No Longer Aimless...

Today as I sat in the bleachers watching my daughter play basketball, I was just amazed at her tenacity and her drive to play hard and do her best. I beamed and cheered her on as she and her teammates scored, so proud of them all. My daughter tried out for the team with no prior experience playing, and she made the team. She is the smallest one on her team, and has had to work very hard to learn the game and to keep up. But after months of practice, I can truly see the results of her labor. If she stays the course and continues to play, I know that she will be a fantastic asset to the team as she gets better over time. There is more than one component that will determine her success though. Hard work is a key factor, and makes all the difference in the world, but a good teacher is vitally important. My daughter has a coach that puts God first and sets a wonderful example for the girls, not only in the game, but life in general. She teaches them not only how to play the game, but is one of the best role models for the girls that anyone could ever ask for.

After we got home from the game, I saw a video someone had posted online that showed a herd of elk crossing the highway. It was a massive herd, and they had to jump a fence before they could get across the road. The elk flowed like a river over the fence, jumping in turn as if they were all connected to one another. The line of elk stretched almost as far as the eye could see, all following the leader as they crossed. But one of the elk was unable to jump the fence, whether it didn’t have enough of a running start or was afraid or hesitant, it just couldn’t do it. All of the herd had crossed the road and were out of the camera’s line of sight, while the one lone elk ran up and down the fence trying to find a way out. It tried a few times to find a way over the fence, but got tangled up. Suddenly, it turned away from the fence and began to run. I wondered for a moment if it was giving up, but then it did an about face and headed back toward the fence and with a long running start. It was finally able to jump the fence and ran until it reached the rest of the herd.

Both the basketball game and the elk herd really struck home with me today on a spiritual level. As I watched the girls play this morning, working together as a unit to attempt to score, each doing their job and helping one another out, I was reminded of how we as Christians are all part of the body of Christ, different callings and different gifts, but all working together to lead the lost to Jesus. No one person is more important than another, but every member of the body of Christ is equally important. Just as the girls have a great coach for their team, Jesus is the head of the body Christ. If the girls didn’t listen to their coach and didn’t put into practice all that they had learned and worked so hard on, then they would just be running aimlessly up and down the court. In the same way, if we don’t listen to the voice of God, we will find ourselves wandering aimlessly through our lives with no definitive sense of purpose or direction, flailing in deep waters that we are unable to navigate. But if we will listen to Him and follow our leader, who was willing to lay down His life for us, then we will find the ultimate purpose for our lives as we pursue Him. Jesus was willing to give it all so that we would be able to live life to the very fullest in Him. He was willing to suffer for our redemption and deliverance, for our complete forgiveness and restoration, and so that we would be healed and never have to endure complete separation from Him in hell.

And I was reminded by the video of the elk herd how important it is that we endure. The elk must have felt completely helpless as it watched its entire herd getting farther and farther away, without knowing how it would be able to clear the fence. But, just when it could have given up, it began to run once again and finally got past the obstacle in its path. Many times in our own lives we become frustrated by the mountain in front of us, allowing doubt to consume us as we stare at the height and width of it, when the Lord is telling us that HE will take us up on the heights, that HE is able to move the mountain or move us over it! We simply cannot give up or give in, no matter how hopeless the situation may seem. We must run with everything that we have toward the prize, toward what the Lord has called us to do, toward HIM.

And of course, God had tied it all together for me with his Word as I read this morning in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27… “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” I love it when God speaks so clearly! I do not want to be as a man running aimlessly, but I will run full on, pressing forward toward the prize…in spite of what I see or feel, what I hear or think, I will press on in Him. I am running towards my Savior, running to Jesus.

Time of Renewing...

The quiet, cracked and gray road stretches out before me, its yellow and white lines merely mesmerizing blurs as I move ahead. The trees extend their long arms over me as I pass below, strewing leaves gently dipped in the gold, red and bronze hues of fall. Fields full of crops waiting to be harvested are all around me, as well as houses decorated with pumpkins, hay bales and Indian corn. For years, in fact for most of my life, driving this particular road has been a refuge for me. As a child, I spent countless hours riding down it, playing with dolls and daydreaming as I stared out at the stars. I would ride in the back of my dad’s old truck at the end of the day and admire the beautiful sunset painted across the sky. I’ve driven this road on the way to the very best times, such as Christmas with family, and Sunday afternoon catfish dinners with never-ending glasses of sweet tea. But I’ve also had to make mundane trips to pay bills and get groceries, and had to make the hard trek to say goodbye to a precious loved one for the last time. My mind goes many places as I drive this road. It’s a place of fond memories and of heartbreak. It’s a place for me to find peace, and more often than not, inspiration. I am nearly always motivated to write when I’ve been down that road, and it is a precious place to find some alone time with the Lord.

