I am Mary

Last week, I had to prepare a talk about who I was in the Bible.  It was an assignment for my Bible Study class in which I had to pick the person from Scripture I most identified with, in terms of life and ministry.  I asked a few friends for an opinion, but I didn't necessarily relate to the characters they mentioned.  I think that was more of a case how they related to me.  So, I decided I would pray about it.  I thought I should ask Jesus Himself.

Good idea, huh?  Go to the source.

So, I was praying but not much was really coming.  After the experience I had a few weeks ago when I was touched by the love of the Father (which you can read about here), I was praying a couple of days later.  I was listening to music and on my knees, feeling like I was at His feet.  That's when I felt/heard/realized the Holy Spirit spoke:  You are My Mary.

After I was able to get up off the floor, a long time later, as the weight of this download pinned me prostrate, I was able to process.  It was an identity shift, it moved the fabric of my own personal universe.  I've always thought of myself as Martha - I think most women nowadays too.  I've always been proud of that because Martha, despite her obvious misconception about what Jesus would do for her, she made the turn.  In John 11, she is all the way, on board.  She knows He is the Messiah.  She declares her belief in Him, her belief in Him as the Savior in this world and the next.

Now, He's changed my name.

Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, was perhaps the first official female disciple.  It is remarkable because Jesus choosing her in Luke 10:42 gives us a greater understanding of what the Kingdom should look like.  Paul echoes that in Galatians 3:28 when he writes, There is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, in Christ Jesus.  It was completely counter cultural, an upset in the societal order for Jesus to call Mary as a Disciple.  BUT HE DOES.  

It is clear He meant business with her because her role was just as critical to Him personally as well as missionally.  You see, Jesus not only anointed Mary with His authority to minister to others - but He let her minister to Him.  She anointed Him for burial with her dowry, 3/4 pound jar of spikenard oil.  He let her minister to His heart.  He let her care for Him!  Wow.  What a shift for her too, I bet.

I feel both humbled and wholly empowered to do what He is calling me to do, knowing He is with me.  He has put His mark, His stamp on me and will show me the way to accomplish what He wants to do through me.  It's Him and it's Me.  It's a remarkable feeling, a new level of freedom.

In closing, I'll share the opening of my talk, a little imaginative story-telling.  I went on to explain Mary's call and how I relate to her in more detail but I'll have to post that another time.  Just want to leave you with the possibility of what our God can do for you too, as you seek Him and all that He has to give you. 

A long time ago, there was a woman.  She had a sister and a brother, whom she lived with in a small village, not far from the main town in all the land.  They were not rich but they had enough.  One day, a celebrity teacher and his entourage came to their house for a visit.  It was a huge honor to her host and they knew it.  Her sister, the master hostess, began the preparations for a feast for some 20 people.  Even though they were of low to moderate means, her sister knew how to stretch it.  She was an expert on how to create much from little.  Yet, she often wears herself out in the process.

The motley band of the teacher and his buddies were in the main living room.  They were having a great time, telling stories from the road, laughing and teasing each other; and listening to the teacher explain in deeper detail what his plans were.  It was magical and this young woman was pulled into it.  It was not the typical place for a woman to be, as in those days and still today, some people said a woman’s place was in the kitchen.  Truly, that was where her sister would have preferred her to be.  Still, this woman was different.  She would rather been soaking in the presence of this celebrity, this teacher of renown.  She wouldn’t have been pulled away unless by force.

In her heart of hearts, this woman loved the teacher from the start.  There was a special connection to him she could not put a finger on.  It was not necessary physical, as he wasn’t striking or devastatingly handsome, as many popular men even now have to be.  His charisma overpowered her.  It wa his wisdom, his focus that drew her in.  The shape and color of his eyes – the depth of his soul shining from them – it captivated her.  His words made her feel different inside.  She was uncomfortable but not in a bad way.  It was as if some long dead part of her was coming alive, was waking up from sleep as she listened to Him.

It was love that drew her in.  It was a more complete, sacred, holy feeling than she’d ever experienced.  It radiated from him.  He seemed to have a special eye for her too, not just because she wasn’t doing what was expected of her.  She was hungry and he knew it.  More than that, he had the food to feed her.  He admired her.  He saw her devotion and her sweetness.  He saw she cared for him, cared what he had to say – not because she could get something from him, like so many around him.  She wanted what he came to give.  She loved him for who he was, not just what he could do for her.  Their bond was unique and it stood out.

As the woman sat rapt, she did more than listen.  She internalized what he was saying.  She believed him with her whole heart.  The way he talked about his father was so unusual.  The way he talked about their God so unique.  She was completely present in the moment and felt like she could stay comfortable in his presence forever.  In fact, she was so lost in what he was saying, she didn’t notice her sister passive-aggressively berating her to their guest!

She shrank back, fearful of what he will say.  Would he reject her?  Would he send banish her back to the kitchen with her sister?  Would she have to settle for an ordinary life?  After hearing him teach, after sitting so comfortably in his presence…the idea of not being with him, of not being part of what he was doing, was unthinkable. If he told her to, she would go back to the kitchen, but she dreaded it.  She silently prayed to Yahweh to help her to stay where she was.  She wanted what the teacher had and she wanted her life to change.  She wanted freedom and she knew he was the way to it.  He was different than anyone else she’d ever met. 

A word from him would change her whole life.  So she held her breath.  She felt like she was on the teetering edge between life and death.  It all depended on him, on his decision.  He wielded authority like no one else, which is why her sister went to him.  When he walked in the house, he became the head.  He was head of this house, now, too. 

Her future would begin or end with his word.  So, she sat there and awaited her fate……

Help Me With My Half-Belief

I went to a Book of Acts level house-church service last night.  That's the only way I can describe it.  Last week, a dear, sweet sister-friend of mine gave me a couple of books she felt would really speak into me during this season of my life.  She was right-on.  As I read them, I became aware that I needed her and a few others to pray the Father's tender love into me.

(As I texted her this morning - I would have needed that gentle refilling anyway.  I didn't realize how much I was weary in doing good.  The signs were there but my Dad's death showed me with alarming clarity that I was doing so much in my own strength.  The wound was there.  My Dad's passing just made the hole that much larger.)

So, we set it up.  No one really knew, even Sarah and I, what to expect.  When you turn everything over to God, He shows up in totally unexpected and fantastic ways.  It was better than we could have imagined even if we'd tried.  For me personally, I was able to grieve in the comforting arms of my heart family (everyone needs people like this....where you can be totally walls down...it is what Christianity is really all about.)  I entered into the story of Mary and Martha meeting Jesus after Lazarus' death.  I went there with all the pain and anguish of losing my Dad, which I'd not really touched deeply since he passed.  They laid loving hands on me as I cried on their knees.  Sarah anointed my head with pomegranate oil as I washed Jesus' feet with my tears.

Following that (there was so much more to come even though that release would have been enough), I was knocked over by the power of God so I could receive the light and warmth of the re-filling/overfilling of Christ's love for me.

After that (yes, still more), they prayed the heaviness off of me: those burdens I've carried for 3 long weeks (and truly longer).  THEN AFTER THAT (yep, still more), we took communion together.  It was just otherworldly.  I have never experienced the Body and Blood of Christ in a way that literally changed me from the inside out.  Warmth spread over my chest in a physical reflection of His love.  I could breath more freely than I have in weeks (and possibly ever). That feeling has yet to leave me and I pray it never does.  Jesus showed me, in a physical way, His burden is SO MUCH LIGHTER THAN MY OWN. (Matthew 11:27-28).

