It has been quite sometime since I have written here. It has been equally as long since I have been daily in the Word. I'm ashamed to say that as I picked up the Bible yesterday that sits by my place on the couch where I do my daily devotions; I literally had to wipe the dust off of it.
It has been a trying couple of months as my brothers mother in law got diagnosed with cancer, she needed the assurance that her mother would be cared for while she went to get her treatments. Within the same time frame my little brother got a job offer in Charleston SC and began preparations to move away. We have also been working toward transitioning David home, which is exciting and stressful all the same. None the less none of that is excuse and actually should have proven reason for daily meditation.
I'm sparred back this week following two lengthy facebook discussions/debates regarding our border Patrol. The discussion turned from politics to religion. One thing I discovered during the discourse was that realization that I have pretty much been an Ostrich when it comes to political matters. I bury my head in the sand and remain ignorant. I realized this week that I need to unbury my head and educate myself on the world in which I live. I can not respond with Christian values/principals without fully knowing the complete picture of what is going on in the world, or what has historically gone on in the world. So this week I beome also a student of history, civics, and current events.
So thus the journey begins of melding those studies with the studies of the Bible in hopes of continuing to discover Kingdom Values and Principals to live by.
I continue my reading of the Psalms and my reading of Isaiah. Nothing earthshattering has been revealed to me toay but Im sure those earthshattering moments of clarity will come.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
A hodgepodge of realizations.
Today has brought with it a few realizations. I began my morning this morning as I waited for my turn in the bathroom (we've got to get back to two soon) beginning a reading of Isaiah. I skipped over Song of Solomon: as beautiful as it is, I just wasn't connecting with it at this time. So, I read my daily devotion from Grace for the Moment, went forward to my daily psalm and then began Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet who wrote during the reign of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah over Judah (Isaiah 1:1) I read the first chapter and decided it would be a good thing to go back and read in Kings about the rein of those Kings. What I found is that Uzziah and Jotham did mostly what was right except they ignored the sex shrines and let them continue on, Ahaz decided to join in on the activities of the Sex shrines and Hezekiah tried to restore things back to being right. During all of this time Isaiah was bringing messages from God. First realization: I wish I had a prophet communicating direct messages from God to me personally on a daily basis. Boy life would be easier to navigate sometimes.
In Sunday School Sunday we went over results of a spiritual gifts inventory that we took on line. I was very ashamed to admit that prayer recieved a low ranking in my list. I was reminded of that today as I sat with a mound of work in front of me in the midst of a house that wasn't as clean as it should be and felt extremely overwhelmed and somewhat paralzyed. Suddenly I found myself on my knees confessing my overwhelmed feeling, confessing the areas that I had neglected that had contributed to the oversized tasks ahead of me and begging God to be in the yoke with me. I never quite understood what a yoke was until it was explained by someone to me about a year or more ago. It was explained to me that a yoke is what is put on Oxen when they are hooked to the plow to work the field. When a young Oxen is being trained for the task of plowing, the best, most experienced and mature Oxen is put in the yoke with the young Oxen and directs that OX on what to do. So when we are urged to take the Yoke of Christ upon us.....wow, that means we are letting God be attached to our every move and guide those moves. I also asked Him for a prophet by the way.
As I was trying to come up with a brief summary of how I was feeling for my facebook status I decided that life was like a game of golf, each hole representing a role that I play. Hole #1. Spritual life to include church activity. Hole #2. Best Friend, Housemate, confidant. Hole #3. Mother. Hole # 4. Relationship with my family of origin. Hole #5 Work. Hole# 6 Housekeeper......and on and on it goes. To shoot a par is to do what is expected for that hole. To Get a birdie is to excel. To get a Bogey or more is to fall short. Right now I feel like I am shooting a match of Bogeys or more....although my dear cousin has informed me I might have shot a birdie on the hole designated for cousins.....Thanks Jess. I feel like I am excelling at nothing. I feel like I am even falling short of the pars on most holes. So I'm left to wonder how to improve my game. I am hopeful that putting God in the Yoke with me will be the best strategy of the day. I wonder if I am playing too many holes. Perhaps my stamina is not quite built up to the number of holes I'm trying to play. Perhaps I need to perfect the front nine before I even think about going onto the back 9 much less moving forward to playing 36 in a day.
Perhaps I need a caddy. I just don't know. But, I know I must increase that score on Prayer and make that a priority if the game is ever to improve at all.
In Sunday School Sunday we went over results of a spiritual gifts inventory that we took on line. I was very ashamed to admit that prayer recieved a low ranking in my list. I was reminded of that today as I sat with a mound of work in front of me in the midst of a house that wasn't as clean as it should be and felt extremely overwhelmed and somewhat paralzyed. Suddenly I found myself on my knees confessing my overwhelmed feeling, confessing the areas that I had neglected that had contributed to the oversized tasks ahead of me and begging God to be in the yoke with me. I never quite understood what a yoke was until it was explained by someone to me about a year or more ago. It was explained to me that a yoke is what is put on Oxen when they are hooked to the plow to work the field. When a young Oxen is being trained for the task of plowing, the best, most experienced and mature Oxen is put in the yoke with the young Oxen and directs that OX on what to do. So when we are urged to take the Yoke of Christ upon us.....wow, that means we are letting God be attached to our every move and guide those moves. I also asked Him for a prophet by the way.
As I was trying to come up with a brief summary of how I was feeling for my facebook status I decided that life was like a game of golf, each hole representing a role that I play. Hole #1. Spritual life to include church activity. Hole #2. Best Friend, Housemate, confidant. Hole #3. Mother. Hole # 4. Relationship with my family of origin. Hole #5 Work. Hole# 6 Housekeeper......and on and on it goes. To shoot a par is to do what is expected for that hole. To Get a birdie is to excel. To get a Bogey or more is to fall short. Right now I feel like I am shooting a match of Bogeys or more....although my dear cousin has informed me I might have shot a birdie on the hole designated for cousins.....Thanks Jess. I feel like I am excelling at nothing. I feel like I am even falling short of the pars on most holes. So I'm left to wonder how to improve my game. I am hopeful that putting God in the Yoke with me will be the best strategy of the day. I wonder if I am playing too many holes. Perhaps my stamina is not quite built up to the number of holes I'm trying to play. Perhaps I need to perfect the front nine before I even think about going onto the back 9 much less moving forward to playing 36 in a day.
Perhaps I need a caddy. I just don't know. But, I know I must increase that score on Prayer and make that a priority if the game is ever to improve at all.
Monday, March 15, 2010
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.......
"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.......
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
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.
Psalm 20 is a prayer I pray for those near and dear to me today.
I also started Romans today.
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