Butterflies

My grandmother who just passed away used to collect butterfly stuff. She loved butterflies and her house is full of butterfly paraphenalia-crystal figurines, coffee mugs, pillows, pictures, etc, etc, etc. One time as a little girl, I picked up tiny clam shells at the beach and glued them to a block of unfinished wood in the shape of butterflies. That block has hung in the breakfast room for over 25 years. I like to think of myself a little like a butterfly. What is the big deal with butterflies?

Well, they are pretty, but that's not what I was thinking as far as myself. I was thinking more along the lines of what they do. Butterflies, unlike birds who build nests, tend to be a bit "flighty," never staying in one place very long. It's a good thing they don't because as they fly from flower to flower and plant to plant, they pick up and deposit seeds and pollen, allowing the flowers and plants to reproduce. Some people are like butterflies as we pick up knowledge and experience from one place and deposit it in another.

I am a school teacher, but I have never stayed in one school for more than 2 years. I like to move around. I grow that way and I get to impact more people that way. I am "flighty," but I like to think of it as being a good thing. Some teachers pour knowledge into their students like a mother bird feeding her babies. I like to plant the seeds of knowledge and let them grow, inticing them to learn more on their own. But don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the birds; the world needs both birds and butterflies. Right?

*The picture at the top was painted by my Great Aunt Norma for my Me-Maw. It hangs in my bedroom.

Sponges

I was chided recently for saying a friend of mine was a sponge. I meant it in the nicest way, of course, but I guess the others who heard the comment didn't understand what I meant. Some of us (perhaps not myself as much as I'd like), have a gift for soaking in the truths of God's Word being more apt to listen than to speak. I was truly complimenting my friend on her ability to do just that. I think we can all take a lesson from the sponge.

A sponge (not the sea creature, but the kitchen tool) is used to clean things, but it's defining characteristic is its ability to absorb liquid. If we think of ourselves as sponges, we will see that we all absorb whatever we expose ourselves to. As does my friend, God's Word should be the chief "liquid" we fill ourselves with. That way when squeezed, whether by the pressures of life and the world, or by allowing ourselves to be used in service, what will come out, but God's wisdom?

There are two dangers with being a sponge. The first, I've already hinted at. We have to be careful what we absorb. Now, I have to confess that I love country music, especially country love songs, but I refrain from absorbing too much of them because I've found that my thoughts turn inward as a single gal wanting to find that special someone like the songs describe. My ability to wait for God's best, my ability to sense and pray for or meet the needs of others, and most of all, my desire to serve and love Him above all else are all directly affected by how much I take in of this particular "liquid." Sappy chick flicks and even Christian romance novels can have some of the same effects, so I limit my diet of those as well. What I'm saying is, we have to be careful how much of these seemingly harmless things we take in. However purely they may present the love of a man and a woman and give us an example to follow in the future, we must be careful to not live in that future by soaking too much in the thoughts they inevitably bring to mind. Of course, I don't even need to mention those things that are obviously harmful to put in our minds, but for the sake of those who aren't tempted by the same "liquids" as I, there are plenty of things out there that we should avoid for the sake of keeping the sponges of our minds pure.

Secondly, the danger in being a sponge is never allowing yourself to be squeezed. A sponge that sits in a shallow dish of water for a long period of time will begin to mold and smell bad. There's a limit to how much a sponge can absorb before needing to release. That point is called saturation. The American church is full of saturated people, sitting in the dish of Bible teaching, but never putting themselves in God's hands to get squeezed. Sure, the pressures of life squeeze us some and we hope that the Word is saturating us at the time so that we will respond with wisdom, but I'm talking about being squeezed in service. There is so much work to be done, but so many of us are stinky saturated sponges unfit to be used because we have never been squeezed. I pray we will learn to give more thus making room for us to absorb more.

