December 2, 2016 Devotional
December 2, 2016
Reply
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Day Sixty-Nine: God’s Silence and Day Seventy: God Encounters (Reflections)
Today, I am sharing the next two days of devotionals because, basically, they don’t need my help. After reading through Day 69, I didn’t think there was much I had that I could share, or wanted to share. Sure, I have plenty to say, but I imagine you do too. So, without further ado, here are the next two days.
DAY 69: GOD’S SILENCE
READ: Read the passage, attempting to identify in your own heart and mind with the expressions of the speaker.
JOB 30:15-20 – “Terrors assault me–my dignity in shreds, salvation up in smoke.” And now, my life drains out, as suffering seizes and grips me hard. Night gnaws at my bones; the pain never lets up. I am tied hand and foot, my neck in a noose. I twist and turn. Thrown facedown in the much, I’m a muddy mess, inside and out. “I shout for help, God, and get nothing, no answer! I stand to face you in protest, and you give me a blank stare!”
THINK: Read the passage slowly again – until the words sink into your consciousness, becoming familiar to you and resonating with your present state of mind. Don’t try to analyze Job’s response or determine its validity. Simply open yourself to his experience.
PRAY: What goes on inside you when you hear Job talk about God’s silence? Perhaps you feel irritated, or maybe you relate because you’ve experienced times when God seemed inaccessible. Talk to God about your reaction to this passage. To help clarify your reaction, write about it. Give yourself permission to be completely open and honest.
LIVE: Right now, practice resting in the knowledge that God is with you in both words and silence–whether you’re doing things right or doing nothing at all, whether you feel he’s near or you feel nothing. If this is especially tough for you to do, pray the prayer “Lord, I believe a little; help me believe more.”
DAY 70: GOD ENCOUNTERS – On this 7th day, review and reflect on all you have read this week. Take the time to revel in the ways you’ve encountered God in the past 6 days.
Day Fifty-Five: What Can We Say for Ourselves?
READ: Ezra 9:10-15 (or see the EXTENDED PASSAGE: Ezra 7, 9:1-10:19)
(10-12) “And now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind, the commands you gave us through your servants the prophets. They told us, ‘The land you’re taking over is a polluted land, polluted with the obscene vulgarities of the people who live there; they’ve filled it with their moral rot from one end to the other. Whatever you do, don’t give your daughters in marriage to their sons nor marry your sons to their daughters. Don’t cultivate their good opinion; don’t make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.’
(13-15) “And now this, on top of all we’ve already suffered because of our evil ways and accumulated guilt, even though you, dear God, punished us far less that we deserved and even went ahead and gave us this present escape. Yet here we are, at it again, breaking your commandments by intermarrying with the people who practice all these obscenities! Are you angry to the point of wiping us out completely, without even a few stragglers, with no way out at all? You are the righteous God of Israel. We are, right now, a small band of escapees. Look at us, openly standing here, guilty before you. No one can last long like this.”
THINK: Think about how you relate to this prayer. Have you ever felt similar remorse to what Ezra expresses here? Maybe you feel frustration with the injustices of your community or nation, or maybe you experience guilt on a deep level–not for anything in particular, but just a general sense of not getting it right, ever. What have you done with that feeling? Stuffed it? Allowed it to constantly criticize what you do and say? Have you ever thought of sharing it with God?
PRAY: Ezra’s raw confession of messing up before God indicates that he feels very secure in God’s merciful love; otherwise, being this defenseless before anyone is hard.
Read Ezra’s prayer again, looking for a word, a phrase, or even something about his tone that resonates with you. Take several minutes to mull this over, and listen for what it gives voice to in your heart. Allow yourself to make Ezra’s prayer your own, repeating it and following him in prayer to God. Or perhaps you don’t identify with what he says, yet beyond your words is a pain you want to share with God. Sit with him in this.
LIVE: When you mess up today, remember Ezra, and remember God’s merciful love.
