Category: Listening

Do you have enough? Enough food? Enough clothing? Enough money?

You may say, “Enough money? Can you ever have enough? Especially in our current economic situation where gas prices are skyrocketing and the state of (Illinois in our case) is taking more and more in taxes? And the Federal government, too? And food keeps costing more and more? And my kids clothing and education and extras are breaking me?” And I would agree that all those circumstances strip away at what we have (or feel like we don’t have, as the case may be.)

But I have enough. I don’t have extra. Some months we are down to the bottom of the barrel. But we have enough. And this is why.

God is faithful to provide for us, because we are faithful to give to Him.

I learned this concept as a child. When I would get one dollar, I would put ten cents in a jar that we would take to church and put in the offering, and 10 cents in a jar that would go into a savings account. The other eighty cents were mine to do with as I pleased. I didn’t question it, I did it because mom and dad told me that is what I was supposed to do. And I did that faithfully for years.

Until I started managing my own money after I left home. Then I got more and more sporadic about it. I mean, it was my money after all.

But, as with most things that you learn when you are young, you eventually come back to them and re-evaluate them as an adult and we decided that we had to take this tithing thing seriously. After all, God says this in Malachi 3:10:

¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

So, we tested Him. And I can’t begin to tell you how many times I would type the  tithe check into Quicken right after the deposit for that week and I KNEW there wouldn’t be enough to pay all the bills by the time I got to the end of the stack (I have an MBA, I am good with numbers, I know how they are supposed to add up and subtract away). But when I would get there, there would always be enough. And other times, even though I had seen that happen multiple times, I would freak out and “hold” the tithe check back to make sure there was enough, but there wouldn’t be.

I am stubborn. And sometimes it takes me awhile to get stuff. Including this. But we got it.

We have to trust that God will provide AND obey what he has asked of us. And when we do that, we always have enough. And many times we have more than enough. It may not look exactly like we want it to, but we are blessed. We have a home to live in that we are able to make the payments on. We have food to eat, even if it isn’t extravagant. We have clothes to wear. And we know that we are living out the knowledge that all we have is God’s, and we are living in obedience that we give to Him what He asks of us, in every way He asks, particularly through our finances. Even when money is tight. Even when it is hard to see how there will be enough.

And there always is…enough.

Today I am thinking about this verse:

⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good;  Psalm 34:8a

You see, you can’t know something is good if you haven’t tried it. You don’t crave food you’ve never eaten before. We  have to test and try things out to know if it is good and once we have tried it and know that it is good,  then we will try it again.

Think about spring. Today (and the last few days) we here in south central Illinois are getting a pretty good taste of it. We haven’t had it in quite a while and we are hungry for it. As I type this I am sitting on my porch swing basking in the sound of my wind chimes and the voices of my children. Ahh. That’s good stuff. And this little taste isn’t going to be enough. I will want more.  But soon, the wind chimes and their voices won’t be enough. I’ll want to see new grass, and plants breaking through the ground. And then I’ll want to see the trees budding and the flowers blooming.

That’s how it should be with Jesus. Once we have “tasted” His presence we should want more of it. We should want to see how much more He has for us. How much bigger He is than we can even imagine. Once we know that He is good we should run to Him for everything we need. Yet so many times we don’t. Sometimes I wonder if we think what the world offers  tastes better, but what we  don’t get right up front is the bitter aftertaste it leaves. Or we don’t realize that what we pursue in the world won’t satisfy us the same way that the Lord can and will.

As I am praying today, I continue to ask the Lord to increase my hunger for Him, and to give me more and more tasty morsels of who He is, so that I desire not only Him but increasing amounts of His presence and glory manifested in my life. I want to always be wanting more.

How about you?

What does it feel like when God calls you or tells you or shows you what He has for you down the road a bit? When He puts a desire in your heart to walk a certain path? Are you ready to see it come to pass now? Do you get excited and jump right in with two feet, doing whatever it takes to make it happen?

What does it feel like when it seems like no matter what you do, no progress is being made to get to that place God has shown you?

It is difficult. It is disappointing. When you are ready (or think you are) for more of what God has, but other things (people, circumstances, or fill in your own blank here _________) get in the way, it sometimes feels like doors are closing, or trees are falling down and covering the path, or even you have come to a crossroad and have no idea which way to go.