Be a sponge. Be careful what you fill yourself with. Take a good inventory of the things that fill your mind. Are they things you would want coming out of you when you get squeezed? Determine to fill yourself with God's wisdom through reading, studying and listening to God's Word. Then, ask God where He wants to squeeze you...do you need to volunteer to work with the youth or keep the nursery at church? Do you need to go on a mission trip or teach a Bible study? Maybe you should be mentoring a younger believer or working in an inner city mission church like the ones we will pair up with for Houston Project. Maybe you need to participate in an evangelistic training and outreach or visit the nursing home and bring some joy to the lonely. Maybe all of the above. It's a continuous cycle...being filled and squeezed. May you find the joy of being a sponge, filled and squeezed by God Himself.

Monet

There's a line from the movie "Clueless" that has always stuck with me, but I never applied it to myself until today. It's at the part where the main character (Cher) has invited her protege (Ty) to a party and they are watching the snobby boy (Elton) who has rejected Ty dancing with a snobby girl (Amber) from school. Ty asks Cher, "Do you think Amber is pretty?" Cher's response is, "Naw, she's a full-on Monet." At Ty's confused look, Cher explains, "From far away, it's just fine, but up close, it's a big ole mess." For a supposedly ditzy blonde, that's a pretty deep analogy.

Here's where I am going with this. I think I may be a little like that...I think we may all be, but what we don't realize is that it's only at the middle range, when the viewer is a few feet away that they see the "big ole mess." I tend to keep people at a distance. I put up my velvet-covered musem barriers and say "you can only come this close." So, from far away, I look just fine, but then as people get close to me and see the big ole mess, they start to wonder what they were thinking wanting to get closer.

What I have failed to realize and by extension have failed to let people see, is that when you get past the velvet barrier and get really close, practically nose to the canvas, you see the mastery of the Monet. How in the world can someone take tiny splotches of color that seemingly have no distinction and make a bigger picture that is simply beautiful? Those splotches of color are beautiful in themselves. They are the individual experiences and elements of a person's life. They are the details that few people ever get close enough to see and each little splotch is worthy of individual celebration. But it takes getting past the barriers to see those for what they are. There are few people in our lives who can see both the big picture and the beautiful little splotches. Most we hold at arm's length where we're a "big ole mess." Sometimes people's ability to only see the "big ole mess" isn't our fault. Sometimes people stop at that point on their own accord and decide not to come any closer. That's when we feel rejection. That hurts.

Our Master is painting each of us as a beautiful person, perfectly placing splotch after splotch on our canvas until He has a beautiful picture that can not be explained, only appreciated. But, each of us is still a work in progress. We must do our part to take down the velvet barriers and let people past the "big ole mess" stage. But, we must also realize that if they don't want to come any closer, they will miss out on the beauty of the splotches, but then again, that is their own loss. Revel in the beauty God is making out of your life. Don't let the rejection of those who can't get past the velvet barriers keep you from recognizing the hand of the Master who is still at work on you. And if someone wants to get closer, let them. You never know, God could be using them as another splotch to complete your bigger picture. And you theirs.

Blogging at Bedtime Part III

I just read the FCA devotional that comes to my inbox on a daily basis and today it happened to be about three things that allow us to stay at our best; they are Sleep, Eating (healthy) and Exercise. I see the writer's point...all three of these activities are important for keeping us in shape, mentally, physically, emotionally and even spiritually. Ironically, I am deficient in all of them! I know I don't get enough sleep and while I try to eat fairly healthy, I still have some poor eating habits. And as far as exercise, well...um...I mean I want to make time for it, but I guess I don't want to enough or I would. We all make time for those things that are true priorities. So, now I'm convicted. I know I need to make improvements in these three areas, so I'm calling all my friends, bloggers and lurkers alike, to help keep me accountable. I may fuss at you if you ask me about them, but don't take it personally! In three weeks summer vacation begins and I know I will be able to sleep a lot better than I do now, but I also know that I tend to not eat as healthy in the summer because I get bored sitting at home and then I raid the kitchen...not good! I will have more time to devote to excercise, but the question is, will I do it? We shall see. I'm going to pray that I will begin to build a better balance in my life in these three areas.

