True Strength

There are some mornings you pray before you start your time with God and you ask Him to reveal where you have carved your own path instead of following His.  And on occasion, He loves you with such a great intensity, that He sends rapid fire truthbombs that leave you laid flat.

The Prayer:  (in a nutshell)  Can you break these gates of iron that seem to keep me holding it all in?  The walls I have built up have to come down, but I can't do it because I don't know what they are made of.  Show me where to start.

Truthbomb #1:  2 Chronciles 32

When you see an impending attack you logically build up your defenses.  You block off a needed resource that is going to make the target you are defending less desirable.  Cutting off that supply to deter the enemy, also cuts it off from those who need it.

This is the story of a girl who lost her tears.  Not wanting to be 'weak' she turned her heart into a fortified city , cutting off the water supply (Jesus), built another outside wall, reinforced the terraces, and made a large number of weapons and shields.  Then she armed herself with words of encouragement from God and never let them take root deep within her heart, they were just her defense mechanim of choice.  And when the attack was over, she never let down her guard again.

Truthbomb #2:  Calling out in prayer opens the door for God to send an angel into battle, thus allowing you to be still and Him to fight.

God wants to fight our battles for us so we can't take credit for the victory.  Our attempts to battle are often futile, because no matter what, we cannot save ourselves.  Only God can save us.

Truthbomb #3:

We want to reduce everything to a formula, figuring out the greatest common factor to arrive at the simplest answer.  In doing that, we take away the mystery and complexity of watching the greatest hands solve the problem effortlessly and rob ourselves of a spectacular demonstration of knowledge, wisdom, and power.  The least common multiple will always be me and the greatest common factor will always be God.  And the method He uses of solving will always require His 'order of operations.'  But, the secret things, the ones not revealed to us, are the parentheses, exponents, and signs that only He can see.

Truthbomb #4:  Sometimes you need to change your perspective.

Every now and again, you need to take a step back and realize that God is allowing something to continue so that you can learn the lesson completely so you don't attempt to do this craziness again.

Truthbomb #5:  You see that what you've done as trying to fill your own cistern ~ and it is cracking, leaking, and about to fall to pieces.

Sometimes you realize that what you have filled yourself with is what you defaulted to years ago and you just picked it ack up.  You've labeled it a bit differently because the situation wasn't quite the same, but your help has become an idol.  And sometimes you don't need to lay it down as much as you need to see it for the good God intended.  It never ceases to amaze me how we can take what God has given us for our good and His glory, manage to use it for evil against ourselves until He lovingly redeems and restores it, and then pray our guts out we that never fall back into that pit.

(In my early 20's I lifted weights and worked out obsessively and in an unhealthy way because  I figured if I was physically strong, I would be emotionally strong, and nothing could hurt me.  I picked my weights back up again in 2011.....the last time I cried.  Talk about irony.)

So here I am, with my eyes wide open, my heart bursting with hope, and my lungs ready to shout praise, glory, and honor to the God who loves us all enough to point out where we've gone wrong.  Never underestimate His love and His desire to draw you back to His heart.

Father, as much as this was painful to realize, I am thankful that you loved me enough to put it all on the line.  I pray that you would help all of us find our way back to relying on Your strength alone.  Search our hearts, test our thoughts, and determine our steps from now until we are home with You.  In Jesus' redeeming and restoring name, amen.

Help Wanted

Hebrews 4:16  Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

This is the verse I am choosing to focus on and memorize this week.  Technically it shouldn't count because I memorized it a couple years ago, but I find myself wanting to recommit it to heart, not because I forgot it, but because I've not really applied it to my life.  I've been fairly decent at quoting Scripture through the years and can pull a verse for someone who needs an aptly timed word, but living like it's made a difference, let's just say I'm that hearer James warns us about. #Bandaids

The part that really hit me about this verse, seeing it in my own handwriting, are the last few words, 'find grace to help us in our time of need.'  In order to do that we have to know when our time of need has come.  We have to be willing to identify our lack, humble enough to admit it, and strong enough to say we can't do it on our own.  We live in a world that praises independence but we serve a King that desires us to be in-dependence upon Him.

That said, any time we determine that we can do anything without Him, we are going to fail.  We are told in John 15:5 that apart from Him we can do nothing.  And just so you know, that includes breathing because He is the one who puts breath in our lungs.  Mic Dropped.  So to truly approach God in our time of need, means to approach Him constantly for everything and stop operating on autopilot.