It feels like more should be happening. You don’t know whether to push ahead on your own power or to sit back (disappointed and frustrated) and wait to see what happens next.

I remember about five years ago, after God made his calling on my life clear to me and I was struggling with the idea (Really, Lord? Me? In ministry? But I am so flawed!), He spoke very clearly to me through Elizabeth’s words to Mary in Luke 1:45:

“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” (Italics mine.)

You see, Mary didn’t have to do anything except believe God’s words to her – He sent His Spirit, He formed the child in her womb, He took care of her by sending His angel to Joseph, He led them to Bethlehem – the list could go on and on.

Blessed is she (he) who believes – not who goes out and tries to make it happen before God has deemed it time. Blessed is she (he) who believes – not she who doubts because it doesn’t seem to be happening the way she thought it would. Blessed is she who believes.

You see, what seems like the way we think God should work isn’t how He does it. Isaiah 55:8 says, “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.” He can see the whole picture when we see only a drop of paint on a canvas. He can see beyond time when all we can see is this moment.

I have learned much about waiting over the last five years – waiting to see what God has in store for me down the road, and waiting to see what His next step for me will be along this path to pastoral ministry. It is not always easy – I am a planner and a doer and sometimes I start to get disappointed when I don’t see things moving and happening on my schedule – but I have learned (and am learning daily) that my job in all of this is to believe that what my God has called me to, He will bring to pass in His timing and in His way. I believe that He shows me each step to take. and I believe what He will do is far greater than what you and I can do on our own.

I have been thinking more on the idea of Confession that I blogged about last week. I wrote that after a day and evening of lots of thoughts flying around in my head and spending some time in a sort of pity party for myself. I had stuff on my mind and I wanted someone (namely my husband) to notice and ask, but he needed to go to bed and sleep for two hours before going to work so he didn’t notice, and I am both stubborn enough not to say anything and compassionate enough to know he needed sleep and I let it go. Kind of. Ok, so I guess I let him go to sleep, but I didn’t let it go. I instead sat down with my computer and just typed out all my frustration and the thoughts in my head until I was empty. Which brought me to the point of prayer and calm, but not peace.

A couple of days later (while still walking around and feeling weighted down) I had lunch with a friend and had a chance to talk some of those things out with a person instead of type them out on my computer. And then later that night I talked through some of those same things with my husband and received his care and comfort. Only then did I find peace. Only then did my heart and shoulders feel lighter as I truly confessed to some of the things that had been going on in my mind.

I found it amazing (although, I shouldn’t because God does these amazing things all the time) that a blog post and line of thinking that He so clearly gave me that Sunday night, He would actually walk me through the process of living out over the next week. But that’s just the kind of God He is. He can’t just tell us sometimes (much of the time), He also has to show us. No matter how strong our faith is, sometimes we have to see Him in action to strengthen our faith a little more.

I’d love to hear how God has shown you things or how confession has made a difference in your life – leave me a comment below.

For some reason tonight I am thinking about confession and the part that it plays (or doesn’t play) in our lives. (It is probably because we have been talking about small groups at church and some of our small group’s discussion this evening centered around intimacy and accountability in a small group.)

If the old Scottish proverb, “Confession is good for the soul” is true, does it stand to reason that lack of confession is harmful to the soul?

I know in evangelical Christian circles, the idea of confession kind of gets overlooked or lost. We say that we need to confess our sins to God and ask for His forgiveness, but we don’t emphasize the importance of confessing to one another. James 5:16 says: Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

You see, by just confessing our sins to God, we can continue to hide behind whatever facade we have built up. We can hide our deepest, darkest secrets within ourselves. But when we confess our sins to one another, and we add in prayer for one another, then this scripture tells us that we can be healed. We are forgiven when we confess to God, no doubt, but healing comes as we confess to and pray for one another.

And yet we don’t confess to one another. It is too hard. It makes us too vulnerable. It makes us appear less than perfect. We are afraid of judgment. We are afraid we’ll confess to the wrong person and soon the world (or our tiny corner of it) will know of our imperfection.

But without it, healing won’t come. Not because we  aren’t saying it out loud. Not because we aren’t putting voice to it. But because as long as we are holding it in, it is ours and ours alone. Only we know and we don’t easily forgive ourselves. And unless He chooses to, we typically won’t hear the words, “You are forgiven” come from God’s mouth.