One of the many things I’ve dealt with over the course of the time my husband has been gone is my tendency to catastrophize things. I have a tendency to fall into a pattern of all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking that can keep me from being creative enough to think outside the box, and come up with alternate solutions to my problems. This all-or-nothing thinking tends to spill over into my daily walk with the Lord as well and, many times, I’ve allowed myself to be driven to a point where I think I can’t do anything right, or that nothing is ever going to go my way. When I get like this, especially right after I’ve sinned, I begin to feel like there’s nothing I can do right and that I’m always going to mess up. That, my friends, is condemnation.
Condemnation does not come from God. Conviction, on the other hand, that feeling – like your conscience – that tells you “You really need to do…..” or “Maybe you should call….” Conviction is that feeling nudging you into obedience because you can’t not do what he’s asking you to do.
I don’t know about you, but one thing I’ve noticed about condemnation: it tends to rear its ugly head right around the time that I am struggling the most. So, right about the time we need God the most, and the grace he wants to give us for the steps we are on at the moment, up pops this little imp of a voice to tell us: “Surely, this time, you’ve gone too far. Surely, NOW, he’s going to write you off. ” Let me share something with you. The plain and simple fact that you feel like you must go to God to ask forgiveness is your proof that Satan is lying. If God was going to write you off this time, why would he bother to let you know that you need to make amends. If he was truly done with you, why wouldn’t he just leave you to your own devices?
Dear Heavenly Father, you know us inside and out, coming and going. You know our rising up and lying down and every hair on our heads. We know that we can never be good enough to merit anything you deign to give us and, far too often, we have snub what kindnesses you have given us because they don’t look the way we’d like them to or expected or hoped they would. Forgive us, Lord, for those times when we’ve bought the lie that we can do anything good for you on our own strength.
Waiting on the Lord
Looking through some old blog posts, and this one really encouraged me today. So, I’m sharing it again. Enjoy!
So, back near the first of the year, my husband bought a devotional – Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (a 365 day devotional by Sarah Young) he was reading everyday. Everyday, it seemed what he was reading was meeting him right where he was. It was amazing!
Since he’s been gone and since I am not allowed to send him anything other than letters, I have made it my mission to write out the daily devotions in addition to the letters I send him. My original intention was just to afford him the opportunity to be able to continue reading the devotions he had begun before he left. Of course, what started as an attempt to keep my husband immersed in the word, has turned into something that has been blessing me and meeting me right where I am. No lie, it’s almost like the devotions he was…
View original post 1,627 more words
Day Three: What Satan Intended for Evil
READ: Today’s passage took me to Genesis 50:15-21. For expanded reading, the suggested texts are Genesis 37, 42, 45, 50. This is the story of Joseph. You know, the one with the coat of many colors. The one who was a little haughty when he would tell his brothers his dreams. The one whom his brothers knew was most loved because he was the first born of Jacob’s love with Rachel, whom he served 14 years to gain after being denied by Laban, who pulled a bait-and-switch on Jacob at the altar on what should have been the best night of Jacob’s and Rachel’s lives. Yeah…that Joseph.
Well, his brothers got mad and conspired to get rid of him. They couldn’t kill him outright and live with looking at their father, so they threw him down into a pit, sold him to some passersby on their way to Egypt. Then, they killed an animal and smeared the blood on his precious coat, which they had stripped from him. They went home and told Jacob that Joseph had been attacked and killed in the wilderness.
Fast forward several years, Joseph is serving in the house of the Potiphar. The guy’s wife lusts after Joseph and propositions him. Joseph, having Potiphar’s utmost respect and high position in the household, runs from her presence, naked, because Potiphar’s wife grabs after him, ripping his tunic from his body. Then, she says that he had his way with her and that is the end of Joseph’s stay in Potiphar’s house. He is told, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Proceed directly to jail.” (They surely had a version of Monopoly in Egypt. Right?)
