Accomplished.

God gets things done.  When He makes a plan or sets a goal, He sees His part through, always. Isaiah 14:24: “The LORD Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen."  He never gives up or gives in.  I wish I was more like Him.

I want to accomplish something.  I want to set a goal and see it through.  Why can’t I?  I plan to do something, and I start out well, but then suddenly I give up.  I don’t try long enough.  Why? Its not that I don’t want to.  I want to more than anything. So why am I always stopped short? 

Part of it is that the enemy doesn’t want me to achieve my goals.  Accomplishment is a Godly thing.  Seeing things through is what God does.  So if I am trying to accomplish something that would please God, Satan’s going to try to stop me.  He’ll play on all of my insecurities and use people to bring me down, without them even realizing the crushing pain they’ve inflicted on my heart. But the bad part is, I give up. I believe that the words used against me are true. Satan attacks, and  I let him.  Why?

I’ve decided that I’ve come to a place where I have to take this whole “strength in You” thing seriously.  I need Him to help me achieve my goals. If I set a goal and say, “I’m going to do it”, then I need to ask Jesus to do what He does when He sets a goal: achieve it.   I can’t do it on my own. Isaiah 26:12 confirms this: “LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.”  It is God that helps us accomplish what we set out to do. 

So I’m going to try as hard as possible, and ask God to help me when I’m weak.  Like really ask Him.  When I feel weak, God, help me see this through.  I need You to push me.  I need You to pick me up and encourage me. 

Above all, I’ve got to trust that He’ll do this.  I have to believe that if God said He wants me to be free from my sins, from my insecurities, that He’ll see it through.  Mary believed it.  She believed that if God said she was going to impossibly conceive, that it would happen. She obeyed. She did her part.  I’ve got to do the same. Luke 1:45 “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” I just pray that soon I can look at something in my life and say, “I did it, because of Jesus Christ.”

First Love Awakening

Revelation 2: 4-5

 ^“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.  Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

---------

You have forsaken me,

Fallen from the heights.

Return to me,

Remember me,

First love awakening.

Again someday you’ll sing

The songs you wrote

Just for me, so long ago,

when your heart was after me.

You stopped short of the chorus,

But I never stopped the harmony.

I’ll keep singing as you sleep,

As I wait for you to wake.

Remember me.

Do you hear the melody?

I’m singing it for you

When First love awakens

You’ll sing it too.

Encourage Me

Psalm 10:17:

“ You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted;  you encourage them, and you listen to their cry”

-----

Encourage me

Comfort me with You, only You.

Because I feel like no one sees me.

But you always do.

Jesus, You are enough.

Sift my soul

Let the pain fall through

All I need is You.

Let your words remain

No others entertained

All I need is You.

Encourage me

Cause You know me, only You

No one heals my heart like you do

They can’t see my despair

But you’re always there

Jesus, You are enough.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."  --  C.S. Lewis


There is such a deep longing to be satisfied, and naturally we attempt to fill that need with things in this world.  Our natural world. That's just, well, natural. There are some needs that we have that can be met by this world. If I'm hungry, I can satisfy that need with lunch.  If I am tired, I can satisfy that need with sleep.  If I'm thirsty, water can replenish me. But the deeper part of us, the non-physical soul, simply cannot be satisfied by the things of this world, no matter how hard we try.  Food always takes care of hunger, but it only numbs pain.  Sleep restores energy, but it can't restore joy.  Drugs, alcohol, they make you forget...until they wear off. Nothing in this world can truly satisfy our longing for meaning, for purpose, for love.  Even the most wonderful spouse can never be all we need.  Our children can't be our soul source of happiness because eventually they will grow up and not need our help all the time.  Then where are we left? Empty.  


