God Moments

 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

 

Have I told you about the church’s Parable Project? Just in case I haven’t Oakwood is the midst of a crazy mission where someone gave the church $5000 to be handed out to 50 people. Everyone who stepped up got $100 and it was up to them to grow that money. We have people making lotions, raising money for a young lady in the hospital, making dolls for kids who are sick, teaming up with Habitat for Humanity, doing can drives in schools, starting new college scholarships, and so much more. This has been an extremely exciting time in our family of faith. Gabrielle and I went up for this mystery assignment. I had no idea what we were going to do until I saw a homeless guy on a bike by my work and I knew: bikes. Our small part of this huge Parable Project was going to have something to do with bikes.

 

Greg and I, mostly Greg, have begun the process of reconditioning and fixing up three bikes. I had no idea who to give these bikes too but I know there are a lot of people who are trying to get back to work, have no transportation, or just need a break but where do I start? We take the bikes to Rasmussen’s in Altoona when we need more extreme care done. We went there a couple weeks ago to pick up a tire and a bike that had been worked on. Part of this bike idea is that I would really love to host a Parable Bike Ride/Walk. I have never tried to set up a huge ride before so I asked the clerk how to do it. We kind of explained what we were trying to do. The guy working the counter happens to work for the Iowa Workforce Development and knew of at least one person who could really use a bike and thought that several others would probably be candidates as well. I am very excited!

 

God is so good. He came down and met me exactly where I was. I knew that bikes were our focus but I didn’t know how to get from point A to point B and who to give them too. Now, we are going to try to work with Iowa Workforce Development and figure out what the process of giving them the bikes would be so they could give them to the people who need them. I am still floundering about the bike ride but we’ll get there. I was reminded, in the most simple way, that I do not need to come up with all the answers and not every solution can be found in Google®. God will guide me and show me the way!

 

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Roman 8:28)

Journeys

“I know, Lord, that our lives our not our own. We are not able to plan our own course. So, correct me, Lord, but please be gentle.” (Jeremiah 10:23-24)

 

I read that today and I almost started to giggle, even though I know it’s not funny. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many times I have prayed that exact prayer! Even reading it over and over again I can see it in my mind. How many times have I sat in this exact spot and let God know that I know He is in control? How many times have I confessed my sins but then, in the back of my mind, I am chanting “be gentle, be gentle, be gentle”? Do you ever feel good when you know you are not alone in your heart?

 

My journey through the Bible this morning was much of the same. I came across verses, as I did my morning Lent readings, and each time I felt God speaking to me. This is why I love God’s Word because the pages aren’t just filled with words. This tattered book I carry around with me, and try to pick up every morning, has become His voice in my heart. Now, I don’t get these warm fuzzy feelings every time but when I do it’s pretty neat stuff and I reminded once again of God’s beauty and His grace and love. I am reminded of how blessed I am and how much I love Him!

 

So, I finish this up with a few more versus from today.

 

“As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?” (Psalm 42:1-2)

 

“Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me. Let them lead me to your holy mountain, to the place where you live.” (Psalm 43:3)

 

“For the sin of this one man, Adam, causes death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ,” (Romans 5:17)

 

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

I want to Live a Verb

“I love you, Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.” (Psalm 18:1-2a)

 

I am a nerd. Actually, I am the nerd of my entire family. Being a nerd I like schedules, budgets, numbers, and routines. However, I don’t do so well with commands and rules because I am also defiant and a little mischievous (go figure). For example: I like to wake up in the morning to pray and read my Bible. I don’t read my Bible and pray because God commands it though. I do those things because I love the Lord and I want to know Him better. I love going to service on Sundays. I don’t go because it’s the law but I go because it’s incredible to worship the God of the universe and be surrounded by so many people who are in love with Him as well. I enjoy teaching and serving on Wednesday nights but it’s not because Jesus requires acts of service. I go in to my classroom on Wednesdays because I want to encourage a great group of awesome kids to be excited and in love with Jesus.

 

I want to live the verb of being in love with Jesus. I want my faith to be moving and living. I never want to sit down for a second.

