I look back at the day when I am awake in the middle of the night.
There were challenges, laughter, love, service, encouragement, learning, leaning, apologies, forgiveness, struggle and reconciliation, tears, and tired.
Yesterday was a good day.
It is hard to believe that Jesus died, the age old truth that I know yet don't. I want to skip over Friday and jump to Sunday. To the life part, the joy part, the reconciliation part. I want to forget about the death, dying, middle of the earth, payment, blood shed.
I'm like that in life too. I want the life part, not the dying.
My heart is working, my head is churning, I have got to stop waiting, asking for more and looking ahead. I have to serve where I am, doing what I have been asked to do, not comparing, not coveting, not wanting more.
Asking tonight for Grace and Mercy, that they would flow out of me, that I would be a conduit of joy. That I would take each opportunity to love and do so, that peace and kindness would flow like a river.
God, help me to not worry about tomorrow, to just leave that business to You. Not to plan for something new or to long for different, help me to leave that to You.
It is difficult for me, this being where my feet are.
Mercies are new every morning, excited for dawn to appear.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
not my words, yet, my very heart
254 pages ago this is what I read....
Now What?
Indeed, there comes a time in the life of every believer and of every church where a voice inside us simply asks, Now What?
After we have been introduced to Jesus and have found peace with God through him. After we have been following Christ and have gradually been surrendering the compartments of our life to him. After we have asked him to redeem our past, to heal our wounds, to reconcile our marriages and safeguard our children. After we have asked him to purify our thought life, to sanctify our ambitions, to soften our hearts, to comfort us in tragedy, to lead us in wisdom through confusion at work, at home and in our hearts. After he has filled our minds with the Scriptures, and taught us his Word, his songs, his ways and his love for us.
After all of that, there is a voice that remains and simply asks, Now What?
This is, I believe, a voice of divine restlessness. This is a voice of sacred discontent. This is the voice of a holy yearning for more. This is the moment in which we can see that all the work that God has been doing in our lives and in the life of the church is not an end in itself; rather, the work he has been doing in us is a powerful means to a grander purpose beyond ourselves.
This is the supernatural moment when the rescued enter into their divine destiny as rescuers.
This is the critical transition -- when we who have been rescued by Christ come to understand that our rescue has not been simply for ourselves but for an even more exalted purpose. Indeed our own rescue is God's plan for rescuing the world that he loves. (p.28 Just Courage)
and even better are these words....Isaiah 58:10-11
...and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame.
Just needed to check....
...and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Yep it is clear,
Spend Myself...
Draw Out Thy Soul...
No wonder I'm flailing, no wonder Malawi feels so right. It is there where I am spent, where my soul is drawn out on behalf of the hungry, the oppressed, it was there where I realized that nothing matters if we don't believe.
Why do I PRETEND living here is okay?
Here I am not spent, I am coddled
I am not drawn out, I am comfortable.
BUT,
this is where I find myself, my responsibility, my obligations, my mortgage.
I am free, yet imprisoned.
I know truth yet accept lies.
I am guilty yet innocent.
"We believe something when we ACT as if it were true." (p.? Just Courage)
Father God, Help me to spend myself on behalf of the hungry and to satisfy the needs of the oppressed wherever my feet are. Help me to accept where you have me as long as it is YOU that has me here. God, please make your path clear and absolutely unavoidable, take away the fear, take away the logic and the planning.
Abandon our minds of
worldly wisdom,
which is the darkness,
this wisdom is the obscurity
that chases out the light
You are casting.
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. 1 Corinthians 3:19a
God, help me to trust to ACT as if I believe...That you will guide me always and satisfy my needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen my frame.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on Earth
(today that I would do your will here)
as your will is done in Heaven.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Jesus Paid It All
Jesus Paid it All
All to Him I Owe
Sin had Left a Crimson Stain
He washed it White as Snow
Lord now Indeed I find
Thy power and Thine Alone
Can change a leper's spots
and Melt This Heart of Stone
And When Before the Throne
I Stand in Him Complete
Jesus Died to Save my Soul
My Lips Shall Still Repeat
Oh Praise The One Who Paid My Debt
Who Raised This Life Up From The Dead
Oh Praise The One Who Paid My Debt
and Raised This Life Up From The Dead
So So So Thankful for the Truth of these lyrics. They catch my breath, the tears sting my eyes. I remember that dead life and now look around and cannot even count the blessings. Undeserved, Unappreacited though they are. My Life is NOT my own. Only Jesus can bring me to this place that is my life.
I'm Thankful that Sin didn't define my life, I'm oh so Thankful that Jesus defines my life. He is my Purpose.
All to Him I Owe
Sin had Left a Crimson Stain
He washed it White as Snow
Lord now Indeed I find
Thy power and Thine Alone
Can change a leper's spots
and Melt This Heart of Stone
And When Before the Throne
I Stand in Him Complete
Jesus Died to Save my Soul
My Lips Shall Still Repeat
Oh Praise The One Who Paid My Debt
Who Raised This Life Up From The Dead
Oh Praise The One Who Paid My Debt
and Raised This Life Up From The Dead
So So So Thankful for the Truth of these lyrics. They catch my breath, the tears sting my eyes. I remember that dead life and now look around and cannot even count the blessings. Undeserved, Unappreacited though they are. My Life is NOT my own. Only Jesus can bring me to this place that is my life.
