Author Archives: Tamar

Sing: Need Your Love by Caedmon‘s Call

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 You clearly, open my ears so that I may hear You soundly, open my mind so that I may understand You plainly, open my heart so that I may love you more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 1 Chronicles 19:9 – 23:20

Now set your mind and heart to seek the LORD your God. Arise and build the sanctuary of the LORD God, so that the ark of the covenant of the LORD and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the LORD. 1 Chronicles 22:19

Sometimes in life, things just don‘t work out the way that you expect them to, and sometimes they do. This is one of those times for me. Where this post has turned out exactly the way I expected it to and at the same time, not at all what I was thinking. God‘s ways are not our ways, that‘s just all there is to it! Last night I went to bed with a picture in my head of what I wanted to post today. That picture turned out beautifully and turned into a series of nine pictures that tell the story. Enjoy something different my friends!

Sing: The Heart of Worship by Hillsong

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 You clearly, open my ears so that I may hear You soundly, open my mind so that I may understand You plainly, open my heart so that I may love you more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 1 Chronicles 8:1-11:47

So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the LORD in that he did not keep the command of the LORD, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the LORD. Therefore the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse. 1 Chronicles 10:13-14

Saul died for his breach of faith! Woah! That‘s a serious penalty for not obeying God‘s commands… well, I guess it‘s not that different from the original commandment though. Don‘t eat from this tree or you will die. Yeah, kinda the same thing. Anyway, this verse really caught my attention because the one thing that it focuses on, isn‘t all the times Saul tried to kill David, it was that Saul went to a medium instead of seeking God‘s guidance.

Friends, how many times have we gone to our parents, our friends, our colleagues, our neighbors, experts, doctors, the media or the government for advice or help instead of going straight to the One who can give us the best advice of all? I don‘t know about you, but I personally am very guilty of this! I can‘t tell you how many times I have come up against a situation that simply was bigger than me and immediately decided that I needed the advice of this person or thought that I should ask that person for help… when all the time there‘s God just waiting with the solution to my problem just waiting for me to ask Him! Sometimes I really wonder about myself. In Philippians 4:6-7 Paul tells us that we should not be anxious for anything, but in everything through prayer and petition we should present our requests to God, and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

It is through prayer that we seek Him and His kingdom, and it is when we seek Him first instead of leaning on our own understanding (or the knowledge of others) that He makes the way that we should go clear. When we seek Him and His opinion He will let us know which way is the right way. It most likely won‘t be in an audible voice booming from the heavens with a beam of light shining down pointing you in the right direction, but it could be! I have had a moment where I was seeking His marital advice and I kid you not, the next day I walked into the church library to look for my daughter and there was a book on the table (Ed Young‘s “Ten Commandments of Marriage“) all alone illuminated by a shaft of light from the single dingy window in the room! BINGO! So don‘t be too surprised if that is how He answers you too!

