I'll trade ya!

Friday I was walking through the Criminal Justice Building to a meeting with one of the Commissioners and a few other people. I was grinning from ear to ear.... Soaring a bit from a new found pleasure. (I can get excited about the simpliest of things.)

I was recently given what I've deemed as "keys to the kingdom".... a card whose swipe gives me entrance into the barred parking lot, all of the locked entrances, and every locked hallway on all the floors of the building. I called the Re-Entry Coordinator on my way in telling him that this was better than candy! And I was still pondering upon that statement as I walked alone down the long corridor to the Commissioner's office.

Candy. I've been craving it lately. So for some silly reason that thought popped into my head. If someone came and offered me a trade... "I'll trade ya! Candy for the card (keys)!"... I was too excited, I wouldn't take it.

That thought (as most thoughts do) prompted another one. I remembered Esau's trade of his birthright to his brother for a something to eat, simply because he was hungry. I was saddened by how quickly we make trades... without first thinking of and considering or weighing the outcome or cost of it.... and usually because we're hungry and our bellies (or our heart's desires) are growling for something.

As kids we will trade this toy for that one.... an apple for an orange... a bag of chips for some cookies.... a favored possession to be included in the "club" that our friends are in.... or I'll tell you a secret if you'll tell me one.... or I won't tell on you if you won't tell on me.....

The list goes on...

And the trades get bigger as we grow older... We make bigger trades with bigger things at stake...

We often think, "I wouldn't trade you for anything".... then before we realize what what we've done, we've traded our spouses, our children, our families and homes for our jobs... or some moment's pleasure... or for another someone.

We'll trade our lives (years of our lives) for a season of drinking or drugs or some substance that one day lands us homeless on the streets or in prison.

We'll trade our joy and happiness and close relationships because some silly thing offended us and we refuse to let the offense go and so loom in and wallow til our dying death in our bitterness.

I thought about Cam Newton (which hasn't been proved true... so I am definitely not saying this is so) which happens to be that morning's rage possibly trading his reputation and career and a huge penalty for years for Auburn for some money illegally passed to him to play there for football. I hope it's not so. And think that it might not be. Yet, even if he didn't, it happens all of the time. Money is passed under the table illegally for a trade of something else all over this world all of the time. Money... and our greed for it... often costs us a LOT more in the long run!

We make trades. We're good at trading. We trade everyday. But do we weigh (and think first) about what we're trading?

I lost my train of thinking the minute I stepped into the office. The conversation there had already been started, so their conversation took me elsewhere.

Until...

After a while they begin discussing different judges and their sentencing. Some counties are harsher than others. Some sentences harder and longer depending upon the judge who is sentencing the one that's offended. They were talking about some who were sentenced heavily upon their first felony conviction. And then they gave a recent example...

Just the other day a 63 year old man (who was said to be "a very old 63 year old".... "he looked more to be in his 90's") went into a store to fill his prescription for Hydrocodone. He came out of the store and sold two of those pills to someone in the parking lot. I don't know the details. I don't know if the man knew the guy he sold it to... nor why? I don't know if the man was a friend who suffered great pain and he was selling him two pills in order to help him? I don't know if it was a stranger? I don't know if it was to make a little money because of his great need of it?... Or if it was an act of compassion? Regardless, the trade was a bad one. However much money he got for it, it cost him more than two pills. He got caught. And the judge sentenced him (first offense!) to 10 years in prison! 

Wow! Talk about bad trades and a clear example of one that represents one!

I am not at all saying that what the man did was right. I am not condoning what he did. I am just saying that often we do not ever consider the real price and how much our trade will truly cost us. I am saddened by how quickly we fall for the trades that our enemy offers... for a moment's stupid reasoning and a our dulled-senses that failed to recognize the trap hidden behind the deception!

Oh Lord, give us eyes to see! Teach me to follow Your decrees, then I will keep them to the end.. Give me understanding and I will keep Your law and obey it with all my heart... Direct me in the path of Your commands, for there I will find delight... Turn my heart toward Your statutes and not toward selfish gain.. TURN MY EYES AWAY FROM worthless things and preserve my life according to Your Word - Ps 119:33-38.

"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" - Matt 16:26.

What are you trading???

And in the end will it be worth its trade?

(Click here to read about 'SOLD' - "What one girl said".... )

My heart swoons at His voice...

