Thursday, August 28, 2014

Don't Shut Down

"Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises."

Whatever you do, don't shut down.

Is life going well for you? Let your mouth and heart send love notes of thanks and praise to God. Do not have an affair with good times and cheat on the Lover of your soul. Any good going on comes from Him. Allow the gift to champion more love for the Giver, not compete with Him.

Are you in a season of suffering? He can handle your anger, absorb as many tears as you need to cry, and understand your questions about why He didn't fulfill what you believe He promised.

Bring it all to Him.

 Your flesh will want to turn your back and give Him the silent treatment. He will be there when you are ready to come back, but you cheat yourself when you pull away. Suffering is hard enough. Why add loneliness to it?

 Invite Him to the party and the funeral.

No matter what, don't shut down.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Driving Yourself Crazy

"for each one should carry their own load." Galatians 6:5

Can you imagine driving  the expressway with one hand on your steering wheel and the other on the wheel of the car in the next lane? I know it's physically impossible unless your neighbor is driving one of those foreign cars with the wheel on the wrong side.

 Stay with me, please.

If you were to accomplish this feat, how well would you be driving your own car? Swerving and bumping? Barely arriving at your destination in one piece? Sounds dangerous and exhausting!

 Cars were not designed for that, and neither was your life.

 In your desire to be caring toward others, you started out lending a helping hand, but now you've become an unpaid workhorse. You're pacing the floor worrying about someone who is not as concerned about their problems as you are. You're driving their car when they should be doing it themselves, and you're driving yourself crazy. It's too much!

God has a wonderful to-do list for your life. Have you cut from the list of another and pasted it to yours?

   Only the Holy Spirit can help you discern the fine line between Christian caring and codependency. Ask Him to highlight the line so you know if you've crossed it.



Talk About It:
  How have you been able to draw the line? How do you think God helps us handle the guilt that can accompany setting boundaries?

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Surrender


"...yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42)

 In all our excitement and joy about the manifold promises our gracious God makes us in His Word, sometimes we overstep.

We can allow our joy to spill over into places God has issued no invitation.

We may assume our dreams are God's dreams for us when they may not be.

King David dreamed of building a house for The Lord ( 2 Samuel 7). Nothing wrong with that, right? He was a man after God's own heart--what a beautiful gift to dream up!  But David's wonderful, God-honoring desire was not God's desire. That dream had someone else's name on it.

Ouch!

  What if what you are dreaming of is not the Father's plan? What should your attitude be in the face of this brand of disappointment?

  Surrender.

There is freedom in surrender. It rolls the responsibility for outcomes onto Bigger Shoulders.

Surrender remembers there is a bigger program at work than just the part of the map her shadow falls on.

When a dream makes a brilliant and persuasive proposal, Surrender casts a child-like glance toward the Father for His nod of approval or His thumbs-down.

A dream is a beautiful thing, but it's an ugly step-sister when compared to the splendor of surrender to the will of  our First Love.

Talk About It: Do you find it frightening to surrender your dreams to God?
 

Thursday, August 7, 2014

This Just In

Ephesians 5:16 (AMP) - Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil.

Hello Friends,

It is Election Day today (Thursday) and I am unable to do an official blog post. I would like to give you something to meditate on, though.

If you knew you were going to die seven days from now, how would you live differently? Who would come to mind that you'd wish you had done more for, thanked, forgiven, or spent more time with.

Why wait til you get bad news before you begin making your regret-list shorter?

Start today redeeming the time you have left.