Ever have that feeling that when it rains, it pours?? How about when it is pouring, there has to be lightning and thunder and wind gushes? That's where I am now - in a torrential downpour. The year 2014 has not been favorable towards me. Everything that could go wrong, seems to have gone wrong. In the last six months, I feel I have been stretched and tugged, tossed and turned.
My friends and I decided we wanted to start a Beth Moore study - Believing God. I thought it would be awesome to take a look at my faith and challenge it. To actually believe God! How little I knew!!
Before the study could get started, I was already being put to the test. There was a terrible incident in my family and I already had to examine if I really believed God to make it better. As things in my life went from bad to worse, I realized I actually NEEDED to start that study. Something about wanting to know what I needed to do to believe God more propelled me on.
In the middle of the study, more bad news arrived... and later still more. As I sat and thought about how the devil was using my family as a playground, how my faith and belief in God was being pushed to the absolute limits, I couldn't help but cry. The bible says that God will never give us more than we can bear. It also says that He knows exactly what we need. I am wondering just how much I can bear.
I am waiting for the moment I collapse but for some reason, God has given me this undeniable strength to keep standing. I feel like everything is collapsing around me, everything that could go wrong is going wrong, yet, I'm believing God to do the impossible!!
I want to .... I don't know. I want to cry, I want to ask God why yet, all I can do is sing praises to God. I sometimes get the thought that maybe God has forsaken me, maybe even just sitting there watching, but in those times, I think of what could have been. What should have been and I can't believe that God forgot or is a bystander in my life. I remember that God is so very intimately involved in my life, He is my biggest fan, my biggest supporter for me to succeed. With a coach and cheerleader like Him, how can I fail?
So in December 2013, I was in a place of life and I felt that January 2014 brought death. I watched dreams and plans I had, that I believed God was blessing, die. I watched challenges and circumstances arise and I felt I was in the valley of death. But just like Ezekial saw in that valley of dry bones, that valley of undeniable death, "they stood on their feet and exceedingly great army". There was life to be found! In the midst of the worse time, (I mean what could be worse than death??), God showed Ezekial that it wasn't over. That even in the midst of death, life can happen.
So, I feel as this is my journey. from life to death and back again (to life). Even without the study (that I have yet to get into the full swing of), I realize I am believing God. Could my faith be deeper, stronger, bolder? Of course! Always. But I have faith. I do believe that God is in control, that He is working things out for my good, for His glory. So as I stand in the valley of death, I live. I choose to live. I choose to speak life over me and every situation surrounding me.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Ashes to Ashes
It's been quite a start to the new year. There has been a lot of death in my life. Death of plans, ideas and family. Two months into the year and I can say that this has probably been the hardest start to any new year for me. I am alive and in good health so really, what is there to complain about? I am not complaining, just making observations.
Almost every day I turn on the news there is a story about death. Sometimes senseless deaths, sometimes unexpected but all tragic. When you hear about teenagers cyberbullying or "in person" bullying and then hear that the person committed suicide, how do you deal with that? Or how about the man who was drunk and got behind the wheel of his car and killed someone? Then there is the man who went to a mall and killed people? I begin to wonder "where can I be safe outside of my home?"
Then I think of my own life - dreams and plans that I had suddenly gone. Making plans and decision only to find out that nothing is going to happen. And while I was recovering from that, have a family member die.
Relationships in my life are also dying. Busy work schedules, conflicting work schedules, money, family....it all seems to be in the forefront in the lives of my friends and causing relationships to sink. Of course, there is the occasional text and email but what ever happened to face to face meetings?? I miss those. So there is the death to another thing.
So with death all around, where do you go to escape it? I am going to say you go to Jesus but to be honest, my relationship with Christ is also running on embers. Life has taken a very interesting twist and a turn that has me spinning in circles. My footing has become so unsure but here's what I have learned:
1. If something is dead, bury it! there is no use trying to bring back the dead. The stench has already set in, it's just time to let go and move on.
2. If there is a hope, an honest to goodness hope of "not now but later" put it on life support. It's not dead but right now it can't really survive in it's current condition. However, sometimes this may mean a full recovery of your dream, plan, even loved one but you must also be willing to accept that there may be no recovery and you will have to let it go.
3. If it's mostly alive but injured, take care of it. You want something to get better, whether that be a severed relationship, an idea or vision you would like to do for yourself, nurture it, help it to grow and starve off death.
Your ashes to ashes moment may come when you least expect it but it always comes especially when you are serving Christ. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Things die but something beautiful is birthed in it's place.