I LOVE the wonder of God's Word!!! I love Him speaking... showing... revealing... enlightening... giving new insight... more correction... more direction... more clarity! I love what His Word does! How it compels us... moves us... heals us... mends us... equips us... empowers us... fills us.... makes us feel.... burns within us!... and makes us yearn for more!!

There is no-thang that compares with the Holy Breath of God's Word!

IF His Word had not been my delight... I would have perished in my affliction (Ps 119:92)!

‎"When Your Words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear Your Name, LORD God Almighty" - Jer 15:16.

As King James puts it, "Thy Words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy Name, O LORD God of Hosts."

Woe... what a scripture! And how it speaks my heart's feeling! For indeed, I have eaten and continue to eat the Words that my Savior has spoken and still speaks to me... They are my joy (my gladness) and the rejoicing (the gaiety, the pleasure, the happy) of my heart! They are my heart's delight! What a wonder to be called by and bear the Name of the LORD God Almighty.. the LORD God of Hosts!

"Did eat"..... It's a Hebrew word that means exactly that: to eat. It is further defined as: to devour, to feed upon, to be consumed with. The hunger within me compels me, I must eat! I cannot help and cannot wait to devour it... to feed upon it... to be consumed with it! May His Word burn up and consume everything else that is not of Him within me! I must eat... or I will waste away to nothing and be wretched!

I LOVE the wonder... and the unadulterated purest thrill... of God's Word! Thank You, Lord Jesus, that You came (the Word wrapped in flesh) upon this earth... and that You still come... and still speak! These are not mere words to me... Your Words are Life!... and Life in abundance and to the FULL!

Fight! But be sure to fight "for" and not "against"...

A note to a friend:

These were MY "hope" Scriptures that I pondered on yesterday. God IS our Hope!!!! Nothing or nobody else is worth hoping in!!! Especially not ourselves."Guide me in Your truth and teach me,
for You are God my Savior,
and my hope is in You all day long."

Psalm 25:5

"May integrity and uprightness protect me,

because my hope is in You."

Psalm 25:21

"Be strong and take heart,
all you who hope in the LORD."

Psalm 31:24

"We wait in hope for the LORD;

He is our help and our shield."

Psalm 33:20

"But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in You."

Psalm 39:7

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from Him."

Psalm 62:5

Psalm 130:5"I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in His word I put my hope."

    What do people do ... the ones whose hope is not in Him?  In God?  Don't forget the battle that rages around you in your marriage is Satan's attempt to deture you.  Shall I remind you of Satan's schemes ... and where he often chooses to wield and slash his sword? The thing that is often his biggest aim at destroying? Marriages!  For with it, he takes families!  Peace.  Happiness. Security.  Our Homes was held in love and united now torn in two.

    Shall I share with you a story in Scripture that I feel relates to what is happening in your world, and add my insights along the way?   I'll put God's Words in blue, and my feeble thoughts will be colored in pink.

Nehemiah 4

"1 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, 2 and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, "What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?""

     He ridicules us in his fury at our attempts to overcome evil with good. And in the presence of his evil men and his army he makes fun of us as he says, "What is this feeble man doing? Will he restore his walls? Will he offer sacrifices? Will he finish in a day? Can he really think that he can bring the stones back to life from the heaps of rubble in his home?" .... And he tries to weary us and overwhelm us and defeat us in our work! He makes fun of our efforts to break us, and he mocks us to crush us and to devastate all that we had hoped and planned to do.  He magnifies to us the "rubble" that we've not yet been able to clean-up ..... so that we'll give up defeated at the magnitude of all there is to do.

    So here in these Scriptures, Nehemiah hears Sanballat and what he is saying and he cries out to the LORD [who IS his HOPE and our Help!!!!]. And he continues in the rebuilding of the walls that had previously been torn down to its rubble.  Yet, do we dare think that Sanballat [or Satan] would give up so easily?  Listen to his next move ... after he's gathered all of his "associates" and his "army" around him to work against Nehemiah with him:    When God works so many mighty miracles in our lives ... to help us out of the pits that we've lived in for so long, to help us bring order to the chaos that we've made our lives into, to woo us closer to Him to listen for and to hear His voice ... and to change our want to His will over our own. When He helps us in "rebuilding the walls," so to speak, Satan becomes very angry and greatly incensed. The KJV says, "he was wroth and took great indignation," ... and so he "mocked!"  

"7 But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem's walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed,

they were very angry.