So, even though he had been sold into slavery, he managed to work his way out. And, now, he’s sitting in jail. By rights, Potiphar should’ve (or could’ve) had him killed. (I believe he knew there was something fishy in the state of Denmark. Wait! That’s Hamlet. Sorry!) But, he spared Joseph and just threw him into prison.
So…there he sat. I know if I were Joseph, I would be wondering, as I sat in jail, what in the world happened. God, you gave me all these dreams when I was growing up. I thought I knew what they meant and where my life was going to go as a result. But…here I sit. In jail. God, what in the world!!!!
Funny, isn’t it, how God’s plan for our lives never looks the way think it ought to. But, Joseph’s current circumstances (sitting in jail) did not negate the truth of God’s plan for his life. Joseph just didn’t realize it. I also suspect that, maybe, Joseph needed to be humbled. Somewhat. So that nobody BUT GOD could get the glory for what had happened in his life. And let’s face it! I’m pretty sure that if God had let Joseph’s life go the way Joseph thought it might, Joseph – most likely – would’ve taken the credit for it. Granted, Scripture doesn’t say that, outright. But, he was pretty full of himself in his younger days. And his way was paved pretty smoothly until he was sold into slavery. Then, afterwards, HE worked his way up into Potiphar’s house. I imagine he had started to feel like he was bouncing back after than hand that had been dealt him. I know I would’ve. I would’ve felt like this was some sort of vindication, even if it didn’t look like I wanted it to. But, notice, Joseph hadn’t been face-to-face with the people who had “caused” his life to go so sideways. There were still some forgiveness issues that would need to be worked through before God’s work would actually be complete.
THINK: This part of today’s reading challenges us to listen specifically for the word or phrase that touches our heart. Throughout the last three years, I have been holding tightly to Genesis 50:19: “…you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now–life for many people.”
PRAY: Here, we are challenged to think about forgiveness – what it’s like to be the forgiver and to be the forgiven. We are asked how this expression of love is meaningful to us. We are also called to listen for what God is inviting us to do or become this week. “Perhaps his invitation will have to do with a new perspective on who you are in his eyes, or maybe you sense an action he is calling you to take.”
This part speaks to me today in that, I have no question that, had I not been knocked down a peg or two – had “my plans” not been made to go awry or take this unsuspected detour – I would’ve been living my life saying what I’ve been saying since I left my home for Navy boot camp. I left my house believing that my life would be the way I wanted it to be because of the choices I made. For the most part, I like to think I made fairly responsible choices. And, I was choosing to be happy. I had orchestrated my life in such a way that everything made sense, and basically turned out the way I wanted it to, especially when I was obedient to what God was asking me.
Then April 2011 happened. We here T-boned by an accusation so heinous that I couldn’t believe God had been caught off guard. (Yeah, I said it. And, yes, I know the absurdity of that statement. It doesn’t change the fact that I felt that way.)
Then, March 2013 happened. The results of the accusation were that God allowed my husband to go to jail.
“UM…EXCUSE ME! Don’t you know that when I do what I’m told, and I make my requests known believing you will grant them, you are supposed to respond by giving me the desires of my heart?? And, by the way, we had plans! And what about our kids? And…and…and……….
Now, here I sit, reading the story of Joseph. Thinking, “Man, that boy was arrogant! I’m not even his brother and I wanna throw him in a pit, just to shut him up!”
Man….it’s a good thing I’m not like Joseph. I never walked around talking about how perfect my life was and how it was turning out just like I had planned. Why wouldn’t God bless me? Look at how good I am.
I don’t know if you could detect the sarcasm there. If not, trust me, it’s dripping with it. While I was not walking around actually saying those things, I was living them. And God looks at a man’s heart! So…He knew! He knew what I was saying even when there were no words coming out of my mouth. And He also knew that what those words scream is: I WILL BE MY OWN GOD!