Prayer is a powerful thing. It never ceases to amaze me how different it makes you feel, how…glowing… yeah, glowing it can make you. Through prayer we are allowed to reach out and touch God‘s heart and in return He reaches out and touches ours… when we let Him. His light remains within us when we seek, not just His will, but seek HIM. There‘s so much more to the Christian life than merely going to church and singing songs, saying all the ritual prayers and ceremonies, my friend, that‘s a religion. And that‘s not what Jesus died for. Jesus died to set you free from religion! Jesus died so that you wouldn‘t have to go through ceremonial cleansings and rituals just so you could come visit Him and talk to Him once a year! He died so that you could enter into His presence JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, dirty, clean, guilty, not guilty, it doesn‘t matter anymore. You see, before Jesus died there was this place called the Holy of Holies where it was said that God‘s presence “lived“ there. Now, God is everywhere, always has been, always will be, but there was a greater concentration of His Spirit in that room where the Ark of the Covenant sat. This room was sacred and NO ONE, I mean NO ONE was allowed into that room. Only once a year was the high priest allowed to go into the room and that was after a half-a-day‘s worth of ritual cleansings and sacrifices and anointing, you name it he had to do it to go into the room. Then after he was prepared to go in, he had to take a censer full of smoking incense in with him to cloud his vision so that he wouldn‘t die from the sight. While in there he would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice onto the ark of the covenant as an atoning sacrifice for the entire Hebrew nation. That day, called the day of Atonement, was a big deal for the Jewish people, it still is. But that whole day was a symbol, a foreshadowing of what Christ did for us on the cross. The animal‘s blood that the priest sprinkled onto the Ark of the Covenant wasn‘t long-lasting enough, it only had a shelf life of 365 days. After that it went bad and had to be replaced. But Jesus‘ blood, well that‘s a different story! Jesus is our high priest and He placed Himself on that cross as a willing sacrifice on our behalf. Then the blood that He shed all over the streets of Jerusalem that day, including the foot of the cross, got taken to heaven and He Himself sprinkled it on the actual Ark of the (now new) Covenant that resides in the throne room of God. And it is because He was willing to do all of this for us, that on the day of His death on the cross the earthquake shook the temple so violently that it tore the curtain separating that room from the rest of the world into two clean pieces! There is no longer a need for that curtain of separation any more! The atoning blood of Jesus‘ sacrifice was, is and will be enough for all the wrong you and I ever have, are or will be doing in our lives. His grace is sufficient for us.

There is absolutely positively nothing that you can do that God hasn‘t already forgiven you for. Did you know that? Seriously, nothing. He has seen every heinous sin every committed on the face of this planet, there is nothing new under the sun that you can do that He has not seen before and forgiven completely through Jesus‘ sacrifice. Nothing. Period. Personally, it is my belief that the greatest sin that we could ever commit against God, is to not believe Him. To not believe that He is who His word tells us that He is. Or to not believe that He can do what He says He can do, we can‘t ever forget that HE IS GOD. If we believe that He is the one who created the world, is it really that much of a stretch to believe that He can make a virgin pregnant, or a fish swallow a man, or bring His Son back to life, or… do those things for… YOU? Mary was just a girl, Jonah was just a man, yet God performed HUGE miracles with them, through them and for them, why? Because HE wanted to! If God wants to perform a miracle in your life, do you want Him to? I don‘t know about you but I DO! And why not???? Why not me? Why not you? Why not? He‘s God! He can do what ever He very well pleases, He can choose whomever He wants… what if He wants you. What if He wants to use you to do something really awesome in His name? What if God wants you to make a difference in this world? And what if He wants you to do all that by simply being you and open to His suggestions? What if He wants to do all that by having a relationship with you through reading His word daily and communicating with Him throughout the day in whatever way you‘re most comfortable with. You know, He‘s God, He can do that! J

Sing: Overcome by Jeremy Camp

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 You clearly, open my ears so that I may hear You soundly, open my mind so that I may understand You plainly, open my heart so that I may love you more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 1 Chronicles 5:23-7:40

They were given the cities of refuge; Shechem with its pasturelands in the hill country of Ephraim, Gezer with its pasturelands, 1 Chronicles 6:67

You know, here I was never able to get through Numbers before when I was reading through the Bible from cover to cover because of all the genealogies and I was so happy because Numbers was at the end of this plan… and then we hit Chronicles! UGH! Finding things to write about in these long lists has been a challenge, but God is faithful!

