Sarah, Jeremiah and Solomon

A beautiful siren once confessed, "Everything changes / Everything falls apart / Can't stop to feel myself losing control / But deep in my senses I know / How stupid could I be / A simpleton could see / that you're no good for me..."


A suffering prophet once observed, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)


A wise king once commanded, "Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well." (Proverbs 5:15)


The grass is never greener. Our hearts will lie to us, tempting us to find satisfaction in the forbidden ones. Drink deeply from your own well, your own husband or wife. Do not be led astray; you'll only be left to die of thirst. 

Oh, Hezekiah.

Here's the story: Hezekiah is king of Judah. He's one of the few "good kings." God tells him he's going to die, so he begs humbly for his life. God agrees to give him more time.

Then, the King of Babylon hears that he's recovered, so he comes to visit. He not-so-humbly lets this king see everything he owns, all his treasures and...Well, all the stuff you don't let another king know you have.

He's rebuked by the prophet Isaiah for doing that and God tells him that one day all his stuff will belong to the king of Babylon and his sons will be his eunuchs. Here's his thoughtful response: "The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, There will be peace and security in my days. (see Isaiah 39)
______


That last little bit always fills my heart with anger. How on earth could you be so selfish and self-centered and...I mentally continue angrily interrogating King Hezekiah. {It's oh-so helpful and accomplishes a lot.}

Tonight, I stopped my little mental rant and realized: Usually, the reason I get angry at someone for something, especially a sin, is because it's something I do. {i.e. I get super angry at prideful people who want to be right, because it inhibits my moment of being right.}

I sat for a few minutes and journaled through my thoughts. I was thinking King Hezekiah was filled with pride, selfishness and a love of comfort...

Dang it.

That last one got me. Ooh, right on the kisser.

If I struggle with any sin, and I struggle with many sins, worshipping myself is number one. And what better way to bow at my altar than to be sure I'm always super comfortable. I've sacrificed much time, love and many people on the altar of comfort.

I got nothing. No more throwing stones at King Hezekiah. I must walk away with my tail tucked while Jesus writes my name in the sand.

After being humbled to the dust, I am grateful for a few things in this:

• God always tells the whole truth about great "Bible heroes." 
• He's preserved their stories, so I can see my life through theirs.
• I don't have to hang my head in shame when I see my sin.

God's already paid the great cost of my pride and selfishness and idolatry. I'm free! Free to obey Him and follow Him and love Him above all, badly and inconsistently, but love Him just the same. 

This is About You and Me.

"Keep a jealous watch over your repentance. Keep it up—keep it up, and let not the fire burn low. Whenever you find a slackness coming over your soul—whenever you feel slow, dull, heavy, cold, and careless about little sins—look to your own heart then, and take heed lest you fall. Say to your soul, 'Oh, my soul, what are you doing? Have you forgotten David’s fall? Have you forgotten Peter’s backsliding? Have you forgotten David’s subsequent misery? Have you forgotten Peter’s tears? Awake, O my soul, awake once more. Heap on fuel, make the fire burn bright. Return again to your God, let your repentance once more be lively. Let your repentance be repented over again.' Alas, how few are the hours in a Christian’s best days when he does not make work for repentance!" ~J.C. Ryle

An unrepentant heart filled with small sins will soon find the disastrous ones a little more gray.

"Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy." ~Proverbs 28:13

Love:Hate

I have a love-hate relationship with Small Groups.

Why I love Small Groups: We pray for one another.
Why I hate Small Groups: In order for others to pray for me, I must confess my sins to them.

How humiliating...er...um....humbling it is to be in a Small Group. It is also liberating, to confess your sins to another sinner.

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." (James 5:16 ESV)

Healing Begins Video Journal

And Samuel said,

"Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, 
and to listen than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22)

Well, I don't have a fiery altar or ram fat, but I do have Bible reading and prayer. They don't sound nearly so exciting, but they're the little "sacrifices" of Christians, the spiritual disciplines around which our lives revolve.

My Christian Spiritual Disciplines:

• read the Bible every day (or close to it)
• pray for myself and others
• write in my flowery little journal from Rite Aid
• listen to sermons, Christian books and worship music
• go to church...every Sunday

Like King Saul, I find myself more consumed with completing a long list of spiritual duties than simply obeying God, doing the things He's commanded me to do. (I'm so thankful that God left us the Bible. Makes knowing God's will a lot easier.)

I'm a Christian, a believer and lover of Jesus. That means I'm a child of God. I'm His little girl, and He expects His children to obey Him, not out of fear but out of love. He loves me and knows what's absolutely best for me. When I obey Him, life just seems to "go better," even when it's falling apart.

So here's to obeying my Heavenly Daddy, trusting that what He says is best and always proves good for me and glorifying to Him.

P.S. Obeying God isn't out of fear, but it's a response to the love He has for us. Also, obedience doesn't gain Christians favor with God. We already have His favor by Jesus' death. Again, our obedience is saying, "You've loved me! I love you, and I trust you."

Joyful Diligence?

So this is me. In my natural state. I would sit and rot my life away with a book or sleeping or eating. I do not kid myself that I'm inherently diligent or self-motivating or any such nonsense.