Ok, so now I better go so I can get some sleep and get up in time to make a nice healthy lunch and actually eat some breakfast and then possibly do a little excercise!

Priceless

There's a billboard on Hwy 6 for a car dealership that reads, "A great deal is a deal you feel great about." The owner is declaring that the value of his vehicles is the price people feel good paying for them. Of course, we all love to find great deals. I was excited to find my car on the Saturn website because it had all the features I wanted and more that I hadn't even thought of, and because it was previously owned and had about 45,000 miles on it, I got it for half the price of a new car with the same features. It had obviously been very well cared for and was in great shape! I felt it was a great deal! Now, the value of the car was more than just what I payed for it...it represented reliable transportation and was meeting a need.

Think of the Master Card commercials which list the price for various things until they get to something that doesn't have a specific price...this thing they declare as "priceless."

As people, we struggle with determining our own value. We look for a sense of worth from a variety of sources such as the acceptance, approval and affections of other people, our ability to perform a task, our intellectual skills or how much money we have in the bank. The problem with basing our worth on these things is that they are all subjective (based on other people's whims) or at least subject to change. People are fickle, fragile and fallible. Circumstances can change and our supposed value could go flying out the window. We can't depend on our appearance, our finances, our abilities or our accomplishments to determine our worth. So, where does our value come from?

Value is defined as:

1) An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.

-The Bible says, "...you are not your own, you were bought at a price..." (I Cor. 6:19b-20a). What is that price? Jesus' own blood. We are worth so much to God that He actually became a man and died in our place to buy us back from the Enemy! A fair price? According to our Creator...we are worth it!

2) Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit [as in] the value of an education.

-Again, the Bible tells us that we are precious in His sight. This value is one of usefulness and importance to the God who made us, loves us and provides for us. We are a source of great joy to Him.

So, we never need to worry if we are valuable. We never need to question our worth. When you start to think you aren't good enough or smart enough or not enough people like you...remember you are supremely valuable. You are worth dying for. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are priceless.

Peter Knows Best

I woke up this Easter morning thinking about Easter Sunday sermons. See, my grandmother (Me-Maw, as we all call her) is in hospice care with not much time remaining on this Earth and I was wishing she could attend church with us or at least have a service for today, most likely her last Easter. I got to thinking about what I would want preached in that sermon, and immediately I thought about the Apostle Peter.

It seems to me that no one on this earth knew Jesus as well as Peter did. Peter is one of the first disciples Jesus called. Jesus spent time at Peter's house when in Galilee (Matthew 8:14 and 17:25). He was the one who spoke up all the time with poignant statements and bold confessions. He was known for his passion. Here are just a few examples:

1) When Jesus walked on the water, Peter was the only one who had the faith to step out of the boat with Him.
2) Peter's the one who confessed that Jesus was the Christ.
3) Peter got to see Jesus transfigured and heard audibly the voice of God telling who Jesus was and to listen to Him. Peter speaks up and says they should build tabernacles for Jesus, Moses and Elijah who had also appeared.
4) Peter says the disciples had forsaken everything to follow Jesus.
5) When Jesus asked the disciples if they wanted to leave because His teachings were strange, Peter pipes up and says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
6) At the Last Supper, Peter at first doesn't let Jesus wash his feet, then when Jesus explains, he wants Him to wash his head and hands as well.
7) Peter declared he will follow Christ anywhere, even to death.
8) Peter cuts off the soldier's ear when they come to arrest Jesus.
9) Just as emphatically, he denies any knowledge of Jesus as soon as things get scary at Jesus' trial.
10) Peter declares his love for the resurrected Jesus when the Lord appears to them on the beach.

