Author Archives: Tamar

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About Tamar

Tamar Knochel at your service! From sewing and crafting to words of encouragement when you need them most. I'm here for you. ❤️

House Cleaning

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Tamar

Pray: Come Holy Spirit, open my eyes so that I may see You clearly, open my ears so that I may hear You soundly, open my mind so that I may understand You more, open my heart so that I may love You fiercely, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly. Fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You. In Jesus’ name, Amen!

Read: 2 Chronicles 24:1-26:23

Joash decided to restore the house of the LORD. 2 Chronicles 24:4

I have a confession to make, I’m a neat freak. Well, at least I was. I just spent the last two hours cleaning our house, trying to get it all done in two hours. I NEVER would have been able to do that before. I’m the type of person where if I can’t do it perfectly then why bother doing it at all? The problem with that mentality when it comes to house cleaning is that then it often doesn’t get done at all! Then things pile up and before you know it, to get the house looking the way I want it to look takes days!

The idea of perfection is something that I have had to learn to let go of. My family deserves a warm, welcoming, happy, comfortable home. For me, that doesn’t translate into a perfectly white-glove clean home. Now, keep in mind, it’s taken me a long time to be able to say that. Especially since it goes against what a lot of other people out there are saying; that as women and mothers our first priority needs to be our home. I always took that to mean serving my family by taking care of our house and their meals. I don’t know what God has called you and your family to so I can’t speak for you; but as for me and my household it means quality time with my family, not a neat house.

I had to laugh when I “finished” cleaning just now, I literally left the vacuum out in the middle of the living room floor to truly finish vacuuming later in the day. Again, I never would have done that before! I would have tenaciously kept vacuuming despite the fact that it was time to stop and move onto other things. I would have made sure to get all the crevices and corners and wouldn’t have stopped until the entire job was finished. My thinking was that if I didn’t finish it at that moment I would forget and do other things and then it wouldn’t get done. And as I write that all down God says to me “And what would be so wrong with that?”

LOL!!! Seriously! He’s right! (* head shaking at myself*, of course He’s right! He’s GOD!) What difference does it make if the entire house doesn’t get vacuumed for an extra day or even two? Will my children die? Will my cats give me scornful looks because they are being forced to walk and sleep on dirty floors? Siiigh… Lord why did it take me so long to get to this point? What made me think that because I’m a work at home mom my house had to be in perfect order all the time? My kids don’t need a perfectly clean house, they need ME! And even more than that, they need for me to teach them how to keep the house clean on their own! I’ve started having my kids (9 & 4) do their own laundry even! *Gasp* I know, I’m a mean mom aren’t I? Of course not! How else will they ever learn how to do laundry if they’re not doing before they move out? Yes, they are young, but yesterday my nine year old amazed me. He put a load of his laundry in without ever being asked to do it!!! I about fainted! He went into the laundry room, pulled all the dry clean laundry out of the dryer and put it into a basket, switched the wet laundry to the dryer and started a new load of his own!!! I didn’t even realize he was doing it until he was almost finished. Talk about a proud mama! But then to top it all off, the load he had pulled out of the dryer was all his clothes that I had put in earlier in the day so I told him to move it into the living room so that I could fold it for him. And as he was walking it in there I had the thought, “Why does it have to be folded?”

Why do clothes have to be folded? Here I’ve been spending hours upon hours every week folding all our clothes when we all have nice long drawers that can easily hold clothes that can be laid neatly into the drawers or hung up! I had never thought of that before! I mean think about it! Most clothes these days have “wrinkle-free” on their labels anyway, why fold them if you don’t have to? And on top of that, why was I folding his clothes for him when he was just unfolding them in his drawers to see which shirts were which! So I stopped him in mid-stride toward the couch and said “Gabe, take it to your room instead and put them into your dresser.” And he said incredulously, “But Mommy, they’re not folded yet!” I explained to him that it was OK and he could just lay them neatly into his drawer and they would be fine. Both of us were thrilled! It took less than half the time to put his laundry away than it normally does!

Then, as if that wasn’t great enough, this morning Anna comes to me with the Swiffer sweeper in her hand and asks if she can mop the kitchen floor! Are you kidding me Lord? So I got her a little bottle of bleach water and an old towel to put on the Swiffer and set her to mopping the floor. She was happy as a lark spraying the water on the floor and then mopping it up with the Swiffer that was now just her size by taking one of the sections out of the handle. After only a few months of teaching the kids how to help clean they are doing it on their own! Now, I’d love to say that I had something to do with this, but I know better, it’s a plain and simple miracle from heaven.

God is helping me do what He’s called me to do! God had to bring me to the end of myself by allowing the Enemy to frustrate me with my inability to keep our house clean on my own. Sure I could keep up when it was just Sean and I, and even when the kids were tiny and didn’t really make much of a mess, but now that they’re older and making huge messes, well, even that wasn’t so hard. But when I started writing I had to choose write or clean. And I about drove myself to madness trying to keep my house spic and span all by myself while at the same time writing the way I felt God calling me to write. I was staying up until all hours of the night trying to get it all done. Notice I said “trying”, I didn’t say getting. Even when I was spending extra sleepless hours I still couldn’t keep our house clean the way I wanted it to be. In fact, it was just getting worse! (Check out “Rest” for more details on this time.)

Slowly, step by step God helped me let go of the idea of a perfect house. And He did that by whispering “You can’t do this all by yourself” every time I would try and get frustrated. He was pointing out my need for Him in my life; my need for His direction and wisdom. And that’s just it; I wasn’t asking Him for His opinion! So I just kept getting more and more frustrated until finally (praise God) I broke down and told my family “I can’t do this by myself any more. You have to help me.” And do you know what happened? They were thrilled to help! The kids had been craving the responsibility of chores, which is obvious by the fact that they’re now ASKING to do them! When they do a chore they are so proud of the fact that they just did something for themselves and for our family and it helped me. All that time that I had been doing those things for them, I was denying them that privilege and honor to help me. I was too proud to admit that I needed help and I was too hungry for the feeling of power that I got from keeping things MY way around the house. As if my way was the only way to do things or that it was the right way even! Who am I to say that the way the kids put the dishes away is wrong? If the job is done does it matter if it’s perfect?

God knows that we’re not perfect; He knows that He would do things way better than ours, yet He still allows us to be part of His plan and do work for Him instead of doing it Himself. Not because He can’t do it, but because He knows that it’s good for us and that it blesses us to do things on our own and for Him. So if God is OK with things not getting done perfectly so that His children can be part of the plan, then why can’t I be like that too? I am still discovering things that I need to let go of, I probably will for the rest of my life, but I’m thrilled with the control that I have let go of and allowed my family to be a team. Where we all work together to keep our house running smoothly and not just me doing it while they watch TV and make more messes for me to clean up.

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Battles

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Tamar

As I have been praying the following prayer over the last few days I have been visualizing Christ coming and opening my eyes, ears, mind, heart and hands and then the Holy Spirit coming in fire and filling those areas of my being with His magnificent presence. Its powerful stuff folks, you should try it!