I don’t think that this little side trip has derailed God’s plan for our lives. I also don’t think that I have to abandon all my deepest dreams and desires because He has allowed this to happen in our lives. What I do believe, FINALLY, is that the only way God was ever going to get the glory for the things in my life He has done, or permitted, is if I got knocked down off the pedestal I had built for myself so that He could take His Rightful Place in the life of one who calls herself a child of God.
LIVE: “Take time to meditate on the following quite from the Book of Common Prayer (1979), and let it become your own: ‘Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten; nor the hope of the poor be taken away.'”
As I come closer to the end of my education as a counselor, that prayer resonates with me. That is precisely what I hope to do as a counselor: to not forget the needy and to help restore hope to the poor. The only way that I can do that effectively, though, is by directing them to the Comforter. The Healer. To the only one who can actually transform a life. And I cannot do it if I think that I can be the God of my own life. That attitude will spill over into my counseling sessions and I will sound “holier than thou” and, thus, I will fail in our Number One law: First, do no harm.” Harm is all I will be doing! Then, I will be like Paul, not doing the things that I want, but unable to stop doing what I do not want to do.
As I head out to class today, I challenge you to look at those areas of your life where you feel like God has let your life go sideways. Then, TRUST HIM! But then, ask Him to show you if there might be an area in your life where He has been trying desperately to get your attention, but you have been ignoring Him, or missing His point. Then, pray for the courage to face it, HEAD ON, FACE TURNED UP TO HIM. Then, deal with it.
Day Two: Dear God, I’m Hanging on ’til You Bless Me
READ: The devotional for today comes from Genesis 32. Here you will find the story of Jacob wrestling with “a man” on the brook and him refusing to let go until God blesses him.
THINK: In this section, the reader is challenged to picture the scene. Specifically, the book says:
(1) Picture yourself in this passage. Are you Jacob? Are you an invisible bystander watching it all?
(2) What moment in this passage resonates with you most?
*wanting desperately to be blessed
*wanting desperately to know more of God
*other
I don’t know about you, but every time I read this, I am Jacob. I feel like I have been begging God my entire life to bless me. But also, I want to see the face of God, Peniel. Or, as it is in Hebrew, P’nay-El, which is literally, the face of God. “P’nay” means face today, still. And “El” is still short for Elohim, or God.
PRAY: Without even realizing it, what I have been doing, in my spare time, while I’ve been here at class, is searching desperately for God to bless me and to show me His Face. Perhaps, more than either of those things though, I want to believe that I can be seen by God and not have to worry if I’m good enough, to not have to worry about whether or not He will actually see Christ when He looks at me, even though I have taken all the necessary precautions to make it so. I want to be able to read the passages in the Bible that tell me He rejoices over me with singing and actually believe them for myself, and not just for everyone else.
LIVE: I will share this part with you verbatim:
“Sit quietly before God, imagining the night sounds and the smell of running water. Try to be comfortable with God in this wild atmosphere. What does it feel like to trust and to reveal the desires of your heart? Be honest if you feel uncomfortable. What would you like it to feel like? Rest in that.”
What does it feel like? Unsteady. Uneasy. Like maybe it doesn’t matter what the deepest desires of my heart are if He’s going to do what He wants to anyway. But, what I would like it to feel like is that He was listening. One song from my grandfather’s church hymnal sums up what I would like it to feel like. It is called “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” If you’ve never heard it, here are the lyrics:
- What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms. - Refrain:
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms. - Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms. - What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
If you’d like to listen to it, you can click on the link below to get to a YouTube video of Alan Jackson singing it.
I will leave you with that for now, and with this final thought.
I am trying to make Proverbs 3:5-6 my prayer on days when I feel like I can’t see the path God has laid out for me, or when I find that I have been struggling to make sense of this world. I hope it will give you some comfort too.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
~Proverbs 3:5-6 (New King James Version)
Day One: NAKED AND AFRAID
READ: Day One of the SOLO Devotional takes us to Genesis 3:1-10. This is the story of the serpent tempting Eve, her giving in, Adam giving in, and them hiding from God because they ate of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and were afraid because they knew they were naked.
