Today’s reading: Genesis 27:18-30:13
The timing of today’s reading couldn’t be more perfect! Today we find Jacob seeing into the unseen realm of angels ascending and descending and then commemorating that event by erecting a stone monument. And while I was not made privy to the unseen world today, I am erecting a monument stone of my own. Yesterday I taught my first Devotional Journaling class! This was a huge day for me, getting to share my stories and my passion for devotional writing with 5 lovely ladies, it was amazing! I was only disappointed that I didn’t have more time with them to really sink our pens in and write. But that’s largely my own fault for taking too much time to talk…imagine that right!?! She with many words has much folly. Someday I’ll learn. But until then…. I’ll remain Miss talks a lot.
Getting to this point in my ministry was huge for me, the day when I would be allowed to stand in front of people and talk about my best friend and what He has done in my life in the hopes that those stories would encourage others to keep fighting the good fight. Life is HARD, but God is good and He loves us and is for us and not against us. And if God, creator of that mountain that we can’t climb, is for us, then who, or what, or how can anything, including that mountain, be against us?
What are you believing God for today; health, prosperity, love, perseverance, strength? Sure, you believe in Him, but are you believing Him? Are you believing that His word to you in the Bible is truth, or just a good story? Are you believing that He can do what He says He can do? Or even father then that, are you believing that He WILL do what He has said He would do?
You see, that’s always been my struggle. Sure I’ve believed that He CAN do miraculous things, but is He willing to do them for me? I’m not worthy of miracles, I haven’t done anything to deserve them… and that’s just it. Abraham and Sarah hadn’t done anything to deserve a miracle child, yet God still gave them one. Jonah certainly wasn’t worthy of a second chance at doing the right thing, yet God still gave him one. Peter after denying even knowing Christ three times certainly wasn’t worthy of being trusted with followers, yet afterwards Jesus told him three times, “feed my sheep”. If anything, God is someone who is willing to put His own reputation on the line in order to let us become part of his plan! I may never understand why he does it, but He does! He WANTS us to be in on the action, to be on the inside of what’s happening in the world around us.
What did Abraham do to receive the miraculous child? He believed God when He said He would do it. How did Jonah receive that second chance? He asked for one. How did Peter become the most famous of apostles? He declared his love for Jesus. Ask. Believe. Declare. Ask for that second chance. Believe that you’ve received that miracle. Declare your love for Jesus. But don’t focus on your love for Him. Rather focus on HIS LOVE FOR YOU, because that is where the real power lies. We can’t focus on our love for him, because just like Peter proved, it is unreliable at best. However. Jesus’ love for you is undeniable and more reliable than anything else on the face of the planet! And when we trust on His love above everything else that may be going on around us, well, that’s exactly when miracles happen. Maybe not immediately, maybe not even after years of waiting, but when we least expect it. When we are old and gray and the baby making plumbing had stopped working, that is when God steps in and says “Now is the time for a miracle”!
Don’t stop believing. Hold on to that dream. It really can come true when the timing is perfect for a miracle.
Author Archives: Tamar
Don’t Stop Believing
Let the Pictures do the Talking
Today’s Reading: Genesis 24:45-27:17
So, God says to me last night that I’m stifling my creativity by forcing myself to use words all the time and that I need to focus more on my photography and let the pictures He gives me do the talking. Who am I to argue with that?!? Then this morning after I had done my reading and packed up my husband for work this morning I sat in the window waving goodbye to him when I saw a dove in a break in the clouds!!!!! How could I not jump up and capture that quickly shifting shape? An early morning barefooted walk around the property ensued and this is what God told me today:
The Color of Love
Today’s Reading: Genesis 18:1-21:21
(If you’re following this blog for the daily reading plan, I apologize for my haphard-ness and delayed posts, please forgive me!!!!! For your benefit there is a printable PDF of the entire plan on the website. Please feel free to use that. Again, I am so sorry for the unreliable posts lately.)
Having just defended my watermelon and pumpkin vines from the weeds, my eyes were met with wonder when I plunked down on a cinderblock nearby to bask in my victory over the enemy invaders. It had rained the night before and there in the tender shoots of grass at the edge of the garden were hundreds of these tiny orbs of light filled with rainbows! I jumped straight up to retrieve my camera from the house before the rapidly rising heat from the sun would evaporate these little treasures. I am sad to admit that I did them no justice in my photography, but I tried.
