Tag Archives: Bible

Day Fifty-One: Our Lives are Mere Shadows

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READ:  David is blessing God in this passage.  To see his entire prayer, read the expanded passage, seeing how he dedicates to God the money and materials generously given by him and all the Israelites for building the temple.

1 Chronicles 29:12-19

(12-13) Riches and glory come from you,

you’re ruler over all;

You hold strength and power in the palm of your hand

to build up and strengthen all.

And here we are, O God, our God, giving thanks to you,

praising your splendid Name.

(14-19) “But me — who am I, and who are these my people, that we should presume to be giving something to you?  Everything comes from you; all we’re doing is giving back what we’ve been given from your generous hand.  As far as you’re concerned, we’re homeless, shiftless wanderers, like our ancestors, our lives are mere shadows, hardly anything to us.  God, our God, all these materials–these piles of stuff for building a house of worship for you, honoring your Holy Name–it all came from you!  I know, dear God, that you care nothing for the surface – you want us, our true selves – and so I have given from the heart, honestly and happily.  And now see all these people doing the same, giving freely, willingly – what a joy!  O God, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, keep this generous spirit alive forever in these people always, keep their hearts set firmly in you.  And give my son Solomon an uncluttered and focused heart so that he can obey what you command, live by your directions and counsel, and carry through with building The Temple for which I have provided.

THINK:  When David talks about our lives as “mere shadows”–that everything we have is actually only being borrowed from God–how does that strike you?  What item do you own, or what relationship do you have, that you hold more tightly that you would a shadow?  Be honest.

So…be honest, huh?!  Well, the one thing that I held the dearest – more dear to my heart than God (remember, I am being honest) – was my relationship with my husband.  Then, my control over my life.  Actually, I guess those two were probably interchangeable.  I’ve realized that in the last year-and-a-half.  I’ve always had a pretty tight grip on most things I love.  It’s hard to learn to let go, or to hold things with an open hand, as some of my friends put it.  The scripture from Job:  the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away comes to mind.  I don’t know, but I’m curious if this last year we’ve been through would’ve been so hard had I not been so determined not to let go of what God was asking of me.

PRAY:  As you approach God in prayer, picture yourself bringing with you the item that is hard to hold loosely.  Talk to God about what keeps you attached to it.  Don’t try to navigate the prayer so that by the end you are letting go of your treasured thing.  Don’t try to force yourself to be less attached to it than you actually are.  Simply talk to God while you imaginatively hold it tightly in your hands, and tell him about why it’s so important to you.  Keep in mind that if you are still in the same position internally at the end of your prayer time, that’s okay.

I find it interesting, and a bit convicting, that this part of the day’s devotional says not to try to manipulate the prayer so that, by the end of it, I am letting go of my treasured thing.  Usually, that is precisely what I end up trying to do because I would rather be “right” than be honest.  Sometimes, honest is not pleasing.  Sometimes, my honest feels down-right nasty.  And I find myself questioning, why on earth, would God listen to a prayer that is not nice, let alone answer one.  A part of me knows that God is more interested in my being able to be honest with him, since honesty is a sign of intimacy in a relationship.  However, the part of me that does not want to be a disappointment, just wants him to be pleased with me.  So…I try to tell Him what I think He would rather hear.  It seems, we are always children in some respects.

Luckily, this part goes on to encourage me not to try to force myself to be less attached to “it” than I actually am.  Good thing!  I would have a hard time not being attached to my husband and marriage.  Especially since I took vows (twice – once in a marriage, and once in a renewal) stating that I would stick with the guy until death we do part.  How can I offer that up to God and pretend that I am not attached to it?  I know, essentially, what I have to do is to not place that marriage in a position above where I place God.  I know that my prayer needs to be that our marriage would honor and glorify God.  But, HONESTLY, most of the time, I just want to live with and grow old with this man.  I know that God has not taken that away from me for good, just for now.  But the just for now has also taken a father away from his children.  The Navy did that for years.  But, he was ready to be home.  He was about to retire.  We were about to have him all to ourselves.  And now, THIS!
LIVE:  Take a few more minutes to reflect on what talking to God was like as you held on to the item you’re unwilling to give up – at least not easily.  Did you feel guilty or uncomfortable, or do you have trouble being honest with him?  Why might that be?