 

+        I want to reach out into the community

+        I want to love the people in my life unconditionally

+        I want to give and then give some more

+        I want to trust and know that I am free

+        I want to be a good wife, mother, daughter, and friend

+        I want to live running and basking and all these things with God in the center of me because I love my Lord….because I love Jesus.

 

I want to bring God with me everywhere I go. Sometimes I leave Him here in this seat after I get done with devotions and for that I feel terrible. He doesn’t want just my mornings. Our Lord wants our everything and I want to give it to Him. I have let go of me and let God in and some days that is hard.  Walk with me, please, as I endure this challenge not because of some rule or ritual but because of  love and devotion to our Father.

 

“Praise the Lord! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him.” (Revelations 19:6a-7a)

Your Red Sea

“The Moses raised his hand over the sea, and the Lord opened up a path through the water with a strong east wind. The wind blew all that night, turning the seabed into try land. So the people of Israel walked through the middle of the sea on dry land, with walls of water on each side!” (Exodus 14:21-22)

 

I was walking with my brother-in-law to McDonalds®. My sister had finally been placed in a room after her stroke and everyone else had left. Troy and I were hungry and ironically enough, a renowned heart hospital has McDonalds® on its ground floor. On our way down I told him that I would have the entire state of Iowa praying by the end of the night, that I would have friends across the country praying and even prayers being lifted from England by the next day. On the short walk down he mentioned that he had thought about getting back to church. He had been thinking life would get easier if they were going to church. I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. I said that is the inside joke of Christianity. For some reason the people looking in think that Christians have this easy cake-like life. However, the reality is life gets harder when you decide to walk the narrow path. It was then he remembered doing an alter call in his teens. “It was like as soon as I did that the girls flew down on me.”

 

God brought the Israelites to a new destination in an incredible way. They may have been free from 400 years of slavery but that didn’t mean that the rest of their lives were a picture of leisure and ease. It was hard. It was long. Many didn’t make it through. It brings me to the testimony I am giving this weekend. I had an amazing experience, a God-moment if you will, and I was refreshed, renewed, on fire, and alive in a totally new way (that is the jest testimony if you aren’t going to make it to church this weekend). I kid-you-not, within two days my world was crashing around me. I was on my knees and I didn’t know how I was going to get through.

 

We all have some sort of Red Sea in our lives. It’s that moment when we are walking with God and we reach a point where it seems impossible to break through or cross over. God is telling us to trust Him and to put one foot in front of the other and know that He will provide the dry ground. His Word is our staff and our church family, friends, loved ones, prayers, the sermons we hear, missions we are involved in, and circles we live in are His pillar of fire and smoke guiding us and pulling us forward. We know that He will always bring us through. We may not understand it. We may not see it. But we know that our Heavenly Father loves us and will us guide us Home.

 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

So Frustrated

“I lift you high in praise, my God, O my King! And I will bless your name into eternity.” (Psalm 145:1 Message)

 

This was not the way I wanted to start my morning. We have been scolding our oldest son. It’s hard for me because I feel sorry for his self-inflicted problem he is in but it is so hard to go over the same things over and over again and feel like his anger is preventing him from really hearing anything we have to say.

 

I wonder how often God feels that way. Many of our life circumstances, good or bad, are a result of our own choices. He tells us, He shows us, He gives us grace over and over and over again and here we are…still in the same rut. Even the things I know I need to change about me and my lifestyles are so extremely hard to change but I know everything I need to know and I make my mistakes anyway. Why is that?

 

We need to trust God enough to make the right decisions. We need to follow His ways. Have you ever noticed that we say God has a perfect plan but we don’t want to do it His way? And then, when you realize you were going the wrong direction and feel the peace of following that narrow path, you may steel veer off into a different direction because it looked pretty good? How can I raise a child when I am such a wreck some days? What has God given me that I am not using to push through these obstacles? All the answers are right there.

 

“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.” (Matthew 11:28-30 The Message)*

*thanks Suzanne!

