God doesn't have an expiration date on His plans for you

I bent low to pull out the old food containers.  I rolled up my sleeves and sighed.  One of my most dreaded jobs in the home is to clean the refrigerator.  You just never know what's growing in there.    You know what I'm talking about right?  Why is it that some foods taste better the first time and then others just don't reheat the same?  Believe it or not there were some expired condiments from years ago.  Ahem...I said years.

As I was pulling out some older sandwich meat, I was just thinking about how God doesn't have an expiration date.  I was a bit sad that some food didn't get used as I had planned.  And then my mind drifted how we get stuck in those places where we think we have dropped on God's plan list.

When we don't see God working in our lives, we think His greater plans for us have expired.  We see God doing greater things in others, but fail to recognize His hand in our own.  Do we really think that God is going to run out of blessings for us?  

There is a part of us that wish we could expedite the plans of God.  So how do we dispose of man's way of thinking about His plans for us and not inject our own timelines into God's agenda?

Take a deep breath....we must learn run with patience.  We must wait upon the Lord, instead of crossing our arms and tapping our toes at Him.  God has an appointed time for the plans that He has involved us in.  So many of us just give up on the promises of God because we expect God to move and shuffle circumstances around according to our rush.

God is outside of time.

God appoints time, He created it and has planned seasons for everything and for every purpose.  "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

How often do we think that God is only watching the clock to tick off our birthdays, and has forgotten about our dream list.  When you are tempted to think that He has forgotten you, ignored you, and or is simply disappointed with you, that is a lie.  Don't give into that way of thinking.

Dispose of the lies of what you think God isn't doing and believe that His greater things are something to hope for.  Give into what you know about God over what you don't see happening quickly enough.  Every season takes a preparation.  So it if feels like you are taking a new unplanned direction or you feel marginalized or rejected, it's more likely God's protection that is cleaning out His plans for you.

I'll never forget the time, my son-in-law was applying for several pilot jobs with some smaller airlines.  There was one airline that he preferred.  He didn't hear from them right away and he started to think the worst, that he wouldn't get the job.  He felt rejected by the company in their lack of communication.  As it turns out, he didn't get the job.  But a few months later, he read in the news that the company that he was hoping to get hired by was going bankrupt.  He was immediately grateful that the job he wanted so badly didn't work out.  He now flies with a mainline airline that is much bigger than the one he was hoping for.

If you are waiting on something God has promised, remember:
God is outside of time, and your time is coming.

God is working on ALL the details for His glory.  He does everything with attention to detail.
There is service in waiting.
Encourage yourself in the Lord, read some stories of His faithfulness in the Bible.

Learn to wait patiently.  Not like a spoiled child who just wants their way, but like a loving child who can't wait to see what their Daddy has for them.  Don't give up!

"Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart" (Galatians 6:9).

Remember God has a due season; His plans for you never expire.  

Candy Land wisdom

As my daughter unfolded the new Candy Land game from the box, the anticipation was building in her young little helper.  Avery waited...but really he just wanted to get his hands on the spinner.

I could see it in his eyes.  Actually, his little 3-year-old anxiety was wanting to touch the spinner, the game pieces, and the board.  All of it.  Candy Land was Lindsay's favorite board game as a child.  As she was setting out all the pieces quickly, the memories also unfolded between the two of us, about the hours and hours of entertainment this board game brought. 

I love how God teaches the simplest of life lessons in the smallest of ways.

As Avery waited for his turn, he quickly lost patience in the wait.  He wanted that spinner now and right now.  He wanted to control the arrow.  As I watched him, God simply spoke to my heart with..."I've heard your prayers, I know you are waiting."

Don't you wish God would whip out His giant arrow spinner board thingy, and simply just show us the next step to take?  And now please?

Avery’s age was at the root of his impatience.  All of you who have prayed for that "what's next" question, please raise your hand!?!  Don't you wish that your next step was laid out in a simple way like the Candy Land sidewalk?  

Do you pray that it would be?

Yeah, me too.  At least, I am not the only one...maybe you are ...

seeking God in your life’s direction

seeking God in a renewed commitment
or...just trying to keep your head above the turbulent waters of change.

Whatever your "what next" is, may I encourage you to simply lay it before the Lord and see what wisdom God will patiently teach you?

Jeremiah 29: 12-14 ~ "When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.  When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.  Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed. God’s Decree…'I’ll turn things around for you.’" (MSG)

You aren’t willing to wait for something you don’t love.  Yow-wee!  That one stung my heart a little too. 

No matter where you are on the sweet-filled sidewalk of life, we all have questions.  I have learned along the way that we have to trust the process.  When we are seeking God's best in the faith process, we have to trust the process in which God shows us.  

