Walk in the Word

Wow! I just looked at the date of my last post, and I cannot believe it has been since last January! The year has just flown!
Well, here we are again at Christmastime, and I was just bemoaning the fact that I was not acheiving my goals, and just generally frustrated with my walk with Christ, because I had once again lost sight of him in this busy time of year. Thankfully, though, I had been voicing my frustration with myself to the Holy Spirit, and faithful as always, he began to reveal why. So here I am, ajusting my spiritual attitudes AGAIN. How easy it is for me to loose my vision. I wonder if God ever gets as frustrated with me as I do with myself and consequently with others?
There is so much going on in my head right now, I hardly know where to begin.
I guess I will start where I am, which is usually better than trying to go backward, because that involves stories that would just take me off point, and go where I am going, but in a round about way that is neither pretty or comfortable. For me, anyway. You might enjoy reading it, but I wouldn't enjoy revealing the darkness that is still in my heart after 43 years of following Christ.

At any rate, suffice it to say that I was struggling with the people around me just not "getting it". Now if you wonder what I mean by that statement, you may not struggle like me. In fact, you may not "get it". Not to insult your intelligence or your spirit, and truth be told, I think it is more my problem than anything. I am prideful and arrogant, and really, just plain sinful. And I am the one who really doesn't "get it" most of the time. That is what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell me.

You see, I have been frustrated with my family during this season. It started even before we began to put up the decorations. Every year it is the same thing: We start something as simple as putting up the tree (did I just say it was simple to put up a tree???) and it always ends with someone mad at someone else and feelings hurt and mom crying. After all, I just want to do a family thing for a couple of hours without all the fussing and selfishness. But it happened again this year and I cried, AGAIN. I used to love Christmas. But after 38 years of living with Scrooge and his minions, and the selfish little beasts who God has chosen to use to reveal my desperate need for him (because of my own selfishness) through (ie: children...5 of them! I must really be worse off than I had orginally thought), I no longer look forward to putting up the decorations. It is now a chore that I do, not that I enjoy. But I digress.

Anyway, they roll their eyes when I say, "hey! lets read Christmas devotions!" or "lets watch a Christmas movie" or, "you want to bake cookies with me?" well, not so much the cookies, cause they know they will get to eat some. But you get the picture. Anything that involves "Christmassy stuff", they act like they are going to the dentist.

I was just feeling so justly self-righteous, and wondering why they didn't "get it."
I mean, its our Saviours Birth for heaven's sake!!! Why wouldn't you want to savor every moment??? Why wouldn't you want to devote yourself fully to this time of year when heaven and nature sings of the glory of God in the Highest? Why I as you? Why?

So I got all up on my high horse, thinking: "I am the only one who gets it. Why don't they care? Why don't they love you like I do?" And all the while praying that they would "see what I see" and that they would love him like I do, while getting angrier and angrier, and wondering why my prayers seem to fall on deaf ears.

DUH!! So I asked God: "Why won't you just show up and fix them? They are driving me crazy!!! Especially my husband!! So I turn on the radio in the car (which I NEVER do) and here was this guy from Walk in the Word ministries talking TO ME! sounded like the voice of God, really.

He said, "what is the difficult circumstance that God is using to bring you to a place of humility before him? God orders the circumstance of your life to put you in a position to see how desperately you need him." Could it really be that simple? So I went to their website, and here is what I found:

The Benefits of Waiting


"I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord." - Psalms 40:1–3

The longer I live, the more I come to understand that life doesn't have a lot of green lights. There are hardly any times where God is like, "Do you want that? Have it right now. Why didn't you ask sooner?" More often God is like, "I'd like you to wait."

"No! I want it right now!"

God is like, "Listen! You might think you want it now, but I'm going to give it to you when you're fit to receive it. I'm going to use the process of waiting to shape you into the woman or the man that I want you to be. Getting it now wouldn't advance My purposes for you. I want you to wait."

Waiting is not an easy thing. Waiting is not passivity. Waiting on God is not the absence of efforts. Waiting is "I've done everything I know how to do but it's not enough and now I am waiting on God to do for me what I could not do for myself."

That is such an important lesson to learn. Let me tell you about some of the benefits that you get when you wait on God. Here are five verses that spell them out.

