Focus beyond the storms

The following is something I posted in my Bible Study group.  Keep in mind, I am much better at talking than writing, but I just really wanted to post this here too.


Good Morning!  I don’t know about you, but I have spent WAY too much time in front of a weather reporting source these past few days. Right now, it is May in Oklahoma and this week we have had storms with the forecast of more strong storms and tornados.  I keep telling myself that I am not worried and that God is in control; I think I believe it, and I don’t feel anxious so it must be so.  I am beginning to question where my focus is though.   As I look back at where my time has gone the past few days I realize that much of my time, that I usually spend in Bible study prep or prayer time, I have been glued to the media seeking out information on the upcoming weather.  Anyone there with me?

All this brought me back to thinking about how the weather has really taken my focus off of Jesus these past couple of days without me realizing it. 

Matthew 6:31-34

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or “What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  BUT seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Jesus begins by saying to NOT do something (be anxious).  Then he reminds us that God is very aware of our needs. The Greek word used here for “anxious” has the sense of being troubled by cares and concerns.  It also can mean to “take care for, or look out for (a thing).”  Then he tells us TO do something (seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness).  The word “seek” means to “seek in order to find.” I am definitely NOT a Greek or Bible Scholar, but this still made an impact on me.

What I see here is that Jesus is instructing us to stop focusing our thoughts on what is around us.  Looking out for things that are around us is keeping us from seeing God’s will, heart, and timing.  He is telling us to seek after the kingdom of heaven like we intend on finding it!  When we are anxious, we are focused on our own efforts to shape our present and future and we are focused on the temporary.  But, when we are actively seeking God’s kingdom, we are consumed by in the assurance of God loving us and being true to His promise for a future and a hope!

Then there are times, where we really don’t feel anxious, and yet, our time and energy goes into activities other than seeking God (like checking the weather like it is going to change in 2 minutes).  We have such a limited amount of time to solely focus on God through Bible and prayer time each day.  So why is there so much temptation to busy ourselves with “looking out for” things that are temporary?  I believe it is because it gives us a sense of control, and we like that! Our enemy, who is the ruler of this world, wants to distract us from that concentrated time with God so that when we are faced with the uncertainties in our lives, our focus on God gets a little blurry around the edges and it is hard to see the Truth.  This passage reminds us that we are no longer of this world (Gentiles).  We may not know the specifics of our future, but we know that God is “all in” when it comes to us.  He loves us, He knows our needs, He is glorified through us, and when we maintain that focus, we are His light to this world.  We are conditioned by this world to “keep going,” “keep thinking on,” but God’s Word tells us simply to “keep seeking.”


I am not telling you to stop preparing for the storms (figurative and literal), in fact, we are told in 1^st Peter to be ready to defend our faith.  I am simply saying to prepare, and then capture every thought or concern that is temporary or will cause you to dwell on the uncertain, and compare it to God’s Word and nature.  Practically speaking, keep your Bible open on the table, if you don’t have a passage to read, just read Matthew 6, it is super good! If you get bored with it, back up to chapter 5 or ahead to chapter 7.  Seek God with intent to find him in your prayers throughout the day.  Go to him with confidence of His promises to be found by you when you seek him whole-heartedly (Jeremiah 29:13-14), and to be given wisdom when you ask believing He will grant it (James 1:5).  Remember, no matter what, You.Are.Valuable.To.God.

Keep Seeking.

Woman after God's own Heart

I haven't posted in a while, but I just had to post my post for our facebook Bible Study at SONlight girls.  We are studying the Proverbs 31 woman, but today, I was just touched by how much influence we have over those we are in contact with and how our heart can really make all the difference.  So I am posting it here as well, but I am leaving it as is without editing, which may be my undoing as I am not much of a writer.  I  hope it touches your heart as God touched mine, and that it makes some kind of sense to you. 
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Good Afternoon!  Thank you so much for your patience.  My family made a crazy last minute decision a couple of weeks ago and we are in the “crunch” part of things.  It is exciting and nerve-racking at the same time.  I have found, probably as you (in your situation) have also, that our study has melded perfectly with the life situation we are facing right now.  I love it when God just knits all things together so we can apply what He teaches us immediately!