I haven’t had trouble being honest with God.  This time.  I don’t feel guilty not wanting to let go of my marriage or relationship in order to fully entrust it to God.  I’ve come to realize that it’s a process.  I want to want what God wants for me.  But, the truth is, quite often it’s a scary prospect.  I know that He has plans to prosper me, to give me a hope and a future.  And I know that future will include my husband.  It has to because we are not divorced, and he did not die.  He has just been removed from us temporarily.  We often joke that, instead of being on deployment for the Navy, now he is on a deployment for the Lord.  The reasons he is gone ABSOLUTELY BITE!  We did nothing to “deserve” this.  Standing accused and being convicted of something you didn’t do is AWFUL!  But my man is not the first, and he certainly will not be the last.  Especially in a society where the victim must always be right and the repercussions for lying are non-existent.  But…that is not my responsibility.  My responsibility is to live my life in a way that honors and glorifies God, and train up my children to do the same, regardless of what life throws at us.  I wish I could say that I’m getting it right.  Maybe more than that, I wish I could say that I felt like I was getting it right.  Or at least, I wish I felt like I was striking out less than I am.  I also wish I felt like I was standing on ground that was a little sturdier than I feel like it is.  Most days, all I’ve got is the will not to quit.  And, I’m convinced that is what’s going to propel me through to the end.  Proverbs 24:16 says that a righteous man falls seven times but gets up again; so, I’m going to keep getting back up.

How about you?

Day Twenty-Seven: Deciphering God’s Word

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READ:  1 Samuel 3:8-10

(8-9) God called again, “Samuel!”–the third time!  Yet again Samuel got up and went to Eli, “Yes?  I heard you call me.  Here I am.”

          That’s when it dawned on Eli that God was calling the boy.  So Eli directed Samuel, “Go back and lie down.  If the voice calls again, say, ‘Speak, God.  I’m your servant, ready to listen.'”  Samuel returned to his bed.

(10) Then God came and stood before him exactly as before, calling out, “Samuel, Samuel!”

          Samuel answered, “Speak.  I’m your servant, ready to listen.”

 

THINK:  At the beginning of 1 Samuel, Hannah wanted to give birth to a son, but she was barren.  She prayed earnestly, crying out to the Lord.  God heard her prayer, and she gave birth to Samuel.  She dedicated him to the temple, where he ministered under Eli the priest.  Scholars believe Samuel was a teenager when the events of this passage occurred.

          Does hearing God so clearly seem possible?  How do you decipher between his voice and the other voices in your life?  Samuel needed Eli’s guidance for this.  What people around you could help you discern when God is trying to communicate with you and what he’s saying?

 

 Satan condemns ushttp://proverbs31.org/pins/20140709_Renee.pdf

 

This is basically how I’ve felt all week.  Why?  Well, I’m a week behind on this blog.  The truth is:  I’m only behind on the blog because I’m behind on my devotional.  And I’m behind on my devotional because I’ve not been making it a priority since I’ve been home like I was when I was away and was leaving the television off.  I’ve been getting up in the morning, coming out to watch the news with my morning cup(s) of coffee, while checking Facebook & Pinterest on my iPad, until I get hungry.  Then, I eat, and find something to do.  Since my classes start next, I’ve been loafing this week, trying to avoid unpacking my junk from a summer of house-sitting.  (Oh!  How I hate to put laundry away!). It’s amazing & annoying to me just how easy it is to get distracted with day-to-day recounting stuff at home.  I was not bothered by these things while I was away.  But, I had also made up my mind to leave the television off & devote my spare time to God while I was away.  I came back from those classes so refreshed.  Since I’ve been back from class, I’ve not felt that refreshed.  Obviously, there is a correlation.   And this is why the above picture spoke to me!  Once I’ve gotten behind, it’s just too easy to stop because Satan is good at trying to subvert or derail anything I’m doing that could potentially bring glory to God or benefit my relationship with him or others.

