Sunday, August 28, 2011

Choices

Life is full of choices; decisions to go to the left or to the right, up our path or down. There are bad choices and good ones; joyous out-comes and deteriorating consequences. Each day we will choose when we rise and when we lay down, when we smile or frown. We choose to love or hate, to be graciously kind, or to complain. We choose God to rule our day or try and force things to go our way.  

Isaiah: 66 3-4
They have chosen their own ways, and they delight in their abominations; so I also will choose harsh treatment for them and will bring on them what they dread. For when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, no one listened. They did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.”

Today I choose to live in victory and not let life's circumstances negate my positive state. Today I choose to be healthy in my body, my spirit and my mind. I will not let stress be my excuse to desecrate my health. I choose to meditate on the word, on things above, things that are excellent and worthy of my contemplation. I will take my thoughts captive that are not beneficial to my joy, my peace, my happiness that God so wonderfully gives.  I choose to live my life in the moment that I am, giving my loved ones my full attention they seek.  I choose this day to not stand on my tight rope of self reliability, but rather I choose to stand on the strong shoulders of God who holds my feet and keeps me from falling even when I am weak. I Trust in the Lord, my God to be my all in all this day and the next. This day I give to Him to help me succeed in the choices I have made. I f today I stumble and fail to comply, if I compromise and forget, tomorrow I will start again. I will learn to keep my word to myself, my loved ones and my God! Each day we are given is a new day with no mistakes in it....yet:)

Thank you Jesus for your ever Faithfulness! Praise you for your embrace and grace! Guide my steps today
 Help today be victorious and not another disgrace. Amen

Isaiah 30:21 "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Saturday, August 27, 2011

In Whom Do You Place Your Trust?

As people, we tend to get nervous placing all our eggs into one basket. We want plan A B and C all the way down to plan Z, all worked out just in case. We want to know for sure what's ahead so we rely on our GPS instead of the memory in our head.  In whom do we place our trust through out the days we live going by one by one. In whom are we relying on? Each day we crawl out of bed and begin to walk our days tight rope act, but not until our imaginary safety nets are complete and intact.

 

Isaiah 26:3-4 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal. 

 

Have you found yourself basking in perfect peace lately? No? In whom are you placing your trust? 

 

Isaiah 30:1-18 “Woe to the obstinate children,”    declares the LORD, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine,  forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,  heaping sin upon sin;  who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge. But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.” Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing. Go now, write it on a tablet for them,  inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness. For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction. They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!” Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,  like a banner on a hill.”Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! 

 

We want to go about our own business and feel good about what we do. We want things to be easy and simple yet we continue down the roughest route. We compromise our health with feel good sweets, TV sitcoms instead of a healthy work out, or quality time with actual friends. We want to be happy so we read self help books and romance novels to give us the momentary fixes we think we need. We start feeling stuck and wonder why we can't seem to just get a grip. Life starts unreeling, because with tangled fishing line on your pole, making the big catch can't quite happen yet. We place lines the media feeds us in our hearts replacing Gods word. Such as " You want the Truth? You can't handle the truth!" When the Lord tells us in John 8:31-32  “If you live by what I say, you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  

 

Perhaps you are like me and you place your trust in yourself and soon every little thing that needs to be done seems unending, mundane and even unnerving. Big things, little things, ginormous things, we try and carry on our own. Pretty soon our schedule is all upside down and those that matter the most are swept aside down to our last priority instead of our first. Our families constantly learn to get by with what is left of us at the end of the day instead of the best of us that they need to feel loved by their mom or wife.  By the weight of the world, begins our crushing defeat. When we place our trust in people and things rather than God we loose sight of whose we are, why we are and where we are going in life.

 

I have always said when you put God first in your life he places everyone else and thing in the order it belongs and that means family is next in line. But there are times I try too hard to place God first by getting busy doing things to prove my love for him, instead of just knowing He loves me and I love Him and letting Him take charge of my day and the rest of my life.

 

Proverb 3:5-7 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

 

If you like me have had trouble placing all your eggs in one basket, all your trust in the Lord your God. Please Join me in praying this prayer.

 

Lord God I ask you to forgive me for placing my trust in people and things more than I have placed my trust in you. I ask for your help to continue to open my eyes to the ways in which I sin toward you, especially when I lack faith in my one True God. I ask for forgiveness for when I have turned away from your word looking for something that made me feel better in the moment instead of what I needed to be nourished and grown up in you. I pray that you would teach me how to place you as my first priority in my life. Only then can I begin to feel the peace of balance in my life. Then my loved ones you have blessed me with can have the time they need from me. Lord help me to keep my quiet dates with you a priority. I want your words guiding my life. I want to be your disciple and your truth to continue to set me free. Lord my God, my King I praise you! In you I can find perfect peace. I choose to wait on the Lord for you, my Jesus, have been so good to me. AMEN

 

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...The LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! 