These gems sparkled back at me so brilliantly that they forced me to sit there and think about water and light and how they both represent God. Here we have just read about Noah and God’s promise to never use water to destroy the whole earth again and as a symbol of this promise He places the rainbow in the sky. The rainbow, something that happens because the Sun, giving God’s light to God’s children, shines through little droplets of rain still suspended in the air and they reflect that light down to the earth causing a rainbow to be seen. Now, when we see the light from the Sun we tend to see it all as just a bright white light. But in fact, within that white are contained all the colors that the human eye can see, and even some that we probably can’t! So while we can’t see all those colors with the naked eye, with the help of just a little water, we can!
So often in life we see God’s love as just one pure bright white light, but thanks to the streams of Living Water of the Holy Spirit flowing through our souls we are able to separate out the different colors of God’s love from that bright mass of white. We’re able to see how the light also contains dark colors as well. Colors like the nutrient rich black soil and bright leafy green co-exist in the Light of God’s love, pairing together beautifully to set one another apart in such a way that they both look beautiful.
Yes, sitting there bedazzled by the sparkle of the rainbows flashing back at me from the ground I had to smile at what I had found; God’s love in drops of rain. Rain that we had been desperately praying for, shining brightly, like diamonds in the light.
*In the last picture there is a smiling face, see if you can find it. Hint: bottom left quadrant.
Second place!
Sean got second place tonight everybody!!!!!!!! Yay!
There were a LOT of people asking about his number (7×70) and if it was scripture! God was glorified tonight and the Enemy is ticked about it. He did everything he could to stop him from getting it into that arena including excruciating hand cramps and making him drive without a rear bumper. It was a rough night, but we made it! Thank you Lord!!!!!
7×70 ministries: Hamilton county derby today @ 7! Pray!
Hello folks,
Today’s reading is Genesis 21:22-24:44
The Knochel family will be representing 7×70 ministries in the Hamilton county demolition derby at 7pm tonight in Noblesville IN. More than anything we need your prayer support but if you’re in the area we would love to have your moral support too! To have people in the stands is a big deal for Sean and I. People there to be eyes and ears for us, to help us pray for those in the crowd and arena.
Please pray for open eyes to see and open ears to hear the One who is calling them home to Him.
Pray, pray, pray for the Knochel family and our ministry today!!!
Feet
Today’s Reading: Genesis 13:1-17:27
Wow. I was smack in the middle of today’s reading when I simply couldn’t read anymore. I just had to stop and write down the whopper of a truth that God plopped right down in my lap!
Abram has just met with King Melchizedek, cut a covenant with God and now we enter into Sarai’s story of longing for a child of her own. And it is from this place of longing that she says “Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” (Genesis 16:2) Now this is a verse that I have read over and over and over again and normally would have passed right on by without seeing the significance in it except for the fact that when I started this writing through the Bible in a year project, God led me to pick up a different Bible instead of my usual NIV translation that I’ve read from since I was in middle school. But even more than reading from a different translation I am reading from a simple standard Bible, no fancy leather cover or silver edged pages, no commentaries to cloud my vision, no other voices being spoken except that of the Holy Spirit straight to my heart. And it is because of the simplicity of this Bible that this verse stood out to me today, because it had a footnote at the bottom of the page and in this Bible there aren’t that many of those. So in my Bible the verse looks more like this:
“Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children2 by her.”
Usually in this Bible the footnotes generally point to another scripture that this one might refer to, or an alternate meaning of the word in the original language. So when I saw the little two next to children I thought it was quite strange that there would be a footnote for that word in particular. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but in Bible Study it’s the stuff of discovery!!! This one little footnote has completely confirmed a theory for me that I had felt in my Spirit for so long and experienced in life over and over again but never really understood until today! (Am I building the suspense up enough for you? Are you screaming at the screen, “Get on with it!”?) You wanna know what that foot note said?
“Hebrew be built up, which sounds like the Hebrew for children” (pg 10. The Holy Bible. English Standard Version (ESV) copyright 2001 by Crossway.)
Now I know that on the surface that doesn’t sound that terribly exciting, but trust me it is! At least it is if you want to know more about a relationship with Jesus.