The book of Proverbs has quite the wisdom spin for a pure-focused life plan.  We also have to believe that God is working for us and not against us.  There are times when God asks you to take faith steps even when you can't see the whole picture.

You don't have to know all of God's plan to obey God's plan.

The win for Avery was to get to the King's Candy Castle, the end of the game.  My win is the obedience learned, a more peaceful patience, and a deeper and intense trust in God’s faithfulness.      

As God sees us faithful in our obedience He will lead us in the fullness of His wisdom.  We learn so much patience in the wait, and we have to trust God's spin of Sovereignty, that is if you want peace along with trusting God’s process.  He is the ONLY one who knows what is best for us. 

Romans 8:26-28 ~ "Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.  If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." (MSG)

I love the word "pregnant" in the Message version, it's speaks of an almost urgent waiting process.  But with a pregnancy, it does have an end.  And that my friends, gives me hope.  

In our trusting, seeking, waiting, praying...there's hope.  We can't lose heart as God works ALL things out into something good, for our good, and works for the good of those who love Him.

Hope brings an end to the waiting process and transforms into patient rest in God’s process.  Hope reassures my obedience.  Hope triumphs doubt in prayer, and results in an expectation that God is working on my behalf.  Hope helps me to faithful and trust the process and obey God's wisdom.

Since I want His best, why would I want to grab the spinner thingy away from the One who can make all things possible?

His patient perfect plan is always worth my patient obedience.  This day and everyday of advent, make room in your heart for patience.  This time of year, we need more of that don't we?

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!

He is waiting to be asked

Photo credit:  Peter Cook

God wants to help you.  Yes, with everything.

Did you know that He even cares about the little things that are going on in your life?  In your messy life of yesterday, or today?

There is no problem to small for God to handle.

It reminds me of the time when I attempted to clean my writing corner.  There were notes everywhere.  Post-it's loaded with half-thoughts, sentences scribbled on scraps and little slips.   They were everywhere littering my work space.  I had let it go a little too long, the stack was piled high.

Honestly I thought it would have been easier to slide them all into the trash can.  I guess I am a little OCD when it comes to saving every scrap, even napkins with thoughts.  I might use it sometime ya know?  The corner was a little like the leftovers that reside in my refrigerator.  There's a little bit of this and a little bit of that, with verses written quickly.

I could have used some help but didn't ask for any.  It would have taken me half as long to clean it up and organize, sort through and pitch the thoughts that I had no intention of using or didn't make sense.  I could have asked for help and then I could have gotten done quicker.

But I didn't.  I quit half-way through because it was too much.  It was more than I wanted to deal with at the moment.  It was way too time consuming.

How many times do we approach God with those kinds of prayers?  We think he doesn't have time for us or that it would take to long to tell Him how we really feel or that we assume He is too busy to help us?

Have you told him lately what's on your heart?  Why do we struggle with the telling part of prayer?
Why do we think we need to wax poetic or say some eloquent prayer on our knees in some kind of worshipful pose?  Why do we think that God doesn't care?

God is waiting to be asked and invited into your problems, fears and hangups.  He is waiting for us to invite Him in.

When you don't want to ask God first, it means you probably should.  The fact that God doesn't care couldn't be further from the truth.  We should invite into every part of our lives, our day, our hearts.

How else are we going to gain the strength to get to where we are going?
How else are we reminded that we are not alone in this world?
How else can we set hearts on eternity?
How else are can we tap into our Powerful Source?
How else can we experience His beauty in worship?
How else would can feel the love he has for us each and every day?
How else unless He is invited?

I haven't found a better plan than to make God the center of the big things, the small things, the this and that, the scraps of thought, half-sentences and the overwhelming circumstances that plague our days.  I haven't found an refuge in my messy writing corner with notes so jumbled up there, but when I come to God with my little ideas about my life, He straightens everything out.  Especially my perspective, my heart.

He knows that I need to ask Him first, I know that He is waiting to be asked.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, 
the door will be opened."  Matthew 7:7-8  
"Yes, Lord, each and every time like it's a big deal.  I hear You...and I hear your knocking...I invite You in."  

Oh the price of prayerlessness!  

Clear Your Stage

One day last week the team brought VBS for one day's activities.  I love these days.   One of the great things about being flexible is we never know for sure how it's really going to work because we don't know how many kids will actually show up.  I worked the photo booth so it was a popular spot.  There were smiles all around.  

There was one little girl who stood out to me. 

Her eyes barely cleared the table top as she was so small.  There were all kinds of stickers of all shapes and sizes.  She waited patiently as I watched her.  Her sweet innocence quickly stole my heart.  I am a sucker for cute faces and she wore her best today.  She waited and waited for her turn.  Finally we got a translator and asked her if she had her photo taken yet.  She shook her head no.

