Heart Afire!

I've been reading a daily devotional book by Max Lucado called Grace for the Moment. I felt led to share today's with you:
"Jesus began to explain everything that had been written about himself in scriptures" Luke 24:7
Max writes:
When the disciples saw who he was, he disappeared. They said to each other, "it felt like a fire burning in us when Jesus talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us" (Luke 24;31-32).
Don't you love that verse? They knew they had been with Jesus because of the fire within them. God reveals his will by setting a torch to your soul. He gave Jeremiah a fire for hard hearts. He gave Nehemiah a fire for a forgotten city. He set Abraham on fire for a land he'd never seen. He set Isaiah on fire with a vision he couldn't resist. Forty years of fruitless preaching didn't extinguish the fire of Noah.....
Mark it down: Jesus comes to set you on fire! He walks as a torch from heart to heart, warming the cold and thawing the chilled and stirring the ashes...He comes to purge infection and illuminate your direction.

From: "The Great Hour of God" by Max Lucado.
In definite companionship with those thoughts came the reading for today from Hope Lives. A talk of the Gifts God has given us, the Skills God has given us and the Heart God has given us.
What I think I can identify for myself are those things.....I shared with God those things this morning and a desire to know how he ultimately wants to use those things.
Please continue in prayer for me to recognize God's illumination of that direction.
So.....what sets your heart on fire.......

Resusciatation Needed

The title of this post was my facebook status today and I have worried my poor friend Nicole I'm including the explanation of my status here.

This weeks readings from the Hope Lives Study is focusing on prayer.

"Pray Continuously" I Thessalonians 5:17. A line in todays study reads: "Prayer is a relationship-a constant relationship, like breathing.

As I read that I was reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine a while back. I was describing a period of time when I just wasn't praying and wasn't reading my bible. I was still going to church and living a decent life. But that daily, purposeful relationship just wasn't there. Her response was "Kelly, you've stopped breathing." Now, everytime I'm going through one of those times and we talk I say; "I've stopped breathing again." When it comes to prayer I am much like the Israelites who have to learn the lesson over and over and over again!

Oh, people call with prayer requests or send and email with a request and I breathe a prayer for them at that moment. I carry them in my heart, I try to respond in other ways. But setting aside that time for purposeful conversation with God where I'm both talking and listening comes and goes for me. I'm not sure why that is......I know that my faith is much stronger when my days include disciplines of prayer and bible reading. Yet, it comes and goes. I have been fairly consistent over the last three months about daily readings. I have whispered prayers here and there but I have realized that when it comes to that constant relationship kind of praying that I have once again stopped breathing. Thus comes the realization that resuscitation is needed! Breathe in me Oh God a new awakening to your presence in my life.....May we be in conversation with one another. May my heart and soul be opened to recieve the messages you have for me.

Stirrings in the depths of my soul

I have been absent from this blog for over a month now.....but God is certainly been at work in my heart in that month. I suppose it started when the reality of my dear friend Nicole leaving for Africa hit me. I don't remember the exact moment it hit me but I do remember the urgency I felt of wanting to see her, talk to her before she left, which did not happen and I remember the fear that gripped me when I realized she was already on the plane. In that fear I went to her blog and read of her anticipation as she prepared for the trip. Tears began to flow. They were not tears of fear or sadness but I was overwhelmed by pride for what she was doing. She was stepping out on faith way out of her comfort zone to do what God had loudly called her to do. I anxiously awaited news from Africa daily. Taking in every picture that was shared by her cohort, Leah, I just couldn't get them out of my mind. Oddly Nicole's last entry in her blog was "I have arrived......." From that point I just don't think she has the words to be able to express her experience. What I know for certain is that my mind is still there and as our pastor put in his blog about our Lenten experience "Hope Lives" My "cages are being rattled."

In the midst of these stirrings I recieved a phone call one night asking me to volunteer one night at the homeless shelter; to play hostess and do a devotion. I do not yet have the words to express that experience. I was humbled. I felt inadequate. Trying to discern what was best to share as a devotional that would have meaning to these folk whom I am very disconnected from was quite the challenge. One i'm not completely confident I met but even if I my human words touched not one soul, the experience of it all has stirred something in me I can't yet explain.

Then just like a neatly woven quilt being patched together another piece of the tapestry was put in place with the beginning of our Lenten study "Hope Lives." A study on the christian response to poverty.

I just read a song on Leah's blog written by Sarah Groves and there is a line that says something to the effect of "I just can't keep living like I was living" and that is exactly what I am feeling right now as I sit in the comfort of my 3 bedroom 1800 square foot home with 5 televisions and more television stations then I can count. I need not worry about what I will eat tomorrow. I will go where I need to go in the comfort of a large vehicle that takes more gas in a month than many people in the world see in a year. I'm busy planning my vacations while others in the world are contemplating where the next meal comes from. I worry about my son having at least a weeks worth of changes of clothes in his closet for each season and each style he enjoys while Esther worried about not being able to get into school because she didn't have one uniform.

I am stirred to the depths of my being and I know not yet what my full response will be. What I do know for certain is that "I just can't keep living like I was living."

