Putting away lying

I flipped open my bible to Ephesians and began to read. It always amazes me that I can choose what I think is a random passage to read and God will illuminate and speak so clearly to me. I know it shouldn't surprise me by now, but it still evokes a sense of awe in me. As I read I came to Ephesians 4:25 " Therefore putting away lying, "Let each of you speak truth with his neighbor," for we are members of one another. It really struck me so I stopped and began to ponder.

I have read this book of the Bible a thousand times, and have read this verse over and over, but two things struck me about it. Every other time I have read this verse I have really concentrated on the not lying to one another part. I really make every effort to tell the truth and not shade it or lie. When I realize that I have misrepresented something I am pretty quick to go back, admit what I have done and ask for forgiveness. My children used to really make fun of the fact that mom wouldn't even tell a white lie. I have gotten the attitude at times from people that this is a fault my refusal to tell any type of lie. I feel like it is what God wants me to do. I find sometimes that b/c I am so careful to tell the truth I also generally assume that people are sincerely telling me the truth. Then I am really surprised and hurt when I find out someone has lied to me.

Anyway, enough about that. What I had never really pondered was the last half of the verse. For we are members of one another. I know that the body of Christ is considered members of one another, but I didn't read don't lie to fellow believers b/c we are members of one another, it read don't lie to your neighbor. So I went on a search to see if anyone else had the same thought process that I had. Was this verse saying that we are all in fact members of one another?

I found a lot of reverences to the Body of Christ, but I did also find those that pointed to all of humanity being members of one another. We are, as humans, part of the same race of created beings. We all came from the same original set of parents: Adam and Eve. What we do and say to one another effects us all. So how does that effect how we should interact with everyone. We are told not to lie to anyone. Do we misrepresent? Do we exaggerate? Do we take advantage of people's trust? Do we excuse not being completely honest and transparent in our dealings with people outside of the church, justifying that they are not a part of the family of God? But aren't they they family of God? Isn't every human being created in the image of God? Whether they choose to glorify Him or not, each and every person is an image bearer. Is there ever a reason to deceive anyone? What if we made a point to be totally truthful at all time not matter the cost?

Then Romans 13:10 came to my mind. "Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Deceiving anyone is harming them. If we are out for the good of everyone else, even over ourselves we have no need to lie or harm.

This lead me to the following list of verses about how to treat people:

Galatians 6:10

¹⁰ So then, ^(A)as we have opportunity, let us ^(B)do good to everyone, and especially to those who are ^(C)of the household of faith.

Proverbs 3:27

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{27 (A)}Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,^[a]
when it is in your power to do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:15

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁵ See that ^(A)no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always ^(B)seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

Romans 12:10

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{10 (A)}Love one another with brotherly affection. ^(B)Outdo one another in showing honor.

Philippians 2:3

English Standard Version (ESV)

³ Do nothing from ^(A)selfish ambition or ^(B)conceit, but in ^(C)humility count others more significant than yourselves.

1 Peter 5:5-6

English Standard Version (ESV)

⁵ Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. ^(A)Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ^(B)“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

1 Peter 4:9

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{9 (A)}Show hospitality to one another without grumbling

Galatians 6:2

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{2 (A)}Bear one another's burdens, and ^(B)so fulfill ^(C)the law of Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Ephesians 4:32

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{32 (A)}Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, ^(B)forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Romans 12:16

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{16 (A)}Live in harmony with one another. ^(B)Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.^{[a] (C)}Never be wise in your own sight.

John 13:34-35

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{34 (A)}A new commandment ^(B)I give to you, ^(C)that you love one another: ^(D)just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ^{35 (E)}By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I John 3:11

1 For ^(A)this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, ^(B)that we should love one another.

1 John 4:12

English Standard Version (ESV)

^{12 (A)}No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and ^(B)his love is perfected in us.

1 Peter 4:8

English Standard Version (ESV)

⁸ Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since ^(A)love covers a multitude of sins.


I know that is a long list of scriptures. I guess the point I wanted to make is that we are to love everyone and put their needs above ours. We are to prefer them over ourselves and refuse to do any harm to anyone. That includes deceiving, gossiping, ignoring or looking down upon. Galatians says to do good to everyone and especially the household of faith, but lets not rush into the household of faith part ignoring the do good to EVERYONE. Just like we wouldn't intentionally harm our own bodies, since everyone is a member of everyone, we are to care for, bless, nourish, cherish and do no harm to anyone.

Very quickly the other things that stuck out to me was that the "Let each of you speak truth with his neighbor," in the verse is a quote b/c in the verse it is in parenthesis. So I went on a search for where is was being quoted from. I found it in Zechariah 8:16 "There are these things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgement for peace in your gates."

How much peace would there be internally and relationally if we simply always strive to tell the truth and do no harm to our neighbor no matter the cost to us or what we might have to let go of gaining for ourselves.

Let love be without hypocrisy

Romans 12:9 (KJV) days Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.

I really got stuck on Let love be without hypocrisy. The ESV says: Let love be genuine. I meditated and journaled on this yesterday and today and thought I would share.