However, as I drove down the road a few days ago, instead of inspiration I began to rehash past mistakes I’ve made. And in that moment, the Lord reminded me how important it is for me to renew my mind. It is vital for ALL of us to renew our minds, not once a year, or every six months…but daily. I immediately got my thought process straight and began to set my heart on things above, on who the Lord has called me to be, as well as all the things He has done in my life and wants to do! What an inspiring and renewing moment it is when you realize that in spite of where you have been, the God who created the universe will restore you! I am so thankful that He has redeemed me. I am able to live an abundant life in Him because He has restored me. I cling to this word from Philippians 3:12-14:

                “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

We have to make a choice to leave the past in the past. We have to choose to move forward in Christ. We have to choose to renew our mind daily. WE HAVE TO CHOOSE. Each day we have so many choices to make. It is up to us whether we will choose to beat ourselves up over our mistakes, whether we will live discouraged because things may not always turn out the way we had planned, or whether we will accept the joy unspeakable and full of glory that only comes from trusting in and walking with our Savior. When we renew our mind He reminds us who we are in Him, and He reminds us of Jeremiah 29:11…”’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.’”

God has given all of us places of peace and inspiration, places where we find His truth and hear His voice. We must not let the enemy steal that from us by allowing him to have control of our mind. We have been redeemed, bought with such a precious price, and the cost was much too high for us to not renew our mind and allow Him to light up all of our dark places. The time of renewing is now. What will you choose?

Climbing Higher

I stood at the bottom, harness tightened, nerves taut, completely focused. With a slow, deep breath, I reached out and found two good solid holds with each hand and one for my foot, then carefully lifted myself off of the ground. I had never climbed a rock wall before and certainly did not plan to when I got up that morning. But here I was…a camp counselor for a group of precious girls that wanted to climb the rock wall, and after standing at the bottom for a few minutes watching the others climb, I was ready to go up.  It was not easy, and at the halfway point I almost quit, but amazingly, I didn’t. I pulled up past the split in the wall, got well positioned again, and kept climbing. As I looked up to the top and saw how close I was getting, it was as if I found new strength to keep pulling up higher. Then faster than I could have ever believed, I was there...I had reached the top! I was elated! The hardest part for me was getting down from the top of the wall. From the top, I had to rappel down while anchored to a person standing at the bottom. Looking down, it seemed like a really long way to drop, and I had such a gripping fear that the person at the bottom would let me go and I would fall (maybe not to my death, but to some serious pain!). In the end, I had to do what was required and rappel to the bottom. I was not dropped, although I screamed on the way down as if I were in complete and total free-fall; and not only did I survive, but God used the rock wall to teach me a few things.

First of all, when the time came for me to rappel, I had to completely put my trust in the person at the bottom that I was anchored to. I had to believe that they would not drop me. The Lord showed me that even when I’m unsure, even when my heart is filled with doubt or fear, He is holding me firm! He will never let me go. He holds me safely in His arms and I know that I am securely anchored in Him. I know that He won’t let me fall. And even in times when we are not firmly anchored in Him, and we do fall, He is swift to pick us up.

In those moments when I’m worshiping at His feet and distractions start to slip in, I hear Him saying to me, “Keep climbing…” He wants us to push past the circumstances we may be faced with and to push past what we are concerned about in order to worship Him with our whole heart. We don’t have to be anxious for anything, we don’t have to worry; we just prayerfully entrust everything to the Lord and know that He is big enough to take care of every minute detail.

There are times when my past mistakes and sins seem to stand before me, screaming out mocking and cruel words such as, “failure…hypocrite…unloved…lost cause…not good enough…sinner.” In those times, I remember the struggle of climbing the wall, and I hear my Father, who loves me beyond measure, softly saying, “Keep climbing…come up higher,” and I find the strength to press on.

And when the things I face in life feel unbearable and it seems like I will drown in discouragement, he says again, “I have made you an overcomer through the blood of my Son…now come up higher; it’s time to rise above…”

I’m so thankful that I was able to experience the rock wall. No matter what happens or what I may face, no matter how many times I have messed up in the past or have fallen and He has had to pick me up again, I am determined to keep climbing. I am resolved to press in and go higher in Him. My heart and my eyes are focused on my Savior, the One who gave His life for me, and I will not look down and allow my heart to be filled with fear, nor will I stop moving forward because of what is behind me. I will not give up or give in, but day by day, and moment by moment, I will climb higher.

