Pushed to Obedience

There have been several times in my prayer life when God has pushed me to obedience and I have been blown away by his response. As I was praying into the word “push” this morning He reminded me of the time He pushed me to growl in church. As an extreme introvert, I can tell you that was no easy task. I was on the floor in front of the alter praying, when I heard God say “I need you to roar and bring my people to the river of living water.” The worship band was playing a song about living water. As I wrestled with God the song came to an end and I thought I was off the hook, too late. Then they started playing the next song about coming to the river. I remember taking a deep breath and saying “ok.” As I sat there on my knees, I practiced what it might look like, “quietly” roaring. I sounded a lot like a sick kitten. That’s when I told God I was willing to roar, but I didn’t know how. He was going to have to help if He really wanted me to roar. That’s when my stomach started churning, like a raging fire had been lit inside my belly. I actually thought I was going to be sick. As the fire intensified, I said “ok” again and opened my mouth. Up from the deepest parts of my soul came a revibrating roar. A wave of power came out of my mouth, bounced off the wall at the front of the church and hit me on the way out to the congregation. That was a turning point in our call for revival.

Several times after that during worship we were asked to roar and call out for revival, but it was not the same. In all of my experiences being “pushed” I can say honestly, I was willing to take the first step of obedience, but God was never expecting me to act completely on my own. This journey is meant to be lived hand-in-hand with God. Jesus made that possible. The creator of all has a plan that includes us, but it is His plan and requires His touch. Had I roared in my own ability, that sick little kitten would have just sounded a little louder and nothing would have changed. True change only happens in the authority and power of the one true God. We are called to be His hands, feet, heart, and mouth. Come in obedience today, but allow God to move through you so that what happens from your “ok” makes a difference.

Unique as a Snowflake

 

I was thanking God this morning for all the beauty I’m surrounded by, and in particular the blessings of all my unique Christmas boughs. Each one has a story. I love the diversity of the ornaments, the themes, what they are each made of, and their different colors. As I’m thanking God for His blessings, I suddenly have an “ah ha” moment, there is one thing that ties all of the boughs together. Ice and snowflakes. All these years and I never noticed it. The Michigan State bough has several Spartan snowflakes. The “folk art” bough is primarily all wooden snowflakes of different sizes and shapes. In the living room my original bough is made with handcrafted glass icicles from a local artist, over 30 years old. There is also a dragonfly and metal snowflake bough. The bedroom bough of purple and fuchsia bulbs has three-dimensional metal snowflakes I found at a hardware store in Florida 20 years ago and intricate silver snowflakes, both have to be polished every year. A new bough went up this year in the bathroom and contains all of my favorite ornaments that used to go on my tree. I call it my element bough because there is wood, fiber, glass, metal, clay, bamboo, oranges, and porcelain ornaments. There is even a sand dollar with Mary and baby Jesus painted on it. Materials matter when you are a textile major. My Christmas tree is filled with crocheted snowflakes I received as a wedding gift and has a wooden snowflake as the tree topper. This year I added giant paper snowflakes to the snowman decorations in my kitchen.

So, I start praying into snowflakes. Why do I love them? Why is God highlighting them? This obviously goes with my blog theme. Does God want me to write about snowflakes and if so, what does he want me to say?

“My people are like snowflakes.” Each one is created uniquely, no two, not even twins are completely identical. God the creator of all of earth, designed each one of us in our mother’s wombs to be one-of-a-kind.  God’s unending love imagined cultures, diversity, and beauty in a rainbow of colors. He gave each one of us our own unique identity and purpose.

Wilson Bentley was a young boy who also loved snowflakes. He would draw them, study them, and grew up to be the first person to ever photograph them, proving that each one was different. A few years ago I learned about Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist who attempted to prove water is alive. He took glasses of water and exposed them to different types of music. He then froze the water and looked at the icicle formations. Water that was exposed to classical, gentle music had beautiful formations, while the water that was exposed to heavy metal music showed deformed and ugly crystals. While the science is questionable, because he couldn’t repeat the results under a controlled environment, it does remind me about our walk with Jesus. Jesus introduced himself as the living water to the woman at the well. He said whoever drank of his water would never thirst again. If we have accepted Jesus’s gift of salvation and invited Him into our hearts, He lives inside of us. However, the world we live in is filled with ugly music, filled with selfishness, pride, evil, hatred, offensive, and anger. If we don’t constantly turn to the source of our living water, our hearts can become tainted, and the beauty of the God of Peace that should reflect through our words, actions, and thoughts, can cut and hurt others. Emoto believed praying over the water could heal it. We know as Christians we communicate and invite Jesus into our lives when we pray. We have the choice to change our focus from a world full of evil and challenges, to the love of Christ, who died to remove our sin and give us a life of abundant peace and joy.