 

PRAY:  Often the most effective way to hear God’s voice is to still our minds and quiet our hearts for a considerate amount of time.  Set aside twenty minutes in a quiet place and make yourself comfortable.  Invite God to communicate with you.  Don’t read or pray.  Just listen and be, brining your mind back if it wanders.

 

This week, I’ve not been very diligent to take this time,  but I’ve had plenty of times of being in the car undisturbed, and I find that God speaks to me when I’m on the road, in the car, by myself.  The prevailing message I’ve been hearing this week has been:  you’ve not been spending time with me.  You’re worrying about things and getting anxious. Things have happened this week that have had my stomach in knots, things that I have allowed to rob me of peace and joy.  And things that have made me want to go into self-protective mode and wrench control of my life back out of God’s hands.  This can only be because I’ve not been making my devotional time a priority.  I’ve not even been trying to.  What I have done is let the guilt & condemnation I feel over falling behind pull me farther away from God.  And because I don’t know how many people actually read this, I’ve entertained the thought that it really wouldn’t matter if I just stopped posting.  But…I knew when I started this that if I didn’t post everyday it would be way too easy to get out of the habit of doing the devotional, which would mean that I would fall back into my normal routine and would – once again – not be spending individual alone time with God.  I’ve spent so much time there this past year, and have been a worried, anxious mess. It’s not healthy.  And that leads to me not being healthy!  It’s a vicious cycle, and I knew that when I decided to make this my daily routine.

 

 

LIVE:  Sometime in the next week, schedule another twenty minutes of silence and once again listen and wait for God to speak to you.  Don’t give up.  Your practice will pay off.

 

So, all I’ve got to say is: my hank God for His Grace!  If you’ve been keeping track, you will see that I am nearly two weeks behind on this blog because of getting sidetracked.  The sad thing is: I’ve only been home from Lynchburg a month.  But, rather than choosing to dwell on how big a “failure” I am because I have not performed well, I am going to use this as motivation to draw closer to God this week.  I know that. God cares about what’s in my heart more than he cares about how well I perform.  If I remember to dedicate this work to Him and remember that I am doing this to better my walk with The Lord, then it will become what it is supposed to become.  If I choose to use is blog as a platform for my own glory, it will fall woefully short.  I pray that people have been blessed by this.  And I do enjoy waking up to check my mail and see that I have a new follower.  It makes me do a little happy dance.  BUT, that cannot be why I do this everyday. 

 

I would love to think that this will be the last times am going to get sidetracked and get behind.  I pray that it is, but I doubt it will be.  But, I know that there is merit in getting up 8 times after falling down 7.  I pray that everyone reading this realizes that, and finds the grace God gas made available to stand back up that 8th time. 

 

God Bless You All!

Patty

DAY FIVE: ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST

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READ:  In SOLO, today, the message comes from Exodus 16 (verses 9-16).  This is the story of Moses addressing the Israelites complaints about not having any meat in the wilderness.  God told Moses to tell the Israelites:  “I’ve listened to the complaints of the Israelites.  Now tell them: ‘At dusk, you will eat meat and at dawn you’ll eat your fill of bread, and you’ll realize that I am God, your God.'”  That evening the quail flew in and they had meat.  Then, the next morning the manna fell from Heaven but, of course, the Israelites had no idea what it was.  Then, Moses informed them that it was the bread God had given them to eat and that they were gather just enough for each person for the day (except for on the Sabbath).

 

THINK:  This section challenges the reader to reread the passage, stopping to really ponder the emotions the Israelites might have been experiencing at the time:  the neediness of complaining; the excitement of seeing the glory of God visible in the Cloud; the perplexity of seeing this strange bread from Heaven; and the satisfaction of having enough.

