Glad...Thankful...Grateful

Thanksgiving has come and gone before I could even get a chance to blog about it.  Well...not really, because in my mind, Thanksgiving is one of those true character traits that we as Christians should walk in daily. This year I was privileged to have been asked to speak at my brother-in-law's church the Sunday after Thanksgiving. As I prayed about what to speak, the Lord started showing me what I call stepping stones to freedom.

Imagine with me, if you will, a stream with water swiftly flowing over rocks. The stream represents life. On the other side of the stream is a place of freedom.

Think of a time when something good happened to you in this journey we call life.  Were you glad? That's probably like asking if the grass is green! Of course you were glad! So, now something good has happened, and you have taken a step on one of the rocks called "glad"in the stream of life. If you are just glad, that is as far as you are going.  How do you get to the next step? By being thankful. 

When you go beyond just being glad something good happened to you, you will then be thankful to someone for that blessing and acknowledge your appreciation to him/her for the blessing you. Even if a person blessed you, ultimately God is the source of every good thing (See James 1:17). Thank God that He has prompted someone to help you and that they obeyed the leading of the Lord!  So now you are in the middle of the stream of life on the stone called "thankful". Actually, this step was a big step! Let's say you are almost to the other side to reach freedom.

You are almost to the other side, but you are still in the stream.  What is the next step that will get us in reaching distance of the shore? I believe it is a stone called "grateful".  "Grateful" is an adjective describing one who has "gratitude". When I looked up gratitude on my computer's dictionary, it said, "the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness" (© 2005–2009 Apple Inc.).  When you get to this stone, you will then experience a desire to return kindness, not just to whomever blessed you, but to others as well. You will thank God for the blessings and seek Him for ways in which you can bless others. You will then find out that it is truly "more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). That brings you to the other side where you can walk in freedom as you forget about focusing on your own needs and allow God to work through you to meet the needs of others.

Oh yes! Lord, thank You for the good things in my life! Thank you that even when trials come, there is good, because You are with me to see me through! Remind me to take the step beyond being thankful to being grateful. Thank You in advance for the opportunities you will give me to be a conduit of your unconditional love to others. What a joy to see them start the journey to freedom with me!

Remember...You Love God!

We are often reminded that God loves us, but sometimes we need to be reminded that we love God!

Two thoughts why we would forget that:

1.     Sometimes doubts and fears within us, and even accusations toward God, rise to the surface.

These are times when some Christians even doubt God’s faithfulness.  The question they need to ask themselves is, “In my heart of hearts, how do I feel about God?”  The answer would be, “I love Him!  I want to trust Him!”  God knows that.  He allows all the clutter in us (that is there because of wounds) to be revealed so we can be healed!  He is not intimidated by our accusations, though I’m sure it grieves His Holy Spirit.  He will let us go through times of shaking so all that can be shaken will fall away until all that is left is that that cannot be shaken.  (Hebrews 12:27)  If in our heart of hearts we know God is God, then we are on a solid foundation that will stand.

Sometimes this clutter keeps us from receiving all that God has for us--whether it be a physical healing, inner healing, financial provision, peace and joy, etc.  It is not a question of God’s ability or willingness to bless us.  The question is, “What is the clutter that keeps me from allowing my love for God that is in my heart of hearts to flow out of me and allowing God’s love for me to flow into me?”  Testing will come.  The quicker we can get an eternal perspective about what is happening, instead of just seeing the trial right before our eyes, the quicker those distractions will be shaken off!  We will start to become a conduit whereby His Love can flow from Him to us and from us to Him!

2.     Sometimes distractions from the outside take our focus away.

2 Cor. 7:5-7 (NKJV) -

"For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears.  [6]  Nevertheless God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, [7] and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was comforted in you, when he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more."

The passage of scripture lets us know that even Paul had distractions from the outside and fears on the inside.  Nevertheless God!  God brought him into focus by sending Titus and by raising up an army of intercessors on his behalf!

When the storms of life hit us, we need to not forget of our love for God. We need to run to Him and learn how to dwell in the secret place of the Most High and abide in the shadow of the Almighty. (Ps. 91:1)  While there, we need to pray for Him to help us keep our focus!

A Closer Look at Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, 

thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)

This verse is one of the most known and quoted verses in the Bible.  It has been used many times to bring encouragement to people facing difficult times...and rightly so!  It shows the heart of our Father God who takes pleasure in blessing His children!  I recently came upon this verse because God laid another verse a few verses later on my mind, and I was on a quest to find out where that verse was in the Bible.

One recent morning before the sun rose, God woke me up to pray and intercede for someone. When I asked God how I was to pray for this person, I heard in my spirit, "That he would seek Me and find Me when he seeks for Me with His whole heart." I did not remember where that verse was found, so I got up and looked for it. I found it in Jeremiah 29:13.  I immediately recognized that it was just past Jeremiah 29:11 that everyone quotes for encouragement.  I thought about how so many people quote what God does for us, giving us a hope for a great future, but how often do we emphasize what He asks us to do?  Let's look at the two verses immediately following Jeremiah 29:11:

¹² Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  ¹³ And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Many quote Jeremiah 29:11 when they are going through hard times, but how many quote the next two verses? How many make a decision to call on the Lord in prayer, knowing He will listen? How many seek Him with their whole heart during a time when their hearts are so broken?  That's what God is calling us to do! In fact, it is during those times of "captivity" that He asks us to do just that.