When we recognize others for their unique beauty, when we respect the God given gifts they walk in, and love on each other we honor God in unity. Thinking of snowflakes, we still each have our own DNA, but when we function as a community and the bride of Christ our hearts melt and become one. We join Christ, the living water, sent to cleanse and beautify the earth by spreading the good news. This Christmas as we decorate with snowflakes, set up our manager sets, and love on our families and community, may we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the one son of God who came to save us all. Let us move closer to becoming unified in God’s love and salvation. May we become one water through Christ

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I See You

 For over a year the words “I see you” have been echoing in my head whenever I pray. Since COVID there is so much judgement, assumptions, and anger that I feel like people have lost the ability to REALLY see each other. Lately, I have found myself quickly judging others actions as well. I had been praying to be able to see others as God does when I had a small stroke at the beginning of March. I was fortunate that it only affected my left eye leaving it paralyzed. I was still able to take care of myself, but I couldn’t drive and if I had both eyes open at the same time, I had double vision and everything I looked at was either on top of something else or blurry, a lot like looking through water. Images in the water are hard to see clearly, and items you reach for at the bottom of the lake or ocean aren’t always located the first time. I spilled a lot of beverages in the beginning and laughed at the number of times I grabbed at things and missed.

I have an amazing group of friends that took me shopping for food and gave me rides to doctor appointments. At home I wore a pirate like eye-patch, but when I was out, I just closed one eye when I needed to see something. I learned to adjust to the blurry vision, mainly so that I didn’t make others uncomfortable. It’s interesting to me the assumptions that I came across. I can’t tell you how many times men winked at me as I was leaving a restaurant, when I was just trying to make it to the door without running into someone or something.

As an intercessor I am used to praying for others who I don’t know very well. God has always given me insight as to how to pray, so I’m used to walking into a room of people who think of me as a stranger, unaware of how deeply I see them. However, when I lost my full sight all of this disappeared from my mind. I had moments of self-pity and times when I felt trapped unable to safely leave my house alone. There were a few people I asked to pray for me, but until I asked someone in person my memories of who I am as an intercessor and my history with God didn’t come to mind. I never doubted from the moment I lost my sight that God wouldn’t heal me and I know without a doubt that he did not cause my stroke. My experience of walking through storms with God has taught me that there are almost always lessons to be learned. The bible clearly states that God can turn every situation around for His glory. Storms or periods of difficulty are life changing movements. We can get angry and hold onto trauma, building walls that trap us for decades or we can ask God to give us a vision of where we need healing and open ourselves up to see all He would have us see. As people prayed for me, I asked God what He would have me learn. I want to move forward; I don’t ever want to be trapped in pain and anger. I welcome storms for the turning points they offer. If there aren’t any lessons, then by all means heal me right away, but don’t let me miss this opportunity for greater healing, so much more than just my sight.

As my sight slowly improved, so did my vision of who God created me to be. Moving objects like cars, trees, movies, and people were the last things to come back into view. One night I was watching a show and suddenly everything was clear, just like that. As I praised God, he reminded me of being baptized. Under the water, where things are blurry, it can symbolize how we see life without him. When we come up out of the water, there is a sudden clarity and fresh hope. We are fully seen by the one who created us and knows us to the core.

A Lifeguard's Perspective

I worked as a lifeguard and swim instructor all through high school and college, that’s how I paid my way.  I can tell you that when you need to save someone the safest and easiest way is from the side of the pool.  You have greater strength, a better perspective, and you are in control of the situation.  Once you get in the water you are fighting the elements, struggling for control over someone who is panicking, and you can’t see all that is happening from that point-of-view.  You see I have saved a few people from drowning.  I’ve been in the water fighting to secure them as the fought panic and struggled.  I was taught to grab onto anything that would get their attention and hold on for dear life until they realized they were being saved and they could relax.  I once had seven kids holding onto me as we bounced around the pool and accidentally found the slope to the deep end.  I can tell you when you are underwater and trying to hold all the kids above water you can’t tell which direction the shallow end is from the deep end and you have to trust someone else to help you.  My most successful and easiest saves where when I was on the deck and I could see someone struggling and reach out to them from the pool side or grab their inhaler and be at the side when the arrived ready to hand it to them.  You see perspective is everything. 