Pray: Come Holy Spirit, open the curtains over my eyes so that I may see You clearly, open the windows of my ears so that I may hear You soundly, open the skylight of my mind so that I may understand You better, open wide the French doors of my heart so that I may love You fiercely, lay open the fingers my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly. Fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You. Help me Lord, because I trust You. In Jesus‘ name, Father Thank You! Amen.

Read: 2 Chronicles 20:24-23:21

Yesterday was a difficult day for many of us apparently. The more I talked to people throughout the day yesterday the more I realized that there was a serious attack launched upon the people of God yesterday! Family members putting themselves in dangerous situations, widely known Christian political candidates family‘s health attacked, ministry financial supporters dying suddenly, the list could go on and on! For me personally, both my husband‘s ministry and my own were attacked yesterday. Mine through a mental attack on my dreams (explained in more detail in yesterday‘s post) and my husband‘s is being attacked in a much more physical sense.

His ministry is driving in Demolition Derbies around the country in order to pass out a free Bible to anyone who wants one. We pray over every Bible, insert an Alphabetical Bible in a year reading plan along with this website so they too can follow along with this devotional blog and have a support system for getting into and staying in the Word of God every day! It‘s an absolutely amazing ministry that we will be launching this summer (we are looking for volunteers and financial support if anyone is interested let us know).

His ministry is being threatened because the town we live in has decided that they do not want “junk“ cars in town and the fence that they are currently behind is on town property (aka an easement). Now, he could take his cars out to his buddy‘s house in the country to work on them, but then we, his family, would never see him! That‘s how we got into the ordeal we were in that inspired True Intimacy. He was never home because he was always out at his friend‘s house. And when he was home, he was on the derby websites talking to his friends. I was so alone during that time and honestly, neither one of us wants to go back there.

This morning as I was doing my daily reading God was speaking to me about the situation with the fence and cars. The word “fortify“ kept popping out to me. After reading I spend a few minutes meditating on what I have just read. I sit and listen for the voice of God to speak to me. Today He put a picture in my head. I was standing in the middle of the section of fence that is currently under attack, with my hands outstretched on the fence, head bowed praying for God‘s blessing and protection over it. I was fortifying it with prayer. Then He showed me walking around our entire property and marking off our territory with my feet, showing the enemy where He was drawing the lines of protection. And it wasn‘t just over our property either! I walked around two of our neighbor‘s properties as well!

In yesterday‘s reading we started chapter twenty and finished it today. I would really like to take a closer look at that chapter right now because I think it perfectly illustrates what many of us are facing at the moment. Opposition.

Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar“ (that is Engedi). Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the LORD: from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.

Here is our first key, when Jehoshaphat was afraid he “set his face to seek the LORD“. Whether by a town letter head, a police officer at our door, or a phone call from a family member, however we receive the news that the Enemy forces are approaching our first reaction needs to be to seek the LORD. Honestly, how we do that will vary but the main point is to open our hearts to Him in that moment. Trust Him to take care of us within our circumstances and to lead us in the way that we should go. Jehoshaphat‘s response was to pray aloud:

O LORD, God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In Your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand You. Did You not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for You in it a sanctuary for Your name, saying, “If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you – for Your name is in this house – and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.“ And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom You would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy – behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of Your possession, which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.“

When disaster is upon us do we stand before God and cry out to Him? When we do not know what to do where do we look? Do we try to fix the problem ourselves? The answer to those questions is a critical one my friends so be sure to question yourself. What our first reaction is in a disaster is the tell tale sign of where we are looking for help. When we look to our own strength and power it results in failure because “we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us“. We are powerless but God is all power-full. Because Jehoshaphat looked to the LORD in his time of trouble, God‘s response to him was:

Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God‘s. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf. O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the LORD will be with you.

Did you catch that? You will not need to fight in this battle. Uh… WHAT??? God is telling them to go down as if they are going to fight, but then instead of running ahead and attacking the enemy they are told to Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf. I think that‘s interesting because God said almost the exact same thing through Moses to the Israelites as they were exiting Egypt! The Red Sea (yet to be parted) was before them and the army of Pharoah was behind them and rapidly closing in. The Israelites were crying out and asking Moses why he had brought them there to die when he said to them The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent (Exodus 14:14). I‘ve been talking a lot about it lately, but here I go again. There is POWER in stillness. There is strength in being still and remembering that He is God, not you. There is wisdom in simply standing firm, holding your position and waiting for the LORD to act on your behalf. When you wait for the LORD to act for you, you get to WATCH God work. You get to see the miraculous salvation He has planned for you!

In verse twenty Jehoshaphat imparts the plan to the people:

“Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.“ And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise Him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say,

“Give thanks to the LORD, for His steadfast love endures forever.“ And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.

Jehoshaphat‘s big defensive strategy was to sing praises to the LORD! How many times as Christians have we heard the saying “praise Him in the storm“, this is what that saying means! Jehoshaphat‘s army had no chance of standing up against the massive army of the Enemy, at least, that‘s how the Enemy saw it anyway. But because they sought their help from the LORD Almighty instead of trying to help themselves the end result of that battle was that their enemies ended up killing each other and never even touching Judah!

When Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the horde, and behold, there were dead bodies lying on the ground; none had escaped. When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found among them, in great numbers, goods, clothing and precious things, which they took for themselves until they could carry no more. They were three days in taking the spoil, it was so much. On the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Beracah (which means blessing), for there they blessed the LORD. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Beracah to this day. Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat at their head, returning to Jerusalem with joy, for the LORD had made them rejoice over their enemies. They came to Jerusalem with harps and lyres and trumpets, to the house of the LORD. And the fear of God came on all the kingdoms of the countries when they heard that the LORD had fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest all around.

Not only did God use Judah‘s praises to fight the enemy that was marching against them, but He used their praises to confuse the enemy to the point of defeating each other and leaving behind more abundance than the army of Jehoshaphat could carry in one trip! It took them THREE DAYS to pick up all the things that their enemy had left behind! God used their enemy to make His children rich! God used the battle to bless His children.

God used the battle to bless His children. God used the battle to bless His children. (I want to make sure you heard me on that one.) Before the battle if we aren‘t focused on God then the result of the battle will be the blessing of returning our focus to God. And when we are looking at God the result of the battle will be the blessing of greater intimacy with God and potentially material abundance as well! We will return home from the battle with joy, for the LORD will make us rejoice over our enemies and the fear of God will come on all the kingdoms of the countries when they hear that the LORD fights against anyone who opposes us.

Sing:

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Contest Entry

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Tamar

Read: 2 Chronicles 17:1-20:23

I entered into the Xulon Christian Publishing Contest over the weekend and the winners were announced this morning. I was positive that it was God‘s will for me to enter (and I still am) but because of that I was also positive that I would win the grand prize publishing contract as well. I did not. From the time I got the first email about the contest until now I have been trying to push down the hope that it brought with it. I was trying to deny that I WAS hoping to win, to have my time and dedication and talent validated in a public way. But today my pain-filled tears are betraying me, I did so desperately want to win that contest. And as desperately as I have fully embraced the gift of online publishing and digital media, apparently there is still a shred of my heart that is tied to the physical realm of publishing.