In Galatians chapter four Paul introduces to us the concept of Sarai and her servant Hagar being symbolical of something more, something deeper than just a story of two women competing over the same blessed man. Sarai, being Abram’s covenant wife is the wife of promise and a symbol of the Holy Spirit and grace. While Hagar, being a slave woman in Abram’s household, represents slavery in general and therefore of course slavery to the Law, our own efforts and slavery to religious traditions and customs. To be a slave you don’t have to wear chains or have a physical master, to be a slave to something you feel like it’s something that you have to do, rather than it’s something that you get to do. When you are in slavery to something, like a tradition or a religious custom, you feel like you have to do it or if you don’t, it will bring condemnation down upon yourself, whether from God, religious leaders, or simply your friends. You can be a slave to your addictions like drugs or smoking, but you can also be a slave to the idea that in order to gain God’s favor, forgiveness or pleasure you have to do something to earn it.
Traditions and religious rigmarole build us up. Think about all the pomp and circumstance that goes into attending just one church service. You get up early, shower, get all dressed up, try not to scream at each other as your trying to get out the door in time, usually fail 😉 , drive to church, go to Sunday school perhaps, walk into the sanctuary filled with fancy decorations, candles, banners, pews or nicely padded chairs. If you get there early enough you may mill around and check on your friends see how they’re doing, grab a donut and some coffee, this time seems like a break in the pandemonium of the morning thus far right? Then the service starts and you sing to God with all your might, church announcements are made, the most biblically educated person in the room steps forward and says an official prayer for the church, the country perhaps, individuals in the church with ailments and issues, etc. They finish their prayer and begin the sermon. After this we sing a few more songs, receive a blessing from the pastor and we are set free to once again roam the earth with those who have not participated in a church service possibly ever.
(*) Now, I want to make sure that you understand in NO WAY am I condemning any of these actions, I for one am a huge sucker for a good church service, trust me, I am. However, I want to make clear my point that the process of religion strips away the feeling of casual familiarity with God and puts on the robes of formality. I have attended many different church services and I have never stepped foot into a service where I felt like I was stepping into someone’s living room to have a casual encounter with a friend, no matter how casual the dress code or the music. Yet this is the very relationship that God wants with us. He is not opposed to worship of His greatness and superiority, if he was then Jesus never would have allowed people to fall at his feet, bathe them with their tears or dry them with their hair. However, when it came down to his very last moments on earth he showed us how he wants us to see him, how he wants us to worship him and how he wants us to spend time with him. He had supper with his friends. HE scrubbed their dirty stinky feet, the job of a servant. (*)
You know, there’s just something very special about holding someone else’s foot in your hands. This foot that bears every pound of weight they carry with every step that they take, including the weight of the stress sitting upon their shoulders and the worries upon their head. In the end it all comes down to our feet, they are what hold us up throughout every day. Feet are what make it possible for us to stand tall, to stand firm. To hold that in your hand is very powerful indeed. And there was Jesus, outer garment removed, towel wrapped around his waist and a bowl of water in his hands. He stooped down before Peter, most likely completely aghast at what his LORD was doing because he is the one that said “Lord, do YOU wash my feet?” Jesus tried to calm Peter by telling him that he would understand later but it didn’t help and Peter refused to let Jesus wash his feet by saying “You will never wash my feet”. Oh Peter, never is a very long time isn’t it! I mean it was so obvious that it was what Jesus wanted to do, he was doing it. Yet Peter refused to allow Jesus to have his own way. Here Jesus was trying to show Peter just how much he loves him by washing the dirt and stink off the burden bearers of his entire body and Peter was refusing to allow him to do it. How often do we do that to our friends and to Jesus? We think that we have to carry all our burdens by ourselves. We refuse to let anyone help us, maybe because by allowing them to help us it admits that we need helped; that we are not strong enough to bear all of our burdens ourselves. You know what the Holy Spirit said to me once about that? “Human shoulders were never designed to carry burdens.”
Did you catch that? From the creator himself, your shoulders were never designed to carry around stress and worry and doubt and fear. So why do we INSIST on keeping those burdens shouldered? Why do we bear them alone when there are people that God has sent into our lives for just such a time as this? While humanity was not designed to shoulder burdens, we were designed for companionship! Why else would solitary confinement be such a horrid punishment? Yet we place ourselves in solitary confinement all the time in order to shelter our problems, nurse our worries and harbor our fears. Jesus came to show us that he cares for us, that he loves us and that he wants to be that kind of trusted friend with whom you can share that dirty little secret that has been weighing you down for so long, too long. He wants to wash that worry and stress away with the Living water of his Spirit and the Word. And there are times when that can be accomplished through a church service, I’ve seen it happen and I’ve had it happen. But you know what; Jesus washes my feet the most when I’m talking to my friends.
