"You're in trouble"

I don't even don't know how to start this post.  What I've said about me is that I could have ten conversations at the same time, as if ten people are talking all at once.  

About ten different topics.

It's so hard to put all those topics into words, to make sensible conversations, sensible truths and make them all circle back around and connect.  And yet, for me most days it happens.  

Every time I read the Bible, the Holy Spirit speaks to me on the very day that I needed to hear exactly what I needed to hear.  And when I think about that...it causes my spirit to stir.  Not just a "I'll think about that later" stir but a deep discovery stir.  I want to know more about the character of God.  

His stories stir my spirit.  So grateful for the supernatural work that happens when you crack open God's instruction book.  We tend to think of instructions of any kind as a negative thing, as disobedient children being called into the principals office to hear..."You are in trouble."  That's not true with God.  God is our loving Father and everything He says and does is out of love for us.  For me.  For you.  About ten times over.  

But God is right about one thing, we are in trouble in this world.  John 16:33 says, "I have told you all this so that you will have peace of heart and mind. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows; but cheer up, for I have overcome the world.”

Do you know how hard it is to encapsulate God in a single blog post?  It can't be done, why even the greatest storybook, the Bible, couldn't contain all of God's stories.  And yet in the currency that is God speaking to us every we seek Him, He teaches us about His character over and over about every last one of our ten topics that are currently and deeply stirring.

By His grace, we are directed, instructed, and guided by the stories that were inspired by His Spirit long ago.  I learn more and more about God every time I ask and seek and listen to Him speak.  I love how current God's Word is, like it was written an hour ago.  Our challenge is that we must make time for the encouragement that is always found there.  As if it's the ONLY way to live out our days in whatever current situation, construction, restoration, directions and trouble of this life or in all the seasons we currently find ourselves in.

I find comfort in the fact that when I grip God's heart, as expressed in His words to me when I'm troubled or not, that it is perfect for whatever is stirring inside.  I need a constant reminder to remain in living out my days in God's peaceful and orderly plans.  I trust His rest in my best use of time about the numerous topics that are currently stirring my spirit.

What God starts are those things that He perfects.  Things, aspects, plans have already been perfected in us but yet undiscovered, or uncovered or to be restored.  The matter of your story, life crisis, life's joy, or whatever and all of the ten topics that are stirring deeply in your spirit or just on the surface, know that each story counts.  God remains in the restoration business and the encouragement of truth applied to our lives is available 24 hours a day, and seven days a week.  God is always listening to our cries, our spirits, our praises, our gratefulness and listens in our troubled, burdened tears.  

And friends, you want to know what I find as great encouragement about God's love and faithfulness?  It's the fact that He perfects me, as if my one little story counts, as if He only speaks to me, and He has all the time I need.  Each time, all the time. 

My time spent listening to Him has directed me to His faithfulness in how He listens, how He loves and how He shows His character.  When I come to His place, with so many topics, with my little ten conversations that stir the deep parts of my heart, I can see more of His supernatural perfecting in who I am, as He perfects me be more like Him.  

Wow!  I don't know how to start a post that says that.  Today I am out of words. How are you encouraged by reading the Bible? 

When you want to be the BEST!

Photo credit:  Cindee Snider Re

Ephesians 3:17-18  "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.."

What does it mean to let Christ dwell in your hearts?   And to experience the fullness of God?

It means to let the Holy take up residence...live...hang out ...all the time...play outside with you, sit down and have coffee with you, and play video games with you. To engrave God's truth on the mother board of your operating system, the tablets of your heart.  To allow holiness to change you and your behavior.

Paul's prayer is that believers would wake up, and be strong in the Lord, filled with the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge...which means we have to know what His word says.  

We have to make time for Jesus and read the Bible.   We have to be doers of the word and we have to allow truth to influence our behavior.

We have to spend time with God, to get to know Him.  You can't have a relationship with someone you don't spend time with.  We can't live like we want after reading it.  The Bible is packed with wisdom that shows us how to be holy.  Isn't that what our Best Friend in the entire world would want for us?   

We were created in His image so we should follow as closely to the Master Designer as we can.  Ephesians 5:1 is one of my favorite verses "Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children."  Copy that!  No cutting necessary, only paste it in your heart!  

Dwelling on Truth will have some positive affects in your thinking, your language, your actions.  God gives us the perfect example to model in His Son, Jesus.  So when you are looking for something to influence your faith, the Bible with all of it's wisdom works perfectly to guide, shape and sharpen your faith.  

We have to walk with God and allow Him to walk with us.  Daily, all day, not just once a week in a pew in a Sunday morning.  

You think you are too busy and don't have time to meet with God on a one on one basis?  If so, then you are too busy NOT to consider what God has to show you and the ways you should go.  You would have a lot of time if you dropped the other 19,000 ways you tend to divide your day.  

Ahem...now I am really stepping on some sore toes aren't I?  So what do we do about this?  How do we choose what's better?

We seek first...