When I seek out a definition for love, I am usually led directly to 1 Cor. 13. As most people probably are being that it is called the love chapter.

I Corinthians 13:4-7

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (ESV)

That is a tall order to do with people whom we spend our lives with, whom we have emotional attachments to. We fail over and over miserably with them. Most of the time we don't even try to do that with others we don't know; we do even less of it with people we don't care for or whose who are not like us.

But who are we commanded to love?

Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another fulfills the law.

Romans 13:10 Love does not harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Matthew 5:43-45
⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Loving without hypocrisy, loving genuinely is not easy. As a matter of fact it is impossible in ourselves. It is only possible through His Spirit dwelling in us. Only when we are full of Him, when we have brought all of our needs to Him and we are not seeking to have them filled any other way, can we poor out unconditional, overflowing, never ending, genuine love. He is the only source of love. We cannot manufacture it or find it in ourselves or anyone else. We can only receive love from Him and give genuine love out to others from the river which flows out of us by His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We can be fulfilled in Him and then seek to give or serve with no thought of return because He is our source and we are always full in Him.

He is the only source of unconditional love. Our love always contains conditions. We always have mixed motives and in our giving love we are seeking to receive something back. Perfect love originates in God and exists in us only as we exist in Him and He in us.

^{I John 4:16
16} So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

I John 4:19
9 We love because he first loved us.

As He is the only source of love, as He is love, we can only love through Him. His love abides in us and flows out of us. This means that those who do not know Him cannot truly love. Love involves sacrifice; it involves placing others above oneself. The world does not and cannot teach us that. Sin causes us to love only self. The world does not understand it; the world sees this type of behavior as foolish; love comes only from God. Anything called love which does not originate from God is not love no matter what it is called. Love outside of God is hypocrisy.

I John 4:9-11
⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The nagging Question in my mind

There is a haunting question that constantly rattles around in my head. It's not a small thing that just pops up every so often. At times it can become an obsession to me. It is a somber melody that plays at the back of everything I do. It plays when I rise in the morning and pray. It sweeps into my days as I live and attempt to give thanks to God each day. It plays when I meditate on His goodness and all that He has done for me and given me. It become a roar as I read about struggle and lack and hardship for others all over the world.

Job 1:9-11

⁹Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for no reason? ¹⁰Have you not put^(A) a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have^(B) blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. ¹¹But^(C) stretch out your hand and^(D) touch all that he has, and he will^(E) curse you^(F) to your face."

This passage is always at the back of my mind. It is not b/c I am afraid that God will give me Job's treatment. It isn't a question of justice or God's right to do such. It isn't even about understanding why.

It is this thought. Do I love and serve God because He has blessed me beyond measure? Do I delight in His will and grace because in my life His will is easy and His grace is pleasant?

You see I am sooooooo blessed. He has given me so much. He took that broken, hateful, confused, lost little punk girl off the streets and over the last 19 years has dramatically changed me. He has healed me of more than I will ever even really comprehend. And far more than most of the people I know can begin to grasp. He has untangled layer upon layer upon layer of lies, confusion, programming, fears, insecurity, self loathing, anger, hopelessness, abuse, addiction. I could go on for the rest of the year and not run out of things that He has lovingly stripped me of and removed. He has taken a high school drop out and given her a degree, several professional licenses and the opportunity to now become a nurse. He took the fatherless, extended family-less girl who felt like an orphan and given her an amazing family with her in-laws who who loves and accepts the small broken family that she has. He gave me the love of the most amazing husband ever created. He is kind, gentle, faithful, patient, committed, calm in the storm, and ever devoted to our family. He took a broken womb which should have never been able to conceive and brought forth 3 beautiful, amazing children. He has healed me so that I could mother them without continuing the cycle of abuse. I have a house, a job, food, clothes. I can read, and go to school and even be given money from the government so I can attend school. I have never had to hold a child who is starving to death and wonder how I was going to feed it. I don't have AIDS, hepatitis, TB or any of the other diseases that my drug addiction would very well have given me. Nor do I have a child who is sick because I gave them one of those diseases. We have two cars, 3 sewing machines, 2 refrigerators, a microwave, an expensive bike, a stove to cook on, heat, hot running water, AC in the summer, I have legs, eyes, ears, lungs that work, a heart that beats, a brain that sends nerve signals down my spinal cord to all my extremities. God made me creative and intelligent, driven and passionate.

I think I have made my point. I am no where near finished. I could keep going on and on and on. But I think everyone gets it.

He has been so good to me. I am blessed beyond measure and every day the blessings are multiplied. Every day He makes me more like Himself. Everyday, He faithfully meets me in my bathtub, listens to my prayers, and speaks life, hope, and unspeakable delight and joy into my heart. How could I not rejoice in His will and grace? What choice do I have but to be overwhelmed and brought to me knees before His grace and glory. He loves me, protects me and fills me with Himself. I contain all the riches of heaven. He is everything I need and more than enough. He is my greatest good, my highest joy.