We have a little group that meets once a week, usually at the park or an indoor play place, sometimes in each other’s homes, and all we do is share prayer requests and talk. Sometimes we will bring something that we read through the week that meant something to us, a scripture or a reading from a devotional or a book, but usually we just hang out and share our burdens with one another. No ceremony, no pomp or circumstance, just a few friends hanging out with their kids at the park. Simple. Casual. Friendship. Relationship is not a ritual. Sarai didn’t feel like she was ever going to have a child so she decided she would do the thing that would build her up, have a child through the slave woman, religious law. Yet that child was not the child she had hoped for, longed for, he was the child whose children have persecuted others for generations. My friend, we can enjoy and find religion through relationship, but it is much harder to find relationship through religion. Religion builds us up to make us feel like we’ve encountered a supreme being, and we may have. But it’s not the continual friendship experience that Jesus longs for from us. He wants us to lean on his breast at the dinner table and talk about the day. He wants us to share our burdens with him across the table with some bread and good wine. He wants to laugh with us and cry with us. Yes, he is a supreme being with supreme powers and supreme authority… but he set all that aside to make friends with you. Are we willing to set it all aside to be friends with him? Would we be willing to set aside all the things that we do that build us up in order to let him build us up? I honestly don’t know that I could.
For one, this blog builds me up; it makes me feel like someone who has something important to say just because a few people read it from time to time. For the most part, I gave that up this summer. And for a couple of months, I was just me… and it was great, and I almost didn’t come back. Except that God showed me that he wanted me to come back, to continue posting and sharing my stories, because they’re stories about him. And because he uses this blog to build me up. But he had to show me, test me, to see if I was willing to give it up for him.
What do you do that makes you feel like you’re doing something for God? What things in your life make you feel like you’ve encountered a supreme being rather than a friend? While those things aren’t bad, they’re not the entire relationship so don’t rely on them completely for your spiritual wellness. Remember Jesus. He was born in a barn. He slept in a feeding trough. He grew up a poor carpenter’s son with no pomp, no circumstance, no trumpets announcing his arrival into the room at dinner every night, he was just Jesus. Common every day Jesus; son, brother, FRIEND!
(*) If you have not read the entire post yet (to the line) do not read what I write next!
Spoiler alert!
If you have read the entire post, go back up and re read the section between the *’s. Just now I was proof-reading back through it and as I was reading that section the Holy Spirit spoke to me again. And while I know that I may not explain this correctly I am praying that Ruach will help you understand it the way he just did for me. Thinking about the significance of feet and how they carry burdens. Jesus showed us that he is asking that we allow him to wash away our burdens by washing our feet. This is where the * comes in: Think about HIS feet! The burdens they carry, having picked up all of ours. They are certainly feet worthy of worship are they not? Yet what was the picture message that he gave me to finish that sentence? The woman washing HIS FEET with her tears of gratitude!!!!! Our gratitude washes the burdens that he carries away!!! Wow! Oh wow! Wow! Wow!!! There is a way WE can wash HIS feet, wash his burdens away and it’s simply by being grateful for him carrying ours. Seriously, we make this relationship with him WAY too hard on ourselves don’t we?!? It’s as simple as saying “thank you” and meaning it; taking a moment to capture gratitude and hold it captive in our hearts. Instead of being slaves to tradition we can become masters of gratitude! Wow, our friend God is AWESOME!!!!!!!
Because I love you
Today’s Reading: Genesis 8:13-12:20
Because I love you!
Everything has a season
Because I love you!
There is a time for every matter under heaven
Because I love you!
There are times to be born
Because I love you!
There are times to die
Because I love you!
There are times to plant
Because I love you!
There are times to harvest
Because I love you!
There are times for death
Because I love you!
There are times of healing
&
refreshment
Because I love you!
There are times you just need to break down
Because I love you!
I will build you up
Because I love you!
There are times for weeping and wailing, you‘re allowed
Because I love you!
Sometimes I make you laugh
Because I love you!
At times you will mourn
Because I love you!
Sometimes ya just gotta DANCE
Because I love you!
