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Showing posts from October, 2007

Glory

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 I have a picture of the fallen angel in all of his beauty, clothed in a sharp Armani suit sitting at an enormous antique oak desk with his perfectly manicured fingers laced behind his head of gorgeous hair letting out a self satisfied, yet somewhat bored sigh. Man has certainly taken most of his work from him. We pay for pain, we flock to fear, and we delve indignantly into debauchery. Any sin that you want to commit is readily available. And, hey, if you don’t want to go to all the trouble of cheating, stealing, or committing murder yourself you can easily sit on your behind in a nice comfortable chair and watch someone else do it. It is difficult in our culture to sometimes decipher the good from the bad. If it’s something

Enjoy Waiting

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14 Have I mentioned before how I hate waiting? I like to have things right now. Because I am strong and courageous, I’m a woman after all, I’m a real go-getter, a mover and a shaker, and when I get an idea I go for it. I deliberately have to slow myself down. I tend to over multi-task and at times when I could be just enjoying the one thing I’m doing, I feel I have to pack one more thing in there. So we’ve learned now that I’m full of pride AND impatient… But the Lord is never late. It might be the 11th hour, and you may be so over wrought, worn out and out of tears, but there He’ll be. He will never let you wait longer than is good for you, and the wait is worth the outcome every time. What are you waiting for? A situation to be over, a person to turn to the Lord, your tax return, a raise, your kids to be grown, your husband to change the laundry? Okay I know I’m be

Let Me Show You Something

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 How do you demonstrate love? I heard a discussion on KLCV the other day with author Gary Chapman who has written several books on the Five Love Languages . Here’s the five ways he has described in his book (click the link for more detail on each of these): Words of Affirmation , Quality Time , Receiving Gifts , Acts of Service , Physical Touch It’s easy to see right away that men and women can easily miss each other if they speak a different language. If you are busy preparing dinner for your husband to show him that you love him (act of service) and he wants to grab you and kiss you to show you that he loves you (physical touch) it might cause you to be interrupted and irritated and him to feel rejected. Great concept, think I’ll scour Amazon and get a copy of this b

Pride and Joy

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Ecclesiastes 7:8 I hate waiting. I have attained a much higher level of patience through motherhood, but for the most part I want what I want and I want it right now. If you are unable to comply with that, I provide a service free of charge in which I tell you what to do and how to do it and at what rate I would be expecting it done. Now that also goes double (maybe triple) for myself. Last Thursday I had a system failure of sorts. My husband came home from work and after directing him to his dinner and pointing out which children were where I kissed him and went to bed. That has been a week ago tomorrow. I think that is long enough to have recovered from this unfortunate and irritating set back. I have missed one day of work and things have slipped enough, darn it. I think that I should feel all better tomorrow and be able to go back to the

Pride and Wisdom

Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. Proverbs 13:10 I once thought that pride was a tremendous motivator. If you “take pride” in your work, you are motivated to do a good job. I tell my son that all the time about his room cleaning, grooming, etc. If you “take pride” in your house, you will work hard to keep it clean and a nice, healthy place for your family and guests. Same goes for your appearance, your work, vehicle, children, husband, on and on ad nausea. A couple of years ago my sister in law told me about the FlyLady. This is a sort of housekeeping system that uses “babysteps” to form habits and create routines so that your “house practically cleans itself”. I never looked it up because, after all, I know how to clean my own house, thankyouverymuch. Well…here we are a few years later and ya know, I guess I don’t know it all. I looked it up on www.flyl

Pride in the Name of Love

To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. Proverbs 8:13 Pride - a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc. www.dictionary.com My previous mode of thought has been that perfectionism isn’t a bad thing. So I like to have things done right, what’s the matter with that? For example: I have recipes that I have printed off of the internet and torn out of magazines. I have a perfectly good three ring cook book with sheet protectors, but I won’t put them in there because I don’t have time to transcribe each one on a matching recipe card. Heaven forbid my recipe book would be a hodge-podge…the horror of that word alone makes me shudder. I have to figure out why, periodically, I seriously burn myself out. It’s perfectl

You Are Beautiful!