So back to my question. Do I love Him because of His goodness, blessing and protection? What if everything I love was removed? What if life became harder for me? What if His grace became a hard grace as opposed to this beautiful grace I know that is blessing beyond all measure? Would I still love Him? Would I still serve Him with all of my being? Would I still trust and delight in His will no matter what it looks like?

Or is the grace I know cheap grace? Grace is so easy to believe in and delight in when it is what you want and how you want and free of tests and trials. What if grace suddenly became hard grace for me? Would I still be hopelessly in love with Him? Would I continue to rejoice in Him and attempt to shun evil? or, if the hedge was taken away and I lost it all, would I curse God to His face?

This is the haunting question always at the back of my mind. It is a melody that ebbs and flows and moves through me.

Walking with God--New Years Reflections

Psalm 116:1-19

I love the Lord, because He has heard

My voice and my supplications.

Because He has inclined His ear to me,

Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,

And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;

I found trouble and sorrow.

Then I called upon the name of the Lord:

"O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!"

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;

Yes, our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple;

I was brought low, and He saved me.

Return to your rest, O my soul,

For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death.

My eyes from tears, and my feet from falling;

I will walk before the Lord

In the Land of the living.

I believed, therefore I spoke,

"I am greatly afflicted."

I said in my haste,

"All men are liars."

What shall I render to the Lord

For all His benefits toward me?

I will take up the cup of salvation,

And call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord

Now in the presence of all His people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord

Is the death of His saints.

O lord, truly I am Your servant;

I am Your servant, the son of Your maid servant;

You have loosed my bonds.

I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

And will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord

Now in the presence of all His people,

In the courts of the Lord's house,

In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord.

This was the scripture in my devotional and it went along so well with what God was rolling around in my heart this morning. I don't know why, but it still surprises me when God set things up so the devotion, bible reading, or even sermon seems to line up directly with what He is speaking to me. I know He is God and can handle these little details, but it still evokes in me a sense of awe, when He does it. And He does it all the time. Why does it still surprise me? I have devotion I go through every year and I just keep going through it every year. I reach the end and just go back to the beginning. Maybe some day I will feel led to change to a new devotion book, but for the time being I keep going back to the beginning every Jan 1. This has been going on for years. I have probably gone through it 7 or 8 times. Every once in a while I read one that I recognize, but for the most part it always seems new to me. Amazing, huh? It always blows my mind that he can take this little book and somehow it is in the exact order the confirm and support what He is doing or speaking to me that day or in that season. Amazing to me. Maybe some day it will stop surprising me. I hope not though, b/c I love that sense of awe when I realize He has done it again. I hope He never stops surprising me. I think that is why I love life so much and why I wake up excited every day to have another day to walk with Him. I never want to get used to Him or let my walk with Him become stale. Lord, keep surprising me. It is so much fun. I feel almost like every day is Christmas for me. Strange, naive, crazy, immature, maybe, but I don't care. "Unless we come to him like a little child...." Let me continue to become more like a child and less like an adult. We lose the magic and zest of life when we grow "old". And as a matter of fact, Lord let me infect everyone around me with this disease of immaturity, naivety, and insane love for God and delight for each day He gives us. May we begin to believe in magic again (not real magic mind you); may we begin to be giddy, silly and amazed with anticipation of what our Father has in store for us each day. May we be willing, as David was, to dance with all of our might and be a fool for Jesus. May we get so lost in Him that we just don't care what anybody thinks about us and our love for our Savior. If people can act stupid for a football team, which has no eternal significance whatsoever, then they can act stupid for Jesus, who created us, loves us, died for us, calls us and equips us to do great things for him. Let's strip off of us the garments of "properness" and really express what He deserves for what He did for us. Can we please bring to church our football behavior? I think God would be delighted and be most honored by this behavior.

Well, that was an unexpected little rabbit trail.

My post yesterday about Larry and my story brought about a discussion with a friend. It seems that my post ripped open some wounds inside her that she didn't realize were even still there. We had gone to church together. I am sad that she is in pain, but I am glad that God showed her the wounds were there and ripped open the scabs. This is a great place to be; it is a painful place, but after the bleeding comes the healing. We discussed my perspective on the subject and how I am able to forgive and not be angry. I tried to share my heart with her and I hope that I was able to bring her closer to allowing God to heal her.

As I prayed for me friend this morning, this post began to roll around in my mind. When I read the devotion for the day, it confirmed to me what I needed to write about today. It is so hard to try to put into words the journey I have been on and how I have arrived here at this place. It is hard to express what has happened and what happens on my treadmill that has so dramatically changed and continues to change who I am. I would liken my treadmill to going into a closet and shutting the door to pray. From the outside one would probably just see someone running. You can't really tell that I am praying at all, unless you know me well and you just know, if I am running I am praying b/c that is just what I do. As I prayed, I tried to think about how I pray and how that impacts me. I was trying to describe it to my friend last night.