THINK: I think that is probably the perfect way to describe how this past week of counseling left me feeling: naked and afraid. As I typed that last part, thinking about where I was going to go from there, the realization occurred to me that I have been naked and afraid my whole life. The only thing last week did was expose that to me. For my whole life, I have been desperately trying to sew leaves together to hide my nakedness from God. Sometimes, I was unhappy with the way they looked and tried something new. Most recently, however, I had finally found something that was working, because I had not been feeling exposed, or naked, or afraid. Either that, or I had just stopped trying because I wasn’t really thinking about God’s approval. (I’m not sure which, but I am confident God will reveal it to me as I make this journey. Probably when I least expect it, or when I want it the least, but certainly His Timing will be perfect.)
PRAY: This section says: “There is no better way to begin to understand God’s Message than to grasp our separation from him because of sin and our desperate need for him to reconcile our relationship. Take some time to confess those areas where you have deliberately rebelled against God.”
I will spare you all this part of me, as this is supposed to be between me and God, but I know the list is going to be much longer than I am comfortable with. In just the little bit of time that I’ve been thinking about what I would need to confess, I can tell that there are things that are going to arise that I am going to have to take some time to deal with. This just makes me feel more naked and afraid. But, there is hope in the that first sentence. Only God can reconcile us to Himself. He has already paved the way. It intrigues me that the very thing that makes me feel so far away from God is what He chooses to use to make me to see my deep, deep need for Him and to draw people closer to Him.
The first blood ever spilled on the Earth was a life taken to provide clothing for Adam and Eve, so they could cover their shame. The last blood ever spilled that could do that, and has done it for the rest of time, was that of Jesus. (I’ll just leave you to ponder that one for a moment.)
LIVE: This section asks how it makes me feel knowing that everyone on earth has rebelled against God. And to be honest, there have been many times over the course of the past 3 years, that I have railed against Eve. What in the world could she have been thinking? She had it good! Why’d she have to go and screw it up for the rest of us? One day, someone offered up a response to that question that stuck with me: “If it hadn’t been her, it would’ve been someone else?”
That begs the question: then, why did God give us the ability to choose? Or, as my 10-year-old asked: “If God doesn’t want us to sin, then why doesn’t he just get rid of Satan? Then, He wouldn’t have to worry about our sinning because there’d be nobody around to make us sin.” I got the chance to explain it to him, but he didn’t care for my answer. He genuinely seemed conflicted about it. He’s not the first person, nor will he be the last to wonder why God made it so darn easy for us to sin if He doesn’t want us to.
The answer is: if He hadn’t given us the ability to choose, we wouldn’t have had a relationship. What God wants from/for us, more than anything, is a relationship. That is why we have to have the ability to choose. We have to be able to choose Him back!
I HATE INTRODUCTIONS!
Okay, maybe “hate” is a strong word, but I never read the introductions to books. Usually I find them tedious and dedicated to people I will never meet. Yesterday (July 12, 2014), I found this book at the Barnes & Noble in Lynchburg. I’ve been here (at Liberty University) a week already for one intensive and starting another week tomorrow. I decided to use what spare time I had here to work on my relationship with God and delve into some of the areas that I felt like He had shown me needed some work. As I was walking through the Christianity section of the bookstore with that in mind, I passed by several books, most of them decent, but, sadly, missing the mark of what I felt like I needed deep in my soul. Then, I saw this one.
THE MESSAGE: SOLO
AN UNCOMMON DEVOTIONAL
The cover is minimalist: white with grey letters. All CAPS.
I was intrigued. So, I picked it up and glanced through a couple of pages.