One of the things I love most about God is His creativity.  He just doesn't do things the same way twice.  From Old to New Testament, stories of similar circumstances are handled uniquely.  And maybe, just maybe, we need to seek Him on everything because the way He led us to do it before is not the way He wants us to do it now.  Circumstances, people, and consequences change because time has passed.  As we grow in our walk with Christ, opportunities and obstacles that present themselves are evidence of His grace to stretch and grow us further.  Leading us into even greater dependence on Him.

As you start this week, with all of the challenges that will come, as well as the things that seem to require no advanced planning, stop and seek God.  Approach Him with an unwavering confidence and find the help He is ready and willing to give you.

Father, we operate so much on our own because we forget that You actually want to help us.  If you didn't, you wouldn't have given us Your Spirit or the words of truth that say we can approach You, seek You, and ask You for what we need.  Slow us down.  Give us moments to pause and hear You whisper the way we should go.  More than anything we want to acknowledge that You are God in heaven above and on the earth below.  Amen.

The Cost of Freedom

When I was in college and in my early twenties, I had very little financial experience.  I am by no means an expert now, but I have most definitely learned a lesson or two the hard way.

When you're young, and perhaps less wise, you can look at a credit card as a doorway to freedom.  Freedom to have what you want now without having to wait.  What you don't realize is that freedom comes with a cost.  That cost is called interest.  For example, if you have a credit card with an annual percentage rate of 27.24% this is the reality of what can happen if you don't pay it off monthly.

Amount Due: $1467.61
Total Minimum Payment Due:  $25.00
Payment Due Date:  2/12

If you make the minimum payment only for 10 years, you will pay a total of $3558.00 for your $1467.61 in purchases.  That also assumes that over the next 10 years, you don't use the card again.  That translates to paying an extra $2090.39 for what you bought.

Now, if you make a payment of $60 for 3 years, you will pay $2164.00, assuming you never use the card again.  And while this is less than the previous example, it is still $696.39 more than what you bought is worth.

So why am I sharing this?

Freedom has a cost.  Our freedom from sin and the law came with cost of Jesus' life.  He didn't only make minimum monthly payments or even slightly more than minimum monthly payments.  He gave it all when the time was due.  He decided that payment in full was worth it because you and I were worth it.

The reality of what this has meant in my life came through reading Ann Voskamp's new book, The Broken Way.  She puts forth the concept that we are to die a thousand little deaths in the giving of ourselves for others.  So, what does that look like, to die to self, to lay down your life for another, to share in the sufferings of Christ?

I can't answer what it means for you, I can only tell you what it means for me.

It means begging God to help me in my struggle with my love of food.  It means allowing the power that rose Jesus from the grave that is in me to empower me to walk away.  It means letting my husband, kids, family members, friends, and those in my circle of influence see that God can, and does, work miracles in our lives.  It means deciding that giving up what I love for what I love more is worth it.  It means not walking around in defeat, berating myself with my words, and looking in a mirror frustrated.  It is deciding it is not worth my daughter's heart to have her think feeling this way about yourself is okay.

Because here's the reality.  My 'freedom' to choose what I want, when I want it, and why I want it, has a higher cost than I am willing to pay.  My choices effect my energy, my attitude, my willingness, my self-esteem, my thoughts, my feelings, my behavior.  And each of those areas has an effect on everyone around me.  If I am in a lousy mood because my jeans are tighter than I want them to be and I snap on my kids because I'm upset with myself, that's a real life consequence that I have decided is no longer worth it.

I don't know where you need to die to self, but I'd be willing to bet that you do, or that if you asked God to show you, He would.  We each have our crosses to carry.  Mine happens to be in the shape of the things I love that aren't good for me.  And if the greatest display of love is laying down our lives for a friend, then dying to self in this struggle is most definitely worth the lives of those I love.  I want them to see that this light and momentary trouble is not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed.

Jesus, how you so willingly laid down your life for us while we were still sinners I will never comprehend.  Help us to die to ourselves.  Reveal to us the crosses You have lovingly given us to carry so that we can be closer to You and draw others to You.  With the Spirit You have graciously given us, empower us to walk in victory, one step at a time.  We ask all of this in your life giving name, amen.

A Better Life

Hosea 11

As God speaks in the book of Hosea, He asks a question in Chapter 11 verse 5:  "Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?"

But what does it mean to repent and what does it look like?  Does it have characteristics?