 

This part is intriguing.  What does the neediness of complaining look like?  Ha, well…this one I can answer.  It looks like a gaping hole that will never be filled.  But…what it feels like is another story.  I’ve done my fair share of complaining.  Sometimes, I felt mad;  sometimes, lonely.  But every time, I felt doubtful and distrustful.  Every time, I either felt unloved or unlovable.  But, what I never felt, any time I complained, was satisfied or satisfy-able.

 

The THINK passage goes on to encourage the us to contemplate what we would complain to God about right now (and then instructs us to do so).  But then, it asks:  “In what ways, if any, have you been perplexed by God’s response to your complaining?  How might God have truly provided enough but you didn’t recognize it as God’s bread from heaven–exactly what you needed?”

 

Well…isn’t that hitting a bit below the belt?  Over the past 3 years, I’ve had plenty to complain about.  Some of it justified (in my mind) because the situation was unjust.  But, most of what I’ve complained about stemmed from the fact that God did not meet my needs the way I wanted them met.  Sure, God has provided for me.  Sure, I’ve had plenty to be thankful for.  But, why couldn’t it look the way I wanted it too?  It seems that all my years of going to church had served to give me a good dose of “holier than thou” but not so healthy a dose of “true holiness” and even less gratitude.  Naturally, I was thankful when things went my way.  But…why wouldn’t they go my way, when I was being a “good girl”?  After all, that is the way the world is supposed to work.  Right?  Right???

 

It seems I had forgotten the verses in the Bible that declare that, in this world, we will have suffering; and that if they hated/rejected Me (Jesus), they will hate/reject you.  No…I was so busy focusing on the “all things work together for good for those that love the Lord” verses that I had neglected to remember all those pesky verses about suffering.  And, I’m not even going to touch the passage about Jesus praying that “this cup” would pass from Him, nevertheless, Lord, Your Will be done.  Those did not quite fit in with the doctrine I had developed for myself.  As it turned out, I had been most of my reading out of the “Gospel according to Patty.”  And now, my faulty thinking and false doctrine have come crashing down around my ears, and I have been left feeling like, God is surely not enough.  Or, maybe I am just not worth what the Bible says I am.  Either way, the end result has been the same.  COMPLAINING.  And a general state of DISSATISFACTION. 

 

PRAY:  With the above statement in mind, I move on to the PRAY section.  In this passage, we are encouraged to formally complain to God about everything we want to complain about.  (Fantastic, I say.)  But, then, we are encouraged to ask God to show us precisely how He has provided for us, even though we might still wonder?! 

 

Wonder about what?  The passage doesn’t address that, but I have filled in some blanks for myself.  If God is enough?  If He has provided me with enough?  If He actually loves me the way He says He does and will do for me what the Bible says He will do? 

 

If I am honest, I have to admit that God has provided more-than-graciously over the course of our lives.  And over the past 3 years, though it hasn’t looked the way I wanted it to, He has taken ample care of us.  I have nothing to complain about.  But, there’s still that nagging feeling like something might be missing, or like I might do something to make Him finally decide to throw in the towel.  That’s where the “gaping hole that can never be filled” part comes in, and I am forced to deal with it. 

 

If God has proven Himself, over and over and over again, why do I still have doubts?  Why must I still be so much like Eve when that “Unfortunate Incident in the Garden” was so very many years ago? 

 

LIVE:  I will share this passage verbatim.

     “Sit in the quiet and feel God’s “enoughness” in your body.  Where do you feel it?  In arms that are full?  In a quiet mind?  In a stomach that feels full?  In muscles that work well?  If you can really mean it, try delighting in this enoughness.

 

I think that part of my issue with asking for God to reveal Himself to me over these past 3 years has been that it felt so much like asking for yet another sign or wonder.  Somewhere I got it in my head that praying that God would comfort me or show me how he had provided for me was surely a lack of faith.  And after praying for a miracle intervention into our situation and being denied, I was having a hard time asking for anything at all.  The one thing I was not having a hard time doing was complaining.  Much like the Israelites, wandering in the wilderness, grumbling and complaining, I have been wandering through my own wilderness of self-pity and doubt, grumbling and complaining that God had abandoned me. 