Then (still going) we laughed and praised and danced and celebrated in the joy of the Lord like total IDIOTS.  My cheeks cramped and my abs are sore today from laughing so hard.  We continued to pray and share until it was finally time to go home.  I fell asleep with the lightness and warmth in my heart and a smile on my face.

I know that's a long story but I share it for one reason: to let you know what is possible with God.  When my friend Cindi and I were driving home, we were discussing her vision.  She (literally) saw angels around the crown molding in the room.  Sarah then, a few minutes later, saw the trumpets the angels held.  They didn't just see it with spiritual sight.  THEY ACTUALLY SAW THEM.

There's a part of our minds that wants to write things like that off, even though you know they are real.  You question what you are seeing and lean into it couldn't be real; you are making it all up inside your head.  Our flesh wants to write it off.  Why? A lot of reasons, but I think mostly because we don't want people to think we are crazy and it doesn't make sense.  The supernatural is hard to process because it is well...not natural.

What do you think would happen, though, if we stopped questioning so much?  Most people I know aren't prone to hallucinations.  They are rational and lucid, so experiencing things like what happened to us last night - can and does happen.  I have to wonder - what if it isn't our faith we have to suspend but rather our skepticism about God and what He will do? 

This is not a new question.  Eric Metaxas recently released an excellent exposition on the miraculous (simply called Miracles.  I highly recommend).  C.S. Lewis explored their possibility in one of his books (also simply titled Miracles, which I'm about to read).  Believing in the supernatural wonders of God is not a new question, but it is the one us Western-educated people seem to struggle with the most.  We find the struggle in Scripture, too, of course.

It's the same question Jesus posed to the father of the possessed boy in Mark 9.  The Complete Jewish Bible translates verse 23 as:  What do you mean, 'if you can'? Everything is possible to someone who has trust!  Eugene Peterson's The Message puts that verse like this: If?  There are no 'ifs' among believers.  Anything can happen!

The father responds with faith - or rather what I would call half-faith. As Cindi and I talked last night, a thought came to me.  It isn't really unbelief or true doubt.  We can't imagine what is possible because we've never seen it.  Even though Scripture tells us to walk by faith and not by sight, we are still very, very visual creatures.  Really I should say sensual; by which I mean we experience this world through our 5 senses.

Yet, God consistently asks us to step out of what we can touch, taste, see, hear and feel.  For those that do, we are rewarded with richer, fuller faith.  He did say those who believe and don't see would be blessed (John 20:29).  The Lord God made us for tangible experiences, even as He is intangible.  So, in faith, or should I say, by faith alone, we are to trust when we step out into blank space, He will catch us by providing the foundation to land on.

It's hard.  I know.  Even seeing what I've seen, it is still hard to come out of my own head.  I want to know what to expect.  I want to know what He is going to do.  That's just not the way He works.  So, it is easier to stay in my lane, expecting nothing or (worse) what has happened before.  This is the Creator we are talking about though.  If no two snowflakes are the same, why would His answers to prayer be the same?

I looked up the Greek word in Mark 9:24 for "unbelief."  A lack of belief isn't completely accurate - it is better to say lack of faithfulness or "want of faith."  The boy's father clearly had enough faith to come to Christ, so for that reason alone, I can say he clearly had some faith. 

Still, his challenge, and the challenge to us, is to believe in God's choice of the way to work, rather than our own understanding or choosing of the way things work (Proverbs 3:4-5).  The Lord set the laws of the universe into motion and, generally speaking, works within that known order.  However, He doesn't have to - or more realistically - our knowledge of the laws that govern our existence are still (even with all the advances and technology) impartial at best.  If anything, our discoveries show us how little we actually do know.  

So, Jesus is asking the father - and us - to stop limiting Him.  Stop expecting to know what He is able to do.  Stop trying to guess how He will work, or worse, tell Him what He should do.  He wants us, as His children, to humbly come, expecting He is going to do something - and it will be better and more complete than what we could dream up.

I close with the boundaries of my limits being pushed.  Here's my version of Mark 9:23: Just come with Me.  Just go with what I am doing.  I can do anything.  Do you believe Me?

And after last night - this is my new response: I believe Lord....help me stop half-believing and fully trust You can and will do abundantly more than I can ask or think or expect.

2015: The Year of Prayer....I've missed a few weeks.

So, it's been awhile since I posted on this year long journey to document my life in prayer.  I just counted back and I guess this is Week 38.  It feels like an ocean of time has passed since the last time I thought to write.  I tried last week Tuesday and it didn't go very well.  I don't even really have the mental fortitude to journal.

The truth is, I hit a wall.  My Dad died.  Prayer was/is about the only thing I could/can really do "well," because the Lord is the most consistent voice in my head.  Every other input is all messed up.  My emotions are all over the place.  I'm either not hungry or starving.  My mind starts to spin on all sorts of weird ideas and there are some nights when sleep completely eludes me.

In short, things are off-kilter in my life.  I feel unbalanced and destabilized.  A good visual here is my desk....it's just a mess.

I can't tell you how grateful I am for the calls, comments, emails, texts, cards, hugs, meals and condolences we've received.  I'm not capable of taking it all in or talking to everyone, but I am so grateful...Please know that.  We have so much to do to help my Mom get organized and the details of death continue to roll along.

The reality is starting to set in.  Friday it hit me hard.  I took some notes in the middle of my anguish (in the middle of the night) and to look at them is painful.  I don't include them because they are too personal and intimate, and would be at the very least, awkward for you.  It is a painful place we are in.  Saturday hit still harder when, in starting to clean out Dad's office, I found a file with my initials on it.  There were a few letters in there, one from in the last five years that starts, "Dad, our pastor encouraged us to write a note to the people in your life that mean the most to you....."

That's as far as I got.

In the middle of this mess is a life still to be cared for.  Something is pushing me through.  It's being a a wife and a mom, even if the person in those roles is a little nutty in certain moments.  It's being a daughter and a sister.  It's being a prayer warrior and friend.  It is who I am to just keep going but I'm pretty dang tired of going. 

We are still being held, kept close to the side of our Shepherd-Father-Comforter.  He is ever-present.

My spirit/soul/mind and body have been craving The Word, so I went and bought myself a couple of Bibles last week (which is crazy because I already have a lot but I figure it's a good investment).  One of them is a One Year Bible and part of this morning's entry, Psalm 77, really encapsulates how I feel.  The Psalms, I believe, were inspired, written and included because the Lord wants us to know He created, understands and gets the range of human emotion.  Bonus for me, this was written by Asaph, my personal favorite Psalm writer (although David is pretty good too.)  I like Asaph because he usually echos my voice as a person and a writer.  Asaph writes what I think.

We have a long way to go but we have a God who specializes in being in it for the long-haul.  Thank you for your prayers, keep them coming.  My Mom, my brother, myself and our families need them now that the dust is settling and the real work of grieving begins.  Love you.  Hug, Friend.

 Psalm 77 - For Jeduthun. Of Asaph.
 I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.  When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.  I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint. Selah.

You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.  I thought about the former days , the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night.  My heart mused and my spirit inquired: "Will the Lord reject forever?  Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful?  Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" Selah.

Then I thought, "To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High."  I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.  I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.  Your ways, O God, are hold.  What god is so great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.

The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed.  The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth.  Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked.  Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.  You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

The Words of God

I have no record of the best artistic piece I've ever created.  It truly was a miracle, primarily because I possibly have a negative amount of hands-on creative ability.  My house looks decently decorated because I can arrange photos and think up ways things look nice together.  But vision and design - and the hardest part - implementation of that vision and design - allude me completely. 