I do want to hold my printed published book in my hands, clutched to my chest like a newborn infant. I want to turn the pages and see the ink on them; to smell their freshness like a baby‘s head. So often in the last three years of being a writer I have referred to book writing as having a child; the waiting, the false labor pains, the anticipation of what it will look like and feel like. It‘s nothing like being pregnant and yet at the same time there are similarities. Over the years I have been so anxious to get that precious piece of my heart published, recognized, validated as a word from God for His people. And through those years there have been momentary opportunities like a window in heaven opening and allowing me to see the possibilities of what might be. And I get my hopes up that this opportunity might be “the One“, my time to shine like a light on a stand or a city on a hill. Nope. Not this time; at least not in the way that I had hoped.

I don‘t know, maybe I‘ve set my hopes too high, but if there‘s any other way to set them I just don‘t know what it is and can‘t seem to do it. I am writing this through clouded vision as hot tears of frustration and disappointment fall down my cheeks. Why do I have to hope so? Why do I try so hard to please? I tell you I can‘t help it, I‘ve tried not to and I just can‘t seem to stop. I pray that God finds pleasure in my attempts at human success. I‘ve begged Him to show me that He is not angry with me or upset with me. I do my best to do it all for Him. And that‘s all I can do, try.

But I want to do more than try. I want to succeed. I want to succeed in my own eyes. I want to succeed in my family‘s eyes. I want them to brag about me and think that I have the gift that I know I have. I want to make them proud. I want to make my husband proud. I want to make my God proud. I want to make Him happy and smile. But I don‘t know how to make that happen. I can‘t make that happen. No matter how hard I try to be a good writer or a good mom or a good wife, I know that I can‘t do it alone. I know that I need God to make that happen. And I have God. And I lean on Him so hard for everything.

So why do I feel like it‘s not happening then?

My poor sleeves are drenched in tears and snot… why don‘t I have tissues on my desk??? Ugh!

God sent me an email last Wednesday letting me know about the writing contest. Then that afternoon He gave me a Willow figurine, “Angel of Wishes“ with the phrase “May you always hold on to your dreams“ on the card. Well I have a dream of being a print published author, and I have held on to that dream and let go of that dream so many times it‘s not even funny! So I don‘t see how there is a right answer to this problem other than waiting. But in the words of my four-year-old, “I don‘t want to wait“. But just like her, I don‘t have a choice because the publishing world is out of my control. I have no say over when it will get published or how or if ever at all.

But I do have control over something though. God has blessed me with this blog. So I will do my best to turn away from the again closed door and return my focus to where it belongs, on Him and His glory. I will stop dwelling on the dark cloud and instead gaze at the beautiful silver lining. Professional writers/editors/judges read something that I wrote. And while it cost me a pricey $39 and they may not have judged it worthy of a premier publishing package, they still read it. I pray that the message within its text was well received. The contest theme was “tell us your story“, so of course; I told them my story in less than 750 words, which was really hard for me as you well know. Anyway, here it is, I pray that you enjoy it.

 

Three years ago my husband and I hopped onto the Spiritual Underground Railroad and made the biggest discovery of our lives. God! Now, it‘s not like we didn‘t know God before that time, we actually both grew up in the Church but we didn‘t really know Him. Up to that point we had a religion; then Jesus came and turned our world right side up and things haven‘t been the same since!

The moment of our big revelation came when I was standing at my kitchen sink doing the dishes when a movie line floated through the kitchen from the living room “Old sins cast long shadows“ (Star Wars the Clone Wars – Yoda). My husband and I had been having some serious marital issues and I had been doing some serious praying about them, at that moment no less! It might as well have been God Himself floating through that room as powerful as that message was for me. In that single life-changing moment I knew the reason of our pain and stress and frustration, it was sex! We had not waited until we were married to have sex and it had cursed our relationship ever since. Somehow, deep down, I had known the cause was sex all along but I had never been bold enough with my husband to take the time to address the issues it had caused. That fateful day I sat down at my computer searching through the scriptures for the answers I had been searching for my entire life. I started searching for God‘s wisdom and God‘s knowledge instead of worldly wisdom and knowledge. And I found it! God led my husband and me through a thirty day journey that we will never forget and will never stop thanking Him for. During those days we fasted from sex and focused instead on God and His plan for our marriage. He taught us that the curses that are brought on by sexual immorality are only broken through fasting and prayer, which is why sexual immorality is one of the few things that the apostles suggested that the Gentiles not do; it‘s that serious.

Not that our society thinks that is it though! The way that I drew closer to God during those thirty days is I devoured Hannah Gresh‘s And the Bride Wore White: 7 Secrets to Sexual Purity. Through the entire book I kept screaming at the pages “Why didn‘t anybody tell me this before?!?“ Had I only but known what the consequences of my actions would be, if only someone would have told me, I wouldn‘t have done what I did. I felt like someone somewhere should do something about the sexual plague that is sweeping our world today and I came to realize that God wanted that someone to be me. So I vowed then and there to devote my life to bringing people into intimate relationships with God; in order to bring them into intimate relationships with each other. I want to teach them what God‘s radical love does to us; how a truly intimate relationship with Him changes every other relationship in our lives. When we seek Him first everything else falls into place, everything. When we rest in the arms of the Almighty God who created us for His own good purposes, we are then able to rest in His finished work of the cross. We are able to see our deliverance from the Enemy and all the forces he has unleashed against us by allowing God to open our eyes to His goodness and faithfulness. God‘s love for us is like the most luxurious of chocolates, sweet, smooth, decadent and abundant. His love can melt our stone-cold hearts into hearts of flesh and turn our icy marriages into a steamy, joy-filled union of souls for Christ‘s glory by drawing us into intimate relationships with Him.

Before our sexual revelation my husband and I were never able to fully complete each other because we never had Christ‘s cross between us; He was merely next to us. But now Jesus‘ work is what holds us together. It‘s His hands that bind us, His heart that fills us, His sacrifice that cleanses us and breaks us free from every chain that could ever try to bind us from Him and the abundant life that He offers. Christ‘s sacrifice is not only sufficient, it‘s perfect. Period.


 

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Stillness

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Tamar

Sing: Everlasting God by Lincoln Brewster

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 2 Chronicles 12:1-16:14

Behold, God is with us at our head, and His priests with their battle trumpets to sound the call to battle against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the LORD, the God of your fathers, for you cannot succeed. 2 Chronicles 13:12

When the alarm rang this morning there was a moment of hesitation in my body, “is it really time to get up already?“ Sigh… But then my spirit reminded my body of why the alarm was ringing at five am, “Body, we get to spent time with the LORD now“. “Oh right!“ my body shouted and was up in a flash and headed for the coffee pot for the hot water and tea bags! As the steam rose from my fresh cup of Cinnamon Apple tea and I pulled the daisy blanket over my knees I clutched my Bible to my chest with all my might as if it were the Word of God Himself just for me… Oh wait, it IS!