 

Desperate, I called out to God to reveal Himself to me.  Not to do a miracle for me.  But just to show me how He had been trying to reveal Himself to me, or take care of me, and how I had missed it.  Then, I waited; sitting in the quiet, I just started listening.  One day, during my devotional, I might read something that touched me.  “Nice,” I would think.  But then, just a few hours later, in class, somebody would say exactly that same thing, or expound on the thought that occurred to me after what I read.  Then, another thought would occur to me, and somebody else would confirm that.  By the end of the day, when I would sit down to type out my reflections for the day, everything that I had read or heard or thought would come spilling out onto the screen.  All the dots would connect and I would be left sitting in my seat, stunned, by what God had done that day.  My situation still hadn’t changed.  But, God had answered my prayers, and that was fine.  That was enough.  And finally, I felt like I was being heard again.  Like  He cared enough to listen and answer my prayers again. 

 

Until my situation does change, my prayer will remain:  “Lord, move,” but so long as He continues to “move me,” I will keep plugging away.  I will continue telling myself the truth about all the ways the Lord has provided for me.  I will keep reminding myself that whether or not I feel like I am “enough” (good enough, pretty enough, lovely enough) has nothing to do with the fact that my God is enough and that He will do what He says He will do, and that it will, eventually, work out for my good.  And I will keep reminding myself that “Enough truly is as good as a feast.”

 

 

Day Four – Learning to Pay Attention

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READ:  Today’s passage in the SOLO Devotional is Exodus 3:1-6.  This is the story about Moses and the burning bush.

 

THINK:  This particular section focuses in on Moses’ encounter with the burning bush and asks if you have ever experienced a unique encounter with the living God and what it was like.  Then it adds:  “God is holy.  What difference does that make in your life?”

 

PRAY:  “Ask God to reveal himself to you in a fresh way, a way that he has never revealed himself before.”

 

LIVE:  “Find a quiet place and spend a few moments in utter silence, paying attention to those aspects of your life that you often neglect:  people, situations, quiet moments, creation, and so on.  As you do this, look for God waiting there to interact with you.

 

For the most part, the last 3 days, I have shared what I’ve gotten out the passage immediately, letting that lead to the next part, trusting that God will take me where He needs me to go.  Truth be told, I arrived in Lynchburg on Sunday, July 6th, for classes that began on the 7th.  I will be leaving on the 19th.  I decided that I would leave the television off, when I wasn’t in class, and work on whatever God brought to mind.  Initially, I figured that I would just work on getting back into the habit of having a daily quiet time or devotional.  But, I didn’t know where to start.  Then, sitting in my Basic Counseling Skills class, last week, God opened up some pretty deep emotional wounds that I hadn’t really ever dealt with, so I started working on those.  That’s what precipitated me buying this book and why I’ve decided to start making this my daily blog post.

 

As I read the passage from today and was pondering what each section said, I couldn’t think of where I wanted to start, and I didn’t really want to just sit down and type out the book word-for-word.  But as I started typing, I realized that God had been showing all day, and for the past several, what He wanted me to share today.  And it really does have to do with paying attention.

 

My family has been going through some pretty heavy stuff over the past 3 years and mostly I have been left feeling like God just dropped my heart and broke it.  The last thing I have wanted to do, most of the time, is get with Him and discuss this.  If you’ve ever been burnt in a relationship, you know the meaning of the saying:  “Once bitten, twice shy.”  The only problem is:  I consider myself to be a Christian.  How can I have that kind of attitude about, or toward, a God that I had always believed had my best interest at heart and that everything He did was supposed to be for my good.  To say I was conflicted would be an understatement.  Nevertheless, I came to Lynchburg with one prayer:

 

“God, I am going to dedicate my free time to you.  Please show up.  I’ve been floundering and I am tired of feeling hopeless and helpless and of feeling like it is pointless to talk to you about it because I was talking before and you let this happen.  So, I don’t know what You’re going to have to do and I don’t care, but please, let me see You.”

