2012 Snake odyssey

Don't let the following blog entry fool you, seeing a snake does make my heart race and yelping noises come out of my mouth, but....
I also go into action mode.

As my face book friends know last night, as I did the last walk of the day with our new puppy (an adorable Australian shepherd mix name Ginger) my eye caught something as soon as we stepped out the door.

On the brick path leading to our above ground pool.

A snake. It was probably a foot and a half long, brown with diamonds on it's back with a small head. It was dark and honestly I could not tell if it was poisonous.

I hustled the pup back into the house.

The snake seems to lounging on the walk, in no hurry to leave. This makes me rather unhappy.
Went back out and grabed a broken shovel handle that is propped up against our shed.
I was thinking to scare the snake off.

At this point,  it ain't scared.
I get pretty close and it is only slowly moving down the path.

That was the moment I decided it was going to die. I was tired. I still had to walk the dog. I still really did not know if it was poisonous. Done deal.

God must have been in it because the first whack seemed to be right on it's head. After several more wild mostly missing whacks it was obviously dead and bleeding on my walk way. I scooped it up with the stick and flung it into the woods, walked the dog and went to bed.

Honestly I was kind of proud to have handled it on my own and with out grievous injury to myself.

It made me think about the Spiritual gifts lesson from church last night.
I think God made me a serious focused snake killer.
I do really get this supernatural sense of focus when dangerous things happen.
A car pulls out in front of me- I am just going to swerve around it with out blinking. I will be nervous only later when I realize what happened.

Spiritually I am pretty much the same way.
I seem to recognize danger and deal with it swiftly.
No hesitation, no messing around, just do it.
Later on I will realize how much danger was really involved.

I am not really special in this aspect because, each one of us has a gift. Not all alike, but all important.

Why would God give us such gifts?
So we could all have something cool to blog about?
No.
If you read 1 Corinthians Chapter 12-14, which a just great to read any way, it pretty clear why we have them.
God gave giftings to build up His church (ie. all the folks who call him Lord and mean it).

The encourager for time of stress.
The teacher for times of questioning.
The prophet for times where clarity is needed.
The wise for times where direction is needed.
The ones full of faith for times of doubt.
The servant heart for work God wills to be done.
The healer and miracle worker for when God wants to open blind eyes to His glory.
etc...

The pastor made a great point: We use the gifts we see in others as anchors to get us past times of need or crisis.

The person working the gift is not the point, but how it effects the bonded unified body of Christ on Earth is.
Does it make us better witnesses?
Does it make us stronger in our faith?
Does it give a wounded soul the push to move forward?
etc...
If yes, then mission accomplished.

In the back yard me being a snake killer only really means something if it actually keeps my Children and dog safer.
Truth is that was probably just a rat snake, who dilly dallied a little too long in my yard but if and when it's a life or death type snake issue I will know I can act.
Weirdly a giant king snake cruised the same path this morning when I was gardening and I did not feel the same rush to kill it. I knew what it was and I let it pass on by.
Hey, I have the gift of snake discernment ;).

Answered Prayer

Thinking about prayer today.


I have strong feelings about prayer.
I think it is so powerful and yet so neglected.
I think it it so essential to knowing God, yet so difficult to understand.


I pray out of joy, fear, obedience, need, longing, etc...
I pray God will show me how to pray.
Sometimes I am afraid to pray.
Sometimes my prayers go unanswered and it hurts deeply.




I have a long history of answered prayers and when I get discouraged I think about those prayers.
Today I celebrate answered prayer and the trust it built in me.

• At 16, I was very lonely, my BFF ;) had made other friends and I missed that deep connection. I thought I was destined to be a missionary and had come to terms with the idea that I would never marry, but I knew I needed friendship. I prayed deeply and sincerely for a best friend. Not six months later I met Michael. Never in a million years did I want expect the answer to my prayers to be my soul mate and now husband of 15 years. Trust me my high school was not a hotbed of men grounded in intregrity and honor.

• My son was born with a kidney defect but after many prayers has never had one symptom of the illness.

• Prayed 20 years for a dear friend to come to understand and know Christ as her saviour. Last year she did.

• Laid hands on and prayed for a friend who could not have children. She had to stop all fertility treatments and was discouraged. I asked God to give her a baby she could see was directly from Him. Two months later she found out she was pregnant. Timing wise she got pregnant right around the day I prayed.

• Had no vehicles, so hubby and I got on our knees in prayer and tears, within a day we had a truck. Within a month we had a car. We got them both debt free and were better off financially than before.

• An answered prayer I did not even pray(this was a hearts desire I was too afraid to pray for)- out of the blue friends offer to keep my children so I could go on a week long mission trip to Mexico. It was my first mission trip. At the time I was praying deeply for our church to get a pastor and did not even dream this could happen.