Ok, that's not all, but that's enough for now. I went to the trouble to list all of the above to give you some perspective on the author of the following passage:

1 Peter 1:3-8
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

You see, Peter KNEW Jesus. He had experienced that mercy and KNEW it to be great. He had witnessed the death and resurrection of Christ and was fully aware of where His Lord was at that moment. He KNEW that Heaven awaited him. Because of this assurance, he could write these words of reassurance to the believers. He himself had gone through the trials and KNEW that they were the means to increased and refined faith, the faith that allows God's power to shield you from the Enemy and preserve you for Heaven. He didn't just wish or dream, he KNEW! And because he KNEW, he had hope. Not uncertain wondering, but real, living hope, the kind of hope that looks forward to a better future despite the pain of the present. Because he KNEW the Lord personally and KNEW the love that sent Him to the cross, he could assure them that even though they couldn't see Him they could love Him. Finally, this Peter who KNEW Jesus, KNEW that the refined faith, the living hope and the blind love were the source of "an inexpressible and glorious joy."

No matter what you're going through. No matter how imminent your death. No matter how bad things may seem. This life is not all there is. Peter wanted us to know this. And Peter knew best.

Waiting
On
WOW

WOW is an expression of amazement, wonder and surprise. Like many words in the English language, it gets overused and loses meaning, but I want to redeem it a little. WOW is that moment when you realize something that has previously escaped your notice or that catches you so off guard that you are stopped in your tracks and have no other word to use but WOW!

Isaiah had a WOW moment in Isaiah 6. He actually saw God and lived to tell about it. Isaac had one when he saw Rebekah for the first time. Peter, James and John had many as they walked with Jesus. These guys were actually WALKING with GOD around their own country, their hometown and watching Him heal the sick, calm storms, walk on water, be transfigured, raise the dead, feed 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish. WOW!

I think we fail to realize that that is the same God we know and worship. If we have recognized our sin and turned over our lives to Him, WOW has come to us. Why do we so often settle for less? A great missionary, William Carey once said, "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." His life was amazing and he saw God do amazing things in and through him. But we don't have to go to India to see God do great things, nor to be used of God to do great things.

I want to challenge us to wait for WOW. We must pray for it, expect it and go for it with God. Never settle for less than WOW in your life.

Perhaps you're in a dead end job and just getting out of bed to go to work everyday is a chore. Perhaps you're single and you doubt what they say about there being "someone out there" for you. Perhaps you're stuck in some rut and there seems to be no light at the end of your long, dark tunnel. Whatever your situation, God wants to WOW you with His power through it. This will require faith on your part. WOW can't be forced, manipulated or mustered up. God is the owner and purveyor of WOW. If God doesn't do it, it's not WOW.

Pray for God to work out your situation and then wait and watch for His answer. Don't settle for mediocre when you can have WOW. Don't even settle for good when you can have WOW. Wait on God. Wait On WOW.

Disappointment

Life throws us curves all the time. People get sick or even die. Relationships fail. Friends betray you or let you down. Injuries happen. Stuff breaks. Your team loses the big game. Jobs, promotions and raises go to other people. Conflicts arise and tough decisions have to be made.

Disappointment happens because we live in a fallen world where sin is rampant and every one of us has been the guilty party as well as the innocent victim. When stuff happens that hurts or that disappoints us, we have a choice of how to react. You see, disappointment is not sin. Being hurt is not sin. Sin connected to disappointment happens when you try to resolve the problem yourself. You may do this with anger, lashing out at the one who hurt you or worse, someone innocent who wasn't even involved. Or you may retreat within yourself, get depressed and refuse to allow healing to begin. You may whine and complain and throw a royal pity party. You may beat yourself up thinking the disappointment was somehow your fault and you could have done something to stop it from happening. Or, you may choose to give it to God and let Him take the pain upon Himself and heal you.