 

Isaiah 12:1-3  In that day you will say “I will praise you, LORD.  Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.”  With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

 

Thursday, August 25, 2011

We all like sheep have gone astray.

Isaiah 2:22 

"Stop trusting in mere humans..."     

 

So often we try and fail. So often we seek and pursue things of our own choosing with out asking God's advice at all and wonder why things just seem to be going all wrong. We try and try and start feeling like with all our effort put forth we deserve success in at least one endeavor we seek. 

 

Isaiah 40:7-8 The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the Lord. And so it is with people. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.” 

 

I believe this is saying man in all his glorious triumphs will fade away and God's word is what is left standing in the end. Man in all his ways will try in vain to succeed but those who give all glory to God and humbly live simply His will live victoriously.

 

Isaiah26:3-4 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.

 

Oh how we have fall again and again. We place our trust in man and self rather than God. How many years in the dessert during Moses's day in vain did the Lord, teach us to simple follow His lead?

 

Exodus 13:21 The Lord went ahead of them. He guided them during the day with a pillar of cloud, and he provided light at night with a pillar of fire. This allowed them to travel by day or by night.

 

The Lord is our shepherd and we His sheep. When will we learn that life lived to the fullest is a life lead by our shepherd; Not  a life lived gone astray, with our shepherd following our trail of destruction, coxing us back to Him and our flock again and again?

 

Isaiah 31:1-2 What sorrow awaits those who look to Egypt for help, trusting their horses, chariots, and charioteer and depending on the strength of human armies instead of looking to the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

 

Isaiah 30:15-16  This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! 

 

Isaiah 50:10-11 Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on their God. But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.

 

There is hope! Though we have given up on God time and time again He has never given up on us!

 

Isaiah 9:6 "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

 

Isaiah 53:5-7 But he was pierced for our transgressions,  he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 



Isaiah 12:2-3 
Surely God is my salvation;
   I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD himself, 
is my strength and my defense;
   he has become my salvation.”
With joy you will draw water
   from the wells of salvation. 






Saturday, August 20, 2011

Remarkable Distraction

The Lord almighty made Adam as a companion for himself. The Lord desired a relationship with Adam. However Adam walking in the Garden chatting with God alone was not satisfying enough. I imagine it going something like this.

"So mm  God you know what I named that animal with the flappy wing a things?"
"Eagle....right?" 
"mmm Yes... How about the four legged furry little jumper over yander?"
"Rabbit"
silence....silence...."SO you gave me this task of naming the animals to make me feel important. Some how it loses that effect since you still know every thought that comes to my mind thus knowing what I am naming them before I do myself."  " Do you think you could just humor me and pretend I know something you don't when we chat?

"What did I call that furry hehaaing hooved creature?"
"Adam what did you call it?"
"MMM well I called it....an an...oh you already know."

" Yes Ass is an unusual name. You were riding it at the time of naming it weren't you?"

"You know everything!"

"Yes I do."

Genesis 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Have you ever had a best friend? Or perhaps a brother that you loved dearly and wanted to keep all for yourself forever? I had a brother who got married young. I adored him and he was the one I always wanted to spend my time with. I wanted to hate his new wife. I wanted to despise her. She not only took the time that my brother used to spend with me. He moved out of our home and I no longer saw him hardly ever. He was too distracted by the love of his life to keep a little kid sister the center of any part of his life. Sure, I knew he loved me somewhere down deep in my heart. I mostly felt I had lost him.

How amazing of God, knowing man through and through to make for him Eve. The greatest distraction ever created. God made Adam a help mate to keep him company. God loved both Adam and Eve. He walked and talked with them in the garden. But you can bet that things were not the same ever again. God was not the complete center of Adam's world any longer. But the love of our God is so great, So wide and so deep, truly no one can fathom it. He put the love for Adam first before the reason he created him in the first place, to have a relationship with him. God loved Adam so much that he made for him someone to love, someone that if he so chose, he could love even more than God his father, his creator, his reason for existing.