We seek first Him to be our First.  In everything.  In our homes, jobs, and especially in our minds and hearts.  Only looking to the Perfect source to learn how to copy and absorb His perfect behavior.  And then you keep coming back to the same source, same Teacher to learn and apply it until it becomes your nature.  

It's the better choice, the holy choice, the choice of the saved and sanctified.  Choose the wiser option.  
Choose Holy, choose Better.  It's the Best for you!  

How do you be the best "whatever"?  Learn from the Best in everything!

One funny and inspiring writer

Jenn Derrick, Jennifer Vaughan, Liz Curtis Higgs & Me!

She is funny, engaging and makes God's Word come alive and plant deeply into our hearts.   She's Liz Curtis Higgs, author and well known redeemed bad girl.

She knows a lot about bad girls.  She has studied them and written about them but has also lived to tell a tale or two.  She doesn't boast about her past though.  Her face glows as she lives her identity in Christ.

In her Bad Girls of the Bible series she gives a perspective that's personal, relevant, inspiring and digs deep into the lives of women who were shunned, rejected and cast aside in the Bible.  She gives hope for all of us who have walked a not so pretty past with the hope of change and God's redemption.

Isn't that we all need?  A little hope to get past our past?

She illuminates the truth in the Bible in such a way you read your own name in the lines of Scripture and see the good news that God has waiting for each of us within the lives of those redeemed women she writes about.

Her stories of redemption are moving with some light perspectives sprinkled in for a little joy.  And she reminds us that we are never out reach from a Holy God who is waiting to love and accept us bad girls in ways the world never could or would.

Bottom line is this truth...God knows where we've been, where we are going, who we've been with, what we've done, what we haven't done and guess what....He loves us anyway.

That's hope my friends.  Thank you Liz for making the Bad Girls of Bible so compelling.  Thank you for letting God write through you.  Thank you for sharing God's truths with those of us who want to get past our past and receive His healing.

Thank you for loving, giving and teaching.  It was a pleasure to meet you!

You better know where your socks are

"This is for those who wait." ~ Fireflight

Each and every time that song comes over my radio speakers, I stop and thank God.  I've learned a lot about God and waiting and me.

The Bible is loaded with stories of great people of faith that have waited in their lifetime.  It seemed as if their dreams would never come true or that God had forgotten about the promises He had given them.  And then after years and years and then some more years...and many struggles later, their time of waiting ended.  

There are many verses of encouragement in times of waiting, and God's truth really stirs deep and speaks hope into those long waiting periods.  But a few stand out that really make me thankful for waiting...and it seems that God delivers them just in the nick of time of when my exhausted spirit needs just a little more oomph.

I don't know what you are waiting on, or if you have had ever had to wait on a promise.  But if you have had to wait on God, how do you handle it?

I hope that you have done a little better this than me.  Because honestly there are times when I want to rush His plans.  It seems that I want to get ahead of Him and take the controls of His best moves and then kindly put God in His majestic place in running the entire universe, and act like I know what is best for me.  

What a fool I have been in this waiting.

Recently, there has been a new awareness in this growing season that has really changed my perspective about waiting.    

I simply laid a dream at His feet and left it there.  

Get that?  I left my dreams, the unspoken things between me and God, I left them at His feet.  And then I took my hands off.  I gave them back to the Giver of Dreams.  The very dreams that He planted deep, I let go of them.  "God, these are yours, do with it as you will."  There are God-ideas that I only wonder about, those I can't even wrap my mind around.  That's when you know it's a God-driven dream.  Those dreams that intimidate the hee-bee-jee-bees out of you!  Those dreams that are so big that you have no idea what to pray first.

Those were the prayers when I realized that God was waiting on me.

Did you know that God waits on us too?  Of course the ultimate wait is for us to choose to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior as His heart desires that we all live eternally with Him in Heaven.  He wants salvation for each of His children.  

Life is full of waiting periods for faith-filled sojourners and it's our faith that's on the line when we choose to believe God for what He has promised.  When God requires a hold on His sovereign plans, the One you wait for will not disappoint you.  

I am always encouraged when I come across these hope speaking verses:

Ps. 33:24  "Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord."

Ps. 27:14   "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

Ps. 33:11  "But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purpose of his heart through all generations."

Ps. 33: 20  "We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield."

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

So when you lay your dreams, at the foot of the cross and then surrender your own will to let God, the most creative person I know take over, it's time to take heart.  Take His heart to heart.

Ps. 37:5  "Commit your way to the Lord;  trust in him and he will do this."

God will take our heart, he will take His heart and move it to action.  But not just to bring a solution to your problem or deliver a dream.  No, He will bring His fullness to your dream, your problem, your situation or your circumstance.

Keep track of your socks, because He is about to blow them off with His perfection that He's dreaming for you. He will bring His perfect fullness to your dreams.  God's fullness, because of His character, is what we wait on.  And honestly, it's my faint heart longs...for that and let me just encourage you today friend...this is worth waiting for.

So take heart, don't give up, but give into the One who brings His Heart of fullness just your most perfect and right time.  Take heart, God has not forgotten you.  