According to Psalm 40:1 when we wait on God, He hears our prayers: "I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined to me and heard my cry."
According to Isaiah 64:4 when we wait on God, He acts on our behalf: "Nor has the eye seen a God like You who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him." That's what God is fired up about. He works for the people who wait. I wonder how many things we don't get because we're out there working for it ourselves beyond what we should and God's like, "Would you just stop that? I act on behalf of the people who wait for Me."
Psalm 25:3 says that when we wait on God, He keeps us from shame: "Indeed none of those who wait for You O God will be ashamed."
Isaiah 40:31 says that He gives strength to those who wait: "Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength."
Psalm 37:34 tells us that those who wait for God are exalted: "Wait for the Lord and He will exalt you."
Bottom line; God always makes it worth our while to wait for Him!

So I will rejoice in this season! I will wait patiently and know that their walk is their walk and I will not try to pull them along. I will pray for God to do it in his time, and that I live long enough to see it! I will pray, God do for them what you have done for me, or something better that is beyond beyond of what I could ever imagine. And my joy will be in him and in my journey with him, without expectations on the others in my life to join my journey. For it is my journey. They have to have their own. Does that sound selfish? Hmmmm....maybe I better rethink that.....

My expectation is in him, exceedingly, abundantly, above all we could ever ask or even think....giving him glory forever and ever, because he is all that I could ever hope for and certainly more than I deserve. And it is Jesus who brings me joy in this journey. Amen!

12 Days of Christmas Day 12

Well, here we are at the 11th Day of Christmas. Linda and I are still on day 10 because of a couple of emergencies and difficult days that didn't afford us the opportunity to do it with our children, so we just postponed our celebration by a couple of days.
For those of you who will be finished, we are so thankful that you took the journey with us and it is our sincere hope and prayer that you entered this new year by dedicating your year to Christ, and that it is a year full of him in fresh, new ways.
Father,
Bless those who walked this new journey these past few days. Thank you for their dedication to you and to their families. We are so thankful for all you have done for us, and all you have blessed us with. We praise you for every spiritual blessing that you have bestowed upon us. May we give ourselves to you moment by moment, and may we be so content in you. May we desire you above all things and as we act on that desire, may we be so filled up with you that it spills out on everyone around us. Thank you for our families and may we have such love for you that they want to love you like that too.
In Jesus Name, Amen
Please keep checking back as we will be posting often, and please let us know what God did in you and your family during and after the 12 days. Linda and I will post for the next couple of days, and especially after our 12th night feast, so join us for that. Also, we will post pictures and/or video on the website.
By the way, I didn't post a scripture for today. As I said previously, we are reading Luke in our family Bible reading, and today we read Luke 1. We talked about Zechariah and Elizabeth, and how the Holy Spirit was with John even before he was born. I never realized how much work the Holy Spirit did BEFORE Christ came. I knew he was responsible for alot after Christ's ascention, but I did not realize what came directly before. In fact, he was responsible for Mary concieving Jesus. WOW! He sure has alot of power! More than I give him credit for. Linda has been reading a book about the Holy Spirit By R A Torrey and has been telling me some of the things he says, and I am amazed and almost embarassed about how little I know. So one of my goals is to learn who he is and his ways this year. I am so thankful for a friend who challenges me spiritually and helps spurn me on to growth.
Check out www.12daysbook.com for pictures, videos and even some new stories for the 12 Days of Christmas this year! We are so thankful for you!!

December Seventeenth

All Work and No Play Makes…….

I have a hard time enjoying free time. First off, I never seem to get any. I can always find something to do. Adding to my frustration is the fact that I am not very organized, and I do not delegate well. Therefore, I am often a bit jealous of my kids who think nothing of gleefully playing when the house is a mess. In fact, I sometimes think that they know a ‘secret’- one that I have forgotten over the years: playing often is great! For me, it relieves stress, helps me be more focused when I need to work, and makes me more pleasant to be around. But I usually don’t remember this. I just get frustrated when others don’t pitch in and help, or when I get too busy spinning all those plates that I feel like a circus performer.

Colossians 1:10-12 says: And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that your may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

This and the previous verses are great to pray for our families and our churches. I want my children to live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way. And I especially want this for my own life. This means I have to give up the perfectionist tendencies and just play sometimes. I need fun in my life to relax, de-stress and it helps me enjoy my work more.

