We are not a stick!

Yep. That was the phrase I took away from time spent Sunday morning with fellow believers in Christ.

The topic of the day was about the importance of fellowship within the body of believers.

Acts 2:42-47

 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers.

43 Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.

44 Now all the believers were together and held all things in common.

45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need.

46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with a joyful and humble attitude,

47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them  those who were being saved.

There are times when we want to go to a secluded place and just be, ourselves and God, and exclude the rest of the world.

One of the ladies in our group talked about this--our tendency to sometimes think our spiritual relationships are only between us and God.  She moved her hand up towards the ceiling and down to her heart, then said that our fellowship needs to also extend to those around us and moved her hand to the left and the right---very much as if she were crossing herself--and said "Hey, that makes a cross! So...we are not a stick!"

We need to be living "like a cross". True, there are times that we need to pull away from others and remove the interaction with others. Jesus did this in Matthew 14:22-23, for example.

Too often I think we find ourselves focusing on one mode of fellowship--focusing either on our relationship with God or our relationships with others.  Basically, we are acting like a stick.  To be more than a stick--to make our life look more like a cross--is a balance that is sometimes hard to keep, but that doesn't mean we don't continue trying to make that balance.

I am one who tends towards going off by myself and secluding myself from others.  Sometimes this is out of necessity and where I am at in various aspects of my life, and other times I just don't want to move outside my comfort zone.

Look at yourself. First of all, do you have a relationship with God? With Jesus Christ? Have you trusted Jesus to save you from your sin?
Secondly, do you  have around yourself a group of fellow believers that you can have fellowship with?

Are you doing your part to nurture these very real needs in your life?

Are you feeling like a stick? Do what you can to be living like a cross. :)

Habakkuk 3: Habakkuk's Prayer

In my last post, I shared how the LORD's main purpose in all that He does is to draw us to Him and for His glory to be praised.

Sometimes we refuse to glorify Him and look to other things for our fulfillment; we even go so far as to claim everything for ourselves, taking the credit for it all.  Now, before I sound like Obama, who was ribbed for saying "You didn't build that(insert whatever fits here).", it's not whose hands, abilities, or time was used to do said thing.

Rather, it's Who gave us the abilities, the hands, the materials, and the time to do said thing that is the point. The LORD has given us all of these things, and we should realize and acknowledge that fact.

How do you think your mom would feel if she made a huge, delicious Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings and received no word of thanks? It's a similar concept.


In Habakkuk 3, Habakkuk responds to what the LORD has said in the previous chapter.  Regardless of all of the bad stuff happening to His people, and the evil running rampant throughout the world, He is still in control.

Habakkuk remembers God and all that He has done to care for His people. From a human perspective, much of it might be seen as cruel, but in reality, God was doing these things to rescue His chosen people (vs. 13).  It is hard sometimes to see the motive behind the action, behind the pestilence, the plague, the shaking earth, the mountains trembling....but the point is that God is All Powerful, even though we feel everything is out of control.

Where do we place our trust? In our earth (that seems to turn against us)? In our leaders? Or in the awesome, all-knowing, all-powerful LORD?


In verse 16, Habakkuk relays his feelings after hearing the words of the LORD about His motives behind the things he has done and things He has allowed to be done.

Although he started out in chapter 1 lamenting the evil that surrounded him, pointing out the many wrongs that were happening in his world, his focus changed by chapter 3.  His focus went from pointing parallel to what people were doing around him, to looking up and realizing the splendor and the power and the majesty of the LORD.  Habakkuk's attitude was transformed from one of despair to one of fear and reverence. He was downright terrified of the LORD! 

And his next response?

16b I will wait quietly for the coming day when disaster will strike the people who invade us (God's chosen people, His anointed ones, vs 13). 
17 Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD!  I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains. (NLT)

In the volatile world that we live in today, know that the LORD still reigns on high. He is in control and more than worthy of our praise and glory.  May we rely on Him as our strength to get us through troubled times. 

Habakkuk 1-2 The LORD does allow bad things to happen...Why?

Habakkuk is a minor prophet in the Old Testament, a man who preached to the people before the fall of Judah in 586 BC.