His word and its application on my life never ceases to amaze me. Yet I am still surprised by how He seems to make all things work together for my good. This weekend was so wonderful with our family and our church. But last night as I sat down on my bed with the journal that my husband and I write to each other in every night the one thing that kept coming back to me over and over again was the friendship that we share, just like the journal. You know, there are some days when you go out and you do things just as a couple. We like to go to amusement parks and ride roller coasters together. For our anniversary last year we enlisted the grandparents to care for our children and the two of us ran away to Cedar Point together for some alone time. Those times are so critical in a marriage, they put a nice big fat log on the fires of love to fuel them and keep them burning for a long time. But then there are the everyday moments in marriage that are so much more crucial to keeping the fire alive. They‘re the kindling kind of moments, if you will, where you just spend time together as a family. It‘s not a romantic time, or a steamy love scene, it‘s those kinds of moments where you‘re not necessarily doing anything special, but you‘re doing it together and that‘s what is really important. Yesterday wasn‘t any big grand party or spectacle for the celebration of Christ‘s resurrection, we got up and did an Easter scavenger hunt to find our goodies. Then we almost begrudgingly stopped playing with our new things long enough to get dressed and ready for church, we ended up being late as always, it‘s almost a Knochel tradition at this point! Then after church was over we made our customary hugs and well wishes for the holiday before we hopped back into the car to head for Grandma‘s house ninety minutes north for lunch and an Easter egg hunt with cousins. At the end of the day we got back in the car and drove home full of Easter ham, deviled eggs and more sugar than any one person should eat in one day. See, like I said, nothing super spectacular or terribly exciting, and yet it was!

You see as much as I love writing and having my nose buried into a computer screen all day, time with my family is precious. It always has been, but now that I don‘t get as much of it as I used to, it‘s even more precious. Yesterday I got to spend three hours sitting elbow to elbow with my husband in our car, talking about the things going on in our life part of the time, and the other part of the time just simply being still with one another. In the last few weeks I have really come to, not just learn about the power of stillness, but I have seen the power of stillness in my life. And you know what I‘ve seen; God is in the stillnesses of our life. He‘s there in those moments where we aren‘t saying or doing anything and we‘re just still and listening to His small yet power-filled voice. There is so much power in just being still. I am overwhelmed with it at times. On the trip home from Grandma‘s house, we didn‘t really talk much; we kept to ourselves and our own activities we had brought along. The kids colored, I read Little Women on my Kindle and Sean was driving. Yet it was there in that stillness where none of us were trying to get the other‘s attention, no one was fighting (thank God), and no one was voicing their concerns of “what are we going to do about this situation“ that God came and spoke with each of us in His own way. During that time, the others might have been seeking His wisdom, but I know that I wasn‘t. I was simply trying to enjoy my resting time and the book that God had been pointing me to for the last week. And as much as we felt like a family as we were doing things with one another all day long, it was in that time of stillness that I felt the most like we were a family. Like we were all so secure in our place as a family that there was no need for words to be spoken between us, just love filtering in through the car like the sunlight through the windshield.

Psalm 131 talks about being like a weaned child in its mothers arms.


The Holy Spirit has whispered this verse to me often times when I‘m struggling with something. I carry it around like a student carrying a back pack filled to bursting-seams with heavy books, seemingly oblivious to the weight it is adding until I finally go to put it down and realize just how heavy the burden truly was.

God is our Father, and like a weaned child in its mothers arms we need to climb into His lap and unburden ourselves on Him. We need to cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. There is no need for us to stay up all night worrying when He‘s already going to be up all night taking care of whatever it is that is worrying us. So why not allow Him to do what He does best, take care of our burdens and comfort us in His arms allowing us the freedom to be content where we are.



In Hebrews 1:3 it tells us that after Jesus provided purification for sins He sat down at the right hand of God. Tell me, if there is still work to be done, do you sit down? If dinner is completely finished and there‘s nothing left to do, do you keep cooking? No! You sit back and you enjoy your finished work! When I am finished writing (granted I do write sitting down), I don‘t keep writing, I stop. Then I go back to the top and read to enjoy the work that God has used me to create. Whatever you‘re going through today, happy, sad, painful, joyful, God is working. He is not dead, His arm is not too short to save or His ear too dull to hear, He is alive and active and working in your life right now! He is working so that you don‘t have to be. Too many cooks in the kitchen equal a mess, so get out of the kitchen! Let the master chef do what He does best and get out of His way. When you are still you are remembering that HE is God, that He knows what He‘s doing and will do what is best for everyone involved.

Categories: 2 Chronicles, Writing Through the Bible in a Year

In the Garden

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Tamar

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 2 Chronicles 8:1-11:23

Thus was accomplished all the work of Solomon from the day the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid until it was finished. So the house of the LORD was completed. 2 Chronicles 8:16

It just keeps amazing me how we can be reading in 2 Chronicles and yet there are still scriptures that are lining up perfectly, not just with what‘s happening in my own life but also with the events of the season as well! And as much as I want to write a piece on how the disciples felt during this day in history; the day after their Lord‘s death and before His resurrection where they had to have felt so alone an abandoned and fearful for their own lives. Yet that‘s not what God wants me to write about today. And I know that because those two sentences are all I can get out onto the screen! He keeps saying to me “Rest in My finished work“ and then reminding me of a piece I wrote several months ago that I absolutely love. I keep telling Him that it really would fit tomorrow more than today, but He is insistent so I‘ve got to go with His plan and not my own understanding. I‘m guessing that it‘s because He wants us all to take the day off tomorrow and fully celebrate His Son‘s resurrection to our fullest ability. So that‘s what I will do! J Enjoy one of my favorite pieces today (Reposted from August 4th) and then take the day off tomorrow to celebrate the family that God has blessed you with!

I love you my friends!!!

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.“ (John 15:1)