I'm Thankful that Sin didn't define my life, I'm oh so Thankful that Jesus defines my life. He is my Purpose.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Daily Family Lent Devotional
2011 Small Group Lenten Guide for Family Daily Devotions
Wednesday, March 9 – Sunday, April 24, 2011
(This is taken from multiple sources – see last page for content references)
*Set aside a financial contribution to the Society of St. Andrew each day. SOSA delivers salvaged produce to agencies feeding hungry Americans for $0.02 a serving. The amount you give is up to each family. A gift of $1 each day during Lent ($40+) will provide over 2,000 servings of food that will feed our hungry brothers and sisters* INVOLVE the whole family to come up with where this $1 comes from. Do we skip chick fil a (2 kids meals = over $7), do we nix juice or desserts and apply that money to the SoSA jar? Be creative, let your children also give or do chores to add even more $$ into the pot. At the end of Lent we will, as a group, make this donation in a meaningful way.
*Candle Lighting – during devotion light a candle
Candle Lighter: Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Everyone Else: Change our thoughts to be more like yours, O God.
Wednesday, March 9 – Sunday, April 24, 2011
(This is taken from multiple sources – see last page for content references)
*Set aside a financial contribution to the Society of St. Andrew each day. SOSA delivers salvaged produce to agencies feeding hungry Americans for $0.02 a serving. The amount you give is up to each family. A gift of $1 each day during Lent ($40+) will provide over 2,000 servings of food that will feed our hungry brothers and sisters* INVOLVE the whole family to come up with where this $1 comes from. Do we skip chick fil a (2 kids meals = over $7), do we nix juice or desserts and apply that money to the SoSA jar? Be creative, let your children also give or do chores to add even more $$ into the pot. At the end of Lent we will, as a group, make this donation in a meaningful way.
*Candle Lighting – during devotion light a candle
Candle Lighter: Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Everyone Else: Change our thoughts to be more like yours, O God.
Q&A
When are the next Beach Baptisms? May 15th
How Are the 40 Days of Lent Calculated?
Lent, the period of prayer and fasting in preparation for Easter, is 40 days long, but there are 46 days between, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, and Easter. How can that be?
Answer: The answer takes us back to the earliest days of the Church. Christ's original disciples, who were Jewish, grew up with the idea that the Sabbath—the day of worship and of rest—was Saturday, the seventh day of the week, since the account of creation in Genesis says that God rested on the seventh day.
Christ rose from the dead, however, on Sunday, the first day of the week, and the early Christians, starting with the apostles (those original disciples), saw Christ's Resurrection as a new creation, and so they transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
Since all Sundays—and not simply Easter Sunday—were days to celebrate Christ's Resurrection, Christians were forbidden to fast and do other forms of penance on those days. Therefore, when the Church expanded the period of fasting and prayer in preparation for Easter from a few days to 40 days (to mirror Christ's fasting in the desert, before He began His public ministry), Sundays could not be included in the count.
Thus, in order for Lent to include 40 days on which fasting could occur, it had to be expanded to six full weeks (with six days of fasting in each week) plus four extra days—Ash Wednesday and the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday that follow it. Six times six is thirty-six, plus four equals forty. And that's how we arrive at the 40 days of Lent!
Content/Sources
The Bible (NIV and Message Translation)
How Are the 40 Days of Lent Calculated?
Lent, the period of prayer and fasting in preparation for Easter, is 40 days long, but there are 46 days between, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, and Easter. How can that be?
Answer: The answer takes us back to the earliest days of the Church. Christ's original disciples, who were Jewish, grew up with the idea that the Sabbath—the day of worship and of rest—was Saturday, the seventh day of the week, since the account of creation in Genesis says that God rested on the seventh day.
Christ rose from the dead, however, on Sunday, the first day of the week, and the early Christians, starting with the apostles (those original disciples), saw Christ's Resurrection as a new creation, and so they transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.
Since all Sundays—and not simply Easter Sunday—were days to celebrate Christ's Resurrection, Christians were forbidden to fast and do other forms of penance on those days. Therefore, when the Church expanded the period of fasting and prayer in preparation for Easter from a few days to 40 days (to mirror Christ's fasting in the desert, before He began His public ministry), Sundays could not be included in the count.
Thus, in order for Lent to include 40 days on which fasting could occur, it had to be expanded to six full weeks (with six days of fasting in each week) plus four extra days—Ash Wednesday and the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday that follow it. Six times six is thirty-six, plus four equals forty. And that's how we arrive at the 40 days of Lent!
Content/Sources
The Bible (NIV and Message Translation)
Isaac Hunter's sermons
www.endhunger.org
www.kimberleeconwayireton.net
www.christianbiblestudies.com
www.severnaparkumc.com
And the Angels were Silent by Max Lucado
www.endhunger.org
www.kimberleeconwayireton.net
www.christianbiblestudies.com
www.severnaparkumc.com
And the Angels were Silent by Max Lucado
www.christianseder.com
http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/f/Counting_lent.htm
http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/f/Counting_lent.htm
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