Maybe that's why I liked this little playdoh statue I made so much.  Not only was it actually pretty
good, but it dealt with words, specifically, C.S. Lewis' creative interpretation of how the Lord spoke the universe into being.  We know those first words - LET THERE BE LIGHT - from Genesis.  Lewis, in the Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew presents that "speaking" in a most unique way.  He intimates that Aslan - the God/Christ figure in his Narnian universe - sang creation into being.

In the darkness something was happening at last.  A voice had begun to sing…it seemed to come from all directions at once…Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself.  There were no words.  There was hardly even a tune.  But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard.  It was so beautiful Digory could hardly bear it. (p. 62)

Creation starts not truly with words our ears could hear but in tunes we can feel; tones and notes so beautiful you think you might actual die from the experience of hearing them.  My brilliant clay sculpture was my version this Great Lion singing, with his wide, ferocious mouth forming a "O," that one Sunday night in Bible Study, ten (or more) years ago. 

(This was before the days of smartphones, dear children, so I couldn't document it.  I know it hurts your head to think of the dark, dreadful and seemingly complicated days your parents grew up in, when they didn't have easy access to everything.)

It lives on in my memory and, of course, in my pride.

Perhaps that is why I acquiesced to my mother's wish for a doctor in the family when I chose my major in college: Pre-Med.  Creation, especially the intricate ways the human body works together (99% of the time without us even being aware it is WORKING) is completely fascinating.  It's beautiful, exquisite in it's rhythms.  It is marvelous and majestic that I sit here breathing, thinking and typing.  It ranks as one of the most fantastic miracles of all time.

I'm a little philosophically poetic today, for some reason.  I digress.

The Words of God - and truly the Living Word of God (the Logos...that is Jesus Christ Himself) - are very important in our spiritual development.  Just over a month ago, as I was reading the first chapter of John, when the Lord bubbled something up in my spirit about the words He speaks into our lives.  All of these words come from THE WORD, meaning Christ, via His Spirit. 

Parenthetically - it is important to note all words we receive, from natural or supernatural sources, should actively be held up against the light of Truth - the full context of the Bible - as well as experience and feeling.  Sometimes that's obvious and sometimes it requires playing hide and seek for awhile until you get the confirmation.  Either way, that's fundamental Christian living - the balance of biblical knowledge and spiritual experience. We are people of Spirit and Truth, after all.

Back to beginning of August - I'm reading about Christ as The Logos and I get an idea we should be asking more regularly for God to speak - and speak specifically - in a word we can understand.  It's not a foreign idea, I've been asking for rhema words of knowledge and wisdom for awhile, but this was the first time the idea of these words having a category came to me.

Picture an org chart: Jesus is at the top as the Ultimate and Final Revealed Word of God but underneath Him are 3 subsets of words we can be asking Him for: creation, incarnate and resurrection words.

When I prayed on this idea (and you pray on it too, again, confirmation is key) the thoughts started to percolate some more.

Creation Words are those words God speaks into you/your life that create something out of nothing.  For instance, where a calling did not exist in your mind/heart/life before, suddenly it is there.  Or maybe where there were no funds in the bank, you receive an unexpected check in the mail.  Even more dramatically, where there no baby in your womb yesterday, now you are pregnant.

Creation words bring beauty and hope.  They spring up from nothing, just as our universe sprang up from the mouth of God all those millennium ago.  Where there were was no light, dirt, rivers, mountains, birds, mosquitoes, bananas or even people before, now there is.  Cool, huh? 

Incarnation Words are those words that help us know more about Jesus - Who He is and what He does.  We find a lot of these words in Scripture, but I believe He can give us more.  You could probably describe your best friend in 3 words but would that encompass all he or she really is? 

Incarnation words also tell us who we are in Christ.  They reveal more of Him and as a result, more of our identity and ability as Christians.  They are words we are to lean into when we start to slip or get confused or even as the enemy tries to trick us into believing lies.  They are words we can stake our faith on, and in fact, as in the case of Philippians 2:6-11, they are doctrinal.  Stay with me....

(Finally, of course) Resurrection Words are those words of desperate hope, faith and peace only Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, can speak.  These are words that bring dead dreams, emotions, situations and, yes, even people back to life.  God alone has the final word on everything, so it stands to reason, if He wants something living that is dead - He can and will do it.  The Resurrection of Jesus is what gives our faith credibility and power.  If it didn't happen, our faith is smoke.  BUT IT DID HAPPEN!!!  As a result, we can count on things coming back from the brink of death and beyond, when that meets His plan and purposes.

These are words we can't speak ourselves.  We don't have the capacity in our humanity.  It is only the divinity given to us by faith that makes these kinds of words possible - even desirable - to us.  They move us forward and bring light into our darkness - just as the WORD's First Word brought light into the void. 

I see there are other categories of words I haven't touched on (or experienced yet).  Another I thought of while typing: Salvation Words.  Those are words that save what is lost, make the broken whole and complete.  These are the words that bring wayward children home, rescue us from our slimy pits and put a fine robe on us so we can go to the party hand in hand with our loving Father.  I definitely think that ties into the Person of Christ - into Incarnation - because Jesus' name means The Lord Saves....to the utmost.  His life and death prove it. 

I don't know what kind of word or words you need spoken, prayed or even sung into your soul today, but I pray you get them.  I pray He changes you with these words, by the power of His Word, in Spirit and (of course) in truth.  He delights to give them.  I think He is talking constantly and we are the ones who have to slow down, turn down the volume of our thoughts enough to hear Him.

He is there for the having and these words are here for the taking.  I hope you don't pass them up!

2015: The Year of Prayer - Week 27

Have you ever read something in Scripture, but never fully, truly believed it?

Have you ever, for years, wished for something to be true but it never rang that way inside your soul?

Have you ever looked in the mirror, knowing God loves you but never deep down, felt it?

Yeah, me too.

Nothing about praying a lot or leading people in prayer or knowing the Bible really well or consistently hearing from the Lord or having a deep well of hope, purpose and meaning completely erased this nagging sense of doubt in my mind and heart.  When I would read the verses about being dearly loved, treasured, purified, whole, beautiful in the Bible, I didn't completely accept it for myself.  I'm being as blatantly honest as I can.  I've been journaling for weeks now about how I knew the Lord wanted to rid me of these deep-seated insecurities.  It's been a good 4 months of full consciousness of this nonsense (for I've known it was nonsense for the last 11 years since I came back to Christ).  But still, my thoughts about myself never quite matched God's thoughts about me.

It wasn't just that, though, either.  My thoughts about who I was never quite lined up with anyone else's thoughts either.  That's why I have always been uncomfortable when people compliment me -  on anything.  I am literally struck dumb and my response comes out feeling painfully awkward and inadequate.

That's the word - inadequate.  For most of my life, on and off, I have felt I'm in no way up to the task - whatever that task is.  That's spilled over into my perception of my physical self too.  (I know I've written about this before, even last week.  See, it's been on my mind for a long, long, long time).  Culture grossly inflates the idea that you aren't good enough and then add in the efforts of the enemy to steal, kill and destroy....well, I just didn't believe what others said.

I've had moments of fleeting freedom.  Multiple times, I set my face like a flint against this insecurity but it never lasted more than a few days.  I knew the end of it was coming, though.  I've witnessed and participated in too many miraculous works of God lately to think He wasn't going to set me free from this.  I just had to wait on the right time, when everything was lined up in His order. In our Wednesday night regular prayer meeting, it was.  