Acts 13:22—“And when he had removed him (Saul), he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’” (ESV)

This one verse just made me jump for joy because of the hope that it brings.  You see, it shows that God is in control period. He removes and raises up leaders.  He testifies for His children.  God recognized David’s heart and that it was directed towards God.  We all know David made his mistakes but his overall definer of his life is that he was a man after God’s own heart.  Oh that just makes my heart so full.  Then God goes on to say that he knows that David will do (the NET says “accomplish”) all God’s will.  The Amplified version says “carry out my program fully.   So, why is Paul saying this?  Let’s take a look at the passage in Acts that contains this verse.

If you look at the passage which contains this verse (Acts 13:16-31) you will see that it is Paul talking to the Jews in the Synagogue and Gentiles who believed in God.  What they do in this passage is outline the Story of the Israelites and Jesus from their time in Egypt until the appearance of the risen Jesus.  The verse we are looking at is showing Jesus as a descendent of David.  God used David, a man after God’s own heart, to be the lineage Jesus came from.

So what does that tell us?  Well, it tells us that no matter what the circumstance, God is in charge.  It also tells us that when we have a heart that is actively pursuing God, He is going to do great things through us and through our descendants.  It shows us that even with all of our yucky mistakes, God allows us the grace to NOT be defined by them.  We CAN be women after God’s own heart and we CAN accomplish EVERYTHING that God has planned for us. 

Sister, our Jesus is in heaven right now testifying for us to the Father.  When we accept Jesus as the definer of our life and forgiver of our sins, we are covered in his righteousness.  When we choose to purposefully pursue our relationship with Christ, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished through him! 

This is why we are told that our beauty comes from the “gentle, peaceable spirit within us,” it is a reflection of the God we love and serve.  Those we have been entrusted to care for and instruct will have glimpses of God based on what they see in us.  The fruit of our Hands is the saving knowledge of Jesus that we tell and show them.  In my case, it is for my children, for you it may be your neighbor, niece/nephew, or spouse.  This is our praise, that we reflected the light of God so that they could come into the same relationship with God.  It isn’t always easy to, but isn’t it worth it?

I am well aware this was long, and I am tempted to edit this to death, but I am going to just put this out there for you as is, or I will never get it out.  My prayer for each of us today is that we will develop a heart that is more in love with God than it was yesterday.  That each of our lives in which God can testify about us, “she is a woman after God’s own heart and She will accomplish all my will for her life. ”

I love you ladies, have a beautiful day!

Sweet Tea and Popsicles

I was putting sand in the sandbox outside and the neighbor girl who is 12 came over to play with my daughter.  I used to think it was a bit odd that she would come over and ask to play with my girly (who is 5), but after a while, with some close supervision, I realized that when you are a girl and bored you will hang out with anyone and that it is ok. 

As I was making sweet tea for her, my mind drifted to the wonderful time I had with my bible study ladies that morning.  The topic was Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem and how it relates to our own walls that need to be rebuilt.  The idea of our ministry needing to start in our own areas of influence and work its way out became one of the themes we discussed.

 I have a “show me” friend in this group who is always asking “What does this look like?”  This was what I was thinking over when a stray thought came to me, well, I say stray but I think I mean “direct to my heart” thought.   Popsicles.  Oh, Lord, not the popsicles again. 

So now I have to digress for a moment to bring you up to speed in my popsicle dilemma.  My children are so good at giving our popsicles to the neighbor kids.  In fact they will just hand them out to anyone who asks for one.  It was becoming an everyday occurrence that just got to me one day when I went out to the garage and saw 12 children eating popsicles and not one of them were mine.  I felt like my children and I were being taken advantage of.

I really struggled with this one as I really felt like the Lord was calling me to minister to the children in the neighborhood and their parents in a real and practical way.  After much thought I decided that I hadn’t a clue as to what to do.  I like the kids being around the house so that I can find them when I need them, but I also want to be a blessing to those kids who live around me.  So if I had to give out popsicles then I was all for it, until it became a bit over whelming the sheer amount I was giving out.

  The issue for me was how to minister to the neighbors but not be taken advantage of or allow my children to be. It was also, how can I spread the gospel to the children and make it a “fruitful” act.

Back to the moment of sweet tea.  I was pouring the sweet tea for my dear daughter and her friend that is when it hit me.  The issue at hand was  not being taken advantage of or even whether or not I speak the Gospel to these children.  The issue is that I am to love these children with the Love of God.  The words I speak to them need to be seasoned with grace.  The giving of popsicles needs to be one of kindness. 