8 They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem [me/you]

and stir up trouble against it.
9 But we prayed to our God

and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat."

    The enemy has gather his forces .... and has become VERY ANGRY at the gaps that were being closed!!!!  Can't you see Satan's fury at the gaps you've closed in your own life?  Can't you see his fury in your remarrying your ex-wife after his victory in your first breakup? Can't you see his rage!!!! ... He is "very angry" ... so "they all plotted together to come and fight against ______ and stir up trouble against it."  Do you see his schemes?

    But Nehemiah?  Again, what did he do?  "But [he] prayed to his God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat."  Day and night!  Day and night, did you notice?  It's a WAR!  In the daytime and the nightime!   It's a day and night, and night and day, and day and night kind of battle!!!!! Because Satan doesn't stop in a day.  Satan doesn't doesn't stop because it's bedtime! 

10 Meanwhile, the people in Judah said,

"The strength of the laborers is giving out,

and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall."

    Do you often feel that your strength giving out????  Totally giving up????   Do you ever feel that there is SO MUCH rubble [debris, ruin, wreckage] that you can't rebuild the wall?  Do you ever think that there's no way?!!!!   Does the rubble ever paralyze you because of it's overwhelming mess - that looks impossible to clean up and heal and repair?  Does it ever seem so overwhelming that it appears that it cannot be done? ... so you want to leave it's mess, and move from it's chaos ..... And while we are in our despair, our enemy continues:

11 Also our enemies said, "Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work."

    In our overwhelming state ... our enemies continue to connive: "Before they know it ... or see us ... we will be right there among them ... and will kill them ... and put an end to the work." ......... Can you see his ugliness?!!!! and his relentless evil to kill us ... and our marriages, and our families, and the walls we mean to repair and rebuild?!!!~~ before we even recognize it or see it coming?   Before we even recognize who our enemy really is?   He says: before they even know it!! ... before they even see me!!!! ... i'll be right there!!!! ... and i'll kill 'em!!!!! ... and i'll put an end to their work!!!!!  Have you had "a work" going on for years, been working on your marriage for years(!), and now he's so close, and his plan is to put AN END TO IT (!!!), once and for all?

12 Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, "Wherever you turn, they will attack us."

    "Wherever you turn ... they will attack us."  Everywhere we look:  at each avenue, at each curve, at each turn, at each stop, at each go .. with every step, in every word, when we get up in the morning, when we leave for work, when we come home, when we lay down, when we sit up, ... while I'm eating, while I'm brushing my teeth, while I'm watching TV, when I'm mowing the lawn .... every move we make, every breath we take ... the enemy seems to be attacking us!!!!!! ... and we get tired!!!! ... and he means for us to!

13 Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places,  posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. 14 After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "Don't be afraid of them.  Remember the Lord,  Who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."

    So Nehemiah did what you did on Sunday as you requested for the prayers from your brothers for their help in the battle that you find yourself in.  He "stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall ... at the exposed places" ..... "with their swords," and their spears and their bows!!!!  And as he himself looked things over,  and he stood up and said ... "Don't be afraid of them!!!!  REMEMBER the LORD, WHO IS Great and Awesome!!! ... and FIGHT FOR : your brothers ... and your sons ... and your daughters ... and your wives ... and your homes!!!!"  For these things are worth fighting for!!!!!!!!!!! ... and it's what the enemy has his sights on to kill, and to steal and to destroy!!!!  We must fight for our brothers, and our sons, and our daughters, and our wives, and our homes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  For if we don't fight, we won't win,  but he will.... and it's his hope to.

15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.

 I like this verse, for it gives me the "hope" that I need to continue when I think that I can't. Because it comes a time will the enemy will be "frustrated" at God's plan, and the work He has in it ... and he'll "leave us for a more opportune time," as he did Jesus after His temptation in the desert.  And it's our job to "return to the work on the wall" that we're suppose to do!   

16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked."

  And we continue our "work" ... with our weapon in one hand and our swords at our sides as we do! The Hebrew's definition of 'labor' here is: "properly deputyship, that is, ministry;  generally employment (never servile) or work; also property (as the result of labor)."  Ministry!!! It's our ministry!!  the work we're called to do!!!!  And "properly as the result of labor" .... that's an interesting definition.  We must work for OUR PROPERTY!!!!! ...it's the result of our labor.  Indeed, we must work for our property,  as Satan attempts to steal what belongs to us!!!  Need I remind you what that property is that belongs to us that we are laboring for: "your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."  You've gotta fight, because Satan also fights for them!