It didn't start that way, for the first 45 minutes, I was leading the prayers.  But it ended with me on the floor being prayed over...and stuff getting prayed out.  It was a most holy and interesting experience.  I'm tempted to get on my face now, I am still so humbled by it.  Thanks to the gifted and Holy Spirit-led ministrations of 9 friends family members, all that insecurity, all that inadequate feeling was removed from my soul and body.  I didn't thrash around, I never lost control of my mental facilities - I was a willing and able participant.  I contributed to the process because I knew it was time for all this double-mindedness to go.

For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind...For being as he is a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), he is unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything he thinks, feels, decides.

The Apostle James wrote that in the first part of his letter (James 1:6,8).  It describes who I was when I thought about myself.  40 years of hesitating, dubious, uncertain thinking about agreeing with God about me was healed.  It was really a miracle hour for me, a long time in coming.  Even (and especially) church leaders need to be prayed for and poured into.

This is not the end of the story - I still have to walk this truth out.  I have to stand firm against the wiles, tricks, illusions, imaginations of the enemy, the influence of the world and even when my own negative self talk rears its ugly head.  I have to remember to walk down a brand-new neurological path.  I can't go on auto-pilot down the same-old worn trail of self-doubt.  I have to remember the word the Lord left with me after that intense session was "Today you will be with Me in paradise."  The real truth of it is, I'm already there but not yet completely.  It's the now-not yet principle of eternal life in Christ.

(Read what I have to say about that idea here.)

The difference now verses before prayer on Wednesday is: the hole that was filled with insecurity and doubt is now filled with truth and faith.  I am secure in Him and I believe it.  I am not perfect and I am indeed more dependent on Him than ever.  But real freedom comes from dependence and obedience.  I can actually point to the area of my body where all those ugly feelings and thoughts were housed and know that place is now cleansed and cleared.

It really was a miracle.  That's the currency God deals in if you let Him.  He doesn't want His children to suffer, especially under the weight of any other yoke than His.  Every burden we would put on our own shoulders (or others have put on us) is too heavy.  Ella says that now when she tries to pick up a basket or bag.  She tries, puts it back down and looks at me.  She says, "Too heavy Mama."

We need to look at our Heavenly Father and say the same.  

I finally put this burden down.  I know and believe the truth of who I am....and when you know the Truth, you are free indeed.

#PrayforCharleston

I was at a prayer meeting last night.  When I read about what happened in Charleston, a chill went down my spine.  It was happening at the same time 12 of us were praying in the Upper Room at Chapelwood.

I'm not a harbinger of doom, as I don't believe in putting that out there.  I don't know if these are "the birth pangs" before the tribulation or just a terrible, random, act of a man possessed by something evil - himself or otherwise.

But as my friend Cherri and I prayed together and she told me about her connection to the church in Charleston (where she lived for 4 years) - it hit me: what is going on in our church, city and nation is going to continue to meet resistance and it might escalate.  The Revival that is taking place - and has been building for some years - will not go unchallenged.

My heart aches for this church and the families who lost loved ones in such a grisly manner.  My heart aches because they were my family too.  We are blood relations because we shared the Blood of Christ (a mystery of our faith).  Yet, I rejoice in the fact they are home now.  They are now safe, wrapped in white robes and crowned with righteousness.  It is another, difficult mystery of our faith - to be so sad, yet able to not be in despair when we look (any type of) death in the face.  Because I share the same faith and hope they did, there is no longer a sting to death, even if it hurts very much.

I don't know how Body of Christ in Charleston will come back from this but I predict it will be spectacular.  Everything I'm hearing coming out by the public officials and speakers is centered on rebuilding in love.  They will know we are Christians by our love - even especially our love for our enemies.  In the coming weeks, months and years, I pray the Lord will take this event and make it so people will focus on the truth of the Gospel, what they have in common, not what they don't.  Forgiveness makes a way where nothing else will, so I ask the Lord to guide that city and His Church down the narrow road, the more excellent way so His glory will be shown through His people in ridiculously miraculous ways.

I pray for that young man.  I pray he is caught and I also pray for mercy.  He will face the consequences of his actions because the Lord has instituted authority on this earth and there is music to be faced.  But I pray for the Lord to help him, for his soul to be saved and his life to be one of transformation.  I pray those affected by his violence will forgive him.  I pray those heaping coals will drive him to his face before Holy God and he will find salvation and peace.

I also pray this will embolden Christians everywhere across the nation to stand up IN LOVE.  I pray this will galvanize the Body of Christ to preach, teach, baptize, heal, exorcise and serve just as Jesus did.  I pray we will see the need to take our calling, our mission seriously and GET TO IT.  Time is of the essence, whether Jesus comes back in our lifetime or not.

There are no easy answers here.  I do not claim to have any.

But I know the weapons of our warfare.  They are: 

• love
• truth
• joy
• hope
• peace
• patience
• kindness
• goodness
• gentleness
• faithfulness
• self-control
• mercy
• graciousness
• life-giving speech
• forgiveness
• trust
• prayer
• praise
• worship
• service
• giving
• witness
• testimony

We need everybody.  We have room for everybody.  Everyone is called and will be equipped for their part in what the Lord is doing right now.

Pray for Charleston.  Pray for the Body of Christ.  Pray for your neighbor.  Pray.  Hosanna in the Highest - MARANATHA, COME QUICKLY LORD!

Write this to Smyrna, to the Angel of the church. The Beginning and Ending, the First and Final One, the Once Dead and Then Come Alive, speaks:  

I can see your pain and poverty—constant pain, dire poverty—but I also see your wealth. And I hear the lie in the claims of those who pretend to be good Jews, who in fact belong to Satan’s crowd. Fear nothing in the things you’re about to suffer—but stay on guard! Fear nothing! The Devil is about to throw you in jail for a time of testing—ten days. It won’t last forever.  Don’t quit, even if it costs you your life. Stay there believing. I have a Life-Crown sized and ready for you. Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. Christ-conquerors are safe from Devil-death. (Revelation 2:8-11, MSG)

God appeared to Solomon that very night and said,  

I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship. If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health. From now on I’m alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. Believe me, I’ve chosen and sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always. (2 Chron 7:12-16, MSG)

2015: The Year of Prayer - Week 2

This last week has been interesting, to say the least.

A lot has happened, but when doesn't it?  I can't recount everything, I'm not a great journal-keeper (yet) per say.  But a lot of stuff has come up.  That's not unusual when seeking to grow closer to the Lord.  Truly, the last thing the enemy wants is for us to go deeper in God.  He wants to STEAL. He want to KILL. He wants to DESTROY.

But if he can't do that, his favorite weapons are to make you sick, busy and tired.

I've been all three for the last 7 days.  As a result, this week 2 has been a s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e.  Not that I haven't had victories, but they have come at a cost to my physical and mental operation.  I haven't slacked on prayer, but the scope of my prayers has been much more narrow than normal.

On top of that, the Lord chooses this last week to repeatedly tell me, through trusted sources, I am in danger of my priorities going askew, if they have not already.

Y'all - I'm a stay at home Mom.  Other than Christ, the first people I need to minister to are my husband and children.  Everything else is icing on the cake and, praise God, the icing is THICK. I've got lots of irons in the fire.  But a week of being sick has shown me just how much I prefer the icing over the cake.  I've been VERY frustrated with all the people and creatures in my house.  That's not new, I was once "Angry Mommy," but the last (nearly) 7 years have cleared a lot of that out.  I am not who I was but you could say this week I have been "VERY easily slighted."