Unfortunately so is the Enemy, well, maybe not faithful, but certainly predictable! When you are in the will of God and doing precisely what He wants you to do, well, the Enemy NEVER likes that! And then he starts to do everything that he can to keep you from doing that thing. It has been my experience that one of his favorite tactics on women with children is Mommy Guilt! For the last few days I have really been battling those seeds of doubt and guilt that the Enemy sows into a Mission-minded-Mom‘s mind when she is doing the right thing. His number one technique is making you feel guilty about spending time doing that right thing rather than doing “x“ activity for your family. In the last few days I have been bombarded with this! I was struggling with how much time I‘ve been spending taking pictures and editing them and writing and editing and networking and editing. I was feeling like I was spending too much time doing that and not enough time or energy taking care of my family and spending quality time with my kids. The Enemy must have sent several minions my way too because it certainly felt like everywhere I was turning I was encountering some form of guilt or doubt about whether or not I should be writing. Funny thing about the Enemy though, he doesn‘t get to win! So this morning as I‘m working around the house and getting my morning chores done he was after me already, like a monkey on my back whispering into my ear, my thoughts swirled with “your family needs you“, “you‘re not eating healthy enough, you‘re all going to get sick“, “you‘re spending too much money on pre-prepared foods so that you can spend more time writing and it‘s costing your family too much money“, “that clean laundry has been sitting in the living room unfolded for way too long, you just can‘t keep up doing both housework and God‘s work“… it was maddening!

That‘s when I asked my husband to pray for me. I told him that I was battling something and I started to say that I didn‘t know who I was battling but then I was quickly but quietly reminded of a Sunday afternoon not that long ago when that precious voice I love awoke me from a semi-sound afternoon nap and said “write through the Bible in a year“. I know who I‘m battling! And it‘s not God! And then I realized WHY I‘ve been battling… I‘m not only encouraging people to read through the Bible in a year, I‘m giving them the tools to do it with too! Three years ago God called me to draw people into more intimate relationships with Him through my gifts of writing and teaching and almost every day since then I have been doing just that. It certainly has not been an easy road, but it has been worth it. Every attempt of the Enemy to thwart me and stop my ministry, God has taken it and used it for not only my learning and benefit, but for yours as well by proxy. The Enemy doesn‘t get to win! There may be times in life when it seems like he might have an upper hand, but he never does, not ever! God is the SUPREME ruler of this world, He is in control, He holds the keys to heaven, hell, earth and anything in between. The Enemy doesn‘t get to win, because Jesus already has.

On a day many years ago a lone man stood awaiting an unjust trial, accused of nothing specific other than opposing the current powers that be. For three years He roamed the countryside telling people about the Son of Man who is also the Son of God (though He never really referred to Himself that way He certainly could have, because that‘s what He is). He shared with them truths about the kingdom of God that they had never understood before, and some didn‘t understand even after He explained them. He showed them true love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness, yet they still did not understand. Then on the evening of Passover, the night that death roamed the streets of Egypt thousands of years ago killing all the firstborn children of the unprotected houses, Jesus was praying in a silent garden asking God the Father if there was some other way to save the world. Yet, not my will be done, but Yours Father. That Passover night, death came to kill the firstborn of heaven. The very next day at the same time as the afternoon sacrifice Jesus lifted His eyes to heaven and proclaimed “It is finished“! At that moment it certainly appeared as though death had won, not just the battle, but the war. The earth shook, the sky was black, tombs opened, dead people walked out of them and the temple was so violently rocked in its foundations that both the physical and supernatural curtain separating the world from God‘s love and forgiveness was ripped from top to bottom. While it may have seemed like death had won, he really had just lost everything.

There are times in our lives when it may seem like we have just lost everything, but in fact we have just gained everything that matters the most. There are times in our lives when it may seem like the Devil is winning the war against us, but in fact he is losing it, more then than any other time. It is in those times of battle and pressure when God is using the Enemy like a garlic press to squeeze out from within us the most precious oil of gladness. Yeah, I know, weird analogy, but those are some of my favorite!

My Pampered Chef garlic press is ingenious in design, it is such an effective press that you don‘t have to peel the garlic first! You can just pop a whole clove of garlic into the press, apply pressure to the handle and the ENTIRE garlic clove comes out the bottom of the press and only the peel is left within it. I have not had to peel a single clove of garlic since the day I received it from my consultant! The key to its design is the size of the holes at the bottom of the press and the way that the press fits together. When the garlic is being pressed the holes below it are just big enough to allow the entire clove to come through while at the same time they are still small enough that none of the peel comes through. Then the piece that presses the garlic from above fits perfectly with the container of the press so that it doesn‘t allow any of the garlic or the peel to escape through the top of the press. Making this press the most effective garlic press I‘ve ever used. One press and I‘ve got minced garlic! I used to have another garlic press that I would have to press it at least three times in order to get even half of the clove out, and I had to peel the garlic first too! To say the least it was a very ineffective press. OK, OK, so what does all this have to do with Satan right? LOL, OK.