This final option, which of course is the right one, is very difficult. It requires letting go and surrendering your will and your desires to Someone else. The beautiful thing about surrender is that it opens the door for blessing. God hates pain. He hates sin. He loves us and like a parent that never wants to see his child scrape a knee or get made fun of at school, He is very protective of us. But life still happens and He allows it because so often the pain will bring us right into His arms. He wants to be the Comforter and the Healer. God could stop sin and one day He will, but in His love for us, He gave us the ability to choose to love or reject Him, to obey or disobey Him. He wants us to choose Him and disappointment is the result of people not choosing to love and obey God.

So, right now, if things are painful in your life. If you've been hurt or a disappointment has come your way, give it to the Father who loves you and who wants to make it all better. It may take time, but pray about it and thank Him for all the blessings you can think of, then the peace of God will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. Jesus said "My Peace I leave with you; peace I give to you. I do not give it to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27). Again, he says "I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world (John 16:33)." We can trust that Jesus' death and resurrection will set everything right. We can trust that even though people will let us down in this life, God will never let us down. We can trust that even if our future looks bleak and our present is painful, there is a God who wants to hold us and who has something in store for us that is greater than we can imagine. The blessing in disguise that comes with disappointment is that when things finally do get right and you come out on the other side of it, you are stronger and you appreciate the joys in life that much more because you have felt the pains and known the heartaches.

Give it to God. Pray for peace. Wait for healing. It will come.

Procrastination

On the floor of my room, piles of Spanish projects collected over the last two weeks are awaiting my attention. So far, I have made a small dent in the work, but there is so much more to be done. And what did I do yesterday? I read a book, washed dishes, played softball, visited with family...basically everything but grade these papers. How hypocritical of me that I get on to my students for not turning in their work on time when I can't get it back to them in a reasonable amount of time. Oh, I'll get it done. I always do, but I'll have to sacrifice some sleep time and will probably end up not doing as good a job of giving them feedback as I would have if I had really sat down and applied myself to the task this weekend.

So, why do we procrastinate? Am I alone in this habit? Is it a maturity thing? A personality thing? A sin? What do you think?

Blogging at Bedtime Part II

I had to throw my two cents in about the fight over Kirk Phifer, henceforth ever to be known as ULM (Ultimate Ladies' Man). See below for more on this topic. Aside from that, I actually had some deep thoughts and quandries for the blogworld.

Tonight in Deeper (AKA Dive Hometeam), we discussed the "blip" on the radar screen of eternity that is our life. We talked about how to cultivate an eternal perspective while still living daily life with all its troubles. I think the deep and thoughtful members of our little group came up with some wonderful thoughts. At the end, our fearless leader, Chip (AKA The Gambler), read some questions about Heaven, which we did not have time to discuss and proceeded to assign us homework to answer them. Since this is not for a grade, I'd like a little help with my homework...so I'm going to extend this assignment to all you bloggers, commentators and lurkers (even though the last group won't answer because they only lurk).

So, here are the questions:

• How different do you think Heaven will be from Earth?
• Will there be cars, buildings, relationships, technology?
• What about nature? Plants, animals, oceans, mountains?
• What Scriptures do we have that back up or inform us about Heaven?

Can't wait to hear what y'all come up with!

The Ladies' Man
Some of my girl friends have been fighting over my good friend Kirk. I am wondering if I should choose sides, discourage the fight or jump in and try to win the man myself. I'm thinking it might have to be the latter. After all, Kirk is, by all reports, the ultimate ladies' man. Hmmm... Check out the fight and tell me what you think.

Lackadaisical'>http://1cor1558.blogspot.com/2006/03/bring-it-on.html#links">Lackadaisical

http://flaminlarry.blogspot.com/2006/03/girl-fight.html

http://fairygodseester.blogspot.com/

http://fairygodseester.blogspot.com/2006/03/kirk-phifer-smooth-operator.html

Dive Class at Hunt Retreat

Thanks to Brian Wilson's birthday, we took advantage of the opportunity for some cake and ice cream. Yummy!