If there are desires in my heart that this world can't meet, then my true nature, my soul, does not naturally belong here. My soul longs for another world. A place that satisfies all its needs. What better clue has God given us about who we really are? Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has set eternity on the human heart.  Somehow we know that we don't belong in a world full of pain. We realize that its just not right, but that somehow it should be.  So we've always known that we need to be saved from this place. That savior is Jesus. And He is our source. The hope that we have a restoration in store for us is what gets us by while we are here.   That hope, that peace, that confidence, its what gets us through.  If I know that nothing here can truly make me completely happy, then I have no choice but to look to the One who can.  And He will. Here is what He's promised us: 


John 16:33
“I have told you these things, so that in me you mayhave peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”


We will have trouble. But not forever. Someday He'll make it all right. Until then, let the longing be our reminder that our desires will eventually be met. And as we wait, we live as if we are already there. And when this world lets us down, we just press on toward our real Home. Eventually we'll get there.

Mommy Kitty

The other day, Silas, Addie, and I had the great opportunity to introduce four beautiful kittens to the world.  They were about four of five weeks old and had never left the safety of the window well their mother had carefully hid them in.  We took them out and watched them feel the grass for the first time.  They were scared at first, but soon they were clumsily climbing toward us and using their tiny claws to climb onto our laps.  It was a sweet experience.  Their mommy allowed us to have this special moment with her babies.  In fact, I think she enjoyed it.  She came and sat with us the whole time, wanting a little attention as well.  The kittens would climb on her and she would love them in her own way. 

Eventually Silas and Addie got interested in other things and walked back around the house.  One of the kittens was curious, and decided to follow after them.  Suddenly the mommy kitty changed her demeanor.  She started calling to her baby.  The little kitty would look back, and defy his mother’s wishes.  He just kept going.  He wanted to see the world. He was sick of that window well.  I just sat and watched this panicking mother. The kitten wouldn’t listen to her calls.  She ran to him, got in his way, and he still kept going.  She nipped at him (probably the cat equivalent of a spankin). She picked him up by the back of his neck, but he is getting too big for that.  She put him down…and he kept going.  Then something really cool happened.  This beautiful animal looked at me with her big green eyes and called to me the same way she called to her baby. She looked right into my eyes and cried out as if she was begging me to help her.  It was really strange.  I got up and intervened.  I picked up her baby for her.  As I was walking back I picked up the other three as well.  As I held them, their mommy ran to the window well, looked in my eyes, and meowed again.  She wanted her babies back in their safe nest.  She hopped in and I placed each tiny baby in with her.  There she cuddled them and nursed them to sleep.

This special moment really impacted me.  God taught me something very special.  This cat wanted her kittens to be safe.  But they would not listen to her.  She tried everything.  She called to them, she nipped at them, and she tried to carry them.  In her desperation she cried out for help to a being that was higher than her.  This cat genuinely trusted me.  This simple event was a reminder that we mommies can’t keep our babies safe all by ourselves.  There are some things that no amount of protection, no amount of discipline, no amount of teaching can do. We need to call out to a higher being.  We need God’s help.  He’ll intervene and do things we can’t do by ourselves.  And we can trust Him just as much as that mommy kitty knew she could trust me. 

Psalm 121:1-2 “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

For Freedom.

The cross has been on my heart this morning.  I’ve been thinking about Jesus and the price He paid.  In order to help you understand my thoughts, imagine this situation:

Imagine that a friend gives you free tickets to your favorite musicians’ concert.  Not only does the gift include the best seats in the house, but it includes a week full of pre-concert activities including dinners, movies, amusement parks, shopping sprees, etc.   As the week begins, you are so busy that you decide you really don’t have time to do all the other things.  You will plan on going to the concert, but the rest of the stuff just can’t fit into your schedule. 

But your friend bought all of it for you.  It wasn’t cheap either.  It cost a lot of money. But your friend loves you and knows you could stand to have a little fun.  Still, you are too busy. And you're kind of scared of roller coasters. So you eventually go to the concert, but that’s it. 

How would you feel, if you were the friend who gave the gift? 