When Mama ain't happy, ain't no body happy.  So, I'll just be straight with you - no one has been very happy in my house this last week.

I knew what the source of all this frustration and irritation - as well as sickness - was from: something was clogging the channel of me and God.  Theologically speaking, that's called sin. The only way to deal with sin and clear the air is to confess. I confessed A LOT.  But no matter how I tried, I could not pray it off.  I was trying so hard to love the folks inside these four walls like I knew I could (and do).

It has just been so much easier to love those who don't live here!

When your heart is jack-knifed on the freeway of communication, you need outside help...spiritual/emotional/mental Jaws of Life, if you will.  That's why this faith is communal.  We are meant to be in relationship with each other as well as God. We need each other to breakthrough the muck and the mire, clogging our relationship pipes. And sometimes, it takes a complete stranger.

Enter in the man from Uganda.  His name is Dr. Dennis Sempebwa and he spoke Saturday at First Presbyterian Church in the Museum District.  You can read more about his ministry here.  He is totally legit, with all the credentials needed to convince a worldly person he knows what he is doing, but all the surrender to the Holy Spirit needed to really minister in power.

I went with a couple of close friends, one who'd already heard him speak in November.  We prayed, worshiped and Dr. Dennis spoke for a few minutes to tee up what he did next.  He simply started to call people up and pray over them. I waited as long as I could before going up but I was jumping out of my skin. I knew this was my opportunity.

A great prophetic word about my high and holy purpose on the earth coming my way!!

That's not what I got. I got a heart-gut check and an opportunity to be free of 12 years of frustration, irritation and expectation of how my life should have gone, what my marriage should be like and how my kids are supposed to act.  This was DEEP work.  Work so deep I couldn't get there without help.

The Lord healed me of much of this over the last few years, but Saturday morning, He pulled it up by the root.  When I stood before Dennis, he told me I was full of faith and desperate.  What a combination, not one I expected.  He said he saw me as the woman with an issue of blood, suffering for years.  He said that moment was my breakthrough.

He was right.

As he and his team continued to pray over me, I fell to my knees.  The Lord prepared me for that and as I sat there huddled over, my tears ran against gravity, up into my hair line.  I cry a lot of times when the Spirit has fallen, out of pure joy and emotion in His presence.

But this time I mourned.  I sobbed.  I wretched on the floor.  I got it all out.

After all of that - Dennis spoke another word.  It still makes me smile because I'm a writer.  He said this was a new chapter in my life.  The last 12 years are finished, over, I have nothing to fear because he has always been with me.  I should have been a mess, my life should be a wreck, but it is not because of grace of God has always been with me, even before I knew it was - even as a little child.

The whole thing was as real as real can be, a thin place where the Lord met me, ripped out all that hatred and malice buried so deep (which He'd been working all week to bring to the surface) and replaced it with His tender love.

All I can say is this new chapter is called Easy.  He showed me the truth of Matthew 11:28-30, even in my favorite translation of it - the Message. 

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

That line "unforced rhythms of grace" is on a custom-made bracelet I wear every day.  Yet now, I wear it on my heart.  I can love my family like I'm supposed to (and truly do) because I see with truth-eyes how easy God's love for me is.  It's not hard.  It's not meant to be a struggle.  I'm not meant to force myself.  I'm meant to rest, to abide, to trust, to believe.

I'm meant to respond to how easily God loves me.  In that response, I easily love them.  

That's a pretty incredible story, I realize, but sometimes the Lord uses dramatics to get our attention, deal with our sin and change us for the better.  The challenge now is to keep living in that truth - seeking the Presence of God ESPECIALLY WHEN I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT.

You see, the love of God is just a heartbeat, a deep breath away.  When I feel those frustrations welling up in me again, I know I'm over-thinking things. I know I've stepped out of the Lord's shadow and all I have to do is step back into it. Nothing more difficult than that.  My natural state is no longer ANGRY AMY, so I don't have to be.

I've already messed it up. I've already yelled at Natalie and Sophia and gotten irritated with the dog.

It didn't take me long, though, to get my peace back. I acknowledged it, said I was sorry and accepted the forgiveness of grace that falls as a result.  Step back under the cover of His Wings.

It is a new chapter of easy dependence. I'm looking forward to seeing what Week 3 holds!

2015: The Year of Prayer

There is something going on. It's a very good thing.

Sparked by an idea yesterday I'm sure has been germinating in my heart for awhile - I decided to make and post this meme to Facebook:

 It is based on Jesus' statement in Matthew 7:13, You can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.

Later Jesus calls Himself the gate in John 10:9 and ultimately declaring He is the (only) Way, the (only) Truth and the (only true) Life in John 14:6.  Pretty bold commentary to have to dismiss.  He was either a liar, a lunatic or the Lord.  Take your pick!

The picture in this meme is a street in Urbino, Italy.  I took it in 2013 for no particular reason, other than it was a cool.  Yet, as I was thinking yesterday morning about what 2015 would mean for me, the Lord reminded me of the above verses and how I had a good descriptive shot of what He meant when He said those words.  Along with the meme I wrote,

I want to go to my next level of faith, with 2015 seeing answers to prayer like never before! I know it is the best way to go, even if it is the harder, more narrow way. Jesus is the way and praising Him never fails to reveal how He is working. Maybe this is your New Year's Challenge.

The way of Christ is tight-fitting.  It is not meant to be loose or lax.  It doesn't look like what the rest of the world is doing.  These clothes feel different, meant to fit us like a glove, literally keeping us on the straight and narrow road of conformation to His image (the one we were created in).  

The only way to stay true to that - for the clothes to fit so to speak - is to remember we are not obligated to be like our old worldly selves any longer.  We aren't meant to think, reason or respond like everyone else.  (Romans 8:1-17) The best way to remember we have different options than what seems obvious....is in prayer.

By prayer - I mean consistent communication with God.  It doesn't have to always be out loud, on your face or hands-raised-in-worship; at any particular time of day.  Anything thought or felt in His direction at any time, for me, counts as prayer.  Remember, too, there is prayer that is about listening, more than speaking.

There are no limits on how to pray - song, silence, early morning, late at night, reading the Bible or Christian books; praising God, crying out to Him; dreaming, awake.  You name it, He will take our expressions of faith.  He even takes the expressions we don't do well - making them acceptable via the Holy Spirit's intercession (Rom 8:26).

The challenge I sent out is simple: in 2015 - pray more.  I want (and want for you too) the type of prayer life the Apostle Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 11:28-29: Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

For 2015 to be THE YEAR OF PRAYER, we must engage with Our Father first, letting Him heal our brokenness; restore our lack of faith; redeem the mistakes we've made.  We are to be honest with Him and let Him be honest with us.

Going farther, we must pray (and be honest) with each other.  We must feel the daily pressure of concern for the Body of Christ - locally and globally.  We must work to repair the disconnect in our denominations.  We've got to pray for strength for those who feel weak and exhort those led into sin back into the way of righteousness.

The key to this (and everything else) is love.  Prayer is love thought, spoke, sung, written, felt and done with our hands and feet.  Prayer is the deepest expression of care for God, ourselves and others.

Prayer is the way to stay on The Way.  It is the GPS system that will guide us along the narrow way.  Prayer is the main thing.  Let's keep the main thing the main thing.

I challenge you to join me in making 2015 the year of prayer.  More prayer, more connection, more love.  Let's walk this narrow path together, friends.  I hope you will join me!