Go with me to the garden for a moment. It‘s first thing Sunday morning. The sun has just broken over the eastern horizon, the dew is still on the roses, the birds are singing their morning praise songs and we are crunching along the cold stone path to Jesus‘ grave to anoint His body properly. It was a holiday weekend, the biggest there is, but it certainly didn‘t feel like a holiday weekend! None of the food tasted any good; it was filled with tears of mourning. Everything we had ever hoped for dreamed of, talked about, loved… died on Friday afternoon. We HAVE nothing to celebrate right now. But, as much as we dislike it, life goes on, and there are things to be done; dishes to wash, laundry to fold. But there is one small bright spot to our day this Monday. We get to go visit Jesus‘ body one last time. Touch His hands and His feet – anoint Him. So here we are on the path in the garden on what is by far the most beautiful morning we‘ve seen in ages. Everything seems alive and vibrant and fresh today, I wonder why. I turn to you in concern, “Oh no! How are we going to roll that huge stone away from the tomb? There‘s no way we‘ll be strong enough to do it! Those are next to impossible to move!“ But you reply, “God will make a way for us. Have faith.“
“Just like Mary,“ I think to myself, “always faithful. God bless her, she‘s right, God will bless us in our efforts, He will make a way for us to honor His son and anoint Him.“ But then we see it! His tomb, it‘s already open! “Wow! God REALLY made a way!“ But as we approach we start to sense something amiss, where‘s Jesus‘ body!?! As we become a flurry of confusion and grief and anger and voices, two men with clothes like lightning appear standing next to us, startling us to silence and immediate prostrate positions of humility with our faces to the ground. (It was either that or faint I think!) The angels questioned us, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He‘s not here! He is risen!…” As an unexplainable joy floods our souls and brings us back to the living, the angels remind us of Jesus‘ words “…crucified and on the third day be raised again.“ Oh how could we have forgotten? We run the entire way back to the house where the disciples are, the birds‘ songs cheering us on, urging our feet to move faster. When we arrive our excitement streams through our lips as fast as we all can speak, causing dazed, shocked, confused, angry and hopeful looks on everyone‘s faces. None of them know what to think, could it really be true? Can our hopes still be alive? What is happening? Was it thievery or a miracle? Can it really be true? Peter, not wanting to be left out of the action I‘m sure, returned to the tomb to investigate, running the entire way. Breathing heavily he entered the tomb to find all the wrappings of death discarded carelessly, and the napkin from His head folded carefully, signifying that He was not finished and that he would return. Not quite knowing how to deal with all this extraordinary information Simon Peter went away to think and pray, but you, Mary, you stayed. You couldn‘t bear to leave could you? Your grief and confusion is so complete so consuming that you simply couldn‘t leave the last known residence of your Lord and love Jesus of Nazareth. He saved you from a horrible life of torment didn‘t He? Those demons had plagued you night and day, filled your head with criticisms and self-doubt, fears and pain unimaginable. But then Jesus came along didn‘t He? He freed you from all of it! The pain, the shame, the torment, the fear, all gone the instant He touched you. It must have been amazing! Obviously it was because you haven‘t left His side since, even in death, you‘re still here at His grave – waiting. Crying because you don‘t know what‘s happening. But more than that, because you don‘t know where He is. All you know is that He‘s not with you and the pain that that is causing you is worse than anything the demons ever did. Your love for Jesus is so pure that nothing can stop you from wanting Him; His presence in your life, His love in your life, His grace in your life. You miss Him like nothing you‘ve ever known. And as you‘re standing there wailing beside the tomb, you just have to look upon His last resting place one more time. But this time there are two angels sitting there. But right now you are too grieved to care that there are two supernatural beings speaking to you. “Woman, why are you crying?“ they ask. You sob, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don‘t know where they have put Him!“

Mary, when everyone else left Him, you stayed. When everyone else pondered, you grieved. Maybe you didn‘t understand what was really happening, or maybe you understood better than anyone else. Either way, I can‘t imagine what it felt like to be there that morning. In that new day air, with your eyes brimming with tears saw a man standing near Jesus‘ grave. “Maybe he knows where Jesus is.“ Perhaps that‘s what you thought when you asked Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him and I will get Him.“ Perhaps, at that moment in the garden, Jesus looked so much like His father that that‘s why you mistook Him for the gardener. Oh, but no tears or choking sobs of grief could disguise His voice from you could it? No. Just as the sheep know their shepherd‘s voice, all it took was for Him to say one precious word, your name. “Mary“. And reality came crashing through your tears. He is HERE! He is ALIVE! He is speaking YOUR name! He knows your grief, He knows your pain and He came to you first to end that anguish in your soul and replace it with joy and hope and fire. All with a single word, your name. Because He knows your name, it‘s written on the palm of His hand.

Oh how desperately you wanted to cling to Him, to talk to Him, to hang on His every word and bask in His luminous personality. But alas, just as you could not hang onto your grief this morning because you had word to do, that same is true now. You can not hang onto your joy because there is work to do. OH! But the work that there is to do! It too is joyful. “You Mary“, Jesus explains, “have to tell the others. You must spread the good news! You must tell everyone that I am alive, you have seen me, and that I am returning to My Father and your Father, to my God and your God. No Mary, you may not stay longer here with Me, I know you want to, but there will be plenty of time for that later. Right now, people need to know what has happened and what will happen. I will come again, and we will be together, so be patient. Until that time, tell everyone the good things I have done for you for My glory. O blessed one.“


 

Categories: 2 Chronicles, Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Good Friday

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Tamar

Sing:
Carry Me to the Cross by Kutless

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 2 Chronicles 5:1-7:22

And now arise, O LORD God, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints rejoice in your goodness. O LORD God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one! Remember your steadfast love for David your servant. 2 Chronicles 6:41-42








And He did it ALL for YOU!

 

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Chocolate Dream

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Tamar

Sing: Made to Love You by Toby Mac

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 2 Chronicles 1:1-4:22

And the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah. 2 Chronicles 1:15

I had a dream this morning that I just have to share with you! I got up and read my scriptures for today and got done a little bit early. Sean was still doing his workout for the morning so I went back into the bedroom and laid back down, less because I was tired and more because I was freezing! But I immediately fell asleep and had this dream:

My Mom took my son and I to go visit my husband at work for lunch. We ate in a little café after eating we wanted to get a desert from the bakery case, but we only had enough money to buy one thing for us to share. It was a chocolate chip cookie dipped in the most decadent luxurious chocolate I‘ve ever tasted. You know, one of those chocolates that you bite into it and when it hits your tongue your eyes roll into the back of your head and a moan of pleasure escapes your lips embarrassingly, yeah, it was one of those kinds of chocolates and was gone in seconds. I looked down and I had it all over my fingers and everything, but before licking them off I asked the young girl behind the counter if they sold any of the chocolate by itself. I wasn‘t planning on buying any of it right then, I didn‘t have any money left for it, but for the next time we came I wanted to be prepared to buy as much of it as I could so I could make something with it myself. Well the girl looked around to see if anyone was looking and then whispered to me secretively “give me a minute“ and then turned to the shelf behind her that was filled with every kind of chocolately treat you could possibly imagine. And she started taking one of everything down off the shelf and putting it in a pile to take with us!!!!! I turned to look for my Mom to see if she was seeing what was happening and she was nowhere in sight. When I turned back around there was a pile of succulent chocolate treats so large that there was no way that all three of us could come close to carrying it out to the car with us. So I asked the girl behind the counter if she had a bag!

Then I woke up briefly when my husband came in the room, but immediately went back to sleep. Before I fell back to sleep I was praying “Lord, can You really be that good?“ I knew what that dream had meant, that God is preparing to bless us with more abundance than we‘ll be able to carry by ourselves. And it won‘t just be any old abundance, it will be the BEST abundance, the kind that makes you just roll your eyes back in your head and moan embarrassingly it will be so good. But that kind of abundance isn‘t familiar to me, so honestly, it‘s really hard for me to believe that God will do that for me and my family. I have lived on the verge of poverty my entire life, I don‘t know what abundance like that looks like, except when it‘s for other people. But not for me. So it‘s really hard for me to understand why God would choose to bless me with that. So when I was praying “Lord, can You really be that good?“ in my heart it was really “Lord, can You really be that good to ME?“ And I prayed that over and over and over and over until I suddenly found myself asleep and dreaming again. Only this time:

I was laying in the top bed of a bunk bed with both my children in the bottom bunk and my husband lying beside me. And while the words of my prayer were repeating through my brain like they do in a dramatic moment of a movie my husband leaned over me and wrapped one arm around my waist to pull me closer to him. And as another “Lord, can You really be that good?“ resounded through my brain He whispered into my ear “Yes I can.“ And at that exact moment a bright red cardinal swooped down in front of me and landed on a tree branch nearby. And then the dream repeated itself a second time “Lord, can You really be that good?“, hug, whisper, “Yes I can“, cardinal swooped down and then it stared at me with this look on its face like “believe it already woman“! And then I woke up again.