Also, I spend most of my time feeling guilty and beating myself up. Not a fun ride.

Sit. Read. Sit some more. Nap. Feel fat. Need to get up. No, I don't feel like getting up. Sit some more. Feel worse. I'll try again tomorrow.

Wake up. New day! Well, I'm always lazy, so why even try. Thus begins the cycle. Again.

This is life for me. Allow me to confess some sins to you: I'm excruciating lazy and selfish and feel quite entitled to do whatever I want. (Being a SAHM makes for a comfortable breeding ground for these sins.)

But God is a good Dad. He doesn't just sit by and let His children live in the filth they've always known. God is love, and that is not loving.

After some "coincidences" recently, I'm convinced that God wants me to step up and fight to be diligent in all areas of my life. (Yes, this is something that should be a given. For me, it hasn't been. Now, stop judging me.)

So here they are: my goals for 2012. They're big, but I've spent some time writing down how to practically live them out. (Those details would be different for everyone, so I won't give them.)

• Personal: Eat healthy, sleep responsibly and exercise daily.
• Walk with God: Seek satisfaction in God alone and fight for joy.
• Family: Love and serve my family with joy.
• Home: Work diligently, as for the Lord and not my hubby.
• Ministry: Joyfully pour my life out for the women and children I serve. 

Yes. They sound like your average Christian To-do List, but none of these things are easy for me. I have to fight to do them. I want to do them, but I just don't.

Here's to a new year and a hope in God's sufficient grace that produces change.

P.S. Please note that I'm seeking to all of this with joy, another attribute that doesn't come naturally. Like, at all. 

Small Group & Psalm 51

Our church is made up of Small Groups. Ideally, these are groups of 10-15 people that meet in a home each week and are together for about a year. We eat together, discuss the Word and pray together, (guys with guys and ladies with ladies). I love my SG dearly.

For a while I've been in a rather sad place. I've been disobedient to the Lord, lazy, lethargic and just plain rebellious. I can relate to the Psalmist who wrote, "Before I was afflicted I went astray..." SG has been good for me in this time, though. Even if we're all struggling, we still meet and just confess our sins and pray. It's selfish, but for me it is helpful to know I'm not alone in my struggles.

Last night was an especially sweet time for me. As a whole group we made a lengthy list of things we want God to do in our own lives, in the lives of those around us, at church and in the rest of the World.

How beautiful it was to see that we all struggle with similar things--laziness, selfishness, pride. We want the same things for those around us--healing, jobs, salvation. We have great desires for our church and its leadership--stay simple, follow the Spirit's leading, shepherd their families well. For the rest of the world we want to see slavery abolished, closed countries opened to the Gospel and perseverance for believers under persecution.

We printed our lists and split into 2's and 3's to pray. We had only a little time, so we only prayed for ourselves. It was so liberating! My partner and I chose our top three struggles (mine: laziness, no desire for things of God, obedience). Then, we prayed for one another, hard and with great earnest. We prayed, sitting on my bed with the dogs and folded clothes. We prayed and prayed, confessed sin and prayed some more. How freeing!

I don't know what God is doing in our SG, but I know that last night felt like Revival for me. Now, I must be praying that it lasts and that it spreads.

I received a text message from one of the girls in SG early this morning. She read Psalm 51 this morning and was amazed to see how pertinent it is for our SG. She's going to be praying verses 10 and 12 for everyone in our little group.

Revival may be coming.


"Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me...
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit."
(Psalm 51:10 and 12 ESV)

Almost Walked Away. Almost.

I can only recall nearly walking away from Jesus a couple of times since He drew me to Himself in 2002.

For a while, like the waves of the sea, I was tossed back and forth between two worlds. I honestly thought I was manic depressive.

Being a Christian was brand new to me and the slavery of certain sins wasn't. I'd known and loved those sins for years. So there I was, blown to and fro between wanting to love and obey Jesus and loving the slave master I'd been with so long. (You'd think I would have wanted to be free, but I didn't even know I was in bondage.)

One morning in college, I remember looking at my Bible on my dorm bed, and thinking, I'm done. This is too difficult. I can't do it. Saddened but determined to quit, I walked to the Education Building for my first class. I got a bagel and an OJ and went to pay.

Mrs. Mary was working that morning, and I glanced at her little Flip-Calendar-of-Bible-Verses next to the cash register. That day's page read, "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!" (Lamentations 3:40)

Ouch. I was humbled to the dust. It made me smile, though, because I saw that God wasn't going to let me get far in my rebellion.
____

Well, for the past few days I've been thinking. Thinking about my struggles, my problems, my inabilities, my this, my that. Notice a trend?

I've been thinking: I'm such a hypocrite. I live two lives. One life loves Jesus and wants others to know His love. The other is just comfortable and wants to sit and play-on-the-computer her way to heaven, just like everybody else. Sometimes I think it'd be easier to just live the American Dream and go to church, than really live what I believe. It's just too much.