Sometimes you’ve got to drop the stones from your hands and forgive
Because I love you!
It’s time to gather stones for an altar to remember forever what I have done
Because I love you!
Sometimes you’ve just got to embrace the truth, even if it hurts
Because I love you!
There are times you’ve just got to let go
Because I love you!
It’s always time to seek My Kingdom
Because I love you!
It is time to lose yourself in My LOVE for you
Because I love you!
It’s time to hold on to who you are; My precious bride
Because I love you!
It is time to cast away Fear, tell him to GO
Because I love you!
It’s time to separate yourself from the world and become holy, special, Mine
Because I love you!
It is time to sow the seeds of Life, watch them grow and bear much fruit
Because I love you!
There are times to keep silent
Because I love you!
Now is the time to SPEAK let My voice in you be heard
Because I love you!
There was a time for hate
Because I love you!
Now is the time to LOVE each other the way I have loved you
Because I love you!
It is time to erase denominational lines and unite for war against the Evil One
Because I love you!
You will enter My eternal peace
Because I love you!
There is nothing better for you than to be joyful and to do good as long as you live
Because I love you!
Whatever I do endures forever; nothing can be added to My love, nor anything taken away from it
Because I love you!
There is a time for everything under the sun
Because I love you!
I am the Father of time and everything is in My hand
Becaused
Words adapted from Ecclesiastes 3:1-17 by Tamar Knochel
Creative Commons License 2012
You!
Today’s Reading: Genesis 4:1-8:12
(Just for you today Brenda, I love you! J )
I’ve been marveling lately at John 15:15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. No longer servants, but friends. For so long, well, OK, all my life I’ve been told Jesus is our friend, Jesus friend of sinners, but I’ve never really felt like his friend. Maybe I’ve never seen myself as his friend but rather more as his favored servant. But right here, in this verse Jesus himself tells us that when we love, when we ourselves are friends of sinners then we transform from servant to friend. And that we are called “friend” because of the secrets that he shares with us.
What secrets? You might be asking, well the secrets of the universe of course! They’re all here, right in the Bible, we just have to open our eyes and read them!
Just this morning when I opened my Bible to read (for the first time in a longer while than I would like to admit) I could hardly get past the first paragraph! Ruach (the Holy Spirit) was so anxious to share this new truth with me that he wouldn’t let my eyes get past the first line break before I just HAD to go back and read it again. And I did, I read and read and read that first paragraph until I noticed the things I was lingering on the longest. Like a supernatural finger pointing me in the direction he wanted me to go, right there on the page I couldn’t stop reading “Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.” (Genesis 4:2) Now normally when these verses are taught the person teaching them loves to focus on the offerings that these two are holding up to God and how God rejects Cain’s and accepts Abel’s. Then they talk about WHY God did this. Now, I’m not necessarily refuting those age old claims that God rejected Cain’s sacrifice because it wasn’t a firstfruit… however, what if the rejection came from something deeper?
Like I said before, it wasn’t the verse about the offerings that God was emphasizing to me this morning; it was the verse before that. He was emphasizing to me what these men did. The last thing that happened in this story was that these men’s parents had been tossed out of the garden of intimate fellowship with God and were told, among other things, “cursed is the ground because of you;” (Genesis 3:17) and what was it that Ruach pointed to this morning? Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain was a worker of the ground. Friend, the ground had just been cursed! It’s no mystery why Abel’s offering didn’t please God! It reminded him of the curse he had just pronounced over it! This truth was so overwhelming to me this morning that I was glad I was sitting down.
Just last night I was listening to a sermon about rest and how when we work God rests, but when we rest God works!!! Which was something else that stood out to me in this verse from today, while Abel kept, Cain worked. When we rest and allow God to work we are showing God how much we trust his work to be good work. We are showing him, ourselves and those around us how much we are choosing to trust God for in our circumstances. God is trustworthy, but how far are we willing to trust him? His word says, taste and see that He is good, how much have you tasted of his goodness? And right here, immediately after THE curse has been handed out God gives us an illustration of two people, one keeping sheep and one working the cursed ground. They are themselves a story, but also an illustration for us today. We have a choice; we can live as a keeper of sheep or a worker of the curse. As a keeper of sheep (a symbol of God’s children) we love the sheep, God’s children. We do whatever each situation calls for to love His people with zeal and vigor. From the day the curse was handed out Satan has done his best to place as much focus as he can on work. He has stolen relationship from us and replaced it with religion, a work based format where in order to show God how much you love him you have to DO something.