The fact that the dream repeated itself twice means that it is SET. It is certain. It is God‘s plan and it will happen. God IS that good. It‘s still hard for me to believe that He is that good to me, I certainly have done nothing to deserve it, but the way in which He held me and said “Yes I can“ I know that He can and that He will. And to be honest it almost terrifies me a little bit. I‘ve lived in these bonds of financial slavery for as long as I can remember, I don‘t know anything different and that makes it a little scary for me. But I refuse to be afraid! Because I know that God is with me and He is for me, and if He is for me then WHO can be against me… including me and my irrational fears. I don‘t know what to do with abundance, but I‘m great with living in lack. I know what to do, I know how to act, I know this place I‘ve lived in for so long. I‘ve learned how to be content with what I have and I didn‘t even ask for abundance, other than an abundance of the LORD in my life, because that I could never have enough of! God and I have been through some really tough spots in life together, I couldn‘t live without Him in my life. I only want Him. Without Him nothing else on this rock means anything.

In the verse today, King Solomon‘s reign was one of such wealth and abundant prosperity that silver and gold were as common as stone. Can you even begin to imagine wealth like that? And not just for the king himself, it was in all of Jerusalem! All the people were that wealthy! What would that be like? I read that verse before I had these dreams! Because, honestly, God knows that chocolate is a bigger deal to me than silver and gold are. But seriously, in that dream there wasn‘t a single healthy food item in the lot! It was cakes and cookies, candies, truffles, bon bons, chocolate cinnamon rolls, if it was yummy and sweet it was in that pile and then some! I might as well have been in a chocolate Shoppe in heaven, and for all I know I might have been! Because that was chocolate like I‘ve never tasted in my life! It was real and pure, divine.

Hmmmmm…. now that‘s a thought! Everything here on earth is but a shadow or a pattern of the things of heaven… if chocolate is this good here… sigh… Oh that Marriage Supper of the Lamb is going to be a feast to remember friends!!!!! Just thinking about it is making me hungry already! Oh my friends, that I might dance in the streets of heaven with you now! What a day that will be! But alas, we have work to do here first. And we will be strong and do it fervently unto the Lord because He is worthy of our praise and our honor. My dear friends let us hold out our hands to receive the abundance that God so desperately wants to pour out over us. Let us keep our hope firmly placed in Him and His goodness; and not on the things of this earth that pass away so quickly and never satisfy. Let us run with endurance toward the goal that Our Father has set before us, His loving arms held open wide waiting to receive us into His presence every morning through His word. He loves us so. Let us accept that love with open hearts and open minds. Let us search for that love with open eyes and listen for that love with open ears. Let us run toward that love, His unending love with feet that will not grow weary or faint, but will mount up on wings like eagles and soar toward our heavenly reward that IS waiting for us. Every day that we endure here in the valley of the shadow of death is nothing compared to the thousands of days that we will rejoice in and praise His holy name in when we finally get home and see Him face to face. His loving arms will wrap around us and He will whisper in our ears, “See, I told you I could be that good. I told you that you would see My goodness in the land of the living. My righteous ones are never forsaken and their children are never begging for bread.“

Yes my friends, I believe He can be that good and that He IS that good. Oh if only we would receive that today! If only we would open ourselves up to His goodness today! If only we would open all the doors of our soul like windows in a house and allow His goodness to blow in like a fresh spring breeze and then cling to that goodness throughout the day when the Enemy tries to snatch it away from us and keep us from believing that He is that good. If only we could believe Him, and not just in Him. If only we could cling to Him the way He clings to us, fervently and without hesitation. Lord help us do that! Help us to believe in Your goodness, HERE, NOW in the land of the living. Help us to receive you today and every day. Help us to open ourselves up to You and all Your goodness, today! Help us to cling to You and to shove the Enemy out the door when he comes knockin‘ trying to bust his way into our consciousness. Father help us in our helplessness. Help us in our disbelief. Help us in our frailties and use them to allow Your ability, Your faith and Your strength to shine through us. Use us, not because we are worthy or able but simply because we are willing to be used of You. Father thank You for allowing us to be a part of Your world. Thank You for insisting on loving us even when we push You farther away from ourselves. Thank You for calling us to draw nearer to You and allowing us to enter Your gates with thanksgiving and Your courts with praise. Instead of throwing us out where we deserve to be; where there is crying and gnashing of teeth. You call us in to your throne room and pull us up onto Your lap where we can snuggle nearer to Your heart. Thank You Lord.

Sing: Big House by Audio Adrenaline

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Be Strong and Do It

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Tamar

Sing: Hold Me by Jamie Grace

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 1 Chronicles 27:16-29:30

And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever. Be careful now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be strong and do it. 1 Chronicles 28:9-10

While reading this verse this morning I was so very excited about it! Put yourself in Solomon‘s shoes as his father is charging him to know God and serve Him with his whole heart and mind. But the part that got me the most was “the LORD has chosen you“. Did you know that God has chosen YOU?

Yes, you!

He‘s chosen you for His very own. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:6) Out of all the people on the face of the earth, in all the past, present and future, God has chosen you. Isn‘t that amazing??? Doesn‘t that just make you feel so special? It should!

But on top of all that, God chose you to do something too. God had chosen Solomon to build a house for the Ark of the Covenant which is where God‘s presence stayed on the earth. His favor rested there, His Spirit was there. It was a really big deal! That would be like your dad telling you that God has chosen you to build the biggest most extravagant and sacred church for God that anyone has ever made in all of history; kind of a big deal.

But Solomon isn‘t the only one who has been called to build a house for the Lord; we‘ve been called to do that too!