I went back and read the beginning of the chapter and found out that this was a letter written by Jeremiah in Jerusalem to those Jews who were in Babylon--away from their home land and in captivity.  No matter why they were in captivity, God tells them in verse seven to pray for peace in the place where they were:

⁷ And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace.

I find it interesting that God said He was the one who caused them to be taken captive. That messes with a lot of people's theology, so we'll just let it sit! At any rate, God tells them to pray for the peace of the place where they are in bondage and they will have peace there.  How many of us complain about the people around us that seem to be holding us captive instead of praying for them?  This is a different perspective: Pray for those who do you harm to have peace, and then you, too, will have peace! It makes sense if you think about it, but it sure does not come naturally when someone hurts you.  That's why we have to seek God and let Him do it through us. Like another verse says, "He is our peace, who has broken down every wall!" (See Ephesians 2:14).

It is not until the next chapter that God promises to bring His children in Babylon to their promised land.  Praise God for the hope He gives us during the midst of our trials! Thanks be to the Lord for hearing us when we cry out to Him and drawing us to seek Him when we are faced with adversities in life! His gift of peace in our land of captivity never ceases to amaze me! What a joy to know that He promises to bring us through these times to our "promised land"....that being the calling on our life for ministry on earth AND the ultimate gift of eternal life in Heaven!  Enjoy the journey, friends!

I'm Back!

It's been a while, but I am ready to return to blogging! I stopped for a while while I was back in school (after 27 years) to get my Masters Degree. I am happy to say that I now have graduated from Liberty University with my degree in Professional Counseling! I remember reading in Henry Blackaby's book, Experiencing God, that when you see God at work it is your invitation to join Him. For years people would come to me for counsel, so I decided to be professionally trained.

It was not easy getting my nose back in college texts, studying for tests, and writing many long graduate-level papers.  I would much rather write posts on this blog! However, I am so glad I followed through. I learned so much, especially during my year as an intern. Here are some of my lessons:

• You know that saying, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."? Well, that is true! Successful therapeutic relationships are built on rapport between client and counselor. 
• Counseling is NOT giving advice! It's more about coming along side someone and encouraging them in their journey to their own revelation.
• It is important to listen and ponder what you hear before responding. Reflective listening is the best. People appreciate when you listen and reflect back showing you care about them and what they just said. Too many people spend the time the other one speaks to think about what they want to say instead of truly listening.
• Stop and think about what you are thinking about. (You are probably doing that right now!)
• Self-care for the helper is a needed priority. You will not be help to anyone if you are burned out.
• Let go of stereotypes! If you don't, you might miss out on a rather fulfilling relationship.
• Prayer is imperative! Even if the client is not open to prayer, silent prayers can still happen. I've had many instances in a session when I did not know what to do. God answered my silent prayers and guided as only He can do! Sometimes those prayers answered were about giving me guidance, and sometimes they were about softening the client's heart to be able to receive.

I thank God for teaching me these lessons. I also thank God for all that has taken place these three years. I am experiencing the start of the next season of my life leading to an empty nest as my oldest daughter graduated from high school and is now in her second year of college as a Music Ed. major. Another mile marker in my life is that I had my ordination transferred to Harvest Network at their annual conference in Minnesota this past June. I felt right at home as soon as I walked in the door! It is such a great feeling to know you are walking in God's will for your life!

Time out for Comic Relief!

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. I am in a time of my life when time management skills are needed more than ever before. I have started going to school to get my Master's Degree in Professional Counseling. I decided to change from my normal "serious" heart-issue posts to share some comic relief I had in the middle of an otherwise very stressful time of statistics homework.

Before I decided to get my Master's Degree, I found out I had to have statistics as a pre-requisite before I could start my degree. My daughter, Amy, took AP Statistics last year. She told me, "No problem, Mom! I'll help you!" Yeah, right! What she didn't take into consideration is that she is just as busy as I am, so to find 15 minutes of her time is quite difficult. So, I've been doing most of this stuff long hand...just taking formulas the book teaches and plugging in numbers. I have no earthly idea what the formulas really mean or how they came about coming up with these crazy formulas, but give me a formula, and off we go!

I got a graphing calculator from a friend, but Amy couldn't help me with it, because it's a Canon, and she learned on a Texas Instrument from school (of which we do not own, because we didn't think we had $100, so she used one from school...now I know it is definitely worth $100!) Finally, I got another friend to loan me a TI calculator thinking I could get Amy for at least some time to help.

A couple of nights ago I was at the frustration threshold when the formula I was using was for calculating the correlation coefficient (r)...how they come up with r for that, I have no idea! These problems have 2 sets of numbers: the x column and the y column; n = the number of pairs of numbers in the problem. The formula that I had to do long hand is...are you ready for this? r = n times the sum of x times y minus the sum of x times the sum of y divided by the square root of n times the sum of x squared minus the sum of x squared (yes, that's different! the sum of x2 - the sum of x squared) times the square root of n times the sum of y2 minus the sum of y squared. I said, "You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!!!"

