Let Everything that Has Breath Praise the Lord

Yesterday afternoon my kids found one of those little fuzzy caterpillars that you always see in springtime.  They carefully placed it into a jar filled with leaves "just in case he gets hungry" and poked holes in the top for air.  I felt bad for the poor little guy and sure that we would awake in the morning or next few days and find it dead.  To my surprise, instead of a dead caterpillar we found a cocoon!

Hmmm. I didn't really know what to say.  This was not what I expected, but it was a very pleasant surprise! So I prayed, "Lord what are you trying to show me?"  Over the next few hours the Lord tenderly brought to my remembrance the wonderful story of Easter--as He has been doing that a lot lately.  I thought about the disciples and Thomas especially, who did not expect to find the risen Christ but instead expected to find a dead man. We like to think that we would not have wavered in our faith after seeing Jesus walk on water, raise the dead, and heal the blind, crippled, and lame but the truth is we are all just as imperfect as the disciples. What a pleasant surprise when they discovered the Messiah who had overcome the grave!!! 

It would be enough just to worship a Messiah who could overcome death, but our God is not a God who just covers the basics. He goes above and beyond and extends that same power to us! Just a simple faith in The One who did what we could never do on our own, and we too overcome the grave and have eternal life.  Just a simple faith in the power of love, so powerful that the gates of hell could not keep him, and we too share in the joys of heaven.  Just a simple faith in Jesus, the son of God, who appeared to over 5000 after his death and burial, and we are invited into the family of God, creator of the Universe!

Oh but this wonderful God we serve took it even a step further. He invites us, through faith in Jesus, to share in Jesus' death and resurrection. We are invited to surrender our sinful lives to the one who was sinless. Therefore we are spiritually crucified and brought back into new life.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." 

Galatians 2:20

AND because we are crucified with Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:17 promises us,

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:  The old has gone, the new is here!" 

Wow. What an amazing God who loves us so very much that He went above and beyond. We have not been refurbished. We are new creations.

Thank you Lord for the sweet reminder of what you did for me. Thank you Lord for reminding me that I am a new creation and that many people who knew me from my pre-Christ life may not recognise me because they remember a caterpillar but will be pleasantly surprised when they see I am now a butterfly.  Thank you Lord for not just saving me, but bringing me into a full and abundant life. I am so very grateful.  This little caterpillar's life gives you glory and praise and so shall mine!

Psalm 148:7,9-10,13

"Praise the LORD from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,

you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,

wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,

Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

Go To The Tomb, But Don't Stay In It

This morning Hubby and I were discussing the difference in problem solving skills in men and women. Of course he was giving me the 411 on how men deal with things and I was doing my best to represent women all over the world.  Before I tell you what God taught me in all of that I will give a brief history of the differences between Hubby and myself.

Hubby is the eternal optimist. Nothing is so bad that it can't be fixed. He has little time to sweat the small stuff so he doesn't.  The glass is always half full, and there is no point in dwelling on the past. He is a dreamer and believes there is no limit to what God can do. Even if he fell miserably on his face after a faith jump, he would dust himself off, praise God and jump again. I am in awe of him--I really am.

I like to call myself a realist although I think that is just a nice way of saying I am a pessimist.  Small stuff builds on top of each other and eventually make big stuff. My glass is always half empty, and my past, although forgiven by my precious Savior, makes me want to kick my own butt. If I fell miserably on my face after a faith jump, I would lay in the dirt and cry and then get mad and pout with God.

We are so opposite, but yet we compliment each other so beautifully.

Anyway, so we were discussing how men vs. women resolve problems.  I appreciate the differences between the sexes, whereas Hubby is a little annoyed with them.  He works with an office full of women who sweat the small stuff and see the glass not half empty but empty.  He looks at it like women like to blow things up and make something huge out of them in order to validate their feelings. He might be right in some situations.  We discussed how women's brains are like a ball of yarn-one thought attached to the next thought, attached to the next thought. Men's are like waffles-compartmentalized where one thought in one square has nothing to do with the thought in the other square. Then we put away our psychology/sociology and picked up our Bibles.

One story that stuck out to me in reference to men vs. women was after Jesus had been crucified.  After the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathia and the two Marys were the ones who buried Jesus. They were the ones who placed his body into the tomb. The women could not embalm his body because it was the Sabbath, but when the Sabbath was over, these women were the only ones who came to embalm Jesus. Where were all the other disciples? Why weren't they there to help put their beloved Rabbi in the tomb? Perhaps it was the Jewish custom that women were to only do this; I don't know for sure. 

No doubt that Jesus' death was a huge problem for his followers. I think it is a natural part of who we are as women that when we have a problem, we sit with it. It's big to us, and it won't go away until we deal with it in our own way.  Many men are different. They don't want to focus on the problem in a real, up close way. They have to look at it from a distance as if looking out on the horizon to focus on the enemy's army on it's way.  The disciples kept their distance from their problem. They dealt with the burial and death of Jesus in their own way, away from the actual problem. The women went into the tomb with their problem. We are just different; no one is better and no one is worse.

The problem for us as women, is when we can't leave the tomb...when we can't leave our problem.  I am not sure what God would have done if the women stayed with the body of Jesus. It was obviously his Divine will that they not.
 

My thoughts are, if we never leave the problem, hurt, disappointment, then we miss the resurrection. If the women wouldn't have left and came back, they would have missed the power, miracle, beauty and amazement of the empty tomb.  Sometimes as women we have to know when to bury the problem so that we can see God do a miracle. 