Jesus died on the cross to give us eternal salvation for free.  It’s called grace.  Most of us get that.  We know that if you “confess with your lips, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved (Romans 10:9).”  So in other words, our friend Jesus bought us a ticket to heaven and gave it to us as a free gift.  And it wasn’t cheap. It cost Him His life. So we accept it.  We forget though that Jesus did not just die to get us into heaven.  He also died to set us free from the sin that makes our lives miserable HERE.  He gave us grace to enter the concert (heaven), but He also gave us a whole life of freedom from the sin that weighs us down, destroys our lives, and the lives of others.  These are pre-heaven activities, you could say, that we are just too busy, too scared, or too careless to enjoy.  So many times we just live like we are thankful for the concert tickets but we never take advantage of the other opportunities that are included in the gift.  We live with our guilt, with our anger, with our shame, with our hurt, and with our shattered dreams.

Just as that friend would be sad that he spent all his money on a week full of activities that we decided not to enjoy, so Jesus must feel when He sees us live like we are still slaves to sin.  We don’t live like we are free, we live like we are just getting by until we get to heaven.  We accept the gift of salvation THERE but not the gift of freedom HERE.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  -Galatians 5:1

I don’t want to put on that yoke.  I want to live in a way that shows Jesus that His pain, the price He paid, was not all in vain.  He died to set me free from all of my insecurities, my sins, my guilt.  I refuse to live like I am still enslaved by them.  I was set free.  I want to live like I’m free.   

Disney movies oppress women. Really?

I’ve heard several people insinuate that Disney movies promote oppression on women.  Really?  Let’s just take a look.

The Little Mermaid.  Who saves who in this movie?  Yes, the prince does kill the witch in the end.  But who saved the prince from drowning…twice?  Who fought for her heart and her dreams? The woman.

Beauty and the Beast.  Again, who fights for her dream?  Belle.  Who saves the day? Belle.  In fact, she saves the PRINCE from his curse. 

Cinderella.  Who saves her?  Mice.  Lol. But actually she saves herself. 

Now, are there instances in these fairytales where the prince saves the princess? Absolutely.  But what is so wrong with that?  Why is that considered to be such a terrible thing?  It’s not like the princess is just sitting around waiting to be rescued.  She’s either under a spell or being held prisoner.  She’s been attacked by an enemy (usually a female enemy who is jealous of her beauty).

Why is it bad that our daughters should dream of having a husband who fights for them?  Who faces an enemy for them? Who would be willing to die for them?  I guess I just don’t see why this is such a bad thing. Never in these movies do I see the woman not going after her heart’s desire, or her dream.  In fact, chasing her dream is usually what gets the heroine into a pinch in the first place.  She goes after it anyway, knowing there will be danger, but she’s willing to risk it. That’s a wonderful lesson for my daughter to learn.  Finding love along the way is always an added benefit that they discover in the process. 

Despite all the obvious things, these stories give us a look into what OUR enemy, Satan, tries to do to us.  (The book Captivating talks a lot about this). The Bible describes Lucifer (Satan) as the most beautiful angel.  Which sex of homosapien is the most beautiful? Women. Which sex do you think Satan would be bitterly jealous of then?  Which sex has been attacked more in our history?  Women.  So which sex would God try to protect more?  Women.  And if you were Him, who would you assign to that job? Men.  So who has Satan tried to use against women more than anything? Men.  But thanks to Jesus, even THAT can be different.  Who saved her from that oppression? A man named Jesus Christ.  And when men obey Jesus, they love and respect women like Christ loved the church…willing to fight for them, to give their lives for them, to see them not as subjects but as friends, as equals. That is beautiful. A Godly man is not oppressive to His wife. He is willing to help her in any way he can to be free from attacks that fall upon her from a bitterly jealous enemy. 

Could we do it alone? Sure. But we don’t have to if we don’t want to.  That’s what a Godly relationship is.  The heroine saves the man, and the hero saves the woman.  It is mutual.  It is beautiful.  And I don’t have a problem with my daughter dreaming of that kind of relationship.  In fact, I promote it.  She deserves a prince.  And she’ll grow to be strong enough and wise enough to fight for him as well.  She is a princess. And not the kind that sits around brushing her hair all day, but the kind that fights for her father the King, for her dreams, for her family, and for her husband. 