For the last three days my husband has been getting up at five with me and while I‘m reading my Bible he is working out to the P90X program training for the Tough Mudder he‘s doing in June. He is building up his muscles in preparation for the muddy obstacle course that he knows he will be running in a few months. This morning as I was snuggling with my Bible I could hear the TV in the other room “1…2…3…4…don‘t be too tough to take a break, it‘s not about hurting yourself“ again and again throughout the hour the trainer would emphasize the importance of taking breaks while exercising and making sure to pick the right weights for the exercise they were doing. He would point out that the goal was to push yourself, but not so hard that you hurt yourself. And I just kept shaking my head that was the entire lesson of my day yesterday. As my husband and I have both been getting up an hour early to “work out“ together, him physically, me spiritually, we‘re working hard to grow. He‘s growing physical muscles so that he can endure a physical test and I‘m growing spiritual muscles so that I can endure whatever life tries to throw at me. I am a very… we‘ll say driven, person. When I set a goal for myself, or accept a challenge from God, I go for it with everything that I have in me, and sometimes that means I drive myself a little harder than I should and set my expectations a little higher than I should. Tuesday‘s are my Sabbath day, where I should be resting and enjoying life. And while I have no problem, most of the time, resting from my housework, there are times when God calls me to rest from my work here online, I have a much harder time not doing that. Because, it‘s fun! That‘s what happened yesterday. It was one of those days when I knew what I felt God was calling me to write about for this passage, yet, when I sat down to write I couldn‘t. I‘ve learned that when I sit down to write and it doesn‘t just flow then there‘s something wrong. Whether it‘s not the right time, or there‘s an evil spirit lurking nearby (yes, I am that sensitive that I can feel them near me, and that‘s when I tell them where to go), I‘ve learned that if I don‘t have God‘s blessing to write at that time, then it‘s simply not going to happen and I might as well work on something else! Because what I write on my own isn‘t worth the paper it‘s written on, if I still wrote it on paper that is! J Anyway, that‘s what was happening yesterday, I got a good paragraph into it and just couldn‘t “feel it“, so I decided to take the kids out for lunch and take a break. On the way there, and even while we were out I was a little grumpy and withdrawn about not being allowed to write that morning. But as we were pulling back into our driveway I had a realization, I had no reason to be grumpy, not one. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day, my kids were on Spring Break, their friends wanted to play with us, I had everything to be happy and grateful for and nothing to be grumpy about. Nothing. So what if I wasn‘t getting to write that day, I‘d get to write the next day, and it was becoming ever more obvious that it was not what God had planned for me. It was clear that His plan was for me to take a break and enjoy His creation on this beautiful day! So I did… and encouraged you to do the same thing!

So this morning listening to the trainer encourage the athletes to take breaks and rest I just had to laugh. It made me think about what Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians in chapter nine verses twenty-four through twenty-seven Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.  But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. Paul knew that just like an athlete trains to make themselves stronger, we too must train ourselves to be stronger in the Spirit. For me yesterday, it was pushing my chair back away from the computer desk and jumping onto my bike with the kids and going to lunch on the other side of town. It was good exercise for my body and my spirit, plus it was fun! I had to exercise my self control and not allow myself to work too hard and injure my spirit and the spirits of my children. They needed some time with their Mom and God knew that so He made sure that they got it. He‘s so good about that!

You see, that‘s how our verse today ties in. Solomon was called to build the temple of the Living God, and so are we! Our bodies ARE the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:18-20) and so we are called to take care of our bodies. We need to be keeping our bodies healthy. And part, a very large part, of keeping our bodies healthy is keeping our lives as free from stress as we can. Stress is one of the top causes of many health issues. Stress hinders our immune system‘s ability to fight off infections that come to attack us. And as it says in Hebrews, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (12:1-3 NIV) We‘ve got to throw off the things in our life that cause us excessive amounts of stress. And sometimes those things can‘t be completely deleted from our lives, and that‘s OK, because we can still run with perseverance when we fix our eyes on Jesus. Keeping Him at the forefront of our minds at all times and yeilding to His will at all times. It‘s not always easy, I really didn‘t like giving up my writing yesterday, I love writing. But, I also really love my kids and beautiful days and by keeping my eyes focused on what God was taking away instead of fixing my eyes on what He was giving me I was completely missing the gift of that perfect afternoon. I sat in the shade of our backyard tree with the breeze wafting through my hair as I sat chatting with my dear friend Dee sipping ice water and watching the kids play. Afternoons like that don‘t come along every day and you‘ve got to seize those days while they last! If I had clung adamantly to my own plans of writing I may have enjoyed my writing, but I would have missed so much more than my 2D computer screen could ever offer me. Abundant life! Freedom! Friendship with face to face contact where I can hear the sound of the children‘s laughter and feel the cool drops of condensation from my glass drip onto my lap. I would have missed the sight of the freshness of a vibrant spring that comes from a mild winter. My computer could never offer me that kind of experience, not ever. And I would have missed that if I had ignored the Holy Spirit‘s plea to go out and enjoy it fully.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Galatians 6:7-10

We reap what we sow, if we are sowing to please ourselves then we reap destruction (stress and heartache, disappointment and frustration), but when we sow to please the Spirit we reap life, opportunities, experiences that might never have come along if we hadn‘t simply followed the Spirit of Jesus.

My friend, do not become weary in reading your Bible daily. The Enemy is going to throw all kinds of temptations and tests into your path to keep you from reading the Word that brings life, don‘t listen to him! Do not give up! Every time you read the Word of God you are allowing God to sow His supernatural seed of abundant life into your heart and from that seed you will reap love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Do not give up my friend, you can do this! But remember, this is never something that you have to do, reading the Bible is something that you get to do. And when you do it God‘s supernaturally abundant life is unleashed into your life with a force that is nowhere close to anything the Enemy can withstand. Don‘t get me wrong, he will certainly try, but he will be completely unable to succeed because you are in the palm of the One who cares more for you than anything else in all His creation, and He would never let anything into your life that you can‘t conquer WITH Him! I never would have given up writing for a day outside if I had not been reading God‘s word daily. There have been a few days along the way when I wasn‘t able, due to a death in our family, and there will be times like those when life simply will have to come first. But then you need to just jump right back in with both feet. Do not give up my friend, the harvest you will reap is worth more than anything you could ever hope of imagine! The Lord has chosen YOU to build a house for His Spirit within yourself, be strong and do it!


 

Categories: 1 Chronicles, Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Take a Day off!

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Tamar

God‘s message to me (and you) today: “Life is too short to spend it all in front of a computer screen, get outside and live!“

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year

EVERYTHING

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Tamar

Sing: Find You on my Knees by Kari Jobe

Pray: Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 1 Chronicles 23:21-27:15

And they were to stand every morning thanking and praising the LORD, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt offerings were offered to the LORD on Sabbaths, new moons, and feast days, according to the number required of them, regularly before the LORD. 1 Chronicles 23:30-31

Well yesterday was different for me! For the last month I‘ve been writing every day and adding a few pictures here and there for fun, not yesterday! It was the funniest thing; I went to bed with a picture, just a single picture in my head of what God had given me to say yesterday. I jotted it down on a note card before I went to sleep so that I would remember it in the morning. Then when I sat down to start working on it, it wasn‘t very long before I realized that one single picture just wasn‘t going to work because all the verses that God was giving me simply wouldn‘t fit on one photo! So I added a second photo-pairing to make more room, no big deal. But then He gave me even more scripture! I‘m not sure how many hours I worked on that project, but I spent the entire afternoon and evening on it! The more I tweaked them the closer they got to looking “right“. The more I added and moved and subtracted the more I could feel the Spirit resounding within me that they were the way He wanted them to look. It was very exciting! The truths that those few verses convey are so huge to me. Jesus came and everything changed!

If you have kids you know what I mean when I say a baby changes everything. Sure people tell you that when you‘re pregnant, and you believe them too, but until that baby is in your arms and living in your house you don‘t realize how much “everything“ really means. That child, that new life, changes EVERY-THING! There is no way to easily describe what that everything encompasses, you just have to have lived it to understand what I mean. Two thousand years ago, a baby was born, but not just any baby that would change everything in the lives of its parents. No, this baby came to change EVERYTHING. Everything this world has ever known since the fall of Adam and Eve changed when that baby was born. But some things are still catching up to the changes that Jesus brought with Him. See, YOU don‘t change until you accept Him, until you let Him into those secret places in your heart where your darkest feelings and regrets are stored. If you‘re not being intimate with Jesus on a regular basis, then you are missing out on the EVERYTHING that He offers.