Bookmark and share out this page.  Retweet or repost.  Use the hashtag #2015yearofprayer.  Write your comments and document your prayer experiences on your own social media sites.

I can't wait to see what the Lord is going to do when we take His command to abide in Him seriously!  What an exciting year this will be!

To See the Glory of God

Didn't I tell you that if you keep trusting, you will see the glory of God?

I think my favorite section of Scripture, my #1 (from a long list of favorites), is John 11.  This morning, I added John 12 to it.  I never realized they were concurrent - Mary's anointing of Jesus' feet with her dowry (a jar of very expensive perfume); then wiping it off with her hair following Lazarus' raising from the dead.

That makes sense, of course.  You would throw a party, too, if your brother was raised from the dead.  At the very least, host a dinner party.  But I never saw it before.  Just goes to show you how fresh and exciting Scripture is.  Keep reading it!  

What got me started in John 11 was the verse I quoted above (v. 40), which is one of the Scriptures from today's Jesus Calling.  I've read that chapter a hundred times, but this verse jumped out at me because of a particular issue I've been praying over for my church.

I've been praying against unbelief.  I've been asking the Lord to remove any unbelief from the room, so we could see His glory, His work, His miraculous power clearly.  That we, as a congregation, wouldn't be party to any blocking of the Holy Spirit.  Because that is what unbelief does - it blocks us from seeing God at work.

Lack of belief not only blocks our vision of God's Handiwork, Scripture makes it clear that when unbelief is too thick, it can also keep God from doing His work.  Matthew 13:58 makes that clear.  Jesus could/would only do so much in His hometown because they couldn't/wouldn't believe His miracles meant He was Messiah.  Unbelief doesn't remove God's power - far from it.  I can say, though, it removes His willingness to display His power.  Unbelief displeases Him.  It saddens Him.  I would even go so far as to say it makes Him steaming mad.

Matthew Henry said this: "Unbelief is the great hinderance to Christ's favours."  And Pulpit Commentary echoes that thought: "Our Lord was hindered, not by lack of power, but by lack of those moral conditions which would alone have made his miracles really tend to the spiritual advantage of the inhabitants of Nazareth."

Here, in John 11, Jesus reminds Martha of the power of trust in Him.  This chapter is so rich and I especially love the radically different interactions with both sisters.  Both ladies are mourning the loss of their beloved brother (who, in verse 5, Scripture says Jesus also loved).  Yet, knowing the conditions of their hearts, He engages with them differently.  He gives Martha a chance to display her great faith in Him (redeeming her earlier upbraiding in Luke 10).  Then, when He sees Mary, we see Him break down.  He met them both where they were and it is so touching.  He is, in this chapter, fully man and fully God.

Jesus, the Lord, is not unmoved by darkness and death.  He is right in the thick of it.  Yet, He calls us to look beyond those present circumstances - really beyond the present, to eternity.  Through interactions with both sisters, He makes the same point: Believe in Me and you will Receive from Me.

How many times in our lives, in our church families, do we pull back from full belief in God and His power?

I know I have been there.  I have prayed BIG prayers, only to have them seemingly go unanswered.  I understand now, those prayers were on hold until I could receive the answer.  It isn't that I doubted His power, my heart just wasn't ready.  The answer was blocked from view because my heart still held onto a natural view, versus stepping into a supernatural view.

Some of us flat out don't believe miracles are possible anymore.  We can't even go there - it is too painful, too out of reach.  It is certainly too ridiculous, miracles are beyond the pale.  Those kinds of things happened in Jesus' time, in the Book of Acts, but not now....right?*

It is so hard when we don't see the evidence of our prayers.  They don't always come how we can or want to see them.  The details of the answers to our prayers are not our part.  Our part is to know, to believe and then to receive. 

http://www.thebricktestament.com/jn11_39.html

Martha knew Jesus was the Messiah.  Still, she balked at the idea of opening the tomb.  I get that. But then, she consented to receive when she consented to removing the stone.  She removed the barrier of seeing the Lord's wonders even when I am sure she didn't fully understand how He was going to work. But I feel sure her heart lept in anticipation when the men started to roll away the stone.  Her heart; then the tomb were opened. 

When you dare to believe, your heart opens wide in anticipation.  You may know.  You may believe.  So, the question is: Do you want to receive?

It is a small shift, with enormous consequences.  Martha put all her eggs, whatever remained following the death of her brother, in Christ's basket.  She gave Him all she had and He delivered, above and beyond what she could imagine.  She believed Jesus could have healed Lazarus from his sickness, while he was still alive.  And it isn't that raising the dead was beyond the realm of possibility.  Still, that stretches the limits of our senses, our knowledge.  Dead people don't come back, better than before.  Do they?

Clearly they did then, and they still do.  I was a dead-woman-walking for 15 years and yet, Jesus called me out of the tomb of myself and I came.  Raising a physically dead person is just as great a miracle as raising a spiritually dead person. 

Our current church season of Advent is meant to make room in our hearts to receive.

Christmas and Advent are preludes to Easter, just as the raising of Lazarus is a prelude to Jesus' Resurrection.  We are meant, especially in this time, to want more - more of God; to see His works, His Goodness in the land of the living.  It is right to want and expect this.  The Lord is the Great (and perfect) Gift Giver.  We should expect He wants to give us more.  It is our part to make room in our hearts for Him to pour more in. 

I will continue to ask the Lord to clear my church, the very air of the room - of unbelief.  I want Him to remove any barriers, misconceptions, preconceptions and biases.  I want to see the Glory of God - on a regular basis.  I don't just want the spiritual candy of miracles and wonders, although those results of faith are awesome.  

More than that, I want the people in my community, as the great evangelist and miracle-worker Smith Wigglesworth once counseled a woman, to see Jesus and takes Jesus.

It really isn't any more complicated than that.  When the Lord wants to give, we are to believe and we will receive.  And He always wants to give.  Therefore, we are to always want to receive: Him, His promises, His blessings and His works.

I hope you would pray for belief in your own church family.  I hope you would pray that now, in the season of the Great Miracle of God coming to earth.  I hope you would pray that for yourself.  Let's look to see more of God and we will then see more of His workings in the world.  Keep your eyes open.  He is coming!

*Eric Metaxas' new book is called Miracles.  It is an excellent dissertation on what miracles are, why they happen and he gives some great examples from his own circle of friends.  I highly recommend it, for those who believe in miracles already - and for those who don't.

Questions vs. Questioning - An Christmas Meditation

It's funny how things in my life often line up with things happening in the Church Season.  Usually, that means "Ordinary Time," (the majority of the Church Year).  I would say that best reflects our to-and-fro life - Ordinary. Not in a bad way, just regular ol' life.

But every once and awhile, dots connect and stars align.

My sweet Sophia is in a tough year.  It's called Year 8.  On top of that, she is in 3rd Grade.  I've gone through this once, so I knew it was coming, but it is still tough.  You aren't a little kid anymore but you aren't completely a big kid yet either.  Still, you are required to think like a big kid, which your brain and body are not always ready for.  On top of that, Sophia is a July birthday, so she is one of the youngest in her class.  It can be frustrating for her to figure out what is really expected of her.

That translate into a lot of training and discipline in our house right now.  Discipline specifically for things like back talk, little white lies and "omission" type offenses where you were just not motivated enough to get done what Momma asked you to do (in the time she asked you to do it).  There is always the middle sister factor, too, with a big sister on one side, who is generally Johnny-on-the-spot; and the little sister on the other, who gets away with a lot more than you do.  It's rough.