"Truly being sorry, repentance, is going to hurt; it costs you something."  L.P. on 2/3/17

There is a big difference between being sorry for what you've done and being sorry because you got caught.  As a wise friend, JJ, quipped yesterday, "It is evident in our hashtag oriented society with #SorryNotSorry."

I don't know that any of us can adequately put what being sorry is into words.  It's obvious that there is at least some desire to wish that we would have chosen differently.  Initially it is marked by behavior that is adjusted and actions that are different.  But in the long term, there should be evidence of its effect.  Some type of fruit or fruitfulness as a result.

So then the questions that remain are why does it hurt and what does it cost us?

Repentance hurts because we can see that our choices have had a negative effect on ourselves and those we care about.  We can determine that our actions have lead to consequences we perhaps didn't intend to happen or expect to be fully realized.  It hurts because we see pain in the eyes of someone we would never deliberately hurt and understand that we are the cause of it.  Repentance hurts because we become accutely aware of God's incredible love for us and the sacrifice He made to be with us, and we must acknowledge that we've done something that speaks the unspeakable......His love wasn't enough to make us not.

So then what does it cost us?  Everything.  It costs us our life.  It forces us to accept that on our own we are capable of nothing.  It is the absolute and undeniable realization that if we keep trying to hold on to our lives, we will unequivocally lose them.

I know this is heavy and hard.  I know because I'm being faced with choices I am making and how I struggle with choosing differently.  It's hard to turn from what you know because it's predictable.  Regardless of whether or not it's good for you, fear of the unknown and what it might bring, is often more than enough to scare us into remaining the same.

But just like we wouldn't ask our kids to do something that would cause them harm, we know that God wouldn't ask us to give up something unless He knew something we don't.  He always sees the big picture and He always has our best interest in mind.  The only thing we have to decide is whether or not we are going to trust His judgement on what is keeping us bound up in our personal Egypt's or if we are going to let Him lead us into the Promised Land He has given us as an inheritance.

Jesus, we want to have repentant hearts but the thought of suffering is suffocating.  Help us to grasp that your love which is wider, deeper, higher and more vast than we will ever comprehend, will be enough to see us through what you are asking us to do.  Give us the smallest taste of what freedom that dependance on You is like so that we crave it more than we crave anything else.  In Your redeeming and restoring name we pray, amen.

Finding Joy

2 Kings 5

A lifetime ago, I was a teacher.  I wasn't a teacher for very long, just long enough to realize that I love teaching, I am passionate about teaching, but the classroom is most definitely not the place for me.  Because more than I wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to be a mother.  Especially to the ones that didn't have it great at home.  And I quickly learned that you can not be an effective teacher if you want to take care of their needs more than effect their learning.  Thankfully I had enough strength to walk away before I crashed and burned.

As I look back on those days, there are some memories that are still fresh.  Memories of kids desperately needing a hug because they just lost a pet and memories of reading something for the first time out loud with confidence because they finally got it.  So many incredible experiences that remain forever in my heart.

But along with the joys, came the heartaches.  The kids that didn't turn out as okay as I'd hoped.  The ones that made horrible decisions that took them down a road I'd prayed they would avoid.  The ones I believed in more than they believed in themselves.

As I think about those kids, the ones that didn't choose as wisely as they could have, I can't help but wonder if God sometimes sees us the same way.  He sees our potential, He knows the good plans He has.  He is, afterall, the one with the blueprint that He intends to see from the execution of groundbreaking to the completion of ribbon cutting.

Sometimes we over-complicate matters because we want to do great things for God instead of what He's asked us to do which appears mundane.  The easiest directions in the classroom are most often the ones not followed.  Instead of circling the noun and underlining the verb, we assume we saw it right and it gets reversed.  The more complex, the more intentional we tend to be.  Why is that?

When Naman wanted to be made well and went to see the prophet, he was about to walk away still sick because the prescription for his ailment was simple.  All he had to do was dip himself in the water 7 times to be healed.  But that wasn't enough.  He had much higher expecations of what would be done and going in the river was not on the list.

Each of us has a little bit of Naman inside of us.   We want the grand gestures, the pomp and circumstance, and the admiration of those who see us complete something they question if they could do themselves.  But just because something is done with complexity does not make it more functional or purposeful.  A solid, straight up burpee is just as effective as one with a frog jump, knee tuck with a 180* turn, while wearing a 10 pound weighted vest.  I speak from experience.

I believe that God just might give us simple and manageable solutions because He knows complexity yields pride, exhaustion, or abandoned commitments.  When we place our expectatioins above God's directions, we get nowhere.  Perhaps we should start remembering that the ordinary in His hands becomes extraordinary through His touch and just do it His way to start.