God has given me a little piece of wall to work on right here on my little corner lot and it is to show my children and those around us who Jesus is by how I interact with them.  It means that I need to be outside more often and put aside some of my personal desires, but I am positive that checking email, catching up on a show or even cleaning up my house is nothing compared to the seeds that will be planted by my simply being there with the children. 

So, now I will be the popsicle house, the sprinkler house, the cry if you had a bad day house, the water balloon, sandbox or whatever you need this house to be house.  I am not having a Bible study every Wednesday on my lawn, I may at some point who knows.  I do know that today, I am handing out popsicles and sweet tea.

So, here is my challenge to you.  What practical ministry (or way to show God’s love) is staring at you right now.  You know, the one that you pass every day and feel a faint tug that you should do something purposeful about.  What are you going to do about it?

Clean out the Cache

“You know, this would go much faster if you would clean out your cache once in a while.”  These were the words I received from my husband as he was working on my computer.  My response was, “My what?” He was telling me that my computer was running slow because of all of the unnecessary files in my cache.  There were files that I didn’t need or use that were still in my computer memory that were clogging it up and keeping my computer from running as it was intended to.  The worst part was that I had no idea that they were there. 

My computer issue mirrored life a bit.   We have a lot of things that are in our memory cache whether we are aware of them or not.  These are the things that drag us down or keep us so busy that we don’t have time for the tasks that are in front of us.  I am not saying they all need to be deleted, some just need to be filed away into the right spot.  Going through all of this can be an overwhelming task but if done on a regular basis, it will allow us to keep doing what we were purposed to do.  As with my computer, this process takes time.

What do these files in our lives contain?  These include past failures, successes, other people’s successes and failure, and don’t forget the Shouldof’s and Couldov’s.  They contain hurts and happiness (that we wish we had again).  They also hold hopes and ways of achieving goals.  They are not always a negative thing, they are often full of information we needed at a time that we keep holding on to just because we don’t recognize it as being there and that it is guiding our lives.

We all have a lot of stuff going on in the background of our lives that affect what is on the screen.   This leads me to two questons that I need to ask myself on a regular basis, "Am I working as I was intended to" and if not, “Am I willing to clean out the cache?”

Dance

            I love to watch my daughter dance.  Picture if you will a little 5 year old girl stretching out her arms, hands extended, fingers pointed with large movements twirling around the room. She is always dancing. Whether she has an audience or not she loves to dance and puts everything she has into her dances.   She is not concerned about making mistakes or looking silly, she just wants to express herself through her dancing. 

I love the simplicity she shows in those moments.  Her little voice saying “I can’t help it Mommy, I just have to dance.”  It just warms my heart.

  I think about how often I long for that kind of simplicity and then make a plan to achieve it that is beyond any semblance of simplicity.  To liken it to a dance, I have to watch the video/teacher, make sure that I have everything in the right place and positioned correctly.  I have to make sure that the music I am dancing to matches the dance I am doing.  I get so caught up in details that I forget to just enjoy the moment. 

Just like in dancing, there is some practice and preparation that has to be done sometimes in orderfor everything to come together.  To be honest, I don't really have much of a problem with that part of life.  I need to work on just "dancing because 'I just have to'"  So today, I am committing myself to just dance just for a little while.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to Me!  I am now officially 39.  Oh how that number scares me.  I don’t know why, but it does.  I think I am finally hitting what I always thought of as the “old age”.  I know that is just not true, but old beliefs tend to hang around even when they are proven wrong.

            So here I am on my Birthday and I have started a list of 39 things I want to accomplish before turning 40.  I am not going to go into all of them, but I will say that it starts with actually getting on and writing in the blog that I set up a year or so ago.  I promised a good friend that I would start even though I have many concerns about doing so.  Mostly things like, “what if no one reads it?” “What if I write something stupid and reveal that I am not really all that smart?”  “What things of substance do I really have to say anyway?”  These are the things that I lose sleep over!

My friend reminded me that we are all in the process of growing and that I am not expected to be perfect.  Another friend reminded me that everything I do should be for an audience of One and, well, that pretty much put all of the concerns into perspective for me.  I want this blog to be a source of encouragement and enrichment to the readers, but more than that, I want to Glorify God.  I am far from perfect or even together, but I do love the Lord and want to share that with others.  I do hope that you will journey with me and we can navigate this crazy world together.

So what does all this have to do with my Birthday?  Well, this is my present to myself.  I am moving beyond the idea stage, putting away my excuses, facing my fear and moving forward.  Who knows what will come of it, but I am glad to be doing it.