I have to say that sometimes I write with trepidation because I don't want to be taken the wrong way. I never want to come across like I think I have all the answers, or that I think I am just so spiritual, or that I think my way of praying is the only way. I hope and pray with all my heart that what comes across is an honest, authentic and sincere account of a desperately broken person who is desperately clinging to the only person she has hope in. I hope that you see someone who is so in Love with Jesus and so convinced that she has nothing without Him that all she can do is cling to him. I also hope you see someone who just wants to share her heart hoping that God would be gracious enough to use it to impact and help people.

I have reached a place in my walk where I have really ceased striving. I cannot do anything on my own. I don't even try. I need Him for everything, including even the desire to pray or seek Him. The desire and willingness is a gift He gives to me. If I see a struggle or an area that seems out of whack in my life, I don't try and change it. I bring it to Him. I don't try to use will power to solve my struggles. That is useless. I will always fail in my own power. I cannot do any good without Him. This also means that I cannot be proud of progress; I cannot seek glory for myself b/c I haven't done anything. I cannot find my significance or identity in any of the things I do or don't do. When people complement me or God uses me to speak truth and life into someones life, I must turn around and give it to Him. I cannot boast or think I am better than anyone else. You may struggle with food; I do not. I struggle with alcohol, and pride, and lust; I am not better than anyone else. You struggle; I struggle; we all struggle. No struggle is less or more than any other. They just are what they are. So, I cannot boast in any of my "strengths" b/c I have many weaknesses and the strengths I may have are a gift from God. How can I boast in a gift? So because I realize that everything I have is a gift and that I have nothing that He did not give me, I can cease striving. If He gave me these gifts, then He can give me strength in the midst of my weakness and struggle.

How do I pray? This is how I pray. I am not saying my way is the only way, but maybe someone somewhere will get something they need from reading about my prayer. First I spend a lot of time praying for myself. I have very long conversations with God about me and I don't think there is anything wrong with it. We need to pray for ourselves. What an asinine idea that we should pray for others and not ourselves. In that time of praying for myself, I pray, I listen and cry out and before I know it prayers are uttered out of myself that I know are no longer me; they are prayers of the Holy Spirit. He causes me to pray things that are scary to my flesh. He gives me to courage to trust God to know what is best for me. I find myself uttering things like, "if your Spirit goes not with me, I don't want to go. I don't want anything that you don't want me to have. I don't want to be anywhere that you aren't leading me. Lord, I will go where ever you want me to go as long as you go with me. I will go to Antarctica (that is a huge thing for me to say, there is no place I would rather not go than somewhere really cold; I am a cold natured person; I hate to be cold; Hell would be cold to me not hot). I will go to Africa; I will go live in a dump in Indonesia; I will live in a cardboard box under a bridge as long as you go with me. I don't want to be anywhere with out you. Take my family, just don't take your presence from me. I desperately need you and I am desperately in love with you. I know that where ever He would call me, would be where I would be most fulfilled, most at peace and where His presence would be. There is no where on Earth that I could be happier than where He would call me. B/c happiness is not external, it is totally internal. You have to admit those are pretty scary things to pray, but His Spirit prays them through me. When I am unable to pray, His Spirit prays for me, and through me. I am also free to not walk in fear b/c I am able to hold everything with an open palm. I trust Him so I can surrender everything to Him.

I find myself just praying for him to make me willing to do whatever He would ask of me, to go wherever He would ask me to go, to say whatever He would ask me to say, to be who He has made me to be, nothing more, nothing less. I pray for him to take out of me everything that stands in the way of me knowing Him and making Him known. I pray that if there is anything that I am unwilling to do, or anywhere I am unwilling to go, or unwilling to let go of, or unwilling to look at and deal with that He would make me willing. I ask him to help me to love Him with all of my heart, mind, soul, and spirit and to love my neighbor as myself. I pray break me, bring me to the end of myself so that I could lose my life and find it in You, so that it would no longer be I who live, but Christ in me. I pray that God would give me to courage and willingness to dig as deep in me as necessary so I could be free of all the infection, corruption, and contaminates inside of me. Free me from denial and deception, distraction and distortion, all the filters, wounds, arrows, and the voice of the enemy so that the enemy would not have ownership of any of the land in my soul.

When I was struggling with my alcoholism and the denial associated with it I just cried out to God to help me. My heart wanted to stop drinking, but my flesh did not. I did not say, "Okay, Lord, I won't do it anymore," when that was not really what it felt. I told Him, "I know that you don't want me to keep doing this, Lord, but I want to keep drinking, I like drinking, so I ask You to makes me willing to give it up, help me to not want to do this anymore." There was no point in me trying to get control (for those who are familiar with recovery, that would be the first and second steps). I didn't even want to control it. He knew that was the case so I didn't try and pretend that I felt any different than I felt. I did know, though, that He could change my heart and make me want what He wanted for me. I loved Him and wanted to obey what He was telling me, but I didn't have it inside me to do it. So, I brought it to Him and asked for Him to change me. And guess what, He did it; He changed me. I don't want to drink anymore. I know that there will probably come a day that I am tempted; the Word says, "let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall." I pray for that day when I am tempted, but today and for the past few months, He has taken the desire away from me. He did that for me. The first couple months had some pretty tough days, but He was so faithful to always give me not only a way of escape, but the desire to take it. So you see, I have ceased striving, I don't even try anymore. I just give it to Him, cry out to Him and ask for His help in all the ways I need it. My will power is not even relevant anymore; it isn't me doing it; it is Him.