Habakkuk was quite put out with his LORD not coming down to strike down the evil in his day.  The LORD tells Habakkuk in chapter 1 that He would "raise up the Babylonians", a nation "more evil" in that day.

Habakkuk responds back in dismay, asking the LORD whether He plans to destroy them (Judah). The LORD's response was basically this; that all that happens has one motive: to point to the glory of God and to bring the people to HIM. To take the people's eyes from their fake gods, their possessions, their strength, their wealth, the beauty of the world around them, and to bring their attention to the Creator and Provider of all that they have.

Our security should not be in what we have(for most of that can vanish in the blink of an eye), but in Who has given us what we have.

"For the time will come when all the earth will be filled, as the waters fill the sea, with an awareness of the glory of the LORD." Habakkuk 2:3

God wants us to know Him. He wants us to seek Him. He wants us to glorify him. He does not want us to forget Him.

It is the time that we think we have made for ourselves all that we have--our possessions, our titles, our successes(in essence, our idols)--and not given the credit to our LORD--that we need to be drawn back to Him.


Sometimes we just need a gentle nudge to remind us to come to or return to Him. Other times, sadly, as we find in the book of Habakkuk, it will take much more than a nudge for the point to hit home.

May we all be aware of the glory of the LORD and praise Him today!

Gardening, Geraniums, and God

I found a sermon in the garden today.
You see, I salvaged the in-laws' geraniums last year. I hate to throw life in the trash can, know what I mean?  And besides, I could use the pots they were in.

I rediscovered these geraniums in my basement a week or two ago. They had spent the winter down there, safe from freezing and out of my way. Truth be told, I had completely forgotten about them and only found them because of another issue that drew me to The Abyss.

I had filled my other pots for the summer already, brimming with purchased annuals and renewed houseplants from inside. I had my plan and went with it...

 

...but I forgot the geraniums.


Once I found them, I pulled the plants out of the pots, removed the remaining soil around them, and piled the pathetic plants under a bush until I decided what to do with them. (I'm lucky my hubby leaves the flowers to me and he didn't throw them out into the compost heap!)


I saw these geraniums last year, in full leaf and full bloom. They were gorgeous, and I witnessed them in all their glory! (And they certainly weren't cheap!)

But now they looked sad. Rejected. Downright ugly, if I'm going to be honest about it. (Sorry to say that about the flowers, but they are out in the garden and can't hear me, so they're ok. ;) )

Yet, through all this ugliness, I still saw potential for life. Hope. Renewal.

You know what I did? I got my trowel out, gathered the plants (sticks, really...), plunged each one deep in the soil of the garden, and watered it. 

 

I fully expect most of these to burst to life and even have some blooms this summer. Why? Because their roots are in the soil and they are getting sunlight and water.

What Soil are You in?

Where are you in your Christian walk today?  First and foremost, have you experienced Life? Do you realize that you are a sinner, and that the only way you can go to be with Jesus one day is to turn away from that sin and trust that Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, paid your sin debt completely when he shed His blood and died on the cross? He alone can pay that debt, and He alone has the power over death (He was resurrected--risen from the dead, as we know from Mark 16:6 and other places in Scripture).

Jesus tells us in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

In Matthew 13:1-9, Jesus tells the parable of the sower who sowed seed.  Some fell in rocky soil, some in weedy soil, some on the wayside where birds ate it, some in shallow soil and some in good ground. All of the seeds except the ones in good ground eventually perished, but the ones on good ground grew well and produced much fruit.

Get yourself in good ground, where the Word of God is taught and preached. Read the Word daily and learn from it and live it.  Spend time talking to God and seeking His guidance in your life.

Are You Getting Watered?

Are you experiencing the Living Water flowing through you and into the world around you?
Or have you been away from the Living Water, Jesus, a little too long.....feeling a bit parched? Have you dug yourself a well, only to find it dry? Are the other things you try to quench your thirst with unfulfilling? Is it kind of like that yawn you feel coming on, but for whatever reason, no matter how hard you try, you can't suck in enough air and you're left wanting more...and more...and more...never filled?

Perhaps you know Who and where this Living Water is, and you've refused it, seeking out another thirst quencher.

I urge you--come back to the Source of the Living Water: Jesus. He will fill you up and you will have more than you need. In John 7:38, Jesus said, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." 