19 Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!"

21 So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. 22 At that time I also said to the people, "Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day." 23 Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water."

    And isn't that what you email so often in your Scripture for the day? .... warning for us to never leave home without our armor!!!!  Never start the day without clothing ourselves with the protection that God has provided for us!!!!  Never going out without our weapon! ... "even when we go for water." ....... Even when drinking from the well of the Living Water!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We must never be unequipped!!!  We must never let our guard down, day or night ... for the enemy watches and rages and seeks to tear down our walls ... or keep us from rebuilding them.  But "Our God will fight for us!!!!!!!!" ... and our HOPE is in Him!!!!!!!!! I love Him so!!!!!!!

    I'll close with that second verse in Jeremiah 2 that has Sanballat mockingly asking:  "Will they restore their wall?  Will they offer sacrifices?" ... And today I ask in all sincerity and hopefulness:  Will you?  And note the costly part,  restoring the wall will take SACRIFICES!  Are you willing to sacrifice??? And if you're not,  what will it cost you?  What will it cost your wife?  What will it cost your brothers?  What will it cost your children?  What will it cost theirs?   ""Will they restore their wall?  Will they offer sacrifices?  Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble?""  Sure you can!  God is the giver of life,  Jesus the carpenter!  YOU the sacrifice!!!!!!!!!

    We'll still have the "work" to do.  Work as in labor [employment, job, vocation, occupation] that uses all of our energy!  Still others around us helping us, equipped with their spears and shield and bows and armor! 

Wonder how she feels?

I have lots of friends that have adopted children. Actually, it's amazing the number of the adoptive parents that I know. And with their chosen children it's always a not so very far away wonder of what those adoptive children will one day think as they wonder about the mom that birthed them and the father that for some reason no longer now plays his part. But too, with that wonder, I often wonder about the moms of the children that are in orphan homes or gave up their children to be adopted. We often give them a bad rap. We don’t understand them. We can’t imagine doing what they’ve done. We’re appalled that they’ve done it. Sometimes we look down on them or don't like them because they did.

But!

I wonder what those birth mommas think? I wonder where they are? Wonder what they do? What ages they were?  What were the circumstances? Do they cry at night? Still? Do they have other children? Do they feel guilt for what they’ve done? Do they still live under that burden? Do they mourn for the one that now sits in another’s lap instead of their own? Do they attempt to drown their hurt with something else or someone else??? ... that no amount of dosage is able to drown to quit and quiet their pain? 

I have several friends that have adopted. One in particular is my very best friend. She’s adopted two after having three of her own. God knit two of those she now has in two other mommy's tummies, while He began knitting a whole other thing in hers!!!!!  I wonder sometimes if she doesn’t wish they knew her heart and could know the love that she has for the daughters they bore? Or would their knowing only aggravate to unbearable the ache they already feel?

Dear Lord, be with the birth moms... that today for whatever their reason so longingly miss their children. And abundantly bless the mothers that are raising these babies with an abundance of Your grace and Your love!

Tag! You're it!

   My son was playing Tag one Sunday after service one summer at the church I grew up in.  The kids were playing the same ole' game that we spent years ago playing while we were growing up, running and screaming on that same ole’ lawn that our feet once ran upon.  It took me back to yesterdays and remember-whens! 

   The object of the silly game that they played? Oh, you know it well. We've all played it. And when you've been "tagged"... you're it!!!!  It's your turn! 

    Watching them play that game brought a thousand thoughts to my mind ... with thousands of thoughts pondering questions began forming in my mind. I began to wonder.  And here is my biggest wonder that began to plague my thoughts that swirled inside my mind that day:

    Do you think sometimes that there's a job that needs to be done (a Jesus-kind of job,  a God-kind of work that needs working), and knowing that God often works through His people, do you think that maybe sometimes God sees that work that needs doing,  and  with the task that needs serving He taps and touches our shoulder and whispers in a voice that only we can hear, "Tag!  You're it!" He says, “You’re up. It’s your turn.”   

   Ah!  He may not say it in those words. And doubtfully will it be audible words that you'll hear.  But do you see it? When you feel that urging inside.  When you know the thing that needs to be done. When your heart is (for a moment) pulled strongly toward that need.  When you're burdened for the one that is lost in his need. 

    "Tag, you're it!" 