In fact, my darling daughter wanted to play a game tonight, but I was too busy. There was just too much to be done. When it was time for her to go to bed, I felt so sad, because I did not do what was important for fear that I would not complete the urgent. I chose the wrong thing again. But I will not do that tomorrow! First thing we are going to play that game!

So today, play a game with your family. Pick a family favorite, or learn a new one. Do something fun, even if the house is a mess, the baby is fussy or dinner is just takeout. Do something fun and relax. The work will be there tomorrow. You will be glad you did! And if you can afford it, get some new games for the kids for Christmas. My plan is to get 3 things for each child this year: one to read, one to wear and one to play together. So they will each get a new game for us to play together. I can't wait!

Have you seen our website yet? www.12daysbook.com will get you there. You can purchase our book, The 12 Days of Christmas as well as find recipes, tips and ideas to make your Christmas celebration the best it has ever been.

December thirteenth

So sorry that I have missed the last two days. I promise I will make up for it after Christmas. I was not feeling well, and spent most of the last two days trying to get things done while feeling unwell, then falling into bed exhausted. I think I must have been fighting off something. Anyway, I appologize and ask your forgiveness, and will post extra on a couple of days so you can have a full month of devos when we are through.

I am not sure where to begin todays devotional. But I guess it started in my heart about 4 weeks ago on a Sunday at church. They showed a few slides of what The Timothy Iniative (go to www.ttionline.org ) is doing in India and Pakistan. New believers are being baptized and pastors are being trained as I write this. People are coming to Christ as never before. The only hold up is funding. As they passed the offering plate, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me to take off my tennis bracelet and put it in the plate. Actually, I felt it more than 'heard' it, and I questioned if that was what I was hearing, and asked God that if that was what he truly wanted me to do that he would keep it in my heart and make it clear to me.

During the next few Sundays, they spoke about the coming 'Christmas Offering'. They said that Dec. 13th would be the day to bring it, and that it would be used for TTI and other missions around the world. Since this is our first Christmas at this church, we didn't know what to expect, but as I prayed about the bracelet, I felt this was when God wanted me to give it.

With that settled in my heart, I just had to communicate it to the giver of the bracelet, and that was my husband. Now you have to understand that this was not the first tennis bracelet my husband had given me. Actually, it was the second, as I had promptly lost the first one less than a month after he had given it to me for our
15th wedding anniversary. So on our 20th, he gave me another because I begged him for it, and found it for a great price at a pawn shop. (I used to shop there for great prices on unique jewelry for gifts for my mom, while she was living.)So he bought it for me, and I wore it almost every day, and really enjoyed it. But you also must know that my sweetheart has the gift of giving, so when I told him about wanting to give it, he said, 'It isn't very valuable'. I said, 'thats not the point. The point is that God wants it, and I need to be obedient'. To which he said, 'Do it'. I cried a bit, not at the loss of the bracelet, because it is only stuff, but at the thought that my silly little gift could be used by the master. That bracelet might just bring someone into the kingdom! And if just one can be reached by my gift, then it is so worth giving it. So when they passed the plate this morning, my bracelet went in.

Also this morning, a young girl, Shelly, gave her testimony. She is 22, and God called her to Equador for a time, then to live here in West Palm Beach, Fl. She has committed her life to go wherever he sends, and follow wherever and whatever he leads. So here she is, away from her family and nannying 4 little kids. And trusting God all the while. I am so humbled by her committment and willingness. My little gift was nothing compared to hers...my bracelet....her life. But God has placed me here and has my life too; not in going around the world doing his work, but right here, giving so others can go, training my children to have a heart to serve him, and living contentedly, moment by moment in his presence.

My 23 year old daughter has wanderlust like Shelly. I guess that is why Shelly was so special to me. My daughter is living in Ca., following Christ one step at a time. She wants to eventually move to the UK to be a missionary to young teen girls there. When will God allow that? Who knows. But I do know that he is preparing her in ways that she never imagined. He never wastes anything. Not an opportunity, not time, not even a gift of a tennis bracelet. So if we are following, and listening, he will be leading and speaking. Col. 3:1-2 says: Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

I know we used this scripture earlier, but it is not any less true. Let us renew our focus: Setting our minds on things above, not on earthly things. As the old song says: Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.