We took her picture and she waited for picture to print.  She started to decorate the frame that we had crafted out of Popsicle sticks.  She waited some more.  She never said a word, she never complained.  She left and then she came back again.  Waiting still.

Finally her picture was done and we helped her put her picture in the photo frame.  And she was happy and bounced out to show it off.

A few minutes later I looked up and I noticed she had come back again and was looking at the other finished framed photos that we had laid on a little stage near our table.  She touched and straightened each photo.  She was carefully arranging them, lining them up for the pictured to claim.

And then it hit me..

How many times do we leave God waiting?  He peers into our hearts and asks us to trust and obey?  Do you think he looks at us with longing in His heart wishing we would submit to His authority?  Think of Him waiting....waiting....waiting ..to say yes to Him.  Have you ever said no to God and it worked out well? 

How often do we fill our lives, the stages of our hearts, with the things of this world?  We clutter our worlds with clumsy habits that distract us from saying yes to God.  And all He wants is our undying devotion, our yes each and every time.  

He's waiting....

Maybe it's to sponsor a child with Mission of Mercy.
Maybe it's saying yes to a step of faith where God is leading you.  

Maybe it's a career change.

Maybe it's a pay cut.
Maybe it's accepting a closed door in your life, and moving on.
Maybe it's submitting your heart to just follow God in a different direction than you had planned.
Maybe...it's for you to get involved....in church...

Do you ever think about how we clutter our stages?

God comes near to us.  He waits patiently everyday for us to long for His Presence.  He waits for us to drop our luggage of our worries, plans, and selfish dreams and empty our hands, so that we can hear His voice.   Do you know what you need to say yes to?

Don't let your stage be so full of everything of the world.  Make God a priority.  Let Him come in and tenderly rearrange the your heart to perfect His plan and for His glory. Clear your stage...so He can be center. 

He's waiting.

Five Minute Friday

Here's my five-minute-Friday-challenge.  
Writing on one word for only five minutes: horizon.  Go!  

What's on your horizon?

Horizons are the foundations on which the sun rises and sets.  I love scenes in nature like the one above.  When I think of horizons usually I see some kind of a silhouette in my mind.    

In the story of the Prodigal son, the father waited for the silhouette of his long lost son. He went to look at that horizon often waiting in hope for his son to return. He kept his eyes on the distant horizon ready to embrace. Once he saw his son he ran.

Martha, the sister of Lazarus, gazed at her horizon and looked for her Healer.  After hearing the news of Lazarus' death, Jesus delayed his arrival for three days.  She looked for her all-too-familiar silhouette.  When she saw His head pop over the hill, tears fell as she ran to her Comfort.  

So from your horizon in view, who's silhouette are you looking for?  

God keeps us on his horizon.  
2 Chronicles 16:9 "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth
to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."

Messy Lessons from a Pineapple

There it was... in the middle of my kitchen floor...a sticky puddle of pineapple juice. It was the first thing I saw on that Sunday morning as I was making my coffee before church. One look was all it took to send me into an emotional tailspin. 

"Things will never be the same....will they God?!" 

I know what you are thinking, it's just a puddle of juice....come on.....spills happen. Yes, that's true. But there was more than just a pool of yellow colored sugary syrup that was at the feet of the refrigerator. There was a God-lesson floating there. 

The spill was an accident. I'm still blaming it on Macon, the cat. There was a reason this sent me into a ball of emotions....it was a huge mess.  When I saw the collection of the sticky liquid, this pineapple puddle pointed out that some familiar circumstances had changed. It was a pitiful reminder of what has been lost and there was a most definite need for clean up.   

In moments, I was on my knees swabbing the free flowing fluid. I was also in the perfect position for God to delicately dispense His limitless grace. As I wiped the floor, He gently wiped my heart with His blessed promise. I needed to let go of the way things have been. And instead believe that His grace is perfect in my weakness.  God has trusted my heart with these grace-laced days-of-waiting, in spite of all my unanswered why-questions.  I must cling to the promise he has given me instead of throwing in the towel when days gets hard, especially when I don't see his plan or feel his purpose in this trusting state of faith. 

As I was leaning to clean, God reassured me that His promise was still positioned and ready. His promise is His word and that is enough. Today is a new and different page in this God story. The promise is still on its way, and by faith, God has portioned this puddle. My tears have been replaced by peace. Prayer dries up pools of fear. Trust in Him calms the raging whys. Restoration and healing are waiting in the fringes. 

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 

What whys do you struggle with? What whys do you need to let go of?