 

I have sat in a lot of silence since the 6th of July and have been ministered to in ways that I haven’t in a long time.  As I mentioned earlier, the class I had last week opened up some wounds that I didn’t know were still festering.  It also shed some light on some things that I had needed to work on that I had been choosing not to deal with.  But, He did so in such a way that I have been able to see my own brokenness.

 

Things have been brought into the light that had been buried.  Rotten things that needed to be excised from my life, but that I had gotten so used to that they had just become a part of who I was.  One day, one of my instructors said something that I thought was strange at first:  Your clients need their pain.  They need their hurt.  You cannot just waltz into their lives and demand they give it up or tell them they are wrong for holding onto it until you know where it comes from and what it does for them.  When he said it, it sounded like one of the most dysfunctional things I had ever heard.  I couldn’t believe it was coming out of a counselor’s mouth.  But then, I started looking at my own life and my own baggage and seeing how I had my own issues I had been clinging to, that I had allowed to define me, or dictate my own actions.  And when I started exposing those to the light and trying to get rid of them, it almost felt like a piece of my soul was being yanked out of me.  And I found myself clamoring desperately to hang on to them with one hand while I was trying to push them away with the other.  How could I possibly want to hold on to something that was causing so much pain or keeping me from having the relationship with God that He wants me to have?  Why would I allow something so vile to have such control over my life when I know that God commands that we have no other gods before Him?

 

I will not share with you just what it is God has revealed that I have been neglecting in my own life.  But I will tell you that what God has revealed to me over the course of my time here in Lynchburg is just how serious He is that nothing have power over us besides Him.  He has shown me the lengths to which He will go to bring to the light those areas of my life that need to be exposed.  And He has shown that, though it will hurt, He is not doing it to hurt me, but to restore me.

 

So, if Satan came to steal, kill, and destroy but God came that we might have life and that more abundantly, then why I am I fighting so hard to hold onto something that is choking the life out of me?  And why am I not turning to The Way, The Truth, and The Life for my deliverance from those things?

 

Bringing it back to Paying Attention.  We were encouraged to look for God waiting to interact with us.  To pay attention to where He might have been trying to get our attention but we were too busy or too loud to hear it or notice.  Let me just comment on how effective the silence I have imposed upon myself has been.  I have been very actively NOT DEALING WITH God for almost a year.  I have been staying up too late, until I’m just exhausted, using my Netflix account and OnDemand for all they are worth, driving myself to distraction, just so I didn’t have to sit in the silence and hear anything from God.  As a friend of mine put it once, God was there and He knew it and I wasn’t going to run away, but I wasn’t going to talk to Him and I certainly wasn’t going to be obedient.  I was going to actively rebel and make Him watch, but I would be back.

 

Please, don’t judge.  Save whatever harsh commentary may be rattling around inside your head.  I’m just sharing the words from someone I know who was expressing how she felt during a particularly rough time she had and how she dealt with it.  They just happened to resonate with me when she related her story.  I merely added them to say that I was actively avoiding putting myself in a position where I might hear something else disappointing from God.  I didn’t want to hear that I might be screwing up again.  I didn’t want to hear that I wasn’t going to get my way again.  I didn’t want to hear that He still wanted me right where He had me.  Those things I was capable of figuring out on my own since my situation wasn’t changing.  So…I just didn’t go to Him.

 

And, as a counseling student I can tell you, most people’s greatest motivator is: AVOIDANCE OF PAIN.  I’ve been having a lot of avoidance issues this past year.  But, I was finally tired of feeling that way, and it’s hard for me to justify running away from a problem for too long, because I know that I can’t run forever and the problem with be with me the whole time.  So…I decided to start paying attention.  It was time.  And I am convinced that everyone that God has put in my path since I’ve been here at Liberty had been a divine appointment designed to show me that He was listening when I asked Him to reveal Himself to me.  But, if I hadn’t come here expecting to see God, and if I hadn’t been paying attention, I’d have missed it completely!

Day Three: What Satan Intended for Evil

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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

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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:

 

      1. 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.
      1. 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.
      2. 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

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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!

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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.”