We are that garlic clove,

Satan is the press,

and God is the one doing the pressing.

Picture it this way, like God is a master Chef in His kitchen making up the most amazing recipe (maybe it‘s meatballs), that we call the world. He made it and it all belongs to Him and He wants to use YOU in order to make it even tastier! Yay! But He can‘t use you in the raw form that you‘re in right now. I mean, He COULD He‘s God, He can do whatever He wants, except He doesn‘t want that hard shell that‘s covering you right now. That might make the meatballs taste a little funny and crunchy when they‘re done and none of us would want that! So He plucks you from that place of comfort, familiarity and safety, the larger clove that you‘d been clinging to your entire life, and places you lovingly into the most effective garlic press He‘s ever used, and then applies the pressure necessary to get you to the form that‘s required to get His dish to taste just right. At NO point are you at the mercy of the press, it is simply the tool that God lovingly and CAREFULLY uses. God knows precisely how much or how little pressure to apply at any point in time. He knows your frailties and your strengths. He knows them and He LOVES you enough to take them into careful consideration when lovingly applying the pressure with His own hand. He is the Chef and we are the ingredient. He is the potter and we are the clay.

In today‘s reading I was overwhelmed by all the mentions of the “pasturelands“ given to the Levites. The Levites were the priests in the temple; they were the pastors or “shepherds“ of God‘s flock. Today each and every one of us is called to be a “royal priest“ (1 Peter 2:9) and to shepherd the sheep of God‘s flock. However, that means that we must also be prepared to stand up and fight for those sheep against the wolf. Sometimes that wolf is in sheep‘s clothing or disguised as light. To be properly prepared to fight off the wolf at a moment‘s notice we have to be fit and ready at all times, hence, the lessons of preparation that we go through that sometimes press us harder than we‘re comfortable being pressed. However, in the end, it‘s better that we have gone through that garlic press of life, because then we‘re more fit for the Lord‘s service and we get to be a critical part of those tasty meatballs that He‘s using us to make. J Isn‘t God awesome!

Praise Him in the storm with Mandisa in “

Sing: Trust and Obey with Carlene Davis

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 You clearly, open my ears so that I may hear You soundly, open my mind so that I may understand You plainly, open my heart so that I may love you more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 1 Chronicles 2:1-5:22

His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all. 1 Chronicles 2:4

Lord, why am I here? Why am I doing the things that I‘m doing, filling my time with the things that I fill it with? Are they things that are honoring You? Do they make You smile? Daddy I‘m so… unsure right now. I know that doubt is cancer for the soul so I‘m really working hard not to doubt that You‘re leading my actions at the moment, but I‘m unsure of my motives. What are my motives? Are they selfish, are they filled with fame and fortune or are the people who don‘t know you my motive? Is it because I love you that I do the things that I do or is it simply because I love attention and this makes me feel like I‘m getting attention.

I keep asking You who You want me to be and yet I know that You want me to be me. So who am I then? What does that look like?

I am your daughter and I love You. So passionately I can barely contain it… which is why I have to write. I have learned to be a good listener, but in turn it means that I don‘t get much opportunity to talk and that‘s where my writing comes in. It‘s my chance to sing my praises and thoughts about You without someone interrupting me! (Other than myself and my own short attention span.)

I am your wife and I love You passionately. I am here to support You, to love You, to help You (not that you need my help, but I know that you enjoy my desire to help). Lord I love being intimate with You and sharing my deepest thoughts, fears and desires with You alone. You are the only one who knows me better than I know myself. I want your love to pour into me and come to live within me like a child comes to life in its mother‘s womb. I want the fruit of Your Spirit to fill me and burst forth in my life. I want Your love. I want You.