But when we confess to one another and take it to the Lord in prayer, we give it up. We no longer hold on to it. The very act of speaking out our confession and praying about it frees us in a way that cannot be explained. It frees us from the sin and it frees us from the pride that made us keep our sin secret in the first place.

What do you think? Is confession to one another part of your experience? Has it brought you freedom?

Anne Jackson’s book, Permission to Speak Freely and her website, http://www.permissiontospeakfreely.com/ talks about the idea of confession in the context of the church. It is a good read, an eye-opening look at how we need to confess, and with confession comes healing.

One thing I don’t do well is nothing. I am not good at just sitting and not doing anything. I can sit and read, sit and knit, sit and do a Sudoku puzzle or two, even occasionally sit and watch TV, but the whole time I am sitting, I am thinking about all the things that I need to be doing – dishes, laundry, bills, cleaning, working, etc. I like to be busy. I like to have “stuff” to do. But for the 4th day in a row, I am once again just sitting on my couch because of some neck and shoulder pain that is keeping me from work. I can’t read for long because it hurts to hold the book and the meds I am on make it hard to concentrate (which means knitting is out, too). And let’s be honest – there’s NOTHING decent to watch on TV during the day (or most evenings for that matter), so I am just sitting. A lot. And it is making  me realize that sometimes I need to just sit. God is using this to teach me what it means to rest, which is something I am not usually very good at. I tend to go and go and go until  I crash, and even then I make myself get back up and go some more.

So rest is what I am learning this week. Rest for my body. Rest for my mind. Rest for my soul. I’ve  spent some time in prayer, which is good, but mostly just quiet rest. Sitting. Listening. Resting.

This post is a talk that I gave back in 2002 to our MOPS group. I am posting it today because it shares one of the bigger lessons learned in my life while waiting and wanting a baby. My daughter, Anne, is that baby that the Lord did give us and she turns 10 years old today. I rejoice both in the fact that she is a part of our lives, but also in the fact that in the midst of life, the Lord is gracious, loving, and always teaching us what it means to depend on Him.

When you look back at you childhood, do you remember wanting something so badly that you had to have it “now”? How about your children, when they want something they want it immediately, don’t they. Even as an adult there are times that we are very impatient and we do our best to make something happen when we want it to. And when we do that, sometimes we mess things up or get angry and it doesn’t work out our way anyway. [Here] I am going to share some of my experiences in learning to wait, learning to trust, learning to be content and most of all learning what faith is.

I guess I should give you some background info on me. I am the oldest of 3 girls and for the majority of my life was raised in a Christian home. My parents took us to church and taught us about Jesus. At age 4, I asked Jesus into my heart. When you are 4, you don’t question, you just know that Jesus will live in your heart and that’s that. And that’s pretty much how I lived my life, read my Bible, did the things I should and trusted that God would take care of me, or basically, give me whatever I asked for, within reason.

The first time I actually remember thinking that maybe he didn’t always do that was after a friend had me listen to a song by Garth Brooks called “Unanswered Prayers.” The chorus to that song says, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers. Remember when you’re talking to the man upstairs, that just because he may not answer, doesn’t mean he don’t care. Some of God’s greatest gifts, are unanswered prayers.” It was a wow moment for me to think in those terms, but with no life application, that’s about the extent of it. I was in high school, how deep could I be? And for the most part I still had that child-like faith in God. I had no reason not to trust Him.

I have been reading a book entitled, “Calm My Anxious Heart” by Linda Dillow. There is a story in it about two monks. It kind of puts the issue of trust in God into perspective.

“I need oil,” said an ancient monk, so he planted an olive sapling. “Lord,” he prayed, “it needs rain that its tender roots may drink and swell. Send gentle showers.” And the Lord sent gentle showers. “Lord,” prayed the monk, “my tree needs sun. Send sun, I pray thee.” And the sun shone, gilding the dripping clouds. “Now frost, my Lord, to brace its tissues,” cried the monk. And behold, the little tree stood sparkling with frost, but at evening it died. Then the monk sought the cell of a brother monk, and told his strange experience. “I, too, planted a little tree,” he said, “and see! It thrives well. But I entrust my tree to its God. He who made it knows better what it needs than a man like me. I laid no condition. I fixed not ways or means. ‘Lord, send what it needs,’ I prayed, ‘storm or sunshine, wind, rain, or frost. Thou hast made it and Thou dost know.’”