In our reading today the passage that jumped out to me this morning was about how the Levites were to stand every morning and evening and praise God with thanksgiving in their hearts. How often do we as Christians stand up for the one and specific purpose of praising and thanking God for the blessings He has placed into our lives? I‘ll be the first to admit that I don‘t do a great job of this, which is one of the specific purposes of this blog to be honest! It gives me a platform on which to stand and proclaim God‘s goodness in my life. If no one chooses to listen to my proclamations, so be it, but at least I‘m standing up for what I believe in on a daily basis right?

I woke up this morning with the Holy Spirit singing Britt Nicole‘s song All This Time. The line that He kept singing over and over again was: “I‘m not the same me, that‘s all the proof I need“. Isn‘t that what being in a relationship with Christ is all about? Becoming someone and doing something that you never could have been or done before. When we allow Christ to come in and clean all the junk out of our hearts we change! I tell ya, I‘ve always had a relationship with Christ. For as far back as I can remember my family has attended church regularly. I remember reading my Bible in high school, I would pray sometimes, you know me and God, we were tight. Or at least I thought we were anyway! But then about four years ago something changed in our relationship. I can‘t really tell you what the inciting incident was, because I myself am not really sure. All I know is that it was as if something inside me clicked for the first time. I was doing the Beth Moore Bible study “A Woman‘s Heart“ on the Tabernacle and I was enjoying the study a lot, the women I was doing it with were AMAZING, when we got to the end of the study we were watching the very last video and Beth took all the strands that she had been weaving together throughout the study and gave them one last tug. It was one of those “Aha!“ moments where it was as if we had been watching her weave a tapestry throughout the entire study and it was so beautiful and then she finished it and turned it around and we realized that we had been watching her weave from the back of the tapestry and not the front! Suddenly we were able to see the whole picture clearly, we were able to see the message that she had been telling us for the last several weeks in a multitude of ways, GOD IS AWESOME! (There‘s a lot more detail to it, but I‘m not going to give it away because I highly recommend that study!) The moral of that story was that Jesus came and changed everything, in ways that we never could have expected. When Adam and Eve sinned they turned the world that God created upside down, and when Jesus came, died and rose from the dead He turned the world right side up again; at least that‘s what happens in our lives when we choose to follow Him. Bit by bit He turns our upside down thinking right side up.

The revelation that I received at the Winter Jam concert is something that God has been trying to drill into my brain for YEARS now. Up to that point I was allowing way too many voices to have a say on how I defined myself as a Christian. And even though the majority of those voices were Christian voices, many of them famous pastors and speakers, I was allowing them to speak the word of God into my life without filtering it through THE Word of God first. I was allowing them to tell me what the Bible says instead of reading it for myself! Which to a point is OK, but if you‘re not reading the Word on your own then you will be MUCH more susceptible to believing things that may or may not be true for YOUR life. That is one of the major things that I have learned through this writing through the Bible in a year project, while some things may work for some people, they might not work for me or my family.

Before I was reading and writing daily I was listening to a really good Christian talk radio and I was watching quite a few Christian preachers on our Satellite TV too; all good things. Except there was one major result that I kept getting over and over again, condemnation and judgment. The overwhelming message I was receiving was “thou shalt not _____“. The teachings I was listening to were all focused on the Law. And following the Law brings glory and some transformation yes, but it doesn‘t bring you liberation. And that‘s what I was finding.

In that Aha moment from “A Woman‘s Heart“ I had a moment of realization, I love God. Not like, “hey You‘re my god and I love you because I‘m supposed to“. It was like, “HEY! You‘re GOD, I LOVE YOU!!!!!“ It was in that moment, through my dedication to studying God‘s word on my own, that I realized that God loves ME enough to die for ME. I came to understand that God loves me so much that He would rather die than live without me! That kind of radical love changes people! But that kind of love can get tangled up in the rules of men. I was so in love with Christ and was so grateful for the changes He had made in my life, but I was still so tangled up in the rules of men and the standards that Christians hold each other to, that I wasn‘t able to serve God the way that He was calling me to serve. When God‘s love first really came to life in my heart I changed A LOT! If there was a verse in the Original Testament that said “Thou shalt not wear men‘s clothing“ (in our culture pants) then OK, I won‘t wear pants any more Lord! All for You! I love You! If I read a verse saying that a woman‘s long hair was her glory and that short hair is shameful, OK Lord! I won‘t cut my hair anymore! I did absolutely EVERYTHING I could to follow every letter of the Law verbatim and was leaning on the Lord to help me follow it. Except, you know what happened? I failed. Big time! The more I focused on following the Law, the more I failed it! I found myself feeling more and more like a failure every day. I was trying so hard to be perfect and follow the Law perfectly, never thinking bad thoughts about anybody, never saying anything against anyone, never rounding the corners of the Law. And the more I tried to follow the Law out of an intense Love for my Savior, the more I found myself tied up in absolute knots!!! I was failing to remember that the purpose of the Law was to take us to the end of ourselves and show us just how much we need God. Not just to live in heaven either, we need His GRACE to live an ABUNDANT life in the here and NOW!

I have learned that God has called each and every one of us to something different in this life. He has called us to be who HE made us to be. But how can we know what that is if we‘re always listening to those voices out there telling us that we‘re all supposed to be skinny and blonde with perfect skin and no gray hair, no wrinkles or age spots, perfect. Guess what my friend, there is no perfect human being. Period. But you know what… THAT‘S how God made us! He didn‘t make us to be perfect. He made us to be imperfect so that it would be through our imperfections that His perfection could shine! I mean really, what is light with no darkness to shine in? What is white without black? What is hot without cold? What is a perfect sunny day when we‘ve never experienced a rainy cloudy one? Because of our imperfections God perfection seems even more radiant and awesome. It is because of our imperfection that we are inclined to seek perfection. But it is IMPOSSIBLE to find it within ourselves, because it‘s not there! But it can be. God created each and every one of us with a desire to seek perfection, HIS perfection. But all too often we look for it in all the wrong places. Personally, I‘ve looked for it in myself and in my life. I‘ve striven to keep a perfectly clean house, cook perfectly yummy meals from scratch, keep my kids looking perfect all the time (just in case someone sees them), keep my hair looking perfect and my clothes; and all that‘s done is drive me CRAZY! I was seeking perfection in all the wrong places!!! And now, through this challenge that God has issued me, I get up every morning and I seek God‘s perfection in His word. I pray for Him to open my eyes, ears, mind, heart and hands and for Him to come and fill them with HIMSELF and His perfection, His Holy Fire. The key is being open to God and His Spirit moving within you and your life. To be open to accepting His plan for your life no matter what that might be. Be open to His grace and forgiveness and allow them to seep into your soul and transform EVERYTHING in you that might be upside down still. God can change EVERYTHING in an instant IF you will let Him.

Sing: All This Time by Britt Nicole & Born for This by Mandisa

Categories: Writing Through the Bible in a Year