    Tag,  YOU are it!!!!  He says:  YOU!!!!  You're the one that God has called for the job! You’re the one He's chosen to go!   

    Jesus said that "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few!"  The harvest is plentiful!!  But the workers to help with that job are few!  Few ... for a plentiful job!!!!!  And then He turned and told His disciples to:  "ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field."  

    Actually, it started with Him going (as He Himself words it) "through the towns and villages, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness."   And while He was doing this He must have looked around at the masses around Him. Can you picture the eyes of His face as He's doing it? The feeling that His heart feels as He sees it?  Can you imagine what He must have been thinking?  Ah, we don't have to, for He tells us His thoughts and His thinking. We’re told, "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them,  because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." 

    Have you seen someone lately that's been "harassed" and is "helpless"? Do you know someone that is? And oh my, could it be that sometimes I am the one that harassed and made the man feel "helpless" in his hope? After Jesus sees them and feels that in His heart He turns to His disciples and says,  "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."  Can you feel His eyes as He tells them?  Can you see His concern as He shares His thought of how great the need?  Can You hear Him think:  but I have so few workers?!   Then He told those same disciples,  "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."  (Matt 9:35-38)

    Are you being tagged????  Is He whispering to you, because He sees with the compassion within Him the "harassed and helpless," those that are "like a sheep without a shepherd" that someone somehow somewhere needs to go to?

    Tag! You're up! You're it! You're being called! It's YOUR turn.

Hacked anybody lately?

   The article you'll find pasted below was an article forwarded to me back in 2005 by a Christian brother to those of us that had recently returned from a mission trip to Malawi (Africa). The horror that happened is unimaginable. But woe, too, when you read the things that God so vividly revealed to me in it, the frightening reality that God gave to me in order to help open my own eyes to see!  What a frightening Truth! Thankfully I'm not this girl anymore, but once I myself held the hatchet that plunged into people around me. Won't you look, and see what you see?  Will you find yourself there, as well, standing in a place where I once stood?

Raphael Tenthani | Blantyre, Malawi

03 Sep 2005

A 25-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly hacking her nine-month old son to death with an axe and attempting suicide after they both tested positive for the Aids virus, police said on Friday.

Aids carries a strong stigma in this impoverished Southern African nation. An estimated 14% of Malawi's 11-million population carry the virus but only 3% have gone for voluntary testing, despite campaigns from government leaders.

Police spokesperson Enock Livason said the woman and her son had tested positive for the virus at a government hospital in northern Malawi.

"When she got home, she put her son, Paul, down, took an axe and hit him in the head," he said. "She started cutting her son into pieces."

The woman, identified by police as Mary Mwagomba, also allegedly tried to kill herself but was restrained by neighbors.

According to Livason, she will be charged with infanticide and attempted suicide.

Malawi is one of the Southern African nations hardest hit by the Aids virus. Its people are extremely poor and poorly educated. -- Sapa-AP

    Wow ~ at the overwhelming oppression! We are all way too impoverished by the one who robs us (the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy). We too often fail to see the one that is behind the evil. And we often are found assisting the evil one in our help to "kill" those around us that we're suppose to love, because of our bondage of depression from the oppression that enslaves us, and in our rage to lash out against it we knife the ones closes to us.  We rage with the swords of our words (if not our fists), slowly "hacking to death" the ones closest to us.  So who wins? .. as satan smiles from all that his scheming entails at what he has started, and at how we viciously carry the thing out further from our own fury and frustration, who wins?  Ooo!  Do we often aid the devil in his plan .... while forsaking the One Who came to save us and His? 

    Have I ever been guilty of "hacking to death" one of my own children .... when I see that they've been plagued with the same plague (even if it's the 'plague' of meanness!) that I have?   Instead of "fighting for my sons and my daughters," do I fight against them?  Is it them that I focus on as the evil,  and not the evil that befell them - that they need rescuing from?   Or have I attempted to "hack to death" something inside my husband that I don't like?  While totally unaware that is it him that I am killing, and not the evil?  Will he survive my stabs and the wounds that I so ferociously wound him with?  Or will I succeed in killing him, and in essence, commit a suicide to myself?   We were united as "one" in marriage .... Do I aid in the death of my own other half - while foolishly thinking that when I do I will be left living?  