If I have learned anything from God over these past few years it has been that there is NOTHING that I can do that pleases him more than simply recognizing how much HE loves ME! I have had countless times when He himself has told me to stop working so hard to please him and he has even sent messengers to come and tell me to stop working so hard to please him and I still will often times slip back into that pit of working to please him. Guess what, working, trying, doing, they simply remind God of the curse; while resting, choosing to believe, and just being who God made you to be, reminds Him of Jesus and grace and forgiveness from the curse. But you know what, even more importantly than reminding God of grace and forgiveness, it reminds us of His grace and forgiveness. Choose to rest and believe that God didn’t make you to be perfect; he made you to be the person that you are right now. We wouldn’t dream of scolding a toddler for stumbling while learning to walk would we? Yet we do this to ourselves and each other all the time! We hold ourselves up to standards that we could never achieve! We expect ourselves to run when we’re still just learning how to crawl or walk! We expect ourselves to obey all the rules that religion has created over thousands of years when the only rule that God is asking of us is to be nice to each other. And while religion and Bible teachers have been saying that as part of their teaching, they tend to tack on HOW to be a good friend, HOW to be a good neighbor when honestly, if you have good friends surrounding you, do you really need to be told how to be a good friend back?
For example, my friend who loves me and the rest of our group of friends dearly, had scheduled a surgery that was going to leave her bedridden for several days. She has a large family that would need taken care of during that time. She didn’t need to ask us to help her, in fact she didn’t want us to help her, but did that stop us from making her a huge dinner that would leave her with plenty left over for a day or two? Of course not! Did anyone need to tell us what to do to be a good friend to our friend in need? No! Because of all the times she loved us by being there just to talk, the spirit moved within us and because she first loved us we wanted to do something, anything to help her and show her that we love her too.
We are no longer servants who are expected to serve or work; we are keepers of the sheep, friends to one another when we obey the one commandment that has always been foremost to God, Love. Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself, all the rest of the “rules” of religion are contained within this one choice; the choice to love. Love is an action, it is a decision, it is a verb. Today take action! Hug someone you love, tell your friends that you love them; they are the face of God in this world. Their love for you is God’s love for you. What they do for you is what God does for you. Make a list today of some of the things that a friend, any friend, has done for you lately. Something they’ve said that really meant a lot, or something they did that made you smile write it all down and thank God for each of those moments where He used that person in your life to change you, shape you, mold you and make you into the work in progress, the toddler learning how to walk in this unstable world filled with rules and expectations, where it’s Father only has one rule, one expectation be who I made you to be; YOU.
Creation Speaks
Today’s Reading: Galatians 3:1-6:18
I am so blessed to have friends who love my kids! This morning my friend Cindy came and picked up both my kids for a three-hour play date. The moment they were out the door I grabbed my camera and was out the door myself. A sunflower in the neighbor’s driveway had been calling my name for days now and I finally had the opportunity to heed its call. As I briskly walked I kept my eyes rolling around in order to make sure I didn’t miss anyone else who might beacon me for a closer look. There is just something about the morning sunlight that is simply magical. It makes everything look and feel fresh and new. That’s why it’s my favorite time of day to photograph.
Upon arriving in the neighbor’s driveway I was greeted with this miraculous testament to survival.
I say miraculous because this flower came from a bag of sunflower seeds that had been baked and flavored. The likelihood of one of those seeds growing is very rare due to the high temperatures of the ovens. So the fact that this little life survived the time in the furnace only to be plopped into a bag, sold as food, chewed up, spit out, covered in enough soil to take root and grow during a drought and then survive being mowed off long enough to even bloom; yeah, this is a miracle sunflower. A life certainly worthy of a photograph or two!
His story is simply inspirational all by itself, but then again, he wasn’t the only one talking either. The longer I stood there circling this beauty trying to get just the right shot, the bees starting coming. One after another these bees dipped their heads deep into the flower’s face filled with pollen and drank deeply from this flower’s sweet nectar.