This morning I woke up late. Again. I wanted to sleep and let Donny take care of Caleb. Again. I didn't want to read the Bible. I didn't want to think on eternal things or pray or smile or even speak a kind word. I was tired, and I wanted to do whatever I wanted to.

So. I did my duties and kept my thoughts to myself.

I took care of Caleb, offered to fix coffee for Donny and began working on something for our pastor. (It's amazing how easy it is to do Christian stuff without any desire or Christ-compelled-motivation.)

As I read through the file he sent and edited things for the Preacher Man, I read: "God calls believers to a very different kind of life as His children, a life unlike the lives around us. Being different is not easy. It is easy to drift away from the life of radical faith in Christ...Is this a struggle of your own?"

Seriously, Lord? Seriously? My heart broke. I didn't even get to walk anywhere!

As frustrating as it can be to want to walk away from the Lord and not be able to, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. He never forsakes His own, and He won't allow them to forsake Him either.

My heart was painfully hard when I woke up this morning, but God is faithful. "...I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26, emphasis mine)

My heart has been made pleasantly soft now, and I don't want to walk anywhere that my Lord isn't.

"After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)

I will not blog in anger.

But it will be difficult.

King Solomon once wrote, "When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent." (Proverbs 10:19 ESV) In this case, I'll be prudent and restrain my fingers.

I googled that Camping guy to find out how his followers are doing the Sunday after the Non-Rapture. I saw how his organization is $80 million richer. I immediately thought of an Old Testament prophecy from Ezekiel:

"And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD has not spoken. The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without justice." (Ezekiel 22:28-29 ESV)

My heart filled with (hopefully) righteous indignation. I could feel heat inside my chest and face.

Part of me wants to rejoice that God will have His vengeance. That is sinful and unmerciful and nothing like Jesus. If I were in his shoes, I'd desire mercy and compassion and forgiveness, not justice.

The other part of me want to pray that God kindly shows Camping his sin and lovingly draws him to repentance. That's what I  want from God for myself--loving kindness that leads to repentance.

I'm off to write in my journal a prayer. Well, really two prayers--one for Camping's heart and the other for my own.

"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

(Ephesians 4:31-5:2 ESV)

Okay, Pastor Paul. I'll do that. No, God will do that in me.

Judas' Change of Mind

Last week, two ladies from a local religious cult came by to chat for a moment and invite us to a conference. They were very kind, and we talked for a few minutes. I've learned that these encounters are usually short and the visiting party rarely wants to actually have a conversation. (Perhaps, they're nervous. I know I would be.) For the next two paragraphs, I've given these ladies labels: Talker and Quiet One.


The strangest thing about the encounter was Talker's great interest in Judas Iscariot. She spoke about the Last Supper and how Judas wasn't there. I kindly said, "Actually. Judas was there. He was with them." (I don't know how long during the meal he was there, but he was there.) The other lady raised her eyebrows. Either, she was surprised that I said anything or surprised to hear he was there. 

Talker continued about how Judas wasn't there and was the only one of the Disciples who didn't participate in the Lord's Supper. Okay. Fair enough. My thought later, was, Why was that so important? Why, when there are many, many other much more eternally significant things to discuss, did she want to convince me that Judas wasn't at the Last Supper? I still don't know.


After that encounter I kept thinking about Judas Iscariot. 


This week was Holy Week, so I read through the last days of Jesus' life, as recorded in the Gospels. I read from The Last Supper to the Resurrection. Judas' betrayal is in all four narratives, but his aft-change-of-mind isn't. It's only in Matthew, and my heart broke reading it Monday. (I'm always amazed how God's Word pierces my soul differently, even though It never changes.)

"Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.' [The chief priests and elders] said, 'What is that to us? See to it yourself.' And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, 'It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.' So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers." (Matthew 27:3-7) 


One aspect made my heart hurt, and another made my blood boil.


1. When he saw what he'd caused, he changed his mind and took the money back. 
I think of lyrics from the song Fall Back by Lecrae: "He will lead ya, leach ya, leave ya." Satan tempts us, leads us to the sin, sucks the life from us through the sin and then leaves us alone and emptier than before. After satan led to Judas sin, he then left him to wallow in what he'd done--all the guilt, self-pity, anger and all the other emotions that destroy us.


2. The chief priests respond with disdain and self-righteousness.
My heart burned with indignation when I read the priests' response to Judas: "What is that to us? See to it yourself." Judas comes, possibly in true repentance, to the only people he's convinced can justify him before God, and they do nothing. Not only do they do nothing, but they're blind to their intricate part in his sin. (Even now, my heart burns.) Judas is left to do the only thing he knows to do with his sin, destroy it and himself.

After a week in the Gospels and contemplating Judas Iscariot's heart, I still don't know if he repented. Was it godly sorrow? Was it worldly? Did it lead to true repentance or did Judas grieve like Esau? I don't know. I pray it led to repentance, and his story draws me to contemplate my many sins this Sabbath. 


Believers, our lives must be constant repentance, lest our hearts become hard. 


All this sounds so sad, but today is the anniversary of the Longest Day in History, at least for Jesus' friends and disciples, but tomorrow's Sunday. Just thinking about it makes me smile.