Another example of the phenomena happened when we first really started going back to church and I started to trying to draw close to Him and let go of the things that were weighing me down. I would go to church and we would sing songs; they felt so inauthentic to me. I sang, "Lord, you're my all and all, I love you more than anything else," etc. While I was singing, I would be apologizing to Him b/c that is not how I felt and it really bothered me to be inauthentic in praising Him. I knew there had been a time in my walk that those words were sincere and I believed that I would come back to a sincere worship. I did the only thing I knew to do; I prayed every day that He would change my heart and help me fall back in love with Him. I prayed that He would make those words authentic and sincere in my life so that I could sing them and mean them with all of my heart. Over the next couple months He answered those prayers and He started transforming me and restoring me and healing me. Then one day I realized that I was once again singing from my heart and I really meant the words that were coming out. I could not work that up or make it happen; I just went to the source of everything I have and asked for His help. He helped me. He has brought me back to that place I walked when I first met Him, only with more wisdom, experience and root. We just have to be real, come to him with what we have and ask for His help. He will meet us right there. "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you." "Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart" Sometimes He will withdraws from us, when we are half hearted in seeking Him so that we will really get desperate and search for Him with all our hearts. He doesn't want our pretense, our half hearted devotion; He doesn't want us to come to him with a mask of perfection on. He wants us to come as we are, with all of our hearts and allow him to meet us there, even if there is a sewer. Sewers are His specialty.

I love Jeremiah 29:11-14

"For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thought of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive."

He has great plans for us and He loves us. He wants to put it in our hearts to seek Him with our whole being. He wants to bring us close to Him. He wants to bring us back from captivity. He will allow our sin, whatever it is, to take us away in captivity until we are sick enough of it that we will cry out to Him with all of our hearts. He will let us gorge ourselves until we are so full that it becomes sour in our stomachs and we vomit it up. He will let us have our fill and allow us to be dragged away into captivity, b/c He loves us and when the captivity is bad enough, we will cry out to Him with all our hearts b/c we want Him more than that things that holds us captive. He lets things get as bad as it takes. Then when we have had enough; we will cry out to Him. We will desperately cry out for Him and search for Him; we will try to figure out where it is we left Him, lost Him; then we will realize He is right there and He will rescue us.

God is good and He loves us more than we could ever possibly understand or love ourselves. For that I am grateful. He never afflicts without reason; He afflicts to bring us back to Him. He won't let us go. Man, is that good news.

Every day He has something to teach me

This morning I slept in until 7. It doesn't seem very significant unless you realize that i haven't slept past 5 in probably 6 weeks. Most days I wake up at 4 (no alarm, just awake). My body must have needed the sleep today; I didn't have much to do today anyway. One of the great things about waking up at 4 or 5 am is that the house is very quiet. I am the only one and there are no distractions from my running and prayer. Like I have said before my time running with God is the most treasured part of my day. I am very much a creature of habit. I also tend to be pretty obsessive compulsive. I like things the way I like them. I am learning to be flexible, but I am not a huge fan of change. I have come a million miles, but I think I probably still have a hundred million miles to go, especially in this area.

When I got up and climbed onto my treadmill, I figured that Chloe and her two friends would wake pretty quickly. They did and began to makes noise and move around. My first instinct was to get tense inside; I could feel the irritation begin to rise inside of me. I was thinking, "Well, this prayer time will be wasted. I will get my exercise in, but it won't be the same." The thing you must understand is that, while I enjoy running, it is really the time I spend with God while I run that makes me so passionate about working out every morning. Then, very quietly, God spoke. "Your prayer time does not have to be ruined. It will be different, but change is good for you, my child. Let me show you. Let's do it a little differently." So, I am not stupid. When He speaks, I have learned to listen. He knows and always has something in store. If I am open He works through everything, sometimes quite unexpectedly. I began to prayer that God would help me love and embrace the chaos that having a house full of children brings. I began to prayer for love, tolerance and flexibility. I prayed that God would help me begin to be able to filter out and function with the noise and chaos, so that it wouldn't make me tense and cranky. I prayed that God would help me let go of control and needing for everything to be "How I wanted it." Loving people is messy and chaotic. One of the greatest desires of my heart has been, for a very long time, to have a house full of kids. To have the house where everyone hangs out. That I would be able to love and impact all of my children's friends. I want to have tons of food to feed them, room for them to hang out, and lots of supplies for them to come and be creative with. I have not really walked in that desire. The catch is that lots of children around means noise, chaos and mess. These things are not pleasant to me. These are things I try to avoid. Well, its no wonder that this desire has not been fulfilled in my life. I am too much of a control freak to allow it. The kind of house my heart wants is not the kind of house my flesh wants. God is going to have to change me, heal some things, and teach me to let go and be at ease with a different kind of environment. He will have to teach me that being in a less "controlled" environment is okay and won't kill me. He will teach me to see beauty in the mess and chaos, to begin to hear the beautiful music in the noise, and to flourish in a house filled with people.