I learned to love my new sister inlaw. How can you hate someone that makes someone you love so happy. And so it is with God. He is a jealous God. He desires us to put our relationship with him first. But he also knows us through and though and understands our need for a helpmate in our life. He is and always be our first love, love baring through all our hard times, ups and downs. Our Daddy is always there waiting for us to chat with him, longing to hear our voice, longing to be the center of our world again. 

How remarkable of God to create us such a profound distraction from him, just because he cares about whether or not we are happy!

Isaiah 55:8-9  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." 








Friday, August 19, 2011

Rivival of Hope, God's Promises: Then, Now, and Forever

Isaiah 9:6
For to us a child is born,
   to us a son is given,
   and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
   Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

The book of Isaiah Teaches us Reverent Awe for our GOD. God uses Isaiah to make known the promise of Salvation through Jesus. We discover a nation much like ours being judged and God's longing to Forgive his people rather than punish them. Through the pages of this book we are whispered the sweet character of our Jesus Messiah. Every page of Isaiah rings one promise we hold to, that hope in the Lord, waiting on the Lord brings us comfort, and strength. We know we will be called his chosen, his precious children, his holy nation, dwelling in a new heaven and earth, where tears are shed from joy and cries burst forth from bellies full of laughter running over! And so begins my study of Isaiah.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

So much

So much has been going on in my life since my last blog. I had a most rejuvenating retreat with the Women of our church. I was filled to the brim with love. At one point I had 5 friends praying for me and speaking into my life meaning, clarity, and wisdom. I came home refreshed, healed and ready to take on the world. I chose to leave my sickness at the alter and claim prayers already answered. Though I still have bad days of pain I can push the pain and frustration from it behind my head most days and continue on with life, living it fully and laugh with my family through, yes, even migraines. God is for us not against us and I know he is healing this me one step in his direction at time. The more I open up myself to my past, memories, unfortunate circumstances and let go of lies I have claimed as truth, I find I am more and more victorious in my everyday life and health struggles as well.

The testing always comes or rather we are filled to the brim before the storms of life hit so as to be able to hold strong and make it through. Our basement has been a project ever since we moved into our little home 11 years ago. We finished it..well good enough to have our kiddo's with their own separate rooms and for the rest to be used as well. My husband had a gaming/star wars toy collection room, me my exercise area and laundry folding station. Oh and yes we have no garage, so our storage was kept down there all neatly stashed away out of sight:) A few months after we moved my daughter down the stairs officially our basement flooded with City sewer backup water from a clogged drain caused by a ridiculous storm. Our insurance does not cover acts of God, nor does the city for that matter. So we were stuck with the blow our selves. The clean up was atrocious, not to mention gross. The amount of stuff the kids and my husband and I had to throw away came to 9,000.  The repair estimate was 7,000 plus. However, we have a family of people related by blood and by the cross. We were given 1,500 by friends and family. People donated dressers throw rugs, shelves, their time. There were a few days of complete shock where I did not feel like I could move from letting pain back to the for front of my vision and the circumstances over whelm me. I would pray. I would pray some more. I prayed for God's healing and praised him for his help and his hand in keeping us safe. I praised him for the plan I could not yet see being in the eye of the storm. Yes I praised him through tears and sobs and pain. He surrounded us and held us tight as a family. We worked endlessly to get my kids rooms back to them. They slept on the couch, at grandparents houses, and then in a room that only had enough room for their bunk bed that's it. They had no space of their own for two and a half months. But we pulled through. No the basement is not finished but they have their rooms back. No they do not have as many toys as they used to. But believe me when I tell you what they have is enough. There is peace in our home again.

God is so much more than a genie in a bottle to call upon when we are board or in trouble. God is so much more than a friend to talk to when we are feeling down. God is so much more than a ruler setting morals to follow or be dealt with. He is more than my dad, and more than my counselor. God is, God was , and will always be. He is my all in all! He is my past, present and future. I praise him for being GOD Almighty creator of the universe yet the holder of my hand and the shoulder I cry on and the one who wipes off the dirt from my skirt, after picking me up in his arms of comfort time and time again! Praise God For he is. HE IS! and always will be! 

2Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

The healing I pray for is with in my own body and the bodies and spirits of others I love. Though this land of people we live in needs so much healing as well. If we would but humble ourselves, know we do not have all the answers. If we would pray and seek His face. If we would turn from our selfish tasks we fill our days with instead of pursuing God's will for our lives. He promises to heal our land. Imagine as a nation if we would fall on our knees again what the results could be. Oh, that God would bless America again. That America would stop running from the protection of the God she once served and fall an her knees and be healed. It can happen and it starts one person's surrender to God at a time:)

My His blessing be yours!