I think Amy heard my moaning and groaning so much that she had pity on me and came to help me learn how to do that on the graphing calculator! YAY!! I can't even begin to tell you how complicated the calculator is, but Amy had me take notes on what to do. She said, "Press On; press 2nd; press 0; scroll down to diagnosticON; press enter...now that's just for if something goes wrong!" At that point, I busted out laughing!!!!!! I was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my face. How was I supposed to know if something went wrong? To me it was all wrong!

After I got a hold of my self, I let her continue...long story short, it worked! Now it takes about 2 minutes to enter all the information and find out the r (the correlation coefficient) when it was taking me FOREVER before, and the number was so big on the y column, the number didn't fit in the calculator anymore! So, I said, "OK, now, let me try a problem by myself before you leave so I can see if I can do this." I did it and plugged my answer into the online homework problem and checked it....on popped a message that said "FANTASTIC!" I belted out a holler, "HUHHHH!" Amy said, "Mom, you just woke up the house!" About that time, Bill came out of the bedroom half asleep trying to rescue whomever was being attacked! He said, "WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED??" Of course, Amy and I busted out laughing again, and I had to apologize to him. He was NOT happy!

OH, MY GOODNESS! THANK YOU, LORD, FOR GIVING ME SOME COMIC RELIEF IN ALL THIS!!! I will get through statistics!

Combatting Stress

I am now beginning my journey to get my Master's Degree in Psychology from a Christian perspective at Liberty University online and I already love it! I started taking my pre-requisite courses this fall to prepare me to start the Master's program in January. Let me give you a little tid-bit in layman's terms I learned in PSYC 101 this week.

Stressors are external events or situations in your life that cause stress. Strain is the negative reaction you have as a result of stressors in your life. Strain includes stress-induced sickness: physically, mentally, and emotionally. If the resources you have to combat stress are greater than the stressors in your life, you can be at peace even if someone else freaks out at the same level of stress. On the other hand, if your resourses to combat stress are less than the stressors, you may have great strain while someone else under the same circumstances is calm.

What are those resources we have to combat stress? There are many, including: positive outlook, friends and family, sleep and times of rest, exercise, proper nutrition, experience. The best resource, however, is God Himself! As Christians, we sometimes forget that the One Who created us is all we need to combat the opposition we face in life. He actually dwells in us! Wow! The stressful situations we face never take Him by surprise. He is there to protect us and give us wisdom and insight that brings perfect peace. It is true! I have experienced it. Have I been stressed? Hah! Of course! But that is my reminder to get my eyes off my stressors and on to my Resource! What is so great is that even when I am bombarded with more stressors, I can have peace at the same time!

You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Trust in the LORD forever,
For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength. (Is. 26:3-3, NKJV)

In Him We Live!

"In Him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:28
That verse has been ringing in my spirit lately. As I was meditating on it, I sensed the Lord speaking to my spirit, "The opposite is also true. In you I live and move and have my being if you let me!" Wow! That's the desire of my heart! I want God Himself to operate His love through me to others.If you read Acts 17, you will find that Paul said that to the people in Athens after he observed how religious they were with all their idols and even an altar that had an inscription, "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD." Let's take a closer look at what he said to them about that: Acts 17:23-31 (NKJV)

"Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Some of them "got it"; others still didn't. My spirit leaps within me as I read Paul's words, because I KNOW that God! God in His very nature means that we cannot prove His existence, but He sure proves Himself to those who truly seek Him; I know, because He continues to prove Himself to me everyday! His ways are so past our ways; His thoughts are so higher than our thoughts. That's what makes Him God! That's why you cannot "prove" Him, but He can make Himself known to you.

Thinking about what God spoke to my spirit about Him living, moving and having His being in me, I set out to find the verse that says that. I found it in John 14 when Jesus was talking to His disciples. In verse 23, He said, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." So I am one of those temples not made with hands that Paul talked about in the earlier mentioned passage! Oh that I would let that happen every day! I desire for God Himself to guide and direct me as to...
*what to say
*how to respond rather than react
*when and what to pray
*when and how much to give
*what and how much to eat
*how to not take others' actions stemming from their own issues personally
*trading my perspective for His
*letting go of my expectations on others they cannot meet, therefore freeing me of hurts from unmet expectations
*letting the fruit of the Holy Spirit operate in and through me
*how to show His unconditional love
*letting God Himself illuminate His Word to me
*letting God Himself give me the desires He wants me to have and letting Him fulfill those in His timing

WOW! Is it possible? YES! With GOD, all things are possible! What a joy when I do allow Him to do all that through me! On the other hand, what stress and frustration when I don't let Him! As I have said many times, "I can't do squat without Him!" Yes, He loves me unconditionally even then, but the stress that comes when I try to "do life" on my own just reminds me to get back on track and let God be God in and through me! What peace! Lord, let it be, even today!