No Planting Among Thorns

Jeremiah 4:3

New English Translation (NET)

³ Yes, the Lord has this to say
to the people of Judah and Jerusalem:
“Like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground,
you must break your rebellious will and make a new beginning;
just as a farmer must clear away thorns lest the seed is wasted,
you must get rid of the sin that is ruining your lives.

Close your eyes.  Imagine two fields side by side.  One is plowed up into straight furrows.  The soil is dark and rich and fertile and receptive to the warm spring rain.  The neighboring field lies fallow.  It is unplowed, untended.  It looks cold and hard and useless.  Now imagine those fields months later.  One is green and full of life and promise.  The other is dotted with sparse patches of stubborn crab grass and weeds.  Brambles have grown up and taken over.

Francis Chan, in his book, Crazy Love, references The Parable of the Sower. (Mathew 13:1-18) and makes this comment to Christians –“Don’t assume you are the good soil”

In December, shortly after Christmas, a beautiful sister in Christ went home to the arms of Jesus after a long and grueling battle with cancer.  Janet Pate was the good soil.  We were in a bible study together for years and every time she prayed, every time she testified, every time she opened her mouth, I wanted to be like her.  She was the woman who could quote scripture from memory to fit any trial or triumph.  She blogged her journey with cancer and had followers from not only around the country but also around the world.  She videoed shaving her head when her hair began to fall out from the chemotherapy and she thanked God that the chemo was working as evidenced by the hair she was losing.  Janet was the embodiment of the scriptural directive “In everything give thanks.”  She praised the sovereignty of God even in her worst days and anyone who had ever met her, called her “friend”.

I sat in the Celebration of Life service for Janet and cried; not just a few stray tears, I cried to the point of feeling drained when it was all over.  I cried not just for the loss of her on earth or for the sorrow and pain her family and friends would feel in her absence.  I cried because I knew that I was not the good soil and I wanted to be.  I wanted to plow up the fallow ground of my heart more than ever.  I was ready to dig up brambles and thorns that I had been unwilling to pull up previously.  I thought about my friend, her relationship, her peace in living and in dying, and I saw how her life meant something.  It meant something for Jesus.  It meant something real.  Janet left a legacy of not just believing in a god but of believing and trusting and loving God.

...So I prayed.  I asked God to help me get rid of the junk in my way.  I asked Him to get me started.  He is faithful to answer when we are repentant and seeking.  I remembered something that Carrie Hurley had said to me on our McPherson Mission Trip.  So I called her.  I asked her to pray with me and in The Parlor she and Jenna Hall, prayed with me while I poured out so much useless junk (anger, unforgiveness, fear) that had been harbored, unconfessed and unresolved for so long.  I was so nervous, confessing aloud my failures and sins. These young women came along side me and helped me begin the process with God to “plow up the fallow ground.”  There is more to this story.  I’ll share that in the coming posts but today I end with this encouragement.  “The journey of a thousand steps begins with one” as the saying goes.  Just because you are not good soil today does not mean that you cannot be good soil.  You have to be willing to admit your condition, confess you sin, and give God the plow.  The process of plowing, breaking, cutting, stripping away…I’m not going to lie, it hurts in the beginning, but in light of God’s word in Isaiah 30, particularly verses 1, 9 and 12-15, lying fallow, holding onto those familiar sins, refusing to submit to God’s will, brings sorrow and bareness.  He promises “In return and rest you will be saved; quietness and trust will be your strength."  Don’t drag it out.  Break up your unplowed ground so that the good seed will not be lost among thorns and do it today.

Isaiah 30 - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2030&version=TLB

I Just Want To Tell You

Condemnation, guilt, uncertainty, regret, fear, anger, depression..Do you ever have that sinking place in the pit of your stomach where one or all of the above mentioned emotions nestles in and makes its home?  This blog post is going to be a bit of a rambler ladies, so please bear with me.  Last fall when I stepped in to oversee and write for this blog, I thought it was the perfect place for me to minister and encourage women.  It was after all, an answer to a long lifted prayer.  It was an opportunity to serve in a way that seemed natural to me and I had a very clear idea of where I thought it should go.