Lee, Jonathan and Chip

Blogging at bedtime

Ok, so I got online to check my e-mail and found a comment had been posted to my entry with the picture of my cousin's baby. I had not realized how much I had hoped for more comments on my blogs, especially those soul searching and gut checking ones...geez, another thing to affect my sense of self-worth! Regardless, the comment led me to the blog of the commentator, Jessica, which in turn led me to other blogs...you know how it goes, and suddenly I look up and it's past my bedtime! Ugh! I need some sleep...yet I had to post another blog just for the sake of posting. I noticed in my lurking, reading and occasional commenting, that many posts are simple "here's what happened to me today" posts and really don't have to be deep and meaningful. I'm still learning, folks. All that to say, here's my first "meaningless" post. If you don't like it, that's ok because I'm not expecting comments on this one. In fact, I've decided that just like the outcome of sporting events, I must choose not to base my sense of self-worth on whether or not people read and comment on my blog entries. That's a topic for a future post, though, and I'm simply too tired after the Dive retreat to go there. Goodnight, blogworld.

My cousins' baby, Bruce, is so adorable! Check out their blog to see more pics.

http://www.tbsatwood.blogspot.com

The Relinquished Life

*I'm starting to sense a pattern in what the Lord is trying to hammer home with me in the last few days and weeks. Here is the devotional that "just happened to be" lying open on the desk at a friend's house this week.

"I am crucified with Christ." Gal. 2:20
No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must reliquish all pretence of being anything, all claim of being worthy of God's consideration.
Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the reliquinshing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to reliquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
There is always a sharp painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home. If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that He requires of you.

by Oswald Chambers
From: My Utmost For His Highest
March 8th

Lord, Surrender is a scary thing. Sacrifice does not come easy. Please help us to be like Abraham, who knew that giving up Isaac was the only way to live in obedience to you and was so confident in your goodness and provision that he knew you were going to either raise him from the dead or perform some sort of miracle to make things right. May we anticipate the miracles our obedience will allow you to perform in our surrendered lives and may we wholeheartedly welcome opportunities for sacrifice that demonstrate your power, provision and goodness. Amen.

Do you want to get well?

This is an excerpt from the FCA devotional I read for today. It seems to go along well with my last post and like my friend Erin Bayles and her Joyce Meyer desktop devotional calendar, it goes along perfectly with what I have been dealing with in my life lately.

Why would Jesus ask a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years if he wants to get well? You would think it would be a no-brainer. But Jesus wants to know if the man has faith that He can make him well and if he has the will or desire to get well. Also, Jesus often deals in the spiritual realm, rather than merely the physical, so it wasn't just about his body being healed, but his soul as well.

When it comes to spiritual matters this is often the way it is in life; people just really don't want to get well. We say we want to, but we make excuses just like the paralyzed man (John 5:7) about why we are still in the same condition. Until we truly want to get well, and until we realize that Jesus is the only One who can heal us, we will continue life in our sickness.

God wants a relationship with you today. Do you want Him? Really?