Watching these bees, they shared a very important biblical truth. Our testimonies of survival are nectar for others in their own times of trial. But even more than that, not only is our life story drink for the thirsty, it is seed, pollen for the un-pollinated. When the bee leaves this flower it does not go with a full belly alone, it leaves with hairy legs covered with pollen, which it leaves at the next flower it visits impregnating it in order for it to bear fruit and more seed. Do you know how many times a good story of survival will get passed around and bring hope to others? Honestly, I don’t think there’s any good way to answer that question other than to say “countless”. And every time that story gets told it brings hope to yet another thirsty soul. It brings with it the potential of new life and fruit; fruitfulness that would not be possible without the pollinated seed of that story filled with hope and courage and most importantly God’s perfect provision in His perfect timing. Amazing.
Then, just when I thought this sunflower’s story had all been told, he slipped in the twist at the end that really threw me for a loop. I stepped back to get a shot of a cute little cat’s tail bowing its head in the presence of such a majestic flower,
and when I turned around I was practically smacked in the face with a beauty I was not expecting.
Of all the pictures of all the flowers that I’ve taken over the years, none have struck me like this one has. The beauty of a back, a past, a story a fairy tale ending; where the High King rides in on His white horse wearing His white robe and with a single word saves the day. Has that ever happened to you? When just one word is all it has taken to make everything line up in just the right way; to make everything that was tumbling around in your life simply fit together? The power of just one word is amazing. I’ve heard that it was only one word that God spoke to create all of this, “universe”. I don’t know if that’s true, I may never know until I get to heaven and see it for myself, but I can certainly see how it could be true. He IS God after all right?
This blessed sunflower’s story all told I turned my feet towards home only to have them drawn once more to a neighbor’s yard; this one filled with wildflowers.
Standing in the middle of this little field of forget-me-not blue, snapping away as fast as my little point and shoot could keep up I slowly became aware of a great buzzing about me which momentarily drew my eyes away from my camera screen to look about myself. While I was over with the sunflower standing there alone there was only the occasional bee here and there. But here, amongst these many flowers there were many bees; and not that many small ones either. They were all large bumble bees.
As these bees buzzed about, you could tell that they meant buzz-ness! While the smaller bees had landed gently on the sunflower’s face, these bumbles were barely stopping for the drink! I was amazed at their speed and agility compared to their size. Not to mention their sound. With so many of them surrounding me the sound was quite impressing. As I stood there watching them and attempting with all my might to get my camera to focus on them faster so that I could shoot them it was as if I could hear the voice of God in the humming of the bees, busy about their work. “You can fly too…”
Look at the bumble bee’s wings:
Though this picture doesn’t do them justice, when photographed well you can see how much smaller the bee’s wings are compared to its rotund body. Scientists have studied them and have concluded that aeronautically speaking they shouldn’t even be able to fly! But no one told them that they couldn’t, so they do, and quite well I might add.
This morning when I woke up the Holy Spirit was singing a line from one of my daughter’s many Barbie movies, “if I wasn’t meant to fly, I wouldn’t have these wings…”
There are many birds that have wings but do not fly up in the sky. They may flap them from time to time to get from here to there, but somewhere along the line of time someone told them that they couldn’t fly, and after a while they believed it enough that they just stopped trying.
This afternoon in a conversation with my Beloved Aunt Cynthia God reminded me of another animal story. The circus elephant. When these elephants are babies the trainer will put the ankle cuff on the elephant and attach it to the chain and a large stake driven into the ground. The elephant is small and isn’t able to break free from the chain that is holding it back from roaming free. As the elephant grows the ankle cuffs get larger with it, but the chain and the stake stay the same. When the elephant is full grown it could easily remove the now tiny stake from the ground and be free… but it never tries because the chains around its feet are no longer holding it captive. It’s the chains in its head that keep it where the trainer wants it to be.
Where are your chains today? Are they on your ankles, or in your head?
Has Satan lied to you long enough that you’ve finally been trained to stop trying to fly, trying to break free from his prison of pain and fear and doubt? My friend, believe and break free! Believe the voice of truth that has been buzzing around you, the voice that has whispered to you in the wind, in your sleep, in your friends, “You can fly too!” Together we CAN do this! Together with the love of God we can fly, soar on wings like eagles, run and not grow faint, walk and not grow weary. With God, ALL things are possible, and if God is for us then who can be against us? If you’re told often enough that you can’t, after a while you believe it… well if that’s true then wouldn’t the exact opposite be true too! I’m telling you today that you CAN! Believe it!
My friend, creation speaks, all around us the heavens pour forth speech, what are they saying to you?
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