I cannot bring any of these changes about in my life. A counselor cannot bring me to this place. God, on the other hand, can transform me into that person. He gave me the desire and He will bring it to pass. He is so good and faithful to point out to me what He wants to work on and what needs to be taken care off so that His plans can come to pass. He makes me able to pray for help. He gives me the desire, shows me my lack, causes me to be willing to ask Him for help and even to ask him to make me willing to ask Him to makes me willing, then His precious Holy Spirit prays for me, through me, and finally He answers the prayers. The thing about my time on the treadmill is that somehow the exercise combined with the prayer short circuits my mind. Its like my mindsets and notions are taken out of the equation and I can pray from the heart in a way that I don't when I just pray. He gives me the courage to pray things that my flesh finds scary; He allows me to utter prayers that I might not otherwise utter. I don't know what your view of prayer is, but I believe when we utter a prayer it flutters about like a bird until the time when it is answered. Sometimes prayers are answered almost immediately and sometimes they are not answered for years. I have uttered prayers in deep times of prayer and then totally forgotten about them. Then later, sometimes 5, 10 or 15 years later, God brings them to pass and reminds me that I prayed them. Prayers are never wasted. They are out there, somewhere, in the heavens, who knows where, but they are out there waiting for fulfillment or working the fulfillment out. I read something profound once in an amazing and very old book called All things for Good. If you can find that book; read it; it will definitely impact you. It is an old book though, so you will have to special order it. I used to have a bunch of copies, but I have given them away over the years. Anyway, the book was talking about prayer and how prayer is used for the good of the saint. It talked about how every prayer is used and that even when we pray things that are not His will or with the wrong motives, or whatever, the Holy Spirit takes those prayers as a mother takes a bunch of flowers picked by a child and removes the weeds, binds them into a beautiful bouquet and hands them to the Father. What a release of pressure that gave me. What peace it gave me. When I pray or someone prays for me, there is no need to fear, the Holy Spirit makes those prayers what they need to be. He cleans them up and presents them to the Father.

Have I been transformed this morning into that person who is flexible and willing to let chaos happen? Definitely, not. But I am a step closer. God helped me pray what I needed to pray to see that come to pass. Those prayers went out, and "the prayers of a righteous man avails much." God used this mornings situation to bring me to the place that I would see the need and ask for His help. For that I am so grateful. I am so glad that He is always at work. What an amazing, wonderful, gracious, wise, loving, perfect God we serve. What a miracle that God would use children, who are completely unaware of what He is doing, to work in me today. I can only hope that God uses me that way. That, in His graciousness, He would use me to touch people's hearts as I just live my life daily. I hope that as I live my life would be like a pebble dropped about and that the rings that emanate from it would go further than I could ever imagine.

Christmas Lesson.

More and more I feel like the only thing this blog may be accomplishing is to confirm to the people around me that I am in fact very strange and quite insane. It seems I have some lesson God has taught me to write about every day. Either I am quite strange, or God talks to all of us each and every day in both ordinary and extraordinary situations. The real issue here, then, is do we stop and listen or do we ignore. I think, if we are seeking and open, God wants to speak to us all day every day and teach us in every situation we find ourselves in. So I will, non the less, be faithful to write, as often as I can. I will write in a small part b/c God asked me to and I find that it is always easier to do what He asks in the first place. If we choose not to obey, it just doesn't usually go well, or at least it doesn't for me; I end up doing what He asked anyway; it just ends up being a little more painful when I disobey first. It's kind of like when we were kids; we can obey in the first place and things go smooth, or we can disobey, get spanked and then do what we were asked to do in the first place. The other reason I will continue to write is that the things I am to say continue to bubble up and multiply inside of me whether I choose to let them out or not. The pressure of the build is uncomfortable, though, and the only way to let the pressure out is to release it here.

So, the Christmas lessons. This will probably not be exactly what you are expecting, but here they are.

First lets deal with the physical and its manifestations.