I’ve been listening to a variety of end of the year reviews and I’ve been struck by how 2016 has taken on a life of its own.  It’s been referred to like a person who has taken lives, started wars, broken up famous Hollywood couples, etc.  Let me tell you it is a moment in time.  We are responsible for our actions, our reactions, and our point-of-view.  To me it is a matter of where you stand.  You could be underwater, trying to figure out which way is up or down, and to safety or into deeper trouble.  Most people are bobbing in the water taking one wave at a time to the face.  There are a small few of us who are standing on the word and promises of God.  To the world this is often referred to as giving up my choices, but in reality it is the exact opposite.  God is all about free will.  Every choice I make determines where I choose to view my life from.  Let’s just say 2016 had a lot of ups and downs for my family.  Many worried that I would be in the water battling the waves.  That was clearly a choice, but I choose to be sitting on the pier dangling my feet in the water, understanding the reality of our situation.  I knew that God was standing beside me with a full view of the situation and trusting that he alone could change things around.  It was God that gave Jesus the power to calm the sea.  Jesus decided when to use that power.  I don’t know that we would have understood the power of the story if Jesus had immediately awoken and calmed the sea.  It is important to understand that Jesus was not mentally on the boat; his perspective was with the Father.  He wasn’t caught up in the panic of the moment, but calmly watching knowing the right time to come to the rescue so that the disciples would understand the important of your point-of-view and the power of our almighty God.

If your argument for not believing in God is that you want full credit for all your accomplishments, please know you have it.  But wouldn’t it be nice to sweeten the deal?  That’s what it means to follow Christ.  You still have the authority to make your own choices, but you don’t have to make them from the middle of a storm.  You could be sitting at a place of peace, surveying the situation and working out your alternatives with God the Father.  It doesn’t mean all your ugly circumstances will change; it just means you have a better view point, a stronger understanding of the situation and the ability to make wiser and often easier moves.  God is the sugar that makes the medicine go down, but the choice is always yours.

God Thirsts For Us

It is time to write again as God pours new meaning into old understandings.  Several years ago God called me to dance in the rain with the children of Red Lake, one of the first mass school shooting locations.  After over a month of His asking, I said yes.  What followed was an amazing time of fasting, prayer, healing, letting go, intense warfare, and final surrender to the one and only one who could bring me through many months of trail.  God worked through me and others to heal the land through forgiveness, and to save the souls of three lost children in only twenty minutes.  My worldly mind kept trying to balance the amount of prep time (trials) to the amount of healing.  By earthly standards I had expected more.  So one night during youth group God cleared the confusion.  While meditating on the prodigal son I asked God to show me what I needed to understand.  He had me open my eyes and look around at the 70 some kids that where hanging around on the floor; some of them were deep in prayer, but most of them where totally lost.  When I asked God what he wanted me to do his response was “love them like I do.”  Then for one brief moment I felt a love so strong my heart couldn’t stand it.  I gasped for air, unable to breath.  For just a second I felt how deeply God loves us.  It doesn’t even come close to comparing how we are able to love.  The next thing he said struck me to the core.  I heard “I would suffer an eternity for just one of them.”  That is how much God loves each and every one of us. It is a love so deep we can’t even comprehend it.

I have been reading the book Radical by David Platt lately.  He shares an interesting perspective about Jesus’ last request to God about not having to experience “the cup.”  He suggests “it is not a reference to the wooden cross but to divine judgment.  It is the cup of God’s wrath.”  It wasn’t the physical pain he was fearful of, it was the total rejection.  In that final sacrifice God cleansed himself of all disappointment and what was left was pure grace and love. The cup that Jesus took was not just the final sacrifice for our sins, but also he took on himself all of the disappointment God had felt.  What I felt in that moment was nothing but love.  Not an ounce of regret or disappointment.  What I experienced after that was an unexplainable love for everyone around me whether they hurt me, disappointed me or failed me.  I couldn’t help but feel anything but love.  In Lamentations God is very specific when it comes to sacrifices.  He understood the specific requirements that were needed to repair and cleanse the broken relationship between God and man.  He was the chemist perfecting the blood that was needed to foster a physical, emotional, and spiritual relationship with each and every one of us.  The living water inside of us purifies in a way nothing else can.  It is a constant source of hope, peace, joy, and love.  Jesus is the only way to that relationship.  Have you cried out today for the cure inside you?  It is your only hope.