Are You Getting Enough Light Exposure?

Have you somehow found yourself in darkness, away from the Light and the Word of God?  Have you lost all hope of getting back on the path where you should be? Are you clinging to that one last glimmer, not sure where you will turn next?

Again, same theme here: Jesus is the Light of the world, and in Him is no darkness at all. Position your face towards Him, and He will help you.



I've got good news for you, friend! Jesus is waiting to hear from you. Whether you got to where you are intentionally or not, you can still run to Him.  He will welcome you back into His arms with rejoicing!  Come back!  Immerse yourself in the Word of God (the Bible), get "watered", set your face towards Christ.  Spend time talking to the Gardener. He will fill you and change you and give you a hope and a future! He will probably even prune you back a little bit to encourage that new growth and more fruit production; but take heart, He knows what He is doing!




Like my geraniums, we all need a time of renewal. We may look hopeless on the outside as most of the world sees us, but on the inside we have potential. Thanks be to God that He can see what we are capable of and He can tend to us and make us beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).


Thanks for reading!


Scriptures referred to in this blog post are linked to Studylight.org, a very useful reference and study tool to use as you search the Scriptures.

Thinking about the "What If's" of Life... On Miscarriage and Life Changes

If things had gone differently a year and a half ago, and I had been able to carry my last pregnancy to term, we would have a 1 year old child toddling around the house these days. My due date was March 23 of last year, and I tend to go "late" in delivering, so anytime around now we would have been baking a cake and putting one candle in the middle for the wee one to blow out and make a mess of.

I don't know why things worked out the way they did that September. I still look back and question  myself as to whether there was anything I could have done differently, anything that I did wrong to cause this, and I know all the canned answers to these questions. Still, I wonder.

Yes, I know God is in control and all things work together for the good of those that love Him.  That There is a Reason for everything that happens.  A greater plan than what I had in mind.  This isn't a promise that there will be no pain, however. It doesn't mean that (what we perceive to be) bad things will never happen to "good people" and you will never feel like your heart is in someone's fist and they won't let go and you don't know what to do about it other than cry out to God.  I am thankful and blessed to know the Healer, and to find that as He walks with me through pain and trials and works on that heart I spoke of up there, that is often where I experience the most growth in my walk with Christ.  This is quite humbling, actually, to find that trials drive me to Him....but the many blessings I receive often do not. (Why is that, anyway? I have a feeling I am not the only one...)

I am not without hope as I wonder and think back to what was and what is now and what might have been.

I dreamt the other night of a tow-headed little boy toddling around, me trying to keep up with him, and he was very clearly (in my dream) our child.

I don't know whether the dream was a gift from God or merely the working of my subconscious, but either way I did find comfort in it. I also remembered my Grandparents who passed on not too long before Avery(for that's the name we gave the child) went from this world to the next. And I remembered them all with a smile.

I have hope. Hope in Christ and His saving grace. I believe I will see them all, one day, when my work on earth is done, for I have accepted God's gift of His Son, who died on the cross to pay for *my* sins.  When I die (or Christ returns, whichever comes first), I can stand before God's Holy presence, made clean of my sin and forgiven because Christ shed His blood and paid my debt in full...and I believed on Him. As far as I can know I believe my Grandparents knew the Lord as well.  So this is why I have hope, and Who my hope is in--Christ!

As I linger on this earth, these verses in Jeremiah come to mind:

 ¹¹For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
   ¹²Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
   ¹³And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

  Jeremiah 29:11-13 

 These verses are in the context of Jeremiah addressing the people of Israel taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar from Jerusalem to Babylon.  They were taken away from what they knew, and I imagine they were distraught and at loss of what to do in this foreign land.

Sometimes I feel, with life changes, that I have entered a foreign land as well...

What does God(using Jeremiah) tell the people to do in Babylon? (And I ask myself, what should I do in my "foreign land"?)

Verses 5-8 in the chapter gives these instructions:

~Build houses, and dwell in them

~Plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them

~Raise your family, and help them start families of their own

~Seek peace of the city you are in - Pray for it

~Don't be deceived by false prophets and dreams - Seek the Lord

And verses 11-15:

~Call on Him

~Pray to Him, and He will hear you

~Seek Him--and find Him when we seek with all our heart

So, from this, I get that we are to carry on with life, seeking to raise Godly families and take care of what we've been given, to have a relationship with God such that we can pray for the place we are in and seek God's face (and be able to recognize a false prophet when we see one).