Psalm 23

“The Lord is my shepherd;

            I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows;

            He leads me beside peaceful streams.

            He knows my strength.

He guides me along right paths,

            bringing honor to his name.

Even when I walk

            through the darkest valley,

I will not be afraid,

            for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff

            protect and comfort me.

You prepare a feast for me

            in the presence of my enemies.

You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

            my cup overflows with blessings.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me

            All the days of my life,

and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23

I got that…maybe not

“Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do.” (1 Peter 4:4)

 

There were many passages I read this morning that really caused me to pause and ask: Do I get it? How is it that 2,000 years ago that people were going through the same things as we do today. I haven’t had any issues with former friends the way others I know have but there are other things that I can relate to and, yet still, other things I wish I felt I understood better.

 

Like 1 Peter 4:12 “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at that fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange is happening to you.” I got that. Our salvation does not keep us from life’s trials and we can use them to become stronger for God. I will honestly say I don’t like the trials and since I seem to go through the same trial over and over again I feel as though I am either not learning what He is trying to show me or that He is building me up for something.

 

2 Peter 2:19b “For you are a slave to whatever controls you.” This one sucks. There is no one person I feel that controls me. However, there are times when I feel out of control and I can’t seem to turn on my self-control button. The Bible says the Spirit gives us self-control, I just haven’t done a very good job of figuring out where it is. Consequently, there are days when I feel like I am a slave to my lack of self-control when I would much rather feel like a slave to God, whom I gladly serve.

 

1 John 1:9 “but if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” If we confess all our sins but forget one, I mean honestly forget, are we not truly forgiven. Once we accept Jesus into our hearts and are saved does that mean past, present, and future sins are forgiven by default? What if you die before you have a chance to confess a sin? Does it make a difference if that sin was by ‘accident” or if it was deliberate?

 

I imagine many of my questions, and some days there are more than others, won’t be answered while I breathe on this earth. Sometimes there are probably only questions that can be answered by God Himself, or questions we will most definitely see on the other side of Heaven. I am okay with not knowing all the answers though. Having a direct answer to any of my questions does not help decide if I have faith or not. I am pretty sure I had even more questions the day I stepped over that line into faith and belief. This morning I am just glad that God took the time to make sure His Word spoke to me, right where I am, this very moment in time, telling me He knows and He loves. Those are the only answers I really need.

 

“This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

What do you think?

“But—‘When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.  He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.  Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.’ This is trust a trustworthy saying, and I want you to insist on these teachings so that all who trust in God will devote themselves to doing good. These teachings are good and beneficial to everyone.” (Titus 3:4-8)

 

No where in this passage does Paul say that we did anything to deserve the salvation that Jesus Christ so freely gave. No where does it mention that some sinners are more deserving of this grace than others. No where does it say that the sins in our lives, and that is any sin because  they all carry the same weight, makes us more or less qualified to receive this salvation.

 

As I see the world and social structure change around us I see many Christians using their voices and really hurting the people that come in their path. We may say that we don’t agree with homosexuality or cohabitation of any kind without a marriage, for an easy example, but it’s not necessarily about what we do or don’t agree with. Our voices should reflect that of Christ and he didn’t like lying, stealing, gossiping, turning his church into a marketplace, being jealous, and not having self-control, gentleness, kindness, peace, joy, love, etc (Galatians 5:22-23). Every sin has the same weight as any other, so lying and cheating is just as disdainful to God as murder. And as much as Jesus wanted to set our minds and hearts against these things He also let us knows how much He loved us in spite of these things. He hates the sin but always loves the sinner.

 

 Look I know what I believe is right and what I think is wrong. But I believe that we are called to love everyone. We are to be the hands and feet of Jesus and when the prostitute was about to be stoned He didn’t throw the first stone and neither should we. Free will is a beautiful thing we can thank God for daily and we cannot try to condemn or condone people for using their gift differently than we would. I don’t know where I am going with this today. I just know the white-lie you told your boss is as deep a gash in Jesus’ back as the one it sits next from the person who robbed the bank.  The sin that put one nail in Jesus’ hand is no different than the sin that put the other nail there. Love each other and know that God loves each of you because we are ALL His children.