Treading Water in Poison

It was the middle of winter when we headed out by bus for our weekend youth retreat.  We settled into our rooms, filled the shelf above the window with more sugar than a group of girls should have in a month, let alone two days.  We were introduced to Daren, an athlete, who told us about the women and children in Africa who walk miles everyday for polluted water to survive; then we started walking in their shoes.  Through the dark we walked back up the long snow and ice covered road to where we first pulled into the camp.  There we found water jugs, one for each of us.  We were to carry them back to the cabin and use that as our water throughout the weekend.  We brushed our teeth, washed our faces, and carried the water to the mess tent for all of our meals.  We learned more about the conditions in Africa and what people all over the United States were doing to raise funds for water filters and wells.  We prayed, we brainstormed, and we asked God to show us each our individual strengths and how we could use them to help this cause. 

I enjoy writing, several of the girls loved photography, and a couple knew how to start a blog, so that’s what we did.  I asked God for words to share and each post related to my faith walk and water.  By capturing my faith and struggles I hoped to encourage and share about God's love with the youth around me.  God blessed all of us that weekend and for several years through this blog by showing us how to serve others with the gifts he gave us.  At the end of the weekend, our jugs stored under our chairs, we worshiped and thanked God.  Then we were asked to pick up our jugs and look underneath them.  Almost every jug bared the name of a parasite commonly found in the polluted water.  We took turns raising our hands; discovering about each parasite and the damage that it caused, and in the end there were few survivors.

I wonder why women and children would work so hard to do something that is so detrimental to their health.  As I ponder it, I realized sometimes you just don’t have a choice.  Life can be a race, which is won only by participating and taking your chances.  We walk by faith that God is watching, listening, and hopefully clearing the path before us.  If you have read past blogs you know that I have overcome being crippled, a cancer threat, lost children, the death of numerous friends, and so many other challenges too numerous to list.  Each time God was lifting me up, walking beside me, clearing my path, and whispering hope into my ears.  Recently I have been traveling through a season where God was saying it’s time to step up your game.  Faith like a muscle requires constant exercise and pushing your limits; I was in a comfort zone of triumph and grace. For over a year now I’ve been trying to tread water in a cesspool of poison, because that’s what I needed to do to survive.  I’ve juggled issues with my ministry, my health, my family, my job, my finances, you name it life has been about as unstable as it could get in every area of my life. I’ve needed a life line, someone to walk along side me and pull me out.  (The theme music to Rocky comes to mind.)  God created us to give when we are overflowing and to receive when we are drained.  I am so thankful to the pastors, prayer warriors, and amazing youth around me that have poured into me sips of hope, truth, strength, wisdom, and love.

I am fortunate to be surrounded by so many who care for me, who have my back.  At this moment Daren, who shared so much with us about serving as we are called, is presently running across the United States again to raise funds to provide filters and wells for those living on polluted water.  Join me in praying for, donating, and spreading the word that we are all called to serve, however we can, from wherever we are, those who are in need.

http://www.rundarenrun.com

Worship by Living Water

When Jesus met with the lady at the well he offered her living water; endless water that refreshes and never leaves you thirsty.  It seems to me that if the bible is the living word, the bread of life, then worship is the wine, the blood of Christ, the awakening of the Holy Spirit that lives inside us when we accept Christ as our savior.  

I have been dwelling on the practice of worship and have achieved some clarity.  First, worship is between me and Jesus.  Worship needs to be authentic and sincere; in order to do that I need to block out all those around me and focus on Christ; expressing my love and appreciation for his gift of sacrifice that set me free.  

I often close my eyes and picture Jesus sitting under a tree in the garden.  I sing directly to him and no one else is around.  Each song speaks to my heart differently and I respond in kind.  Sometime I raise my hands because the song confirms in my heart that it is all about Jesus and I can’t help but acknowledge that it is not about me.  Songs with a strong beat tune into the beat of my heart and I can’t keep my hands still; the drummer in me creates a beat to match on the table, chair, or pew in front of me.  There are times when the day or week has been especially challenging and I find a wall and sit on the floor or a chair or couch and curl-up in the lap of Jesus like a child and just listen to the music and the words and I allow Jesus to soothe my soul.   There is one worship leader who plays a flute that opens up the Heavens.  I immediately picture myself as the branches of a weeping willow tree and I dance in the breeze created by Christ himself as the wind.  The freedom of this waltz pierces my heart and draws me into the arms of Christ.  There have also been times when I feel lost and the music acts like a rescue whistle and I listen intently trying to find my way back.  

Man does not live by bread alone.  May I encourage you to both read the word of God, the bread, but also to worship and take in the living water, the blood of Christ?  Accept the gift of salvation and rejoice and celebrate through worship.  Soak in the waters of his love, drink when you are weak and thirsty, cleanse yourself of the daily sins of life, and draw close to the only one who offers you living waters.