So, these things are what I am seeking to do as I walk in this land that is not quite the home I had once imagined it to be.

THIS WORLD IS NOT MY HOME 

(Youtube video and full lyrics here)

This world is not my home, I'm just passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore...

Chorus
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
If Heaven's not my home, then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

There are things that matter. God. Family. Taking care of what God's given to us. Seeking God's face in all we do.

And there are those things that don't matter. <insert everything else here>

I'm trying to focus on the first list.

A piece of a song that comes to mind as I write this is from This World by Caedmon's Call.  

This world has nothing for me and this world has everything
All that I could want and nothing that I need

So true.  If only we could keep this in mind in our day to day lives and not get lost in all this world has to offer.

Our family has gone through the wringer lately with illness in this household. After 2 weeks of tending to sick kids and repeated doctor's appointments, I guess it was somewhat inevitable that Mom and Dad would catch the bug.

This winter has been unusually wet and warm compared to previous years. We have an outdoor wood furnace that we source wood for from our woods and supplement from a semi-local wood place that sells scrap lumber.  Usually, we can start getting wood from the time the crops are harvested (there is a field between our house and the woods) and all through the winter. It's our "family thing" to do on the weekends.

But not this year.  We have places to get the wood, but are not able to get TO the wood to get it to the house. One week of our farm truck taking a "vacation" in the woods was enough, thank you very much.  It's just been too wet. And our semi-local scrap wood place? They're having the same problem.  I'm glad the Lord gave us the foresight to order an extra load or two late this last summer, because it's held us up to this point.

On to my point.

The Lord has been working on me on some issues.  Part of me wants us to be self-sufficient (insert a Tim the Tool-Man Taylor "arr-arr-arr") and able to take care of ourselves no matter what happens and Have Everything Under Control.

If you've not figured it out yet, being sick enough that you feel like someone beat you to a pulp (I think "death warmed over" was the description hubby gave...along with "Horrid") makes one very Not In Control.

Hubby and I were talking last night, trying to decide what to do.  What can we do??? We need wood.  What can We do???

Guess what? The Lord of all, the owner of everything we know on this earth, had it all under control. Not that I ever doubted that, or maybe I did and do and that's why I worry about things sometimes...

This morning, our neighbor called to tell us he was cleaning up near a creek and had some wood if we wanted it. I told him that we would love to have it, but that my hubby couldn't come out to help unload and why.  He was fine with that and brought 2 (!) loads of wood over for us. He had his strapping young boys there to help him unload. I went out to thank him and told him that he was an answer to prayer.

It was a very humbling experience, getting to the point that we probably would have ended the week with no wood for the furnace (we do have propane as backup, but it's quite spendy--hence the wood furnace. Not to mention it just doesn't heat as well.). BUT, it was also a very comforting experience, knowing that our God knew of our problem far in advance and moved within our neighbors to gift us with the wood.  An act of God for sure, gracious, because this was something we could not do ourselves.


This provision brought my mind to how God offers us the gift of salvation through Christ.  There is nothing we can do in and of ourselves to have eternal life, except to realize we are sinners, believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sin and rose alive and victorious over sin and death three days later.  The blood He shed on that cross is what cleanses us from every single sin we ever did, do, and will do in the future. He died to pay for the sins of the whole world.  We each have but to turn away (repent) from that sin and turn to Christ.  He offers the gift to us. It's up to us to receive it.And it's only through Him that we might be saved.

Philippians 4:19

   But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

This means our spiritual need for a Savior......and our earthly physical needs on this earth---yes, even firewood!

Our Vision...Update

Many thanks to those who have been praying for us.

Hubby and I have both been praying for clear direction, and as of right now feel that we have some things to take care of on the homefront before we can seriously begin to proceed in any direction.

So, we are doing what we can at the moment to take care of the things calling for our attention, and we are also keeping ourselves open to possibilities for service in the future.

Please continue to pray for God's direction as we seek to serve Him.

Thanks!