• During parenting struggles with my son prayed God would change his heart. A year later he has undergone a radical change and I take zero credit. I was consistent in my parenting but only the Holy Spirit could change a heart. (many prayer warriors prayed this prayer for me)

• Several friends husbands needed jobs and with prayer they found ones that were very good fits for the families.

• A friend's mother had a falling out with her and I prayed they could reconcile. Two weekends ago they did.

Some would quickly say luck, coincidence or fate were responsible for these events.
I can only say I walked in these feet and lived this life and no one is this lucky. Random chance bound by the laws of math has been defied in my life.


What these and thousands of other experiences have taught me were:
To pray boldly, God will show you if you are praying for something outside of His will.


To be expectant, look for God working it the situation.


And to trust God, he doesn't need direction from us, just share your concerns and trust Him with them.

Easter Sunday

I hope, I really hope, you have been pondering just where you might go to worship on Easter Sunday Morning.
To be honest, I don't even really need to know why you want to go, just that you are tossing around the possibility. I would be thrilled to know you chose to go.

Worship is a very personal thing, and I believe that's why choosing a place to worship is so personal.

We all want a good fit.

If you are a person of Joy, you want a joyous service.
Similar for the quiet person, the reverent person, the irreverent person, the family centered person, the beauty loving person, etc... The list is as varied as we humans are.

I have my likes and dislike as any other person. For a long time these guided my satisfaction and dissatisfaction with worship.

Jesus, I am sure, had great patience with me, still does for that matter.

Ultimately because of the hardheaded goofball that I am, He had to break me to teach me what worship was about.

HIM.

God (father, son, holy spirit).

Now that's not to say I begrudge any other reason that gets a person to service. If you came to "make Momma happy", great come on in, there's someone here who wants to meet you.

HIM, He's seeking after you. He always has been.

Worship is what can happen once you become close and dear friends. He, your savior, and you, the adopted member of the family, relishing your time together.

Sure the family is full of odd ones,
ones you can't relate to in one way or the other,
ones that are grumpy when they get stressed,
ones that forget to look out for the outsider,
ones that are a little to happy with the same old same old,

but deep down we ultimately discover we are all odd ones, un-relateable in some way,
but all worth His death on a cross.

Jesus wasn't looking for a church without oddity, He was and still is looking for a church whose devotion to Him overcomes sin. Sadly that's not always easy to find.

For the one who has discovered what worship is and your walk with Jesus is getting longer in length, He can even call you to a church that's not very good at any of the things Jesus taught. He may ask you to be his voice in that place for a season. That may or may not result in the revival you crave to see.

Either way obey his call.

Easter Sunday celebrate the choice of the Son to die to free all mankind from sin (failure), and the power of the Father to raise Him from the dead to give new life to all mankind (a fresh start of pure freedom).

Mercy, forgiveness, God's power, the very same things that make unity and worship in a church possible.

The kind of friend we all need

Softie.
I am such a sucker for this kind of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg

The Susan Boyle video and now this young man.
The under dog.
The one no one expects to have anything to offer and yet defies all the judgement.

This new video also adds the element of friendship.

A friend who is with you in your moment of need, at your point of greatest weakness, to be your anchor in the storm.
The great flip side of this one is, after all is said and done the moment comes when he could have turned on his friend, every man for himself style, but he didn't.

I have missed so many opportunities to be this kind of friend and I whole heartedly regret that. I don't want to add to that ever again.
I pray God will make me pure enough and strong enough to stand by someone in their time to shine and be that voice of "oh, yes you can".

You say it best, when you say nothing at all

For those of you who remember this song by Allison Krause,
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bNfay6HiUo ,
I have always loved this song.

Words, Words, Words. Our world is filled with them. We literally live in a snowstorm of words.
I think there are times for Words.


Last night our Associate Pastor discussed a perfect example of when words are needed. When someone lies about God or His word and you know it.

Speak up.
Tell the truth, but do it in Love. (Ephesians 4:15)
We all know that's the real catch.

When someone is saying something that is just not true about God or His word I get frustrated. Eternal souls are on the line, time is precious and in my frustration I may speak the truth like a fly swatter.
When someone openly hates on God, who has transformed my life and freed my soul, I feel anger because I love Him so much and then I can speak the truth like a baseball bat.
I have to keep a tight grip on my words at those times.
I have to speak freedom and better options.

But there is a time for less or no words.
I have come to believe that this time is when we are speaking for ourselves.
People, you aren't going to like these next few words.

I don't need to defend myself, when I do, I take God's opening to show Himself out of the equation.

Where did I get such a fool hearty idea? Scripture.

Psalm 91
1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
Abiding the shadow is a metaphor unable to be matched with the phrase "standing up for yourself". Square peg, round hole.

Next:
1 Peter 2:11-12 English Standard Version (ESV)                                                           ¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. ¹²  Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

What makes your fleshly mind more passionate than someone hurting your feelings? How hard is it to speak your defense in love and build up the other person?