Let the God of Wonders draw you near while you wait on His Fullness.  Take heart!

Someone Has a Case of the Mondays

Ever felt like you went through a Monday twice?  Not sure what Monday did to rear it's ugly head, but that day sure gets a bad rap for being the worst day of the week.  Truth is usually Mondays are full of trouble and distress, mostly as a result of the weekend activities that have left us tired, drained, spent.

Trouble and distress are woven into the very fabric of our lives on Mondays and other days too.  The Bible tells me have joy in those Mondays.  I know I should but there are circumstances that block my view of the promised attainable joy.  I like to blame it on Mondays.

Someone once said that God won't give you more than you can handle on a Monday or any other day.  I don't swallow that lie.  I believe He does.  I believe that God allows it on Mondays. God gives us more than we can handle on a Monday or any other day because He wants us to need Him and turn to Him for everything.  If we could handle our problem-filled Mondays then why would we need a Savior?  He also loves to surround us with His presence to fill our trouble-filled days.  

The secret to joy-filled Mondays and more is to live above our circumstances.  That doesn't have to happen just one day a week.  Don't we need that everyday?  The Holy Spirit empowers us to live above the trouble and distress that Mondays bring so that we can experience God's peace in the middle of our Mondays.  Now this secret doesn't remove Monday's complex conundrums, but it sure helps.  And it will help your problem filled Tuesdays too.  

Our world is chocked Monday full of un-awesome days.  That's because we live in a world full sin.  We make mistakes, I know....I make plenty of them.  And when we concentrate on our lack of awesome filled Monday's we fail to see God tapping us on the shoulder asking..."Do you need Me yet?"  But His hands gently move from our shoulders to our chin.  He gracefully lifts our face to  lock eyes with His...and once you get that view....those trouble filled Mondays don't matter.  The troubles still for a moment and help us refocus on what truly does matter.  

It's not what you have lost.

It's not what you have gained.

It's not your loaded up email, twitter and facebook accounts.

It's not your friends.

It's your Savior.

It's his Spirit.  It's Him.

Yes, God I need you on this trouble-filled Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and certainly on Mondays and all days.  Hold on to me.  You know that I have trouble.  Trouble that I can't handle.  Give me Your good cheer, give me your joy as we face this trouble-filled day together.  

John 16:33  These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

How To Study The Bible

You want to study the Bible?

You want to draw closer to God?    

Start.  

Open the collection of words that the Author of Life Himself has written.

You want to know who God is?  Read His thoughts.

Start anywhere.  Start somewhere.  

There are many ways here.

Just start.  Open the Bible.

Read it.

My Pastor Must Have Read My Blog Post

Resting on a beach is nice

Surely he had read my thoughts about needing rest.  It is my one word for 2012.  So when I settled into message one in the new sermon series Soul Detox, I was astonished and thought...."He must have read my blog".  In church this past Sunday, I realized my one word theme for 2012 was more than a word, it's a lifestyle.    


Maybe you struggle with finding rest too.  Perhaps I am not the only one looking for it.  Maybe you are not brave enough to write it like I am.  When I looked at the sermon talk notes, I immediately started filling in the blanks of the points to ponder.  Scored 100%.


Knowing the answers makes me think I am on the right track.  Now it's just putting the rest I have found into practice.  That's the hard part of faith.  Reading God's word is one thing but applying it to your life is another with all our hiccups and hangups.  One thing I do know though that if we seek God, He will be found.  


It's hard work to breath in our culture and not being affected by it.  It's life that God didn't call us to be a part of...this is not our home.  He did call us to be a light to this toxic dark culture we live in.  We are all searching for something and in case you don't know it yet....you aren't going to find rest in our culture.  

There is only one place to land when looking for rest and that is in God's lap.  

Ps. 62: 1 My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.  

Take five minutes and be still. I am challenged by the "still" part. Not that i haven't stopped to absorb God's Word, but it's the being silent and still that continues to change me. I find silence awkward, it's not comfortable. I need to grow here. 

I need to sign up for a double shift in silence.

Ps. 131:2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul.....

Take a knee and wait.  Here's another area where God has been growing me.  In his waiting room, there are many numbers that haven't been called yet.  So I continue to wait, take His number, sit in His lap and wait some more.  

There are some things where God is waiting on me.  Wait...I know there is.

Ps. 37:7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.....

Honestly we don't have time NOT to be still before God.  It should be our first step out of bed, the first part of your day.  Give God your fresh and best.  Here's something you may not have realized, that God will handle the rest of the world while you are taking your five minutes.  

Be still for God, and before God.  

I wait for the Lord, my soul awaits, and in his word i put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than a watchman wait for this morning....Ps. 130:5-6

Don't forget who God is.  Reflect on God's goodness, reflect on what He has already done.  Gather at your water's edge and think about His great goodness and mercies which are new each and every morning.  As you remember His faithfulness, pick up a small smooth stone and tuck into your pocket. Think about how God is for you and never against you.  Remember....who God is!  

Remembering God should cause us to pause for five minutes.  

Need a place to start?  Pause in Psalms...