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 That person at the bus stop that hasn’t showered in years, that politician on TV that is so crooked we can see it in their smile, cops, teachers, your boss. That woman that cut you off in traffic, the kid that made fun of your son, janitors, cashiers, your landlord. Your sister you don’t talk to much anymore, your brother with whom you don’t see eye to eye, your Mom, my Dad. Every person on this earth has been created in God’s image. So when you are staring at the face of your enemy, remember that they were created in the image of our God. Now go take a good look in the mirror and find something nice to say about what God has made. Go on… I’ll start…Dear Lord, thank you for making me healthy. I praise you that my legs are strong and my heart beats regularly. Thank you for giving me a body that stores energy oh so e

No Way, Noah!

Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Genesis 6:22 He built and ark that was large enough to house two of every kind of animal, all their food and his family. He loaded ‘em up and sailed on the waters from the floodgates of Heaven. Now that’s faith! And the Bible says that he did everything just as God commanded him! Can you imagine the stress that guy was under? The Bible says that the world was “corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence” at that time (sound familiar?) so I’ll bet Noah didn’t make a whole lot of friends doing what God told him to do (bet that sounds familiar, too). But that was Noah. He certainly has to possess many more redeeming qualities than I. I mean, it had to be easier for him to obey the Lord that it is for me, for sure! The Bible says that upon being deeply troubled and deciding to wipe out humanity, Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord! Surely he must be as perfect of a human specimen as

Plans to Prosper You

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13 Bad things happen. Women loose their husbands, get cancer, have abusive relationships, miscarriages, get fired and get stuck in the bottom of a bottle. I used to tend toward the “that’s their lot in life” or the “bad things happen to good people, too” theories. You can drum up a hundred clichés that will suffice for most. But what if you believe in God and look to Him for answers and not Oprah? There’s no way that I can look at that verse of Jeremiah and say “oh, so that’s why (insert tragedy here) …God has a plan for me”. I cannot know the mind of God, and while I may not know what the plan is…at least I know there is a plan. Some of you are nodding your heads, you’ve come out

Do You Know?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 Witnessing is hard. I don’t know why – probably because the world really doesn’t want to hear that we can’t fix ourselves. We don’t want to hear that we need to get down on our knees and humble ourselves. We are all pretty self sufficient and all grown up around here. That seems to be why I don’t share Jesus with people more as well. I’m so busy trying to formulate what I should say in every feasible situation, that I don’t say anything! There are all sorts of books out there, aka The Lost, The Case for Christ, The Way of the Master and others that can help you to know what to say when trying to share the Gospel. There are little visual aids, cheat sheets and index cards. We have slogans, initials, and abbreviations. Many, many people a lot smarter than me have gone to a lot of trouble to make it “easy” on us. Recently I heard the bes

Flowers for the Bully

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Matthew 5:46-47 ***This page really is the right link to this verse and the Beatitudes…really.*** Jesus is talking about the old “love your enemy” thing here. I picked this particular excerpt from that chapter of Matthew because it really drives home the difference between how most people love and the way that God wants us to love. For the most part, people will tolerate someone who is hard to deal with. Maybe they avoid them at break time, or watch the caller ID and just let the voice mail catch the call. Some are more irritating and require something more, like the old “we’ll see when we can get together” or “I’ll call you”. That’s what sets us apart. The fact that when someone gossips about us we pray peace for them instead of reciprocating. When th

The Meat of the Matter

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8 ***Click here to read all of the Beatitudes!*** Purity! Purity? Purity. Sounds like this purity thing gets us the blessings! I want to see God, sure – put purity? Seems like a tall order. Where do I start? For me I start with what I allow to enter into my eyes and ears. In short, media sources. I’m not saying that I sit around in a dark room and listen to hymns and read only the Bible (sounds kinda nice though – would the kids have to be there?), but I am saying that we have to be very careful of what watch and read these days. I try to apply the same standards to what I am “allowed” to watch and read as what I allow for my children. Granted, I am more mature and more able to handle complex themes such as death, family issues, etc. But for the most part, I don’t need to be watching CSI, Desperate Houswives or The Young and the Restless either. I used to be really in