Resisting God

Why do we fight and struggle against the very One who made us and the only One who really and truly wants our best? Why do we resist His working in our lives? I think deep down it is a power struggle. We want control of our own lives, our own destinies. It's been said that "surrender is the highest act of the will." We have no greater battle in life than the battle with self. We resist God because in our human, finite minds, we think we know better for us than He does. We think we can do a better job running our lives than He can. We think we can get what we want on our own and we fear if we surrender we will have to wait or settle for something other than our hearts' desire. What we fail to realize is that God's best for us is so much better than what our hearts can even imagine. So, we go on holding on to our dreams and desires instead of letting God take them, and not shatter them, but mold them to fit His will for us. Not all desires are bad. Desire is not the sin. The sin comes when rather than surrendering that desire to God, we seek to fulfill it ourselves. What we end up with is a cheap imitation of what we really wanted and a broken heart about the fact that it fails to satisfy. Resisting God's best for us will never bring about the joy and fulfillment that can be ours by surrendering to His will. The bottom line is that lack of surrender is sin. Sin will steal your joy.
While we are talking about sin, this is another area where we resist God's working in our lives. We have the Scriptures and they are clear about what sin is and what actions in our lives qualify as sin. So, why do we continue to succomb to sin? I think the answer is fear. We are afraid that we must change on our own and we know from experience that we will fail in the attempt. What we don't realize is that getting rid of sin in our lives is God's job. He wants to give us clean hands and pure hearts, but we simply don't let Him. No one can forgive and transform a life but God. Surrendering our wills to Him allows him to do that. We think repentance is a long process where we have to continually battle our sin and fall on our faces over and over in the effort to change our behaviors. Repent simply means to turn around. There's not even any forward progress in the motion. It is just a spin, a 180. All we have to do is turn our hearts to God and set our sins at His feet. Let Him have them. He will fix us Himself. Every person who has tried to help himself has failed. Every person who has thrown up his hands and said "I can't do it myself" has found the joy and peace of God stepping in and saying, "Finally. Let me do it for you."
We resist God because we don't trust God. We don't trust God because we don't really know God. We don't really know God because we don't take the time to get to know Him. So, the key to learning the art of surrender is getting to know God. Invest in your relationship with God. Give Him the opportunity to prove His love for you and His power over your sin. At the end of the day, He will do a much better job of running your life than you could.

Weak or Strong?

I know there are verses in the Bible about being strong (Deut. 31:6; I Kings 2:2; Joshua 1:6, 7, 9) and there are verses about being weak and allowing God to be strong through us (II Corinthians 12:9-10). Sometimes I feel like I have no strength when I'm supposed to be strong and when I am supposed to be letting God work though my weakness, that's when I think I'm strong enough to handle things myself. I have so much going on in my life and I try to handle everything. I try to make decisions based on knowledge or previous experience rather than letting God have my struggles and work them out for me. I want to do it myself, like a little child just learning to get dressed or make a sandwich. I don't want help, but I have my pants on backwards and there's jelly all over the counter. On the other hand, there are times when I know I have to be strong. I know God has given me a challenge and He intends for me to meet it head on. But what do I do? I cower in fear and take the easy way out. I don't face my fears. Then again, isn't this weakness something God wants to be strong in also? He's not going to give me a challenge that He won't be there to uphold me through. I know deep down that rather than just telling us to be bold and corageous, God has empowered us to be so. I may face some really tough things in life. In fact, Christ told us we would have troubles in this world, but we are to take heart because He has already overcome the world. I don't have to have all the answers and I don't have to be the strongest person in the world. I just have to lean on and trust my Savior who loved me enough to die for me. I have to give Him my struggles and my fears and let Him make things work together for my good. I know these things. Why don't I live like I believe them?

Seeking God's Will for Your Life...
So many of us claim to be doing just that. We say we want God's will for us, no matter what the cost. Is that really true? I mean does that statement bear out in our daily decisions and lifestyle? I'm wondering that for myself. I know somewhere deep down, I want to please God and glorify Him with my life, but on the day-to-day, what am I really doing to that end? Perhaps I being too hard on myself? Perhaps I'm being too easy. At the end of the day, what we do reflects what we truly believe.

If we believe that God is good, we will surrender our hearts, our possessions and our time to Him knowing He is going to make it all work together for our good. If we don't truly believe He is good, we will try to keep running our own lives, making tons of mistakes along the way and potentially doing some major damage.

If we believe God loves us, we can surrender our relationships, our self-image and our view of others to Him. A person who knows they are loved behaves drastically differently from a person who thinks they are unloved or doesn't know they are loved. The Bible says that we love because God first loved us. We are able to understand and feel the love of others and reach out and give love to others when we know we are loved by God. If we don't believe God loves us, we may try to earn His love with empty works or with a check list for life. We may become bitter about hard times or even little things that would normally not affect the secure believer. We will see ourselves as unworthy scum that no one can love and is not able to love others right. And we'll feel badly about the latter, but be powerless to change it.