Just Like Dad

                

Perhaps we too often forget the profound glory that we were originally designed with.  God intricately designed a vast creation and chose to place upon it a creature that would bear His image.  As our daily, mundane lives carry on, do we ever stop and realize this incredible truth? Do we recognize what this means?

 This species called man was given an inner design that directly reflects the image of God.  We, mankind, were created to be just like God, our Father.  In the simplest of terms, we are just like our Dad.  He made us in His “likeness.”  In Genesis 1:26 God says, “’Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”  We were made in His likeness.  Our souls mirror His.  What does this look like? 

Ever thought about how much you really are like your heavenly father?  I’ll bet it’s in more ways than you think!  Usually we think of things like, being nice, and honest, and just.  When we are acting like that, we see our Father in us.  But, think about the other things.  For instance. I love to take something old, like a really old dresser, and put a fresh coat of paint on it to make it look new.  Just like my Dad, I like to take something old and make it new and fresh again.  My husband loves to work on engines. He loves to take broken ones apart and replace the broken pieces with new ones, and there is nothing greater than hearing that engine run again.  I mean, this man rarely sheds a tear, but when he started the engine of his brother’s cutlass, there were tears. I kid you not. He won’t admit it, but I know what I saw! Just like his Dad, he loves to take out the broken pieces and replace them with shiny new ones. 

My friend Anna loves to be in the garden.  Everything is new and fresh for her. She loves that. She makes everything from scratch.  I went to her house for lunch one day, and she said, “how about Pizza for lunch?” I said sure, thinking she was going to grab the Jack’s frozen pizza out of the freezer and pop it in the oven. But oh no, not Anna.  She mixed up a batch of dough from scratch, lets it rise, rolls it out, opens up a jar of her homemade canned pizza sauce, sprinkles the cheese on top that she grated off the block, and voila! Pizza for lunch.  This, of course, while her kids and mine ran around the house like wild animals. Anna knows that almost anything REALLY good comes from a little hard work.  Just like Her Father.

It amazes me how we forget how much we really are like Him.  We love to make things new. We love to have things in order. We love to throw in surprises.  We love to sing. We love to dance. We love to work. We love to build. We love an adventure. We love to watch things grow. We love to laugh. We love to discover. We love a mystery.  We love to reveal a secret. We love to create. We love to relax. Just like Him. Just like our Father.  And what a wonderful Father that we have who, despite our sin, saved us by becoming like us, and dying for us.  It is that sacrificial love that has won our glory back for us, and it is the source that will one day completely restore it in us.

I forget the eggs.

Do you ever feel like you are trying so hard to make things normal, or real, or meaningful, that you end up making nothing worth enjoying?  


Eggs. If you're gonna make a cake, you have to have them. They are like the special ingredient that make the ingredients bind together.  If you mix all the ingredients but forget the eggs, you get a dry, crumbly cake. Is it cake? sort of. You can eat it if you want. But you won't enjoy it. 


So many times I have tried to make things perfect without adding that important ingredient that holds it all together.  When I go about my day and I try to do everything right, I feel like I fail often.  I throw in the ingredients, like, take care of myself, take care of the kids, be a good mom, be a good wife, pick up the house, go for a walk, read the kids Bible stories, etc. etc., and then I expect to have this great feeling of accomplishment  and see this beautiful "cake" (my heart) at the end of the day.  But I don't get that.  Because I all to often forget to include the most important ingredient: Jesus time.  Like I seriously get so busy trying to please God that I forget to spend time with Him: the One that holds it all together. He's the common denominator.  He's the reason I do anything I do in the first place. Why do I try to be a good mom? Why do I try to be a good wife? For Him. To honor my Father. 


This verse was on my heart today:
 John 15:9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love." 


I forget to remain there. I obey. I think about Him. I just get too busy with that that I don't TALK to Him.  And He wants to offer me so much more than salvation.  He wants me to live as a citizen of that place now.  And that doesn't start with a list of things "to do".  It starts with my relationship with Him.  Without that ingredient, I fall apart. I crumble. All my ingredients do not hold together. But if I start there, then everything else I do holds together.   


I like cake. It helps me make sense of life. And it tastes good. 