Almost every day I turn on the news there is a story about death. Sometimes senseless deaths, sometimes unexpected but all tragic. When you hear about teenagers cyberbullying or "in person" bullying and then hear that the person committed suicide, how do you deal with that? Or how about the man who was drunk and got behind the wheel of his car and killed someone? Then there is the man who went to a mall and killed people? I begin to wonder "where can I be safe outside of my home?"
Then I think of my own life - dreams and plans that I had suddenly gone. Making plans and decision only to find out that nothing is going to happen. And while I was recovering from that, have a family member die.
Relationships in my life are also dying. Busy work schedules, conflicting work schedules, money, family....it all seems to be in the forefront in the lives of my friends and causing relationships to sink. Of course, there is the occasional text and email but what ever happened to face to face meetings?? I miss those. So there is the death to another thing.
So with death all around, where do you go to escape it? I am going to say you go to Jesus but to be honest, my relationship with Christ is also running on embers. Life has taken a very interesting twist and a turn that has me spinning in circles. My footing has become so unsure but here's what I have learned:
1. If something is dead, bury it! there is no use trying to bring back the dead. The stench has already set in, it's just time to let go and move on.
2. If there is a hope, an honest to goodness hope of "not now but later" put it on life support. It's not dead but right now it can't really survive in it's current condition. However, sometimes this may mean a full recovery of your dream, plan, even loved one but you must also be willing to accept that there may be no recovery and you will have to let it go.
3. If it's mostly alive but injured, take care of it. You want something to get better, whether that be a severed relationship, an idea or vision you would like to do for yourself, nurture it, help it to grow and starve off death.
Your ashes to ashes moment may come when you least expect it but it always comes especially when you are serving Christ. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Things die but something beautiful is birthed in it's place.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Step out on faith
I am not sure that we realize what faith is. It's easy to have faith that God will do something for "that person". It's even easy to have faith that God can do anything. What happens to our faith when we are in a situation of our?
The Bible describes Abraham as a man of faith. He left all he knew, the security of his father's house, the security of the city and traveled to places unknown. Places of danger and truthfully, places that he had no idea how he was going to get through. The Bible is filled with people of similar circumstances. People who did things opposite to the comfort and to what they knew.
Society would have us have all these plans and back up plans and agendas for doing things. Everything we do must make sense, it must fall in line with what is "normal". So, you plan for retirement, you make a financial future for yourself and kids, possibly grand children. You work 16 hour days just to make that happen and if you can, you fit God in there somewhere some Sunday into your schedule.
But God is different. He doesn't do "normal". Things that He asks of us requires us to step out of the planning and agendas, to leave the comfort zones and easy way out. He asks us to do things where there is no Plan B...just Plan A. He asks us to do unconventional things. Things that are outside of our reach, things that are only accomplished with Him. Things that simply do not make sense.
It sounds weird but I have likened that to faith. If I could do it myself and it made sense, how is that faith?? It made no sense for Abraham to leave the shelter of his home, no sense for Ruth to follow Naomi, no sense for Peter to step out onto water and it made no sense for Jesus to die on a cross for people who would ridicule him. But most times, the desire to be with Jesus, to be near Jesus compels us and we end up doing things that the world says "makes no sense" but maybe, just maybe that's what God calls "stepping out on faith"
The Bible describes Abraham as a man of faith. He left all he knew, the security of his father's house, the security of the city and traveled to places unknown. Places of danger and truthfully, places that he had no idea how he was going to get through. The Bible is filled with people of similar circumstances. People who did things opposite to the comfort and to what they knew.
Society would have us have all these plans and back up plans and agendas for doing things. Everything we do must make sense, it must fall in line with what is "normal". So, you plan for retirement, you make a financial future for yourself and kids, possibly grand children. You work 16 hour days just to make that happen and if you can, you fit God in there somewhere some Sunday into your schedule.
But God is different. He doesn't do "normal". Things that He asks of us requires us to step out of the planning and agendas, to leave the comfort zones and easy way out. He asks us to do things where there is no Plan B...just Plan A. He asks us to do unconventional things. Things that are outside of our reach, things that are only accomplished with Him. Things that simply do not make sense.
It sounds weird but I have likened that to faith. If I could do it myself and it made sense, how is that faith?? It made no sense for Abraham to leave the shelter of his home, no sense for Ruth to follow Naomi, no sense for Peter to step out onto water and it made no sense for Jesus to die on a cross for people who would ridicule him. But most times, the desire to be with Jesus, to be near Jesus compels us and we end up doing things that the world says "makes no sense" but maybe, just maybe that's what God calls "stepping out on faith"
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