In the midst of this, the Lord is working on growing one fruit of the Spirit in particular in me: gentleness.  This is not my natural state of being when my kids disobey or are disrespectful.  I'm much more likely to bring down the hammer than be merciful and forgiving. 

Which is no doubt why the Lord is testing and proving me on this particular virtue, especially with Sophia.  We have so much history of me having to push, cajole and flat out make her do stuff - from my days as her caregiver.  The Lord redeemed that, but the reality is still working itself out in my parenting style.

Plus, out of all 3 daughters, Sophia is most like me.  There is a lot of iron sharpening iron going on right now and the sparks tend to fly..

Most of my grievances come in the form of her questioning my authority.  She asks a lot of questions, to be sure, but it's gone to a new level.  Lately, when she asks me a question, her whole attitude towards me (which I can read on her face) is: "Mother, you have no idea what you are talking about!"

On Sunday, I was inspired to ask her if she knew the difference between asking for information and questioning me.

She didn't, so I explained like this: It comes down to heart.  Question asking is ok, because you are looking for clarity and understanding.  Questioning means you doubt the authority/credibility/integrity of the person you are interacting with.  One is purely for information (question asking).  The other is an effort to stand your ground because you feel you are right and the other person is wrong (questioning).

It just so happened, on Monday at Ms. Janice's house for prayer, we read the Christmas story, including Luke's account.  It was then I saw the Biblical illustration of this principle of doubt of intention (questioning) vs. confirmation of action (questions).

It plays out with 2 people: Zechariah and Mary. 

In summary: in Luke 1:5-25, Zechariah loses his voice because he questioned the plan of God, told to him by the angel Gabriel.  Even though he and his wife were old enough to be grandparents, they
would have a son who would declare the Messiah's arrival.  That son ended up being John the Baptist, the last prophet to the Jews.  However, even in the middle of the Temple, on the Jewish high-holiest day of the year, Zechariah didn't believe what this messenger from on high was saying.  He doubted, he balked.  Zechariah flat out did not believe God!

In contrast, from Luke 1:26-38, there is Mary, the mother of Jesus, also being visited by Gabriel.  He brings her some outrageous news too.  He says, "You, my dear, you teenage virgin, are going to get pregnant and that child is going to be the Son of God."  Mary had questions, good ones, in fact.  But she didn't lose her voice because Gabriel was able to see the intention behind those questions.  Unlike Zechariah, who asked with doubt, fear and rebellion in his heart; Mary asked from a heart just wanted to know how all this was going to work, so she could respond appropriately.

This is not the revelation for me, although this has been communicated to the people of God down through the ages: Zechariah doubted, Mary didn't.

What hit me was: despite the initial questions, even in doubt and disbelief, Zechariah came around.  He and Mary, both, ended up acting in faith.  They obeyed the Lord becoming major contributors in the plans and purposes of the Almighty Savior, come to earth. 

It's true, Jesus would come regardless of their participation.  God could have found other vessels, but He saw past Zechariah's doubt.  God stayed with him, even as He disciplined him for his unbelief.  Mary was blessed because she believed outright.  Zechariah, even in his reluctance obedience, ended up being blessed too.

Our God is that faithful.  He is that merciful.  

Even when eternity is on the line, He doesn't forsake us.  His Promises were fulfilled and the people He asked to be involved were willing - even if the process of getting them there was different.

That gives me a lot of hope for Sophia and myself.  It renews my faith in our Great God, who is more than capable of handling our doubts, our rejection, our disbelief - and yes, even our disobedience...and still doing wonderful things in and through our lives.

Because of this awareness now, I can be more gentle with Sophia in her questioning and patient with her questions.  I don't have to be fed up with it.  I can (and will) remember this stage isn't the last one, or the last time, we will face doubt, disbelief and disobedience with our kids.

This, too, shall pass.
 
Because the church season of Advent is when we remember God's first incarnation and look ahead in anticipation of His Second Coming, I am reassured.  Zechariah and Mary remind me of a singular truth.  It proves without a doubt, the God of Heaven is involved here on Earth.  Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow....even when we have to be convinced to receive them....in faith, eventually, we will.

The How: The Simple Disciplines of Gratitude & Praise (Growing in Faith Series)

A couple of weeks ago, I started a series and this continues the thread.  This is the How of the Who, What, When, Where, Why of faith.  I like that is happens to fall in Thanksgiving Week.  It fits.  (In the first post, I covered the What, you can read that here.)

I'm a personal believer in the power of gratitude, especially as commanded in Scripture.*  But as I grow in faith, I've discovered something remarkable.  Gratitude is the root of the fruit of the Spirit we think of as Joy.  Have you ever met a sour-faced joyful person?  No way!  Grateful people are smiling.  They freely sing, dance, give, serve, study and all those other things we should do as Christians.  Freely being the keyword here.

In fact, the people you know who have the deepest well of joy have learned, through literal trial and much error, to be thankful in all situations.  Giving thanks and praising God has set them free from the weight of sin, from death.  They know these two simple practices have immense power, and are perhaps our greatest weaponry on the spiritual battlefield.**

It might seem a bit shallow to say gratitude and praise are the biggest guns in our arsenal.  We've been taught to go deep in study, prayer, service, giving.  We feel we must start an orphanage across the globe.  These are all very good things, and I wish we all did more of them.  But there is a fundamental problem - we often don't have the purest intentions when we do them.  They tend to be about us and what we do for God, rather than freely (again that word) giving without expectation of anything in return.

That issue hits home in a a book I'm writing called The Jesus Rule, based on Christ's answer to the question: what is the greatest commandment?  He answers pretty simply, quoting Deuteronomy 6 and tacking on Leviticus 19, to create the be-all-end-all commandment to please the Lord.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Christ says that 3 times in 3 Gospels: Matthew 22:37-39, Mark 12:28-31 and Luke 10:25-28.  You know if God repeats something three times, we better listen.  Those red-letter words support my point: Jesus was never about what we do for God.  He was about experiencing God by letting He Who is love transform you and those around you.  I submit to you now: the shortest distance between God's love and experiencing it is gratitude and praise.

That's why I call them disciplines because they should be practiced daily, if not hourly.  That looks like saying "Thank You, Lord;" like saying grace before a meal, but not only then.  We should be saying grace over everything.  We should be declaring (out loud) Who God is and What He has done/is doing/will do.  Stormie Omartian, in The Prayer That Changes Everything, writes these wros on the very first page of the introduction,

If prayer is communicating with God, then the purest form of prayer is worship and praise.  That's because it focuses our minds and hearts entirely away from ourselves and onto Him.

If praise is our vertical beam of the Cross, then gratitude is our horizontal.  Gratitude is how we demonstrate His power and work in our lives.  They are two halves of the whole.  In them, we meet the Lord, coming to a greater, fuller understanding of Who He is.  Our love for Him will grow wildly as a result.

Trust me when I tell you this because I've been practicing it for awhile: When you truly praise God; when you are truly thankful for Him - you will find what you've been missing in your faith walk.  If you are struggling to get closer to God, to feel His Presence more, these two active truths are the keys to opening the door of your heart to Him.  Maybe you are struggling with sin, with a diagnosis, with money problems, with your kids (whatever).....it is time to bust out your big guns of thanksgiving and worship.

Jesus told the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John 4, there will come a day when the place we worship doesn't matter, but instead the position of our hearts.  We will worship in spirit AND in truth.