Learning to Lean

Day in and day out, it seems that every hour is filled up with things to do. This week at work I was so excited about a three day weekend, and then on Friday I realized that my entire three days are packed full! I began to feel exhausted before the weekend had even begun! Do you ever feel this way? Do you ever feel overwhelmed with obligations and “to do” lists and hectic schedules? I hear people talk about this all the time…so much to do and never enough time…not enough hours in the day…where did the time go?

Life is going to be FULL of things to do, but I don’t believe that God made us to be busy to the point that we are overwhelmed, stressed, and completely frazzled! We have to find balance in the midst of everything that we have going on, and that balance can only be found by learning to lean on the Lord. It’s a balance that can’t be found just from going to church on Sunday morning. It can only be found through time spent at the feet of Jesus, time in His presence, time spent talking to Him and listening to Him. We need to spend time with the Lord daily, and He will help us to stay focused and on track. He will help us to choose the most important things, as well as to trim the excesses. He will give us the strength to do what needs to be done, and time in His presence will also give us the peace that we need in order to find rest.

Jesus instructed us in this; he said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)  That means that we don’t have to feel overwhelmed by the weight of all we have to do and all that we have to deal with. Jesus told us specifically to come to Him and He would give us rest. In Psalm 55:22 we are told to cast our cares on the Lord and He will sustain us, and again in 1 Peter 5:7 – “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”

You see when we lean on Him for our strength, He gives us all the strength – all the grace – we need in order to sustain us. When we’re worn down from our crazy schedules, then it’s time to slow down and step into His presence, time to lean into Him and listen to Him and receive His love, His joy and His peace. Just as the earth orbits the sun and receives its light and its warmth, so our lives must revolve around Him so that He can breathe His life into us, and so that we can receive the fullness of His light and warmth. When our heart is focused on Him and He is our first priority, then we will find that everything else will begin to fall into place. We’ll find order in the chaos and peace in the midst of any storm we face. We’ll find that instead of feeling anxious, tired and overwhelmed, we will have fullness of joy in the Presence of the King of Kings, and it will flow out of us in all that we do.

Today, choose to take time with Him. Take some time for just you and the Lord, maybe with your morning coffee and His word, or maybe on a walk as the sun sets. Choose not to just include Christ in your day, but to put Him first in it. Learn to lean on Him and give Him your whole heart, your entire life – all of your worries and cares, hopes and dreams – and watch how He will work in your life.

Where's the Love?

In this world full of social media where it seems that so many of us have more interaction with a computer screen than with actual living, breathing human beings, we can find ourselves becoming detached and no longer relating to real people. A computer cannot love us back. The twelve people that have “liked” your status may not be people you even talk to face to face. We have become extremely consumed with watching the funniest videos on someone’s thread, or finding the most sarcastic sayings to laugh about with our friends, and commenting on a person’s status that “I’m praying for you,” while never actually doing so because we are so “busy.” Facebook says we have 950 friends and twitter says we have 100 followers, but at the end of the day, how many real and true friends do we actually have? How many people can we say that we have shown the love of Christ to each and every day? How many opportunities to share His love do we pass up in the name of convenience and trying to keep up with our schedules?

Just speaking for myself, I must admit that I have missed MANY opportunities.

When asked what the greatest commandment in the Law was, Jesus said, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22: 36-40 NIV)

We say that we love God, and then in the same breath we announce our lack of love for people. We’re so busy talking about people and judging people’s actions or what we think their motives might be, that we don’t stop to think about what that person is going through or what their life might be like. Perhaps if we took just a moment before we make assumptions about another person to consider our own imperfections, then it might make a difference in how we view them. Maybe if we would stop to remember that Jesus Christ paid the same price for our sin as He did for theirs, and that His love for them is no different than His love for us, then it might make a difference in how we love them.

We all have faced trials and we all have gone through storms in our lives. We all have messed up, and some still face the consequences of those mistakes. We have all fallen at some point in some way, and have had to have help getting back up…help from other people…help from our Savior. If God loves me in spite of all of my shortcomings and all of my failures, who am I to withhold love from other people? Who am I to say that I don’t have time to be there for them when they need me? Who am I to assume that I know their circumstance well enough to say anything about it? The words of the old hymn ring so true, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me….I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see…”

It was God’s grace that saved me, a sinner – not good enough to deserve any of His favor, and yet He saved me. He looked beyond the marred lump of clay that I was, and He saw me as something beautiful that could be molded and shaped into something that would bring Him glory. He saw me, not as I was, but as I would be. What would happen if we looked deeper to see the potential people have and loved them like Jesus? What would happen if we laid down our weapons of gossip and suspicion, of lies and hate, of judgment and cruelty, of cynicism and envy; and if instead we wrapped our arms around a hurting person? I’ll tell you what would happen…the world would be changed, lives would be transformed, and God would be glorified.