Stories of Jesus

I've been thinking and praying about Children's Ministry a lot lately.  My kids are at the age where they are beginning to learn and retain things they learn about God.  I've been wondering what is the most important element that children need?  The Lord has placed it on my heart time and time again that the biggest thing kids need to hear are the stories of Jesus.  Why is this so vital? I'll explain.

Have you ever told your kids stories about a relative, a historical figure, or a friend who has passed away?  There are people who have greatly impacted my life that my children will never meet on this earth.  Still, I want my children to know who those people are, the kinds of things they did and loved.  For example, I tell Silas and  Addie about my grandparents and the kinds of things I used to do with them, how hard they worked, and how much they loved us.  I tell the kids about great people like Martin Luther King Jr., who taught the world about equality and true, Godly love.  The bottom line is that if we want our children to know who people were, what they stood for, and the difference they made, then we must tell them stories about them.  How else will they truly know about them if we do not? Sure, they could know they have a great-grandfather named Stub, but unless I tell them about him, they will never know what he was like.

So here we relate this to our understanding of Jesus Christ.  I can tell them Jesus loves them.  I can sing Jesus loves me this I know.  But unless I tell them the stories of Jesus, they won't really know what He was like.  They will never know the things He did.

In  John 13:33-35 Jesus said,  “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”


If we do not teach children the stories of Jesus' life on earth, how will they know how He loved us?  This is so vital.  Our children need to know the stories of Jesus Christ so that when they are older they can dive deeper into God's love through these same stories.  In turn, they will learn to love others. It is the natural response when you experience God's love.  So read the stories to your kids at bedtime, or during the day, or both. Let them understand who Jesus was, so they can come to know who He IS.  

Change and the Pool

Making a positive change isn't fun. Not at first.  Its exciting to think about, to dream about, and even to plan for, but when it actually comes time to make the step of change, things get a little shocking.

I can equate it to an experience I had at the pool with my family yesterday.  Ames has this beautiful aquatic center complete with a beach-like kid area, slides, bigger slides, a lazy river, and of course a big pool.  It looks so refreshing, especially with the hot sun on your back.  But you know something else when you look at the water. Its gonna be cold.  That first step in the water is shocking.  It takes your breath away and makes you not want to put the other foot in.  But you know something else too. If you just get in, get the shock over with, then the water won't be bad at all. It will be just as refreshing as it looks.  But you have to take the plunge. And everybody knows that the fastest way to get used to the water is to jump right in. You just have to DO it.

Change is kind of the same way.  Whether it be a big move, a job change, or simply adjusting a schedule or eliminating a habit, change is shocking. When you think about it, it seems so refreshing.  When you see others living it, it makes you long for it.  But you know something else.  Its not gonna be easy. Its gonna be hard. You're going to put your foot in the water and want take it right out when you feel the shocking cold.  But really, change is a lot like that swimming pool.  If you just get in, get the shock over with, the changes you are making won't be so bad at all. You'll adjust. And you'll swim around and enjoy summer.  You just have to DO it.

Thinking about the Artist

“We paint what we value”. I’ve been thinking about this phrase a lot. If we can look at a work of art from 3000 BC and discover windows into the values of the artist, can we not apply a similar tactic to our Creator? All around us we see God’s artwork. Just watch one episode of “Life” on the Discovery Channel and you cannot help but be in awe of His masterpiece. What does God’s huge painting tell us about His values? What is He trying to tell us? We see strength and power in a storm, solidity and height in the mountains, purity in the snow, eternity in the sky. There are countless species of animals, insects, and plants, each kind of flower with its own unique color and fragrance. The detail of this painting is exquisite and one could literally spend eternity combing through every part of it.

And what of mankind? We are only a picture of Him, an image. But we have His character, and we have His qualities. We create, we sing, we love. It seems that if we really look at all of His artwork, we see that what God really values is us. And we also see that the extent to which He values us is so vast, and so unfathomable, that in our lives here we cannot even begin to explore the depth of the world He created for our delight. Perhaps if we took the time to look at His work, we would learn something new about the Artist every single day.