Is the "EASY" way the "Best" way?

This is another follow up of something God showed me at the Thursday night group. One of the things I shared was regarding my old way of reacting and responding to Tom.  As I was thinking back and remembering how I handled things, I was able to see that my reactions and behaviors were "automatic" for me... which meant that these thoughts, feelings and reactions came "easy" to me.  All the judgmental thoughts and comments, the criticisms, the negative thoughts, the self righteous "I'm better than you" attitudes and treatments...  all those things came very natural to me!  They just slipped right off my tongue like butter and with hardly a thought!  But, saying and doing all of those things did NOT make me happy... well, maybe for a moment or two :)  But, in actuality, It seemed the more I said and did those things, the more I wanted to do them and no matter how much I did, it did not "satisfy" me!  It was never enough...

Now, I am taking the "harder" road and learning a NEW way of thinking, speaking and reacting.  God is transforming me, from the inside out, as I seek HIM and His ways and righteousness and I am MUCH happier!  

So, in essence I am realizing even more that, before, I was taking the easy way but that didn't making me happy but when I decided to chose "God's" way, even though it was much harder because it went against my selfish "flesh", the result is that I am finding more joy, peace and happiness than I did before!  I always seem to go back to the "eating right and exercising" analogy; Who wants to eat salads and vegetables all the time (besides me :)), and who wants to workout to loose weight?  Just give me a pill that will "melt" the pounds off of me and let me eat whatever I want!!  "Easy" is not always the "best" for us.  If we want what is best for us we HAVE to do the WORK.  That is a natural law and nothing anyone says can change that!  Just like our husbands, if they don't do the work to be freed from the addiction, they won't get the desired results.  

So, I guess I am saying all this to encourage you to keep seeking the Lord and looking to HIM for all things and take your eyes off of your husband.  Do the work on yourself and trust God to do what needs to be done with your man.  It is MUCH harder but the results are much better too :)  There are many verses in the Bible that talk about "pressing on" (Philippians 3:12&14), "straining ahead" (Philippians 3:13) , "crucifying yourself" (Galatians 2:20 and Romans 6:6), taking up your cross daily (Luke 9:23), running the race (1 Corinthians 9:24)... all these scriptures indicate that there is much effort to achieving the "goal" and the "prize"... And what is the prize you may be asking?  I believe it is the "knowledge" of God...  As we seek, strain and press into our Lord and Savior He reveals Himself to us and we become more like Him and then our lives are the testimony of a "transforming" and loving God and the "Gospel" is preached to all who are watching!

Father, I thank you so much for your Word of Truth and transforming power in our lives.  I pray that we each press, strain, and run towards You more and more every day!  I pray that You give us the strength we need to set aside our fleshly desires and pick up Your cross, ways and attitudes in our lives.  Help us to become the women, wives and mothers you created us to be, in Jesus name, amen!

Are we playing the BLAME game...?

I am still reading the book "Changes that Heal" by Dr. Henry Cloud and have gotten to the section called "When we fail to develop boundaries".  When I meet with women for the first time, more than any other question, I get asked something to the effect of "How long will I be feeling this pain?"  My answer is that I cannot tell you how long... it depends on YOU.  Everyone goes through the "grieving stage" and feeling the loss of what they thought they had, and because each one is different, everyone's recovery time frame is different,.. but it doesn't end there.  There is another aspect of things that contributes to this time frame and this book does such a great job of describing it so I thought I would write it out for you:

In the Fall, our boundaries were destroyed.  Since we no long had grace, we could not tell the truth about who owned what.  Adam said it was the woman's fault, not his.  She "caused" him to do it.  Eve said it was the serpents fault, not hers, for he "made her do it."  They could not admit that their own desires, attitudes, and behaviors led to their choices.  They could not take responsibility for themselves.  They wanted to eat the fruit and to become godlike.  They thought that they should have whatever they wanted and that God really did not know what was good for them.  They chose to reach past their allotted boundaries, and God held them responsible for all of those choices.  Since the fall, we have all had difficulty owning what is ours.  We disown what is ours and try to own what belongs to others...

Parents, children, friends, and spouses often have trouble working this out.  There are two wills in any relationship, so allowances have to be made if love and responsibility are to be forthcoming.  I saw a bumper sticker that read, "If you love something, set it free, If it really loves you, it will return.  If it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it!"  We all feel this way to varying degrees.  We may want the people we love to be able to make their own choices, but many of those choices are going to limit us in some way.  And when they do, we do not naturally want to deal with those limitations responsibly.  We would rather blame...