Father, sometimes our ideas on how to acheive what you've called us to do don't line up with your thoughts or ways.  Help us to squash our pride when it bubbles up and threatens to rob of us of the blessing we will be given in following You.  Let our joy be found in honoring You alone.  Amen.

No Substitutions

Yesterday I had lunch with my husband.  Prior to going, I checked out the menu and nutritional information online to find out what glueten free options were available.  Much to my delight, I saw that the items I was considering could be adjusted to glueten free status.  To my disappointment, glueten free status was not as I had envisioned it.

See, I love cheeseburgers.  A good, juicy burger with an obnoxious amount of pickles, and complimented with ketchup, lettuce, tomato, and red onion.  There is no food I love more.....not even a hot fudge sundae from Bruster's.

As our server arrived and asked us if we had any questions, I asked him if I was correct in assuming that the burgers are made glueten free by offering a glueten free bun.  To my complete horror his response was something like this:  "No, we only use real ingredients here, like real bread and real butter.  You just don't get it on a bun.  I can put it on lettuce for you if you want."

Sometimes I wonder if God in His infinite wisdom doesn't do the same with us.  Rather than give us a similar alternative to what isn't good for us, He just performs a blessed subtraction and takes it away altogether.  Unfortunately with our limited perspective, we don't see it that way.  We want our cake and we want to eat it, too.  We want an option, not a removal.

Removals require loss.  Sacrifice.  Surrender.  The truth is, substitutions only lead to frustration.  We need to acknowledge that always having an alternative isn't going to help us move past what is gone or truly satisfy our craving, it will only cause us to lament what we wish could be and lead to our half-hearted thankfulness for what is less than ideal.  So what if instead we look at the removal of what isn't good for us as a chance to rely on the goodness of God to delight us?   And maybe in doing that, we can start to look at the times when the option is more favorable as a sign of His grace.

Father, we want our greatest joy to be found in You.  But we live in a world where options abound that entice us with promises of satisfaction that only leave us empty, hungry, thirsty and wanting more.  Help us embrace the moments where removal is in our best interest, knowing that in You we already have everything we will ever need.  Amen

Seeing God in the ordinary

Everyday we see things that appear ordinary.  They are so common I would say the majority of them become the wallpaper in the background we just don't even notice anymore.  But every now and again, you see something with fresh eyes, through God's eyes, and what He's trying to get you to understand.

As I sat here at my dining room table, I glanced to my right and saw a folded paper in my sorter that at the top reads:  Summary of your claim.  It's an explanation of benefits from our dental insurance detailing the first portion of our son's orthodontic treatment.

Most insurance claims have 3 parts:  what the claim was, what you are covered for, and what you owe for using it.  They outline in detail what you had done, what your plan determines is the insurer's responsibility to take care of, and if you have any expenses to pay for the benefit used beyond what you paid up-front.  Very common and most of us see at least a handful a year.

Can you imagine what it would be like to get a claim summary from God with a detailed explanation of benefits attached, and what you owe written at the bottom?  I imagine it might look like this.

Claim Summary:

Date of Service  2/1/2017

Service performed:  Prayers heard

Explanation of Benefit:  1 John 5:14  This is the confidence we have in approaching God:  that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

You may owe:  Nothing

The part that stands out to me is 'the part that you may owe' where it would read ~ nothing.  There is no co-pay, deductible, or out of pocket maximum to reach.  There are no lifetime maximum benefit caps.  We have unlimited access to the greatest health care we will ever know.  And we were given this coverage from someone who paid for it on our behalf.

While it may seem tedious to do this, I want to give you a two-part challenge.  First, take a look at your life, and write up a few Explanations of Benefits from God over the next few days.  And everytime you write the word "nothing" for what you owe, take a minute to really digest what that means and why it is that way.  Second, focus on what is going on that requires strength, resources, or abilities that you just don't have in you.  And then confidently walk into The Great Physician's office for a check up.  Tell Him every symptom and every concern.  Ask Him for a prescription, plan of care, and follow up appointment.  And when you are better, use what made you healthier to help someone else get healthier, too.

Father, we can never repay You for all that You have done and continue to do for us.  Help us to remember that more than anything, You want us to come to You with our weaknesses, sicknesses, and difficulties, because when You make us healthy, we can be Your hands and feet to help heal others.  We pray these things in the restoring name of Jesus, amen.