 

“For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14)

Snow Day!

“For you know quite well that the day of the Lord’s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2)

 

It’s a snow day today and there is no school. Children of all ages, including some very grown up people I know, wait and pray for a day like this. All this past week I could tell that my children’s teachers were hoping for a snow day this week because they sent the kids home every night anticipating the next day to be one (this was actually really annoying). Ah, but behold! We have 1/10” of ice under 2” of sleet under 2-4” of snow. Snow day! Great joy will fill the house as my little babes wake up one by one and realize their great fortune.  The joy will be reversed, however, when the school year gets extended out an extra day and they realize that they could have made their first trip to the pool but instead they are sitting in hot sticky classrooms.

 

People have been waiting for the day when Jesus raptures His children for thousands of years now. I can honestly say that I fully anticipate this day to come every day and I want to be ready. My children have their hats, mittens, games, and anything else they need ready to enjoy this much anticipated day of no school. It’s easier, and not so easy, to be ready for the Lord to come. For me it is a process of learning to not cling to things of this earth. It is a process of loving the people in my life but realizing I could never love them as much as Jesus. It’s a process of getting to know Jesus as much as possible through His Word because I want to know the One I will be spending an eternity with. I may teach kids at church but I need to reach and volunteer out in the community more. I may pray for people in the comfort and safety of my own home but I really need to go pray with them. See, until that day comes I need to keep working and studying for Jesus.

 

My children, and many across the great state of Iowa, have been dreaming of a day just like today. What are you dreaming of? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for a raise or a pink slip? Are you waiting for a husband or a wife? Are you waiting for your kids to get past the stage where they totally grate on your nerves? Are you waiting for your hero to come from the war? Are you waiting for Christmas so you can give the gifts you got for everyone or open the ones others got for you? One of the things I desire more than anything is for Jesus to come! A part of me wants to pause at that though but honestly, nothing I, or my family, could experience could possibly compare to finally realizing that beautiful day….even though my brain wants me to picture everything we would miss a little too long. Lord Jesus, I pray that you come grab us today but if it is not time yet I pray that you let us know what we need to get everything ready so that you can. Amen.

 

“Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage one another and build each other up, just as you are already doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-11)

One Leads to Another

“Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you.” (Psalm 5:2)

I woke up early this morning. I didn’t wake up early enough to exercise so I just laid there for a little while. Then I decided I wanted to take advantage of the extra time I could read the Bible and got out of bed. Before I read I always try to pray. Sometimes I feel my prayers are productive and sometimes I don’t. This morning I thought of this past weekend, service, prayer request and family time. As each thing came to mind it would lead me to praying for something or someone else and there is no lack of people who need prayers today.

In our own home I pray for my husband and how hard he works everyday to provide for us. That led me to pray for my friend’s husband who has been out of work for a while now. That lead me to praying for another friend who’s husband will be laid off this week. Thinking of people and their jobs actually helped me remember to pray for a couple schools that have hit our prayer chain in recent times and my friends who work for within those schools. Praying for the community like that reminded me to pray for all those who are homeless right now and all the job cuts we have faced and I hate to say it but these kinds of things always seem to be intensified during the Christmas season where families feel the pressure of not being able to give their children everything they see on T.V. or on the shelves of the store. And, again, this led me to pray that people remember that Christmas is not about the presents, maxing out credit cards, or ridiculously spoiling the people in our lives. I was then lead to pray for our pastors and leaders in our church that they can guide us, and our community, to the heart of Christmas.

Thinking of all the terrible and tough things going on today, all the uncertainty, I was once again reminded of the video we watch in service yesterday. So many things block our way to the cross. The world is going to attack us and the world is going to try to break us down but we do not need to let it. Jesus jumped in and fought the ultimate fight so that we don’t need to. We will still struggle in this life, face hardships, feel lost and blind but through all this we have the hope and we have God who will meet us exactly where we are and carry us when we need Him to.

“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.” (Colossians 4:2)