Faith is accepting the fact that God knows better than I do what is ultimately good for me.

My freshman year of college, we had a “floor verse.” That verse was 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. This verse stayed with me all through college. Even when I was living MY life and doing MY things.

Faith is reliance on the certainty that God has a pattern for my life when everything seems meaningless.

After college, my husband and I were married and lo and behold, about a year later we decided, well, planner that I am, I decided with Mike’s agreement that we should start trying to start a family. That was the end of August and in my mind I assumed I would be pregnant by December or January. Well, my time frame came and went and still no baby. I kept praying and begging God for a baby and after a year, decided that it was time to put it in the doctor’s hands since God wasn’t giving me what I wanted. After 1 doctor visit and one blood test, they decided that my body needed a kick start and they put me on a fairly regularly used fertility drug. They told me in 2-3 months I should be pregnant. All this time I am still praying for a baby. And every month I am dropping into a deep depression when it doesn’t happen. That would sometimes even mean screaming at God and asking, “Why me? What am I supposed to be learning from this? I don’t understand.” And then doing it all over again the next month. It got to the point that I was so angry with God for not giving me the only thing I had ever wanted, when I wanted it, that I couldn’t even go to church.

In another story from “Calm My Anxious Heart,” the author tells a story about her own life. She says,

I had become a Christian as a college student and was excited about rearing my children in a Christian home. I had the mistaken perspective that if I pumped all the “right” things (God, His Word) into my children, they would automatically love and obey God. When it looked like my plan wasn’t working, my heart was anxious and I became depressed. When I told a friend about my fears, she observed, “Linda, you like control, and there are too many ‘uncontrollables’ in your life.” At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant. After all, I trusted God. I was a missionary—I was paid to trust God. What did she mean, “You like control”? Looking back, I realize I did desire to trust God, but sometimes He was very slow. When he was moving at what I thought was a snail’s pace, I unconsciously decided He needed my help. I know that sounds blasphemous. God doesn’t need our help. Yet when I stepped into massage (the truer word is manipulate, but massage sounds better!) the circumstances or to organize the people, my actions were saying, “God, You’re not doing what I think needs to be done, so I’ll help You out.” It’s our “helping God out” that leads to an anxious heart. When we take over and try to control what happens, we take our focus off the One who is in control and put our eyes on our circumstances.”

Faith is recognizing that God is the Lord of time when my idea of timing doesn’t agree with His.

After 5 months on the medication, the doctor started doing some other, fairly costly, tests, and couldn’t find any reason that I wasn’t getting pregnant. He was even ready to suggest in vitro. And if the stresses from that weren’t enough, money was becoming an issue. I had been working on my MBA and paying for that, and even though we had insurance through Mike’s work, it was on an individual plan and they aren’t required to pay for infertility treatments. That only added to my depression and worry.

Faith is confidence in God when money is rolling out, not rolling in.

The next month I was late – and so hopeful – but my hopes were again shattered.

Faith is thanking God when I am left with shattered plans that He has better plans.

It took me about a week to recover and then something strange happened. I was laying in bed one night after my monthly bout with God and I realized it was time to let it go, to hand it over to God. Time to truly give Him my worry, my frustration, my anger, my agenda, my sadness and my hard heart. You see, He has promised me that He is the one in control of my life, not me. He has known all along. In Ps. 139:1-16 it says,

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar, You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, you eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

When I handed it all over to God, it allowed me to see that Faith is ceasing to worry, leaving the future to the God who controls the future.

I remember rolling over and telling Mike that I was done. No more drugs, no more fretting about getting pregnant. It was God’s now. Not mine anymore.

Faith is resisting the temptation to take back into my own hands that which I have given to God to control.

Within in the next week, I was pregnant. About 4 weeks later I was sick enough that I let myself take a pregnancy test. Oh, the joy I felt. And not just about finally getting a baby, but that God indeed had a lesson to teach me, that His timing is not always my timing and that life is so much easier when I am depending on Him to take care of me instead of trying to take care of myself. That takes so much pressure off of me.

Then I got to learn that Faith is the dependence of a newborn.