In my mind a blog is something like an online journal where the blogger discusses something she is learning, in this case walking with the Holy Spirit.  It would be a place to connect with other women, a community of sorts; a place to share and get feedback and perhaps help someone along the way as The Lord directs.  I had hopes for the blog.  Here is where I messed up.  I didn't pray for God to make it His blog.  I didn't pray for Him to give me wisdom and insight, not just in the topics and timing but also in the process itself.  As a result technical difficulties, business of life and unresolved and unconfessed issues in my own life resulted in road blocks, frustration and failure.  The blog has set completely silent for two months.  The enemy is at my shoulder and his comments go something like this.  "Loser.  What made you think you would have anything useful to contribute? How did you end up in a group of women who are organized and talented, they can put together huge events and you can't even figure out how to get a blog post out on a regular basis.  You are worthless and when they see just how useless you are you are going to be humiliated."

That's the first part of this story.

I have come to know in the last 5 weeks or so that God is still writing my story.  The enemy tells me that I am a failure but God assures me that I am a work in progress.  He has been writing new chapters like crazy, this Author of my Life, and it has been an exciting process.   Prayer has become more than just a non-specific "check in the box" process for me. I've learned that prayer really does change things and it really does change me.   I want to tell you about it but it is too much for one entry.  So I plan to share it over the next several posts.  This blog will not always be about me and my personal relationship with Him.  As I tell you what He is doing in my life, I hope you will be blessed, I hope you will share with others who may need to hear that they are not alone in their desire and struggle to be God's woman.  Women like me need to know that the "seemingly perfect christian sister" I admire didn't just pop out of a box like that. I want to hear how she got where she is.  I want to be like her .  We need encouragement and we need to share our burdens and our victories.  We need to help each other in the ever constant battle against the enemy for our hearts
and minds and joy.  We need to walk together and "leave no one behind."  I have so much to tell you but I want to do it one step at a time.  Tomorrow I want to tell you about my friend Janet and how her testimony in life and in dying was a catalyst to send me seeking my own Solemn Assembly even before I knew that FBC was planning one of its own.

For today, I leave you with this scripture  - Romans 8:1-2 written in the Message version says " With the arrival of Jesus, The Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved (our condemnation).  those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.  A new power is in operation.  The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

There is freedom from the emotions that weigh you down.  Let's talk about  The Spirit of life in Christ.  See you tomorrow.

Hedges of Thorns

Hosea 2:6-23,    Hosea 6:1-3

For years, almost as long as I have had children, I have prayed "Thorn Hedge" prayers
 over my family.  I've mentioned this before and been asked what is a hedge of thorns?  I learned about thorn hedges, at least by name, when I first really read the book of Hosea.  God called Hosea to do a really hard thing, to marry a prostitute and love her in order to see God's heart for Israel and Israel's unfaithful heart for Him.  Hosea did marry Gomer.  He brought her out of shame into love and blessing.  He made her a mother, gave her “respectability” but time and again Gomer returned to her sin and shame.  Finally God said He would place a "hedge of thorns" in her way so that she would always be frustrated and turned back to the home and heart of her husband.

Thorn hedges are dual purposed.  They do turn us back from the wrong paths and sinful behaviors.  They also frustrate and discourage wrong influences and people who would lead us astray from God's blessing and relationship.    I learned from a friend to pray over my children when they were young, that if they did something wrong they would be found out quickly.  Believing my daughter probably needed this prayer more than my son, I concentrated it mostly in her direction.  I found out years later that my son was pretty sneaky and had fooled me more than once.  Note to self.....hedge of thorns for all.  We all need Him to, as we so often pray, "lead, guide and direct us."  We rarely consider the thorns that may be necessary in His answer to that request. 

God has spoken to me many times about necessary thorn hedges in my life.  Even before I knew what to call them, He was building them around me.  There were thorn hedges that turned me from destructive relationships.  There were thorn hedges that taught me about putting too much stock in material things and thorn hedges that punctured my over blown pride so that I could hear Him singing over me.  God has been good all the time.  