    Woe!!!!!  I dare myself (and you) to look at down my hands and SEE the dagger that I might be holding!!!!   And to SEE whose blood might have been shed on it ......... by my own hands!  Need I to ask God to forgive the blood that I've shed,  and to cleanse the dagger that I've held,  and to replace it with the Sword of His Spirit .... to fight toward killing the real enemy and not continue the fight toward kill each other!
.

Laffy Taffy Joke Time

What did one Math book say to the other?

"I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of problems!

Ever felt like a math book?

God said, No..... Or, God said Know!

It's old.... but perhaps we could all use reminding?

God Said No

I asked God to take away my habit. God said, No.

It's not for Me to take away, but for you to give it up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole. God said, No.

His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience. God said, No.

Patience is a byproduct of tribulations;

it isn't granted, it is learned.

I asked God to give me happiness. God said, No.

I give you blessings; happiness is up to you.

I asked God to spare me pain. God said, No.

Suffering draws you apart from worldly

cares and brings you closer to Me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow. God said, No.

You must grow on your own; but I will

prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life. God said, No.

I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all things.

I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as He loves me.

God said, Ahhhh, finally you have the idea!

What do you ask of God? And when you think about it, listen to His Spirit, what would be His answer to you? What is it God is working?

I need to get a hold of myself!

Yesterday was one of the sweetest days ever. It was my birthday... and I was made to feel special. And on top of all of my Jesus-with-skin-on-friends... God, too, made me feel so favored! My eyes burned all day from the tears that I had shed early that morning.

Today... I want to cry for a whole new reason. I need to get a hold of myself and pull myself together. Life doesn't always go as you plan it... but God is always GOoD! And I love the GOoD He is! And the "GOoD" He works in ALL things... no matter the evil that the enemy means it.

I just want...

A friend of mine said to me, "I just want my house to sale."

Another, "I just want my debt to go away."

Another, "I just want someone to date, someone to love me."

"I don't want to hurt anymore."

"My want is healing..."

"I want out of this prison I'm in."

"I need help. I just want....."

"I want...."

"I just want....."

Don't we all think that about something  some time or another? We just want....... And most of the time, isn't our wait for our want a whole lot longer than we think it ought to be? Even when (especially when), we know that our want isn't only ours, but it's also His. We know that surely God's want is the same want as our want....! We're not wanting a bad thing. Our want is sincere. Our want is legit. Our want is right. Our want is good. Our want, we know, is absolutely His will.

One thing that I'm encouraged by during my prayers of intense pleading is found in Exodus chapters 2 and 3.

Watch it here with me:

Scene One: Exodus 2:23-25, "During that LONG PERIOD the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant... So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."

God has seen and heard the oppression and groaning from His people. And as He looks, as He watches, as He focuses, as He listens, He's not only "concerned" for them, but He decides to do something about it!

Camera pulls off from Scene One and re-focuses in on Scene Two: Exodus 3:1-11.

Zoom into: God finding Moses with his flock in a desert in Midian. He lights a fire in a bush without burning it to get Moses's attention. Then God tells Moses what He's come for and why. Because, He says, "I have indeed, SEEN THE MISERY of My people in Egypt. I have HEARD THEM CRYING OUT because of their slave drivers, and I AM CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR SUFFERING. SO I have come down to rescue them... and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land.... The cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go, I am sending You to Pharaoh to bring My people out..."

Then...

God spends the next however long trying to convince Moses that, indeed, yes, he really is the man that He wants to use to do what He wants done!

I always wonder how long Moses was the hang up???

Now, when I am crying out for this or for that, groaning in my oppression, in misery because of the "slavery" I'm in, pleading for God to hear and to heed and to help me... I remember the Israelites, and God's concern, and Moses out in his desert with sheep, and God's stubborn determination to convince His insecure servant to do what He's asking him to in order to help the one's in their need, the one's that are crying..... which at this particular moment happens to be me.

Honestly, that scene does it for me! I understand that sometimes in my delivery of something, that God is having to rearrange another servant to do as He commands in order to free me. AND sadly, sometimes, when I feel convicted of doing a thing, but I am wrestling with God because of my lack of wanting to (Job) or my insecurity (Moses, Gideon), I wonder if I am not playing the Moses role, while the Israelites are left groaning in their misery until I heed to His call? When thinking of it that way, when God sends, I surely want to respond and move faster.

May God move the mountains when we need for Him to. AND may He move the Moses' when they are the obstacles slowing the things that He wants to do! Especially when His "Moses" is me! Perhaps therein lies the lesson I need? :)