Thank you Nicole and Leah for the inspiration you have been to me, Thank you Melanie for asking me to work the homeless shelter, thank you leaders of Longs Chapel for making "hope Lives" the focus of our Lenten study. Thank you God for these lights you have used to illuminate my heart.

January 31, 2010

Time has been too short to blog daily as I had planned but I have finished Proverbs, am 1/3 of the way through the Psalms and have begun Ecclesiasites and Romans. One thing certainly prevails in Proverbs and Ecclesiasites: Speak less, Listen more. A practice I must concentrate on.

Ecclesiasites has proven to be an interesting little gem. So far a prevailing theme is not to work so hard you can't enjoy what you labor for and that it is not your responsibility to save for your heirs. You should enjoy what you have been blessed and teach your heirs to make thier own way. Very interesting to say the least especially in light of the challenges my family are currently facing....So, Pa, buy all the movies you want, give away what you want to give away and if you go out penniless, so be it!

Today, in the Max Lucado devotional I am again reminded that God can and will overcome the obstacles to what He has called me to do and be. I am reminded that many whom he called have faced massive obstacles. That seems to be the point. We are not supposed to be able to answer the task on our own for we need to be able to give God all the credit. So, I continue to wait....which is what Romans told me to do today.....just wait; it is all in God's time.

January 13, 2010

I finished up Hebrews last night. May my eyes be fixed on Jesus and may I always remember those who paved the path for me just as the writer of Hebrews remembered the forefathers. It is in remembering all that God worked out in our forefathers and remembering what God has already done in our own lives that we can be confident and fix our eyes on the one that can lead us into a perfect kingdom of peace and unity.

Psalm 20 is a prayer I pray for those near and dear to me today.

I also started Romans today.

January 11, 2010

Well I've read so much since my last post it's going to be difficult to sum it up. I've added a devotional reading to my day out of Moments of Grace by Max Lucado. One of the devotions spurred me to start reading Hebrews and it's as if I'm reading it for the first time. You know that moment when it clicks and suddenly you see it all with very new eyes. What Jesus did for me was just that....unspeakable, unexplainable GRACE! I am so thankful and so very undeserving. As I continue reading David's laments regarding his enemies, I am becoming ever more so aware that I don't have to look beyond the mirror to find who my enemy is as it seems I am my own worst enemy. As Chiche' as that sounds, it rings true. My energy level is low, I seem powerless over my addictions to cigarettes and sugar. I spend more time than I ever should on meaningless activity on Facebook. I never exercise and I seem to just allow myself to be paralyzed by a force that I can not identify. So how do I cry out to God to slash my enemy when it is I who would be slashed? I have the want to but somehow I lack the will. I know where to seek to find it, I am not always sure that I know exactly how to do that though.



I feel called to pay closer attention to my dreams as the psalmist also points out that God works in my heart and tests me even in the night. I may find wisdom, that all important thing that the Psalmist and King Solomon speak so much about, even in my sleep. Proverbs continues to exalt the search for wisdom and knowledge and continues to warn about the folly of the fool. The fool being the one who is without God. Proverbs also continues to praise the one who is able to tame the tounge, to refrain from Gossip, to leave a quarrel before it starts, to control anger and not let it lead to violence. He continues to uphold integrity and a search for justice. May I too, seek with those kind of eyes.



In Hebrews today I re-read something I have at some point taken note of and that is:

1. Draw Near to God with a sincere heart.


2. Hold on UNSWERVINGLY to the hope we profess.


3. Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

The third reminds us of the importance of corporate worship and study and Christian fellowship. How thankful I am to have found that in the Friendship Class and Longs Chapel.

The writer of Hebrews in this 10th chapter then calls us to remember the early yearnings of our faith and the confidence we had in those moments and to reclaim that confidence and that passion.

Then there is yesterday's Sermon. I had the opportunity to visit the church where my former pastor, Rob Fuquay, went. As always Rob had a sermon tailor made just for me. I'm sure, however, that everyone in that place felt the same as Rob has that gift of crafting a sermon that can universally touch the hearts of all the hearers in such a way that each one believes it was crafted just for them. The reminder is that we sometimes must go is low as needing to be "fed by ravens" in order to remember our dependence on God. The scary part of the whole story was that sometimes to find God's will we must "leave". My immediate fear was "oh good Lord, do I need to leave Longs Chapel to be able to answer the call God has on my life. I mean really, the obstacle is there, am I supposed to remove myself and start over somewhere new to petition for my ministerial liscense. I know I am not supposed to leave my family, I mean, my family is certainly God given to me and that just makes no sense. Then there was the "out." It may be things or activities you are supposed to leave. Well there are plenty of things that can apply there: smoking, refined sugar, facebook, just to name the top 3! So I'm left pondering more......pondering in the Word.

January 1, 2010

I believe I'm ready to put 2009 behind us. It ended with so much news of death and illness. All while I continue to read the Psalms and all about God's presence with us and protection over us during times of battle and attack. I have some goals for the New Year. #1 on the list is to bring my son home. He needs to be here. We need to be a family. Even through the struggles this week, life has felt more normal, more right. So, I seek God's direction, I seek the wisdom and knowledge that Proverbs talks about. I want to rise in the morning and fall asleep at night in search of God's direction. Here is to 2010!