Thorn hedges are not pleasant to encounter but I believe that sometimes, as they were for Gomer, as they have been for me, the thorns and the wounds they may inflict are very necessary for abundant life.  Let's face it, the bible tells us that the heart is above all things deceitful and desperately wicked.  We wander from God; we want our own way and try to force it.   Whatever the issue, like Gomer, we often forget what God has done for us and backslide and return to the mess and the shame.  God doesn't put up the hedges to hurt us; He puts them in our way to save us from ourselves.  Frustration and sorrow always eventually lead me to the place where I know I belong; His side. As a mom, a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend, a grandmother, I will pray for those hedges gently and without malice over loved ones who may need them.  I will pray for them in my own life as well.  In the end Gomer learned that there is blessing in the thorns.  I love Hosea 2:15, “I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.”   Because our God is good all the time, we should remember not to despise the thorns but rather look for the gateway of hope in the Valley of Trouble.


R' 

Free and Thankful

Free World People - that is what the women of McPherson Prison called us as if we were from a far off distant planet.  I guess, for some of them, we might as well have been from Mars.  In their world of fences, razor wire, rules, no exception submission to authority, restriction and blandness, we seemed alien; from a world that would not be seen by some of them ever again. 

“Free World People”- that phrase sticks with me.  It makes me think.  It makes me wonder.  Like the popular hymn of my childhood a question rattles around in my mind and in my heart of hearts…”Why me Lord?” What did I ever do that was worth loving You or the kindness You’ve shown?” The answer simply put…I did nothing to deserve the Grace I have been shown. My sins were different, my life was different, but without His saving Grace, I would be forever lost.

Before I walked into that prison, I had a different mindset.  I saw myself, sadly to say, as the “good girl”, going in to speak Jesus to the morally bankrupt and heathen.   I was certain I would find women with no knowledge whatsoever of Jesus Christ.  I was certain they would be hard-hearted and without compassion or emotion. What I found were many girls who were not that different in culture and upbringing from me.  Girls whose mothers and fathers and grandparents had taken them to church, girls who knew about Jesus from young ages. I found women, in tears, who wanted to pray with me for their children.  They were mommas whose roads and choices had taken them physically from their babies but had not taken them from their hearts. and young women, new to Christianity, who wanted nothing more than to see a friend saved. 

I sat with the drug addicted, murders, sex offenders, who at their core, were women who had made very bad choices and found redemption.  I heard the personal story of a woman from a terrible childhood, a terrifying life, who boldly confessed “I did awful shameful things but now I know Jesus and I am free.”  Her smile lit up the room and before leaving me, she stopped and came back and asked me “how can I pray for you?”  If she only knew.  Some prison walls are unseen.  Some chains are invisible.  And I thought about Luke 7:36-50.  “Which of them will love him more?”

I walked from a bland and hopeless world into a barracks known as the PAL (Principals and Attitudes for Living) Barracks.  In this barracks, vibrant murals and scriptures colored the walls and women learned the Word and prepared for battle.  They knew that eventually they would leave the shelter of PAL and return to the general population to be missionaries, salt and light, “cities on a hill”.  I remember thinking “how could you ever return to the awful blandness and despair outside of that barracks?  If I had to be in prison I would want to be where there was hope and color and safety."  Isn’t that the way we do it in “the free world?”  Don’t we prefer our beautiful churches and our safe small group bible studies, where everyone believes like we do and there is little opposition or challenge?  Aren’t we thankful for the missionaries in remote African villages even as we are thankful that it isn’t us being sent?  Don’t we often make beautiful “white washed sepulchers?” Maybe I should speak only for myself…so here it is…I am free world living and yet doing less with life than prisoners I met who will never leave the walls of their physical prison again and I am ashamed of that.  I come from a life of protection and love.  I had Christian parents and extended family support.  I wasn’t allowed to run wild and I knew better than to try.  I knew a thousand eyes were on me watching out for my best interest.  The question remains - "who will love Him more?”  - “the one who is forgiven more I suppose.”  (Lord help me love you more because of all you have done for me.) 

They entered prison already in chains, enslaved and hopeless and found eternal life.  I have Jesus as my savior AND I live where my opportunities and freedoms are innumerable and yet I live with less joy and daily dependence on Him. Do I see myself as one forgiven of little or one forgiven of a debt I could never pay? 

