point and shaking my head in disbelief at these men, but Jesus simply answers, “What man is there among you has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep!”

These Pharisees, these religious tyrants, had missed the whole point of the Sabbath command. They missed it because their focus was to control men by the Law, not help them. Truth be known they probably did value the sheep over the man because their sheep would make them money which would bring them power and that man would cost them money and they would have to humble themselves in order to serve and help him.

The fourth command is to remember the Sabbath. In Mark 2:27 Jesus tells us that “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The instructions following this fourth commandment concerning the sabbath day in Exodus 20 tells us that we are to remember this day by rest.

So what exactly is Jesus trying to get across to these religious men about their view of the Sabbath? How does what Jesus say to them relate to us today? Are we breaking the Sabbath by worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday?

Let us reason together.

We have to remember what this command says.
It tells us to remember to rest.
To rest in rest?
No, to rest in God.

I don’t know about you but Sunday is not a day of rest for me. However, I don’t really believe it was designed nor intended to be. When we are called to assemble together as the church we are called to serve and be employed, “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10). Sunday is the day we come together as a body of believers to grow in grace and truth. It is the day that we are supposed to spend building each other up. I believe this is separate from the Sabbath, which is to be a day of rest.

We are commanded by God to remember the Sabbath and commanded by Christ to remember Him by the Lord’s Supper, the breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup (Luke 22:19-20).
Remember the Sabbath and remember Me, the Lord of the Sabbath, when you come together by the Lord’s Supper.

Maybe our Lord is saying “Remember by the breaking of this bread and the drinking of this cup that you could not work enough to earn your salvation. Remember that I alone am God, set up no idols of worship in your heart, do not consider my name as useless or ordinary because it is by this name that you are saved. Remember the Sabbath and rest in Me, knowing that in Me you are complete, it is finished.”

I believe that we are called to remember the Sabbath and to come together and worship on Sunday. The Sabbath is for us individually (Mark 2:27) and the Lord’s Supper for us collectively, “Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Corin 10:17).

Also let us notice that the command is not “Remember Saturday and keep it holy”. It is remember the sabbath. The first sabbath is the seventh day. We read of it in the beginning in Genesis.

Have you noticed that in Genesis when God tells us of creation He doesn’t say there was evening and morning, Sunday, then there was evening and morning, Monday, etc? He simply says one day, then the second day… I have to think that also is for a reason, don’t you?

Let’s just for the moment look at the observance of the Sabbath in practicality.
Let us just imagine if we as a church would put away the idols of immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires and greed (Colossians 3:5), would we rest more?
If we put these idols away, what would happen to the round the clock seven days a week work schedule? Would we need to run a business 24/7 if we did not worship the idol of greed. Or try to make money off of those who worship the idol of greed?
Let us even consider the medical field. How much emptier would our hospitals be if we removed all the patients that were their due to stress induced illnesses, from being overworked, or from immoral living?
Let us consider the prisons. How much emptier would they be if we put away the idol of greed and remembered that God was our Creator and Sustainer and Provider?

How many of our families would still be intact if at least one day a week we chose to rest in God. To be still before Him. To not require work from our children or our employees and to do none ourselves. If we just one day a week stopped and looked at all that we have accomplished and was content and said, “you know this is good, very good.” What if just one day every week we just stopped in the midst of all the craziness of life and worshiped our God by casting all our cares on Him and enjoying the abundant blessing of Himself while trusting that He would take care of tomorrow.

I don’t believe it’s that we are to not move on the sabbath or carry our pallet or pick grain in our hunger or heal a man or even to hold a church service on a particular day. I believe it is simply that we are not to strive on this day.

I believe God is saying “I am mindful that you are but flesh, I know the worries of this world that flood your soul, just give Me one day. One day. And I promise if You will stop this one day and remember and fall into my arms, then I promise I will carry you the rest of the week. Just trust Me.”

Just ponder it my friend.
Then look at your own heart and examine yourself.
Are you remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy?
Let us not forget that we are blessed when we rest.

Oh Father,

Thank you for your Sabbath. Thank you for giving us permission to rest. Forgive me Father, for not giving You this time. You are indeed my Creator and You will carry me. Help me to honor You in this way, by willingly allowing You to carry me. Calling on You in my time of need and not wasting my time by striving on my own. My Jesus, I cast my cares on You this day and I come to You, my God, for rest (Matthew 11:28).

My Jesus it is in Your name I pray,
Amen