I am prone to "jabs".
Around our house that's what we call the way an angry person can say I am sorry in a way that makes the other person look evil.
"I am so sorry that in my innocence, I stirred up your evilness" type apologies.
This verse basically guarantees people are gonna talk about you.
Let your actions speak for you, not your words.
On the few occasions I have been walking close enough with God to pull this off, amazing wonderful things, that I had nothing to do with, happened to set me in the right .

Finally,
Romans 12:19-21
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Again, not a one single peep that we are to persuade, convince or cajole our adversaries with words to our side.

Just treat that person with the respect we all need but most often don't deserve.
God can handle the rest. Luckily for some of us, Mercy holds vengeance back long enough for us to come to our senses.

I hope that I am wise enough to know how foolish I am, and abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

Rebel Yell

Some of us like to think of ourselves as rebels. Purple striped hair, tattoos, nose rings, extreme sports, angry music, wild fashion (think Lady Gaga), etc... sometimes little signs we don't want to fit in, sometimes big ones.

Funny thing is even a rebel fits in somewhere.

But, I can tell you a sure fire way to really be a rebel, to stand out like a sore thumb anywhere, to never really fit in. With the business suits or the biker jackets, with the atheist or the Church crowd, these are three steps to make yourself into a total FREAK.

Are you with me?

Step one:
Give up your free will.
What? Zombie time? Join a cult?
No, just decide that all the time everywhere you will bend your will to the will of Christ.
Everyone, I mean Everyone, will think you are crazy. "Christians" included.
You will hear the following:

"You stayed with that husband, because it's the right thing to do? You know that's not a good example for your kids. How are they going to know how to have healthy relationships?"

"You did not take that job because God lead you not to? I think you misunderstood."

"You're building a boat, but there's no water for miles around?"- okay maybe not that one, but a rebel like Noah got his share of rolled eyes.

Step two:
Love your enemies.
Treat the person who cuts you off in traffic well, the one who ignores you with courtesy, the one who talks about you with honor. Loan without expecting it back.

Everyone no matter what group they belong to, treats their friends well. Serial killers have friends, whom they treat well. That's nothing to be proud of. (Matthew 5:43-47)

Ah, but kindness to an enemy- Weird, wacky, insane.
St. Patrick returns to Ireland after being a kidnapped slave there to share the love of God with the people.
Corrie Ten Boom shakes the hand of a German guard seeking forgiveness after her whole family dies in concentration camps he worked in.
It happens once in a blue moon and those times my friends are radical. RADICAL.

Step three:

Understand that "Impossible" is a word in the English language, not a universal law.

I cannot let go of my will or love my enemies. Cannot.
I have this hole. You have it too. You have felt it. It's in your soul. It's deep and has jagged edges. You like to keep it in the corners of your mind because it's scary and vast.

One day I opened my arms to The God of the Universe and beyond. He took His essence, His spirit from the outer reaches of all existence and gathered it together and began to pour it into that hole. He poured it until it filled the hole and began to splash and slosh out all over the place. It filled every crevice of that hole. There wasn't a place it could not reach or a crack it would not fit into. It pushed out dirt and grime that had gathered in that trench.

Now with all that All Powerful Being sloshing around in me, I can do things that, well, frankly just aren't me.
The less I resist Him and the more I pull on those jagged edges to make room, the more "not like me" I start to act and impossible begins to feel more like a word and not a universal constant.
(Jeremiah 32:27)

Being a Hater

Okay, maybe hater is too strong. I was a grump, an envious soul turned to a grouch soul.

Just for a moment.

For a brief moment of weakness that lovely girl who's lumps and bumps were in all the right order, who is careful to eat right and count calories, got on my nerves.
Why?
Because I can exercise like a big dog but counting calories makes me whine like a baby.

I found myself thinking how unreasonable what she did was.
That was mainly because I did not want to do it.
She was doing what it takes and I did not want to. Simple as that.

Spiritually we can feel the same way.

You can see someone close to God, glowing in the Spirit, and think they are very cool . . .

until you hear they pray over which movies and shows to watch,  they only listen to praise music, they live debt free, they memorize chapters of scripture, they let a homeless person live with them, they do bible study at home with their kids, they have an hour long quiet time or they pray like most of us breathe.

Conviction can quickly turn into irritation.
It's easy to go from "Wow, they are so close to God" to "They are too extreme, they aren"t living in the 'real' world", etc...

a.- Jesus said His plans for another Christian is His business not yours to judge.
(John 21:22)   We are followers of Christ, He doesn't need assistant directors.

b.- That little snarl you feel toward them, grab it and slap it under the microscope. It's a critical piece of evidence that something is up. Maybe convictions.

Walking is work. Sleeping is not.

When you have willingness to work, God provides the power.

When you are willing to do anything God puts on your heart to fight sin, He gives victory.