It is easy to say we love others, but difficult to allow them the freedom inherent in love.  When they do not want to do what we want them to, then we "hunt them down and kill them" in various ways.  We pout, cry out angrily, send guilt messages, and attempt to control them.  These actions kill freedom and will, and eventually, they will kill love.  Love cannot exist without freedom, and freedom cannot exist without responsibility.  We must deal with it.  This is the only way to keep love alive.

This is true even when others' freedom leads them to sin against us.  The pain we feel is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to deal with... But, many times people do sin against us when exercising their freedom, and we are responsible for dealing with the injury.  If we don't, we will stay stuck in a blame position, powerless against their sin.  This "victim" mentality keeps many people stuck in their pain.

Many, however, do not take responsibility for their lives.  (Again, I'm not saying "fault," I am saying responsibility.  It is not my fault if I get hit by a truck, but it is my responsibility to learn to walk again.  No one can do that for me, but they can help me.  I must own the injured legs and begin to exercise them.)  they remain stuck because they want other people to change.  They want others to make it better, and often those people will not.  As a result, they are in bondage to others.  Freedom comes from taking responsibility; bondage comes from giving it away...  This is the essence of powerlessness...

Part of the forgiveness process is to call sin, sin.  We must confess how we have been sinned against in order to forgive.  However, after an appropriate period of blame, we must begin to take responsibility for the mess that someone else's sin has left us in.  Our situation is part of our property, we must own it and deal with our feelings, attitudes, and behaviors to get unstuck even if we did not cause it.  (The bold and italics are mine for emphasis)

I thought he did such a great job describing what "is" and "is not" our responsibility!  For so many years I wanted Tom to change!  I "disowned what was mine and tried to own what belonged to others".  I tried to "pout, cry out angrily, send guilt messages, and attempt to control" him for 21 years...  Then, God showed me the "plank" in my own eye and I started to take responsibility and deal with my own attitudes and behaviors and things started changing for the better.

I pray that these words minister to your heart as much as they did mine!!  I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

What is a "Right" relationship with God...?

We had a small but very good ladies group on Thursday night.  We talked again about "knowing" God and what that means...  Oswald talks a lot about having a "right" relationship with God... (here is an excerpt from Oswald's Aug 30th devotional: Jesus Christ is saying here, (in Luke 10:20) "Don't rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me." The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service --- rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour "rivers of living water" through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it.Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1John1:7).  So, with these conversations and Oswald's words, the Lord is really prompting me to think about and process this question a little more.  When Tom and I were talking the other day about this subject I realized that I spent a huge chunk of time as a Christian thinking I "knew" God.  I read the Bible and I believed the story's and served Him in the church... what more can I do?  Then, I thought, "now, if I read an autobiography or biography about someone, would I "know" that person just because I read a book about his life?"  I had read Oswald's biography and learned a great deal more about him and his life but I certainly couldn't say that I actually "knew" him!  Is that what we do as Christians with God??  Do we read the Bible and then think we "know" God?  Then Tom remembered an episode of Star Treck the Next Generation.  Here is what he said (this was written by him):

There was a great analogy in a Star Trek TNG episode where Geordi is trying to do something with the Warp engines and needs the help of a woman who did the design work on them but she isn't on the ship so he creates a "holodeck" program of her and works with her to resolve the problem. As they work together they start to bond but this isn't a real person, just a compilation of the information the computer has on her. Later in the series she does come on board the ship and is very different from what Geordi had experienced of her on the holodeck.

That's how our walk with the Lord is too. We learn facts and information about Him from His Word and form an image of who He is but that isn't the same as actually KNOWING Him. Walking with Him, talking with Him, being with Him, letting Him reveal Himself through His Word is entirely different from just reading about Him.

Not that reading the Word isn't important but it has taken on a whole new dimension in my life as I allow Him to reveal His Word to me rather than my trying to figure it out and put things together. 

The other difficult aspect of trying to get to know God is all the elements of how we perceive God and the things we learned about God from our childhood, our earthly father and the churches we attend... As I write this I wonder how we are not doomed to failure...!? How can we possibly tackle all of these elements and truly know God?  But, the good news is, we do have hope in that it is NOT about us and our abilities to be able to figure Him out but all about God and who HE is!  When we desire to seek and pursue to KNOW and love God with ALL of our hearts, ALL of our minds, and ALL of our strength, To desire and pursue to seek FIRST His Kingdom and righteousness, and to desire topursue to ABIDE and REMAIN in Him...  I believe that is when He begins to reveal himself (I say "desire and pursue" in all those instances because as hard as I try, I am very unsuccessful at "accomplishing" these things most of the time!).  God knows our hearts and He knows our desires better than we do and I believe He will reveal Himself through His Holy Spirit when we surrender our lives and our desires and trade them in for HIS desires for us.  AND we have to remember that relationship with anyone does not happen over night but that worthwhile and real relationships are established over years of time!  We can't be anxious about our relationship with God and we can't expect it to just "be there" because we read the Bible.  We need to be "Mary's" and sit at the feet of Jesus, looking into His eyes and allowing Him to teach us about Himself over time.