Lord, help me to know when I need to leave the tomb of a problem, hurt, or disappointment so that you can do a miracle. Let me know when to leave the tomb so that you can restore life to that which was once dead.  Ladies, lets not stay in the tomb too long. God has some work that he needs to do.

In My Own Skin

Gosh I have been struggling lately. Struggling to juggle homeschool, meal planning, couponing, getting the kids to their extra curricular activities, keeping up with my Bible study....you get the picture.  We all have tons to do. I find myself looking at other women who seem to manage it all. They are my heros; they are the ones I stand in awe of. How do they do it all? Did they take some course on how to be a June Clever? 

Then this week, I began to study the story of David and Goliath. We all know that story, but this time something completely different stood out to me. Before David went out to fight Goliath he first put on Saul's armor, but Saul's armor was too heavy and he could not fight well in it.  So, David took off the armor and went out and faught in his own skin and defeated the giant.

Wow. That really hit home for me. We all have this image of what we want to be. David wanted to be a warrior, so naturally what do all warriors need? Armor. But God wanted David to fight in his own skin, his own personal armor.  Maybe that's what he wants for me too. Maybe I need to take a long look at what I am doing and really ask myself, "Am I doing this for myself, or to prove I am some superwoman mom?".  David was not Saul, but on the battlefield in Saul's armor, he would have looked just like Saul. Yet God was calling David to be comfortable in his own skin, because carrying Saul's armor was too heavy.

There are a lot of things I seem to be carrying that are pretty heavy. Maybe, just maybe, I should put them down and learn to fight the good fight in my own skin. Maybe then, that is when I will see giants fall.

Fast Forward

I hate commercials! I mean I loath commercials...well, except the funny ones. I hate commercials so much that the little TV I do watch, I pre-record the shows so that I can fast forward through all of those stupid ads. I mean, they just play over and over and over again-the same old stuff!  Its almost as if marketing executives are trying to brainwash us or put us in some hypnotic trance!  Watching countless commercial after commercial wastes our time, and energy.

As diligent as I am to avoid commercials, I also need to diligent to avoid what I like to call "spiritual commercials." Spiritual commercials are those thoughts that pop into our head unexpectedly. For instance, I was looking out of the kitchen window while washing dishes the other day and observing the kids jump on the trampoline in the back yard. They laughed and jumped and I smiled at their enjoyment. Suddenly a thought popped into my mind about them being injured, which resulted in that thought going deeper to imagining even worse things that I don't even want to think of, much less type.  Where the heck did that come from? I was enjoying this beautiful story of my kids playing and was rudely interrupted by... a spiritual commercial. 

Unfortunately, I have not always been good at recognising those spiritual commercials for what they are-a blatant attack on my mind and emotions from the enemy. But when I read these words from our brother Paul in Philippians and 2 Corinthians, I am compelled to jump into action.

Philippians 4:8-9 reads, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." (NIV Translation)

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says, "We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. ⁵ We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ." (NLT Translation)

Commercial interruption from a marketer that wants to brainwash you. He wants to rob you of your time, energy, joy, peace and anything else he can get his grubby little hands on.


So now what do I do? I do the same thing I do to any other commercial; I fast forward. I realize that like any other commercial-its a choice to sit through them and entertain what they are selling. That way I don't waste any time, energy, or attention on anything else, but instead enjoy the show.

Learning to sit at his feet.....

Not This Time

Christmas is a hard time for many people. If you are like me the weight of expectations can sometimes seem unbearable. Or the thought of wearing a fake smile to another holiday party is enough to make you want to get out the clippers and buzz off all of your hair. But this year, shortly after my birthday in October, I began to ask the Lord to change my attitude and reveal to me the reason that I protest Christmas kicking and screaming. In my mind and heart, I came to the throne room with my offering to lay down at his feet; it was an offering of my hurts, disappointments, and feelings of failure associated with the Christmas Seasons of the past. To some that may seem like a crappy offering to someone as Holy and Wonderful as Christ, but in my relationship with Him I have come to understand that those are perfect offerings! So, I approached the throne with open hands and left it all there vowing not to look back or sneak back and tell the Lord, "oh, I forgot to take this with me." and pick it up once again. Whew! What a relief to leave that behind! But now, the work would begin- walking it out. Believe me when I say that the temptation to go back and pick it up came often. Believe me when I tell you that circumstances presented themselves to tempt me to go back. Only by God's grace which has been sufficient for me (2 Corinthians 12:9) have I not. It is now 3 days before Christmas and I have had such peace and joy for the first Christmas in a very, very, very long time. I can't explain how it happened. My sweet husband has sat in amazement at the power of Christ and the work He has begun in me. I have come to realize that God is a lot like a great pool player or Bejeweled player if you know that game. He does something that sets something up for the next move, that sets something up for the next move.  This one little victory over my years of being Scrooge has given me the confidence to overcome other areas of my life that need refining. Praise God that He loves me enough to want to see me victorious and free!  He wants that for all of us!

The second portion of my prayer, reveal to me the reason that I protest Christmas, is still being revealed to me. Some of it has become clear while other parts are still foggy. So I wait for his perfect timing.

For those of you who are still struggling with the Christmas Season, please know you are not alone. But also know that the King of Kings waits patiently for you to bring your offering to the throne...when you are ready. 

Merry Christmas!

I am Learning to Sit at His Feet....