It is not like any other Bible study book or devotional I’ve ever seen. This one is actually more like what I’ve been thinking I needed, just the thing to jump start my exploration into who God really is and what He wants to be to me. The initial passage is relatively short but, above, it shows the expanded passage, so you can get the context. (Kay Arthur says, “Context is key.”) Then, the next page invites you to READ, THINK, PRAY, and LIVE what that passage could mean to you and your life.
READ, THINK, PRAY and LIVE takes me back to the Introduction. When I sat down to read today, I started at the Introduction. While I was skimming over it, I came across the term “lectio divina”. Read, Think, Pray and Live are the four basic principles. The reader is encouraged to “Remember as you dive into this devotional that lectio divina is about wholeness: whole practice, whole Bible, whole God.”
Jump down a couple of paragraphs and this is what I read:
“Eugen Peterson called the Bible ‘a book that reads us even as we read it.’ That’s an uncommon sort of book, and it requires an uncommon sort of read. Knowing facts about God doesn’t change your relationship with him, so take the time to splash around in the Word, to absorb it, to discover what God as to say to you each day.”
“KNOWING FACTS ABOUT GOD DOESN’T CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM”
NO, IT DOES NOT!!!
More than anything, THAT has been the truth that I have discovered about myself, not just over the course of this last week, but over the course of this whole ordeal my husband and I have been walking through. I know a lot of stuff about God. I know a lot of Scriptures. I know all the right things to say. How to speak it. How to act it. How to fake it. But, I don’t think I can say that any of the stuff I know has really made that huge an impact on my life.
Don’t get me wrong. Over the course of my life, I can see where God has worked and has delivered me from many things. I am grateful for all of that. But, to be quite honest, I’m starting to think that I’ve been spared too much pain. I’ve been rescued from so many things that my walk with God has been, for the most part, superficial. Even if “superficial” is too harsh a word, it would not be a stretch to say that I have been in it mostly for my own comfort.
The problem with that kind of thinking is: when things are not comfortable for me, I doubt my faith. I doubt God’s love for me. I doubt His Goodness and His Provision.
What I’ve come to realize is that I have been behaving much like a child who first learns how to use the word “please.” We teach our children to use the word “please” when they ask for something because: (1) it sounds nice and (2) it tends to make a request out of a demand. However, we also have to teach our children that there is no guarantee that they will get what they want just because they say please. There are many reasons for this, but most of them boil down to the fact that getting what they want all the time is not realistic and it is not good for them.
Having that kind of pseudo-faith (I call it that because it resembles faith but doesn’t really work like faith should) has left me feeling like I’ve been wandering around out in the desert without a canteen or a map. Like God has left me. I’ve even said to people, “At least the Israelites had the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night, and the Ark of the Covenant. They had physical representations of God. I’ve just been left out here to die in the wilderness. And, as such, I’ve been begging to go back to Egypt. However, unlike their Egypt – full of slavery – my Egypt was pretty sweet. My husband was there, our family was intact, and we were basically untouched by the horrible injustices of the world.
But, then, if I’m to be honest, there was bondage there too. In fact, it took being led out of
“the Egypt of my own making” to even be made aware of my bondage. I have found that I have multiple gods in my life. The biggest one: ME. I’ve been just like Frank Sinatra, doing it my way. But, see, my way was not so bad. I wasn’t hurting anyone. We were going to church, being obedient, and trying our best not to screw our kids up too badly. I had several causes I was passionate about and wanted to help out, and was working toward that. I was even submitting to my husband. And, to top it all off, I was begging for a life that was lived sold out to Christ because I wanted my walk with God to really mean something. I did not want to just spend my time here on Earth, going to church the rest of my life, calling myself a Christian, and leaving nothing behind to show for having worn that title.
Well, I was saying it, anyway.
My god was my comfort, my safety, my security, my plan.
And now, I have been led out into the desert, away from my plan, and have seen that, I am just like the Israelites, cursing God for having brought me out into the desert to leave me to die, when things were good in Egypt, because I had fish to eat. Sure, I was a slave. But at least I was eating well.