I am not saying that it is easy. He reminds me of these truths on a regular basis. When I was pregnant and looking for a job, but nothing came for nearly 4 months, He reminded me that His timing is not always my timing. When I want[ed] my husband to look for a new job, NOW, but he [wasn’t] ready, He reminds me to trust Him and He will take care of it. And the list goes on and on.

Trusting God and waiting on His timing rather than mine is much more productive in my life.

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.

Faith is the handle by which I take God’s promises and apply them to my particular problems, and Faith is the conviction the Promiser keeps His promises.

Here we are again. Another year has passed and a new one is beginning. We’ve all eaten too much over the last few weeks as sweets, goodies, and large meals have peppered our days. Add to this family, friends, football and fun, if your house is anything like ours. There have been moments of chaos, moments of peace, moments of loneliness and moments of hope. And as we embark on a new year, I am always amazed at the passing of time and how it seems to speed up every year. My daughter turns 10 this week and it hardly seems possible that we have already had 10 years together with her. And that is just one of the “landmarks” of time that announces how quickly it passes. As our days fill with things to do, places to go, and people to see, it is easy to lose track of not only all the myriad of things that fill our days, but why we are doing them in the first place. Do you ever feel like Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, when he said, “God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die?” There are so many things that request our time and attention, and I would suggest that as we begin a new year, we should begin to look at or at least re-evaluate how we use our time. Because, even though we may feel like the quote I just read, I like this one better: “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” We get to make choices about how we use the time that we do have.

So what does it mean to spend our time in a God-pleasing and fulfilling way? I think that the word that comes to my mind is intentional. Miriam-Webster defines intention as a determination to act in a certain way or a resolve to do something and thus to be intentional is to determine or design to do something in a certain way. Intentionality isn’t haphazard. It isn’t letting things come as they may. Intentionality doesn’t mean completely laid out and planned out ahead of time though. Intentionality may be spontaneous, but it is not reckless. To do something with intention means that you mean to do it. It is not accidental or reactionary. It is proactive. It is action with a purpose.

What would it mean to be very intentional with every minute of every day? That wouldn’t mean no rest or staying busy all the time, but the time you take to rest would be intentional time, not just random, so that the time that you choose to work at whatever it is you are intentional to work at is more efficient. It wouldn’t mean no down time or fun time, but that the down or fun time would be intentional – with a purpose. I read a quote this week that said, “You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”

I would suggest to you that you should be intentional in not only what you do, but in how you schedule your time. Our calendars must show what our priorities are. How we schedule our time talks volumes about who we are. Have you ever written time with God into your daily schedule? How about time for your family? And time for rest? If you are anything like me, you have to keep track of all your commitments to other things and other people. How about using it to keep appointments for the really important stuff. Carl Sandburg once said that “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” And this means sometimes we must make hard choices to say no to a good thing in order to say yes to a better thing. The idea here of good, better and best applies. There are things that may be good that we choose to do, things that may be better, and then things that would be the best. None of them may be bad choices, but if we consistently choose only the good, when we could choose the best, then we consistently choose less than optimal.

What if this year as we arrange our schedules, we put real thought and prayer into it and do what pleases God first and see just how much it will please us as we do God’s will? What would that look like for you on a monthly basis? Weekly basis? Daily basis? Hourly basis? How would it affect your relationship with God if you were to schedule Him in every day? How about your relationship with your spouse, children, grandchildren and friends? How would it affect your heart to schedule in works of service that you have always wanted to do but have never gotten around to? How would it affect those around you to see more hope and purpose in your life as you use your time purposefully? How about each time you go add something to your calendar you say to yourself this idea from Henry David Thoreau, “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

We want to be busy about the Lord’s business, which is the business that He has set us on this earth to do. There is a time for all aspects  of our life and it is not for us to choose only what pleases us. But when we do what brings pleasure to our Lord, we will receive the pleasure and joy that He has intended for us from the beginning. Let’s not feel like if we were asked about how we have spent our time, we couldn’t even answer because we didn’t spend it doing anything worthwhile or God-ordained, as one man once said, “There are whole years for which I hope I’ll never be cross-examined, for I could not give and alibi.”

My challenge this year for you and for me is to be more intentional with each moment of our lives. To spend our TIME doing God’s work. To not just go with the flow, but to really consider how we plan our days and plan them with eternity in mind.

Are you up for the challenge?