I am going to stop making excuses.  I am going to pray for Him to fill me up with His Holy Spirit and I am going to ask Him to teach me to love Him more and know Him more.  I am going ask Him to teach me to take every thought captive and believe that He is more than able to handle what concerns me today.  I am going to pray, like the words of a song I sing... “ Day by Day Oh Dear Lord three things I pray.  To see You more clearly, to love You more dearly, to follow You more nearly, day by day.” I am going to pray to truly live in freedom and abundance in the center of His will.  I want to be known as a woman who loves Him "more".

Gracious Words

Luke 4: 14, 22, 32

God will certainly allow us to be able to use gracious words when we spend time with Him. It says in verse 22 that they (people who were with Him) bore witness of His Words.

I believe we are more effective witnesses when we use “gracious words” Words that first of all:

1.   Encourage another to keep on keeping on and let them   know they are noticed.

2.   Exhort to keep seeking the Lord and His will.

3.   Offers of help- prayer and practical help.

4.   Presence– sometimes words are insufficient. Just knowing we are there and listening is a thing of comfort and graciousness.

Let us strive in the power of the Holy Spirit to allow us to use “Gracious Words” during this new church year. We can do that by asking the Lord, as soon as we arise, to make that day a day of Gracious Words.

LDiz

When I'm Not Enough, Drowning, Failing - Gotta Change My Focus

Is anyone else here with me: 
Unable to keep up with life.... 
Rarely feeling like I am keeping all of my plates in the air....
One meal leads to the next meal and then the next....
(Why do they want to be fed.every.meal????)
Laundry is finished for maybe five seconds...maybe....
Toilets need to be cleaned.
Floors need to be swept (and they're supposed to be mopped, too?  Stink.)
Dust?  Yes, we have that in abundance.
Garden needs to be planted and tended.
(The list goes on, I just don't want to bore you.)

All of this, and it doesn't even include interacting with anyone! 
Husband needs to be respected and loved,
cherished and made to feel special.
Children, such a joy so much of the time,
are often noise with Pigpen clouds of billowing dirt.
They need a present mother to:
"Watch this!" 
"Help with this!"   
"Read this!"
Affirm me.

I feel overwhelmed, over-extended, and I haven't even left my home yet.

"Calgon, take me away!"

So what do we do?...what do I do?
I can't answer for you. 
I know what I need to do -- change.my.focus.
That's my problem - my focus is on me and what I am doing...
need to be doing...
should already have done...
last week.

Where should my focus be?  My Jesus.
When my focus is on Him,
He helps me to get off Facebook,
to prioritize,
to do the important,
not just the urgent. 
Am I still facing all that I was facing before? 
Ummm...yes. 
(For some reason, He has yet to send a laundry or dishes fairy.) 
Will I get it all accomplished today? 
Highly unlikely, but at least now I'm closer to being ok with that.

So here I go, Girls. 
I'm off to adjust my focus and let Him be my focus. 
It's His day, after all. 
"This is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it!" 
Even if my floors are still dirty,
my laundry remains undone,
and I haven't started dinner yet.

Any dinner fairies out there?  ;-)


Trusting Him,

Carrie

But God....

Ephesians 2:1-10

“BUT GOD is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much….”  Ephesians 2:4

I love this verse. Paul is reminding us as to what we once were before our salvation – that we were once dead, destined for eternal separation from God. Then Paul says, “But God….”  Sweet words to a yearning hungry soul!  He then goes on to explain in verses 5-10.  Think of it, life forever with God the Father, Jesus Christ, His Son and our Savior and the precious Holy Spirit. What a future we have!!!  And to think it is none of our “doing” and all of God's, as verses 8-9 declare.  Our only work is that of “faith.”  Just to take Him at His word and believe that He has saved us. As someone has said, “God said it and that settles it.”

But Paul also reminds us that He created us for “good works” that we might walk in the ways He has prepared for us (vs10) after we accept His sacrifice for us. That is, to “behave what we believe” as Mrs. Wesley told her boy John.

Verse 4 says He has great love and mercy for us even while we were yet sinners, and He still does after we believe. What a word of assurance!!!  With grateful hearts, we can walk in those good works and tell what Jesus has done for us.

Yes, I love the words, “But God...”

LDiz