Yesterday, we ate junk, junk and more junk. It is our family Christmas tradition to basically feast on horsdevors all day long. We start of the morning with sausage balls, which were a little less damaging due to my suggestion to use turkey sausage as opposed to pork sausage in them. We also cook canned cinnamon rolls, orange and plain. I woke up knowing that the choice of food would cause me to be miserable, and sleep all day. The dull head ache began after breakfast and continued all day. I felt like my eyes and head were full of cotton. I was also almost immediately overwhelmed with the need to go to sleep. I ate at least a dozen cinnamon rolls and probably a dozen sausage balls. After a movie and nap, lunch followed. Lunch was actually more like dunch, it was pretty close to dinner time. We watched another movie and feasted on what would have seemed pretty innocuous to the normal person. I am not the normal person. My body is very picky and reacts pretty violently to food that is deemed unacceptable (not by me, but literally by my body). It seems the better I eat and the less often I feed myself junk the less willing my body is to tolerate it. I get more and more sensitive to food and add more and more to my list of no no foods. Sometimes I wonder if I am just allergic to all food and if the day will come when I can not longer tolerate any food. Will I be forced to live on a feeding tube? (not really, but it does seem my body is less and less tolerant, and reacts more violently.) I lay on the couch almost all day, sleeping and watching movies and feeling sick and terrible. It's like my body said, "I don't know how to handle what you have fed me so I have not choice but to shut down and be comatose for the day." We ate mini egg rolls, fried dinner shrimp, mini quiches, bagel bites, spinach dip, and chips. That is not great food, but not like the worst. My body treated it like toxic waste. The symptoms my body gave me to let me know it was not happy were, pain in my joints, lethargy, headache, and being very cranky.

I woke up this morning knowing that running might be a challenge, but determined to run and try to sweat some of the toxicity out. I had taken Christmas off from running and hated it. I missed the time with God, the endorphins and the feeling of being centered all day. I knew that I would not be able to tolerate a second day off, but wondered how bad it would really be. Well, I did have some pain with a lesson to learn. I was so thirsty that I literally drank 3- 33.9 oz bottles of water during the 2 hours I worked out. That is the next lesson. I was so dehydrated that my skin and lips are literally chapped. I keep putting lip balm and lotion on them. They feel like they are going to crack off. And I drank a lot of water yesterday.

As I ran the first lesson that came to me was before the pain or water lesson. As I prayed for some of the situation and people on my heart, I began to see a picture in my mind. I find that I pray a lot for God to wake our hearts up and help us to be fully alive in Him. I read an amazing book called Waking the Dead by John Eldredge. It was amazing and I recommend it to every one, especially those who are followers of Christ. We, as a church, have been so guilty of killing our hearts, b/c we don't know any other way to deal with the hurt we have endured and are enduring. We have been convinced by the enemy that our hearts are evil, that desire is wrong, that we are supposed to buck up and just "do the right thing" whether our hearts are in it or not. I don't think I am even beginning to do justice to the book, but it was life changing for me and really impacted my walk. After reading that book, I began to pray for people that God would help them see that their hearts are good (b/c Jesus dwells there, how can our hearts be evil if He lives in them) and that God values and loves our hearts more than we can even comprehend. Proverbs says, "Guard your hearts, for out of it spring the issues of life." Jesus says the rivers of living water will flow out of our hearts. Romans says "if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." How can they, then , be evil? Jewish tradition makes the heart a much bigger thing than we make it. Since the Word was written within Jewish traditions and framework, then understanding some of that framework would give us a deeper understanding of the Word. The heart is the mind, will, emotions. Our hearts are the dwelling place of God; from our hearts we dream and love. We cannot find God externally. Sometimes we run around from place to place, church to church, experience to experience, trying to find God. Some of us try to fill that longing for God in alcohol, relationships, stuff, family, or accomplishments. We cannot be fulfilled with anything, but God. That hole will only be filled when it is filled with God and we cannot find God externally, we have to look inside in our hearts to find Him. I am not trying to negate church, community, service, or family; all of these things are important when they are are in their proper place, but they cannot fill the hole and we cannot truly find God in any of these if we have not found Him in our hearts. He is quiet and gentle and loving always waiting inside for us to listen.
So I pray that God shows everyone the goodness and value of their hearts. I pray that God would work in each of us to remove those things in our hearts that would keep us from knowing Him and making Him fully known. I pray for God to remove the anesthetic that deadens our hearts, and that he would resuscitate our hearts. He needs to heal, restore, redeem and change our hearts. Some of us have been so hurt and have walked in denial for so long that there is a thick crust covering it. Some of us cannot even begin to live and feel and dream, b/c there is so much concrete over our hearts. As I began to pray for our hearts and especially for the hearts that have been so devastated and crushed that they despair ever being whole, I saw a picture in my mind. I saw that the process God goes through in our hearts is kind of like digging a well. I have seen a lot of video of well digging b/c the millions who are without clean drinking water in the world concerns me and moves my heart. What I have seen in the digging of wells is that it takes a lot of digging to even get to liquid. Once they get to the liquid, it comes out muddy at first. Then, as they continue to dig, the water begins to run clear. I saw how much this parallels God dealing with our hearts. He begins to drill, deeper and deeper, sometimes it takes a really long time to get anywhere. The crust can be thick and very dense. When He breaks through there is water, but it is muddy. It is like His word and goodness, mixed with the debree, and corruption that dwells in our hearts. When we continue to seek Him and let him drill, eventually the water begins to come our clear and clean.