For it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship—is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us. (v. 22-23, TLB)

The fastest way to have the kind of relationship the Father wants is to praise and thank His Son through His Spirit.  

Quote from Watchman Nee

This are very simple practices, truly.  No theology degrees required.  Yet, when we practice them, they will become our greatest witness to the world of the love and power of Christ: to save, heal, deliver, provide and set free.  They usher in the Kingdom of God right in our own hearts, right here at our desks or where we are on our phones.  Gratitude and Praise bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth: in your house, car, workplace, school, neighborhood, gym and especially in your church.

We have such a tendency to be what the Bible calls "double-minded."  We think about God on one half of our brain, but the other half is all about ourselves: what we are feeling; what we think is right; what others are doing/have done to us; what we will eat next; what we will wear next, etc.  The Lord wants us to be singularly focused on Him, which is why The Jesus Rule makes sense.  Jesus always started with God, so we must start there. 

A.W. Tozer called Psalm 103 "God's Pitch Pipe."***  If you know anything about music, a pitch pipe is used to get a choir in tune.  Psalm 103 is a great place to start, but you can just keep going through Psalm 109 (or just go through most of the Psalms, if not all).  Worship and Thanksgiving will not only build your faith, in them you will get eyes and ears to experience the Lord in real-time. There is no better easier week in America, no more acceptable time in our calendar year, to be grateful for the vast blessings we have.  

Take Thanksgiving Week one more step further.  Call it Thanks & Praise Week.  Be grateful and praise God for it.  Let Him get your spirit in tune with His.  Let this holiday season be different because it is marked by what really pleases the Lord: Not good works, not giving, not getting along with your relatives, but gratitude and praise of His name.

*For your study, here are some references to commands from Scripture to be grateful: Psalm 50:14; Psalm 100:4; Psalm 107:22; Psalm 116:17; Isaiah 51:3; Mark 8:6; Luke 22:17; Romans 1:21; 1 Corinthians 15:57; 1 Thessalonians 5:18; Philippians 4:4,6,8-9; Revelation 7:12

**So you know, the enemy can't get to you when you are thankful and full of praise.  It expels him from the area because you are submitting to the Lord.  He has to flee.  So, if you are experience some spiritual warfare, break out your shofar (that's a reference to a horn the Hebrews often used going into battle and it's purpose is to praise God).  You've got one, right there in your throat.  Shout your praise to God - thank Him with all your might.  Then you will see the very atmosphere of the room change.  I know this for a fact too.

***Thank you to my precious, dearest friend and mentor, Janice Heffer Wright, for telling me A.W. Tozer's comment during a sermon she heard him preach (in person!) so long ago.  I have never forgotten it!

My Fascination with Bible Study

If there has been one consistent theme in my walk as a Christian, it is this: I love to study the Bible.  There are a few folks I know that don't quite get this, but others that do.  Once I started, really dove into Scripture, there was nothing that could compare.  Early in my re-started walk, an atheist friend asked me,  "If you were stranded on a desert island and could one have one book, which would it be?"

I immediately said, "The Bible," and he looked at me as if I'd suddenly grown two heads.  With his eyes agog, he asked me why and I said, a little sarcastically, "Because it's fascinating.  And it is really 66 books in one so you never get bored."

Probably not my best attempt at soft evangelism, but it was and is the truth.  I love reading the Word because it never fails to inform, inspire and restore my trust.  Even in the hard sayings, I know if I stick with it long enough, the Teacher (that is, the Holy Spirit) will let me in on a little understanding.

This morning, as I finished my long reading of Mark last week (read about it here), I went ahead to John.  That's not the easiest Gospel to dive into.  In the past, I've found the beginning of it....challenging.  What stood out to me were these verses: John 1:1-5, 9-11, 14, 16-18.

I'm reading from the Complete Jewish Bible and NIV Translation side-by-side, and in the CJB, those verses stood out like never before because they were set apart in context.  I'd never seen these verses standing on their own, only lumped in with the rest.  Being a somewhat visual learner, this was a huge help because I can now see that these are not only a prologue to John's Gospel but seems like an early church creed, or statement of faith.

I wrote them out like that at the bottom of this post if you would like to read it as I did.  Of course, I made some notes too - musings really.  Perhaps these words were created to fight heresy, like Gnosticism, that denied the complete deity of Christ (which the Church still fights in evangelism of Jehovah's Witnesses today).  Certainly these words build faith and would have reminded First Century believers, both Jews and Greek, of who Jesus really was.

Not just a great teacher or moral system adviser.  No, Jesus said He was God-incarnate, which is arguably the most important doctrine of our faith (the Resurrection and Atonement for sin rank right up there too.)  Without Him being God, His words, His actions lose their weight and importance.

Indeed, to strip Christ of His Deity is to strip the Christian faith of hope. 

John the Baptist's story is interwoven with these verses, calling out who he was, too.  John 1:7 calls him a witness.  He was a prophet, a prophet's dual role is to bear witness to God and bring forth His message.  That applies to every believer, really.  Our jobs are to bear witness to the Light of the World, as revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ and proclaim His Word.

We are to be witnesses and messengers; to live, not for ourselves, our own path, or our own gain.  We can't just keep the benefits of Light on the inside.  My favorite theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called that way of being a Christian cheap grace.  Knowing Christ is to prompt us to live for the demonstration of the love we've found.  We've been delivered from darkness, once blind but now we have sight.  It comes at a cost to our own desires, dreams and understanding, which is why Bonhoeffer called the true way of following Jesus costly grace.

This creed from John, as I'll call it, is meant to help us not just worship and serve Christ for our own benefit (although we do benefit from it, spiritually, emotionally and mentally speaking.  Another theologian, John Piper, wrote about this 20+ years ago, in his book Desiring God.  He called it being a Christian Hedonist and I really like that idea too.)  But yet, we can't hid our light under a bushel (NO!)  We have to let it shine. 

Our lives are meant to respond to love, to put God's love for us into action. We are meant to align the rhythm of our lives to movement of Christ's redemption being revealed through the ages.  All of Creation is set up like this.  The Creator set the systems of night and day, weather, the water cycle, the seasons, into place.  They take their cues from Him. 

As should we.

This statement of faith I found in John 1:1-18 is very conservative doctrine.  To me, that's good.  Doctrine should be conservative.  Still it allows for love and how we express that love to be liberal.  I believe love should be liberal, out of the box, radical.  That's who Jesus was - fully centered vertically and fully expressed horizontally.

It is this kind of meditation, this high-level thought process that keeps me coming back to the Bible.  There is deep, core-shaking truth found through out.  It is the Truth expressed, the last revelation of the Father.  It is brilliant. And that's why I am fascinated with Bible Study.

Deep thoughts for a Monday, Labor Day 2014, huh?

In the beginning was the Word, 
And the Word was with God, 
And the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.(v.1-4)

All things came to be through Him, 
And without Him, no thing made had being.
In Him was life
And the life was the Light of Mankind. (v. 5, 9)

The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
This was the true light, which gives light to everyone entering the world.
He was in the world - the world came to be through Him - yet the world did not know Him.
He came to His own homeland, yet His own people did not receive Him. (v. 10-11)

The Word became a human being and lived with us,
And we saw His Sh'kinah (glory),
The Sh'kinah (glory) of the Father's Only Son,
Full of grace and truth. (v. 14)

We have all received from His fullness,
Yes, grace upon grace.
For the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth through Jesus, the Messiah. (v. 16-17)

No one has ever see God, but the only and unique Son who is identical with God and is at His Father's side - He has made Him known. (v. 18)