If we believe that God is all powerful, we will be able to hand over the reins and allow Him to drive the daily as well as the big decisions we make. We will pray more for others and trust in the outcome of those prayers. If we don't believe in His power, we will not surrender our lives to Him because we will feel we need to maintain control. We will live by the philosophy that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. We won't let others in and give them opportunities to serve and grace to grow and make mistakes.

If we believe God is Holy, we will seek to be holy ourselves. We will cringe and the thought of sin. We will be offended by the things He is offended by. We will know how to handle different convictions on the part of others, not becoming tainted by them, and at the same time, not judgemental of them. If we don't believe in the holiness of God, the world will stain and spot us with it's filth in the name of entertainment or fun. We will fail to please Him with our personal lives and begin to rationalize the injunctions of Scripture saying they are outdated or culturally bound.

Back to the title. Seeking God's will for your life means seeking to know and believe the truth about God and allowing it to change who you are and in turn, what you do. God's will for your life is all over Scripture. He wants us to be holy, pure, empowered and effective for Him. Bottom line: God's will is that you glorify Him in every thought and action by understanding who He is and letting that guide your thoughts and actions so that people see Him, not you.

Disillusionment

In college, we had a Christian illusionist come do a show on campus. He made a point to tell us that the tricks he did were not "magic." They were simply his developed skills at fooling our eyes and hence our minds. Also in college, our pastor preached a sermon I'll never forget. He was talking about the reasons we struggle in the Christian life. The main reason, he said, is that we believe error instead of truth. In short, we are deluded, illusioned, tricked by our own desire to be in control or by the Enemy's desire to steal, kill and destroy us. Illusion is not a good thing. Basing our lives on false beliefs about ourselves or the world around us is not only dangerous, it can be life-threatening.

Disillusionment, by definition, is "freeing from false belief or illusions." Only, we tend to think of it more as disappointment, making it to our confused minds, a bad thing, rather than a good one. I venture to say, we should pray daily for disillusionment. There is a Christian author I like named Grace Livingston Hill. She's written over 100 short romance novels. In one of the first I read, there was a mother praying for disillusionment for her daughter about the man she was dating. When I read that, something clicked in my head. I finally got the fact that disillusionment is so very important and vital to our faith. Who wants to walk around believing falsehood his or her whole life? I guess some people do.

Remember in the Matrix when Neo is given the choice to take the red pill or the blue pill? I can't remember which was which, but one would let him forget he'd ever met Morpheus and go on living in his illusionary world created by the Matrix. The other would open his eyes to the real world, ugly though it was, but would also give him the opportunity to do something about that ugliness. We all know which one he chose. But remember the traitor? There was a guy on the Nebuchadnezzar with Neo and Morpheus who, though he'd taken the disillusionment pill, prefered the illusion to the truth and was willing to give up the fight for truth in order to go back to his illusionary world. How dangerous that was for all involved. How dangerous is it for us to do the same?

Forgive my continual movie references, but I'm also reminded of The Truman Show where Truman, played by Jim Carey, has been raised on an elaborate television set created around him to broadcast his entire life to the world. He has no idea that he is not living in the real world. He thinks the people and things around him are it. Until one day things stop making sense and he realizes that something is very wrong. In his quest for the truth, he makes the ultimate discovery that there is more out there and that he has been a prisoner all this time, confined to the bubble the producer had made as his world.

Let's not accept things at face value and believe what we hear on television or what we see in magazines. Let's read our Bibles prayerfully, asking God to open our eyes to the falsehoods we've been operating under. Let's ask Him to show us things in our lives that are deluding us and keeping us from knowing and operating under the Truth. Let's pray for disillusionment. Sure, there might be disappointment along with it, as we realize that we have been duped all this time. Sure, we might struggle with the ongoing battle to allow the renewing of our minds to transform our lives and behavior. But, Jesus promised that if we were really His disciples, then we would know the Truth and the Truth would set us free.