I never could understand how they could do that. How could they possibly talk to God that way after all He’d done for them? After all they had just seen, how could they think that God would leave them to die in the wilderness? But, alas, as Ecclesiastes says, there truly is nothing new under the sun, and I have done exactly what I have found so remarkably unbelievable.
So now, here I sit, with this devotional in front of me. Ready to start checking off the boxes of getting together with God, every day, but not just for the sake of checking off the box. If something doesn’t change – if I don’t do something to take steps toward God and letting Him show me His plan for my life – I know that I am going to continue to be just like the Israelites. And what I fear is that when God calls me to enter into the Promised Land of His Calling for me, I am going to look and see what is there and say that I cannot go in and take the land because there are giants, and I will miss the riches He has for me.
So, here I go. Solo. One on one. Just me and God. “God, let it be with me just as you say.”
I’m Starting A Blog Series
I have been away from my blog for long enough.
In part this is because I have been searching for the angle I want to take and coming back frustrated. Also, it kinda takes a back seat when I’m in classes.
No more excuses.
While in Lynchburg for some classes, I found a devotional that I have started working through. I have mentioned Jesus Calling in an earlier post and I like it. But this one is meeting me right where I am right at this moment, and I have decided that I want to share it with you.
If you are familiar with the film and book called Julie & Julia, think along those lines. If you haven’t, here’s some quick background. Julie Powell decides that she is going to take a year to work through her Julia Child cookbook: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. While I would love to work through one of my cookbooks or my Pinterest boards, that can sometimes be easier said that done on a limited budget.
But, this devotional (yes, I know, I still haven’t name it yet) “came to me” at a time when I was really searching for God’s face and asking Him to reveal Himself to me. I feel like this book was an answer to that prayer. With your indulgence (or even without it), I am going to take the next year to blog my way through this book, offering up my insights and what I feel God has shown me through it.
So, this is the book. It’s not much to look at. Unassuming little thing that it is. But what is inside it is pretty thought-provoking stuff. If you want to get a copy and work through it with me, I would love to hear from you how God reveals Himself to you. Otherwise, you are going to get to spend the year with me telling you how awesome God is being for me.
I have already completed the first 4 days, so you will have plenty to chew on, here in just a few minutes. I hope you enjoy the journey!
Humbled, and not loving it so much!
Please forgive my absence for the last few weeks. Packing and moving an entire house, and trying to figure out what’s going into storage, what’s being taken with us, and what’s being donated is a little time consuming. Now I’m still unpacking, but fortunately I can take my time with that some.
But now, I’ve got a new post for you.
I was having a particularly rough week emotionally last week. So, I knew going into church, I was going to be weepy. Our Pastor also started a new sermon series, bound to last 11-12 weeks or so, based solely on Hebrews 11. He has entitled the series “Fearless Faith.” Seriously, I’ve begun to wonder if he’s been crawling around inside my head. My husband’s been gone a month and it seems like everything this man has preached, in whole or in part, has been aimed straight at me. Sometimes, I can’t even look him in the face when he looks my direction, I’m so convicted.
That being said, it’s a humbling thing to be made to see that I’ve been a Christian for nearly 30 years and have NEVER really relied on God. Or had to.
I’ve prayed.
I’ve tried to be a good girl.
And even though a part of me believes that Christians are more effective witnesses when they’ve not been rescued from every hardship, I’ve lived most of my last 38 years being spared a lot of trials. In fact, the only hardship I’ve ever been through in which I was not directly involved was my parents’ divorce. At the time, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. As for who I relied on then…well…I was in 8th grade, so my momma met all my needs. She, and food stamps. And we only used those for the summer, until she remarried.
Most of my other issues have been somewhat self-induced, or I knew they were coming. As a result, painful as the consequences were, I knew I had coming to me what I received. So, I just grit my teeth and ride it out. No need to consult God on those matters because, in my view, (1) the consequences of my actions were the answers to my prayer, and (2) isn’t asking God to deliver you from circumstances you placed yourself into a bit like cheating?