It’s time that we love each other like Jesus.

Caution: You Are Now Leaving the Comfort Zone

Forget easy. Forget comfortable. It's time to step out into the unknown.


We all have gifts and dreams, grand plans for our future and for our life, and brilliant ideas for our career and ministry. Some of us have things that we are naturally gifted to do, things that perhaps we have not had to work for, but just seemed innately a part of us from birth. And then some of us have had to practice much…pouring out our blood, sweat and tears in order to finally be fluent in our gifts. Whichever the case may be, it can become very comfortable to just rest in that job or that area of ministry, simply because we “know” it. Maybe it’s something that never makes us nervous or causes us anxiety, or something that we don’t have to stress over or give much thought to, something that perhaps we know (and probably have been told) that we do well. However, God never called us to be “comfortable.” He has called us to depend completely on Him.

In Luke 12:11-12, Jesus tells His disciples, “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” You see, it didn’t matter whether or not the disciples were great orators, or whether they had ever made a speech in their life, because the Holy Spirit would equip them at the appointed time with exactly what they needed. They had to depend solely on Him, and not on themselves.

Often we have settled so well into the cushy recliner of whatever gift or calling we may be operating in, and we have our feet propped up so high and our chair laid back so far that we cease to fully seek Him or depend on Him for direction in that area. That is a dangerous place to be. When we let go of His hand and just set off on cruise control, leaving Him behind and heading away from His wisdom and authority, we are likely to find ourselves falling flat on our face. What a humbling learning experience that is (speaking strictly from experience).

When we are doing what the Lord has called us to do, it is vitally important that we seek His face and listen to His voice for each and every step that we take. We need to lean into Him so that we can feel His heartbeat, and not go off following the beat of a very different drummer – the flesh.

Something very important to remember about that cushy recliner of gifting that we are so used to, is that it is usually not the ONLY gift He has placed in us. You may believe that you are best used and well fitted for a certain area of ministry or a career that you have operated in for years, and suddenly you feel that tugging on your heart towards a different area that you possibly never thought of, and that certainly is not comfortable.

Over the last eight years of my life, God has taken me in directions I never expected and allowed me to learn and experience things I never thought possible. He taught me not to be satisfied with the “now,” but to stretch out and move forward. And just in the past year and a half, he has stretched me beyond what I ever dreamed! I didn’t feel like I was good enough to do the things that He was leading me to do, but HE worked through me. HE is always faithful to do the work when we allow Him to use us in the way that He wants to.

Remember that the bible says God will equip us for what He has called us to. You may not feel that you are good enough, and you may feel that so many others would be a better choice than you, but God chose YOU. Depend on that. Trust in that. Trust in Him! He will never leave us, nor forsake us, and He that has begun a good work in us will be faithful to see it through. Feeling uncomfortable and inadequate is actually a very blessed place to be because it forces us to trust completely in Him. It’s time to stop running to other people for their opinions on what we need to do, when we need to be running to our Creator, our Savior, and our Lord. He is the only one who knows exactly what He has placed in each of us, and He is the only one that can see it through to fruition. So let’s push our footrest down, raise our chair upright and stand up straight and tall, as we begin to walk out God’s will for our lives. God didn’t call us to be comfortable. He called us to be available…all to His glory!

Learning Not To Fear

     I don't know about you, but lately, I have been glued to the news. So many bad things are happening in our world, seemingly all at once, and it is very easy to become afraid, unsure, even distraught. Tonight, in fact, I read part of an article about children all over our country who have become extremely sick, and it has gotten so bad that the CDC is concerned about what's going on. I had to stop reading right there because if I'm not careful I will find myself allowing fear to creep in...ugly, terrorizing fear.




     The reason I was able to stop reading that article and just turn away was because the Lord reminded me in that moment that I belong to Him, that my husband and children belong to Him, and that He isn't afraid of the virus going around. None of it has caught Him by surprise. None of the things in the news headlines that tie us up in knots have Him shaking on the throne. He is God, He is faithful, He is unchanging and unshakable.


     I was reminded in that moment that "...I know the One in whom I trust, and I am sure that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until the day of His return." (2 Tim. 1:12 NLT). I have entrusted my life to Him, my family, my everything to Him, and no matter what is happening all around us in this world, I know that He will hold us tightly in the palm of His hand.
 

     Today, we all have a choice. We can choose fear, doubt, worry, despair. Or, we can choose to trust. We can choose to have confidence and faith in our Savior and Redeemer, who loves us with an unending and never failing love. We can choose to lean on and look to the one who carries us through the darkest night and the fiercest of storms. We can choose to believe. As for me, I know in whom I trust...I know the One I believe.