Here is a question for you;  Did you invite Jesus into YOUR life or did you GIVE your life and heart to Jesus?  The difference being, trying to fit Jesus into the life YOU have decided for yourself, or surrendering your life to Him and desiring the life HE has for you?

Father, I thank you for showing me these little insights as to what truly knowing You is all about.  Help us all Lord to set aside our incorrect idea's and reveal the lies we have believed in each of our lives that keep us from truly knowing You and having a real and "right relationship" with you! In Jesus name, amen!

Linda's Journal: God's AMAZING Provision!

I had mentioned in another blog posting about "Being held by God" when our car was overheating but I hadn't followed up with what God has done since then.  One of the cool things about completely relying on God is that we get to watch Him do some pretty amazing things!  Lately we haven't had very many "surprises" financially so things have been pretty "status quo" as far as our provision has been concerned. But, this last month we have been hit by several surprises!... But, as I watch God work, I am seeing more and more that He is never "surprised" by anything!  We may be surprised but He isn't and has already made provision for us! We have been doing this for a couple years now but I am continually amazed at how big, and awesome God is :).

So, back to the car. I had called our friend Bryan (who is a mechanic) the day the car was overheating but, unknown to me, he was vacationing at the beach that week and wasn't available...  which is why God had made provision for us to get Cecelia's car (Big Blue) that day for as long as we needed it.  When Bryan got back in town, Tom was able to drive the car to Bryan's shop and he fixed it for us... FREE of charge! We were not expecting that! We even had people tell us that they would pay for the repairs but he would not take anything. Lord, I pray that you bless this man 100 fold for his wonderful generosity!

Next, we usually get a certain amount once a month from a friend who feels led to support our ministry which we use for our car insurance and our cell phone bill. We receive it anywhere between the 9th and the 15th of the month because the bills are due at that time. We usually don't even think about it because it is always there when we need it. Well, we got a surprise gift from someone, very unexpectedly, for the very same amount so we assumed it was for the repairs of the car... since that was still going on when we received the money.  But, what happened was, the person who normally gives, forgot for some reason this month to do the transfer! So, God had provided the same amount from another source to cover us so we could pay those bills on time! God was not surprised! He knew before we did that we were not going to receive the normal donation in time so He provided it another way :)

The next blessing occurred when we got the cell phone bill this month! Apparently I used my phone much more than normal and went WAY over my minutes so the phone bill was double what it usually is! Ooops. But again, God was not surprised and laid on some ones heart to give us the amount that we were over the normal bill, unexpectedly... So, needless to say, I am watching my minutes much closer now!  :)

Next, we are driving home from dropping our grand daughter Tuesday night when we suddenly heard our tire making a noise like it just went flat. Tom pulled over pretty quickly so we could check it out but when I got out of the car and looked, the tire wasn't flat at all!  But, when I took a closer look at the tire I saw that we had picked up a BOLT and the head was sticking out far enough that it made the noise that we heard...  OK!  Well, we made it home and the bolt actually stayed in the tire and kept the air from coming out but for how long we did not know. So, Tom and I were looking at our finances and trying to work out a way that we could get a new tire with what we knew was coming in that week. I worked for Marteen on Wed. and she gave me $50 so we set that aside. Then on Thursday night, my ladies group met and one of the ladies handed me some cash...  She had never given me anything during the couple years I had known her so this was a surprise to me! I asked her what it was for and as she was walking away, she just threw her hands up and said "I don't know!" She was just being obedient to what God was telling her to do. At that time I just stuck it in my pocket because other ladies were coming in but took it out later and counted it... she gave me $100 dollars!! With what Marteen gave us and that, that was our tire money!!! God, once again, you knew what we needed and provided it in a way that only You could make happen.

So, that last thing I wanted to mention was that when I was vacuuming out Big Blue before we returned it to Cecelia, I sucked up something that that vacuum did not like...  I started smelling something burning so I shut it off.  We could not figure out what the problem was until Tom took it apart.  Fortunately, we were able to repair it ourselves for only $20 for a replacement part! That may sound silly but when you get attached to a Kirby, nothing else can do the job so we were very happy that the "fix" was simple, easy and inexpensive :)

These are just a few of the many ways that God blesses us by meeting our needs when we need it and even when we don't know we need it! God is not surprised by anything and He always comes through for us at just the right time :)