The next lesson was the pain lesson. I knew when I got up to run, (as a matter of fact I knew when I went to bed last night) there would be pain. I have also learned that, most of the time, if I run through the pain, it eventually stops and I get to enjoy my run. Now if I wanted an excuse not to exercise, I really would have one. I could get up and try, when the pain hit me I could just stop and not work out and be okay with the excuse that my legs were hurting very badly so I could not work out that day. I could write a whole page on what God showed me about excuses, maybe another day. I do not, however, want an excuse b/c I love running. My morning run with God is my favorite most treasured time of the day. I am usually pretty annoyed if there is a reason I cannot run. As I spoke to myself and God about the pain and knowing that if I pushed through it I would reach the place of enjoying my morning run, another parallel crystallized in my mind. God just seems to speak to me in everything. When we walk with God there are different seasons of that walk. Sometimes there are painful seasons. We may lose someone we love; we become ill; we may lose economic stability; there are endless possible sources of pain for us.

On a side note, all pain is relative. We have to come to a place where we stop comparing pain to others. We are all different and react different to pain. What may not hurt much to me, could be devastating to you and vise versa. It is especially true during childhood. Being laughed at can be just a painful or worse than being hit. Never being good enough is just as damaging to a person as my sexual abuse was to me. If we could learn to acknowledge and validate one an other's pain for what it is instead of trying to one up each other, humanity would be making a huge leap forward.

When we experience pain in our walk, it can be very difficult. We have to push forward, though. We are running a race; we have to finish. We cannot give up and stop running. Fortunately, Jesus is the "Author and finisher of our faith". He doesn't let us give up and stop running. He will let us slow down or even get distracted, but He never "leaves or forsakes us". We do have a choice through the pain, though, we can run from Him or we can run to Him. The only thing I know to do when pain hits is to cry out to Him, to ask for His help, and ask Him to give me the strength to keep running and not give up. He is faithful to help us keep running through the pain and then suddenly we realize that it doesn't hurt anymore and we are enjoying the race again.

Lastly, I want to cover the water lesson. As I drank water and drank water, I was quite astounded at the amount I drank while I worked out. I wasn't forcing myself to drink; I was just that thirsty. God showed me that, as my body was requiring a lot of water to help it process the toxic waste that I had dumped into it, so we require a lot of the water of the Word to combat and process spiritual toxic waste. That toxic waste can be in the form of bad doctrine (which I did have a lot to combat at one point in my walk). It can be addictions, such as pornography, drugs, self destructive patterns, unhealthy beliefs about ourselves or identity issues. The more toxicity inside of us, the more of the Word we need to pour in to be able to combat it. I was so full of toxicity, when I came to know Jesus. I think that may be why He gave me such a hunger for His word and such a drive to consume it. The first couple years, I read and read and read that Bible. I was starving for it and as He illuminated it to me, it was like a banquet filling me, satisfying me, and transforming me. I must have read the Bible cover to cover at least 3 times the first 5 years. I slowed down for a number of years. I still read it, but just not so voraciously. It has picked up again over the last 2 years. Those first few years really gave me a strong foundation and made me able to find my way around the Bible pretty well. Reading over and over has committed so many scriptures to my heart and mind. Many of them I did not set out necessarily to memorize; I just read them enough that they stuck in my head, kind of like songs do.

These are the Christmas lessons God taught me. I actually learned them the day after Christmas b/c I was comatose most of Christmas. Next year we are going to have to change the plan to something a little less destructive to my body.

God is so good all the time. He is so faithful to me. His love is better than wine. I am so glad that He is willing to walk with me and teach me every day. I am so glad He gives me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to believe.

Proverbs 27:7 says, "A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

When we are satisfied with what this world has to give us and full of self satisfaction even the beauty of Gods word is something we don't really desire, but when we are hungry for God and desperate for all He has to offer us, even the bitterness of pain, struggle, persecution, and loss is sweet to us b/c He is there in it speaking and working and comforting.

Pandora's box

Well, I started this thing. I wasn't sure anyone would even follow it. I really just wanted to be obedient to God and start this writing thing that He has been talking to me about for many years. Now I feel like Pandora's box has been opened. I feel like I have awakening something in me that has been sleeping. It just want to gush out of me. Every moment another thought or some story or lesson God has taught me comes to mind for me to write about. I read one time that some authors see writing almost as a mental illness. Once it starts it just want stop. It can cause you to forgo eating, sleeping or anything else, like a compulsion that just won't stop. That is what I feel like I have awakened. It's like a drive in me that says, "I want to write, now! Stop what you are doing and go to the computer or I will go mad!" It can't be stopped. I guess this a good thing. I want to write, I have know for a long time that I am supposed to write. I guess if the madness takes control of me, then I will definitely make the time to do it. Which has really been the hangup anyway, not having the time or really not making the time to do it. The drive seems to be strong enough that this won't be a problem. The problem will be driving the gracious individuals who opt to follow this blog crazy with a constant barrage of post notifications. There is just so much that is inside of me begging to get loose in print. So for those who are following or choose to follow, I apologize in advance for the barrage. I can only hope that it will be a big enough blessing that you all will forgive me for inundating you. Also, I can be a little whacky and unique in some of my perspectives and thought processes; so if I go off somewhere weird to you, take what you want or can from what write and leave the garbage behind.