Rabbit and I have also been through some stuff: deployments, unaccompanied tours, relationship struggles. But again, I didn’t have to really trust God. Rabbit and I communicate well, so (1) we always worked out our issues, or else (2) I had Rabbit and/or his paycheck/benefits, etc.
All of our marriage, Rabbit has been a FANTASTIC provider. ALWAYS! Maybe too good. He’s been a great friend, a counselor, my voice of reason, my balance, and a defender of the weak (and this would include his accuser).
And at the very beginning of this whole mess – even knowing the case was a 50/50, he said/she said thing I told Rabbit:
“Don’t you dare take a plea. I do not want you to say you did something you didn’t do. Especially this.”
I said this fully aware of what it would mean for me and the kids if things did not go the way I hoped. But even so, I never believed it would come to THIS. I never believed God would allow something so unspeakable when the accusation was a lie.
I mean, God is just and merciful. Right? God is love and love rejoices in the truth. Right? And where could the justice be in allowing a 9-year-old to grow up without his father on the basis of a LIE? There is no way God would do that to…ME.
YET, HERE WE ARE.
You might think the first thing God would show a woman in my position would be just how much He loves me and wants to provide for me. You might think that scriptures about His providing for the widowed and orphaned would be comforting me. While those are nice, that is not where God chose to start.
So, what was the first thing God chose to reveal to me?
The other day I was reading in Philippians about not worrying about anything, about bringing my requests to God, with thanksgiving. He revealed to me that I was not being very grateful.
You wanna know what my response was?
THANKFUL FOR WHAT?
Yeah, You’ve been providing. No, I’ve not needed anything since Rabbit went to jail that You have not provided. But really, if You hadn’t let my husband go to jail, I wouldn’t need any of this stuff. I wouldn’t have to be thanking You for all of this stuff because I’d have had my husband. All of this stuff You are providing, Rabbit was providing quite nicely. Yes, you are providing. The kids and I have a place to stay. We have food to eat and a roof over our heads, and I don’t have to worry about a job right now, but I had all that stuff with Rabbit too. And the kids had their father. And there was one less person in the world who would have been allowed to get away with a lie. I had everything I needed, and You let him be convicted BASED ON A LIE!
THAT was my response.
And you know what that showed me?
Not only have I never been in the position of needing God’s provision for anything – other than entrance into Heaven – (Yes, I know how ludicrous that sounds to any Christian reading this) I really just don’t want to need His Provision. For anything. Other than Heaven, that is.
I did not want Rabbit to go to jail for many reasons but one that I would’ve never had to see or admit UNLESS HE WENT was :
I didn’t want to have to trust God to provide for me.
Rabbit was doing a fine enough job.
Thank you very much.
I’ve walked a long way on this Christian path I’m on saying one of two things: (1) I want Your Will to be done in my life, or (2) I want to want that.
I can’t really say I was lying when I said those things, but I know I had NO IDEA the lengths to which God would go in answering those prayers.
I also know that, two years ago, you could not have convinced me I had that much pride and self-sufficiency built up inside me.
You know that scripture in Proverbs about God knowing the motives of your heart (Proverbs 16:2)?
ABSOLUTELY TRUE!!!
How about that scripture about God resisting the proud (James 4:6)?
YEAH, THAT ONE’S TRUE TOO!
I have known for a long time that God will bring into the light those things that are done in the dark and in secret. It just never occurred to me that some of those things that needed to be exposed were hiding in my heart.
One last thing and then I will close. Remember the Psalm in which David prays: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24). Be aware that if and/or when you pray that, God takes it seriously. Be aware, too, that you may well be shown things that surprise or shock you because you were unaware that they were there. You are likely to find the truth of Jeremiah 17:9:
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (New Living Translation)
cottagegirlpatty's Blog 