I am your servant and I love you passionately. I am here to serve You and Your purposes. I desire to follow You and Your will for my life. Yet I am learning more and more that Your desire for my life is simple, for me to live it. To be myself and who You made me to be. To live out my dreams and passions and talents that You placed within me.

Daddy, how can I do that???

Sometimes I feel so lost, I feel like I‘m on the wrong path, like I‘m going the wrong way. Sometimes I feel like my head is telling me to turn back and my heart is telling me to go on and keep going. Which one I listen to is a moment by moment decision.

Lord, please keep teaching me how to be more like You.

“By being more like yourself! I made you who you are, embrace it, love it and then live it!“

Daddy! THANK YOU! Thank You for giving me permission to simply live. I have spent so much time laboring over what the “right“ thing is to do or not do in every situation when really I need to just let go of the idea that I can be perfect and work harder at just being the imperfect beautiful woman that You created me to be. I may say something that people might not like. And that‘s OK. I may do something that someone might not agree with or that might not “mesh“ with the standards of my religion. And that‘s OK. Because life isn‘t about being perfect, it‘s about loving You and being the person You created me to be. You created me to be Your lover, Your partner, Your friend, Your confidante, Your Buddy and Your pal. And I love that about myself. I love the jokes that we share the stories that we have together both the happy and the sad ones. We have such a history together and I love that about us. It‘s what I love the most about me; I love that You are a part of me and my life, that You make me who I am. I am Yours! And that‘s all that really matters. Thank You for helping me straighten that out Daddy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes knowing who we are is a tricky thing. Some say that that was part of the Enemy‘s original deception of Adam and Eve, he confused them into thinking they could be like God by eating the fruit He told them not to eat. He messed with their minds to make them think that they should be something other than what God made them to be; that they could live by themselves, that they could “be like God“ without God being in their lives. And while we were created to be like God and have been called to “imitate Christ“, we are not God. We were created for fellowship with God and through that relationship with Him we find ourselves becoming more like Him day by day. It‘s not a magic pill that we swallow and suddenly find ourselves omnipotent and more powerful; it‘s simply a relationship, a friendship, an intimacy with God Almighty the maker of heaven and earth. We were not created to be alone. In Genesis 2 after God has separated the light from the darkness and it was good and made the dry land and it was good God creates man and says “it is NOT good that man should be alone“. We were created for the specific purpose of relationship, with God and with each other. Our identity is rooted, not in who we are, but in WHOSE we are. God created us for HIS good purposes and for His glory. And when we lose sight of the truth that we belong to Him, we were bought with a price out of slavery to sin, then we lose sight of ourselves. Which creates within us a turmoil like none other, a tornado of doubt and fear. Ahhhhh, but we belong to the One who calms the storms of life with an outstretched hand and the words “Be still!“. We may be sitting in a boat in the middle of a sea of doubt surrounded by white-capped waves of fear BUT GOD IS WITH US. So we shall not be afraid and we shall not doubt, we shall only trust and obey. Because there‘s no other way to happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.

So what does that look like for those of us who have been called to serve God and become more like Him day by day through relationship with Him?

That‘s just it! I can‘t tell you what it looks like, because it‘s different for everybody. God made us unique individuals, like snowflakes we are all different. If God had wanted us all to be the same then He would have made us all identical. But He didn‘t do that now did He? And yet here we sit thinking that we can all serve Him in the same way. As if that‘s what He wants. I‘ve been thinking a lot lately about mothering and the process that it takes. I was reading a blog yesterday written by a fellow writer where her calling as a mother was battling for priority over her calling as a writer. (Boy can I feel her pain!!!) She was posing the question about dreams and how heavily should we pursue them? What if a “God-sized“ dream is really small and not big? What if being a writer is her dream and not God‘s dream for her? What if God‘s dream for her is to mother her children only and not write at all until they‘re older? (Boy have I asked myself those questions!!!) And while I can‘t give her the answer for her and her family, simply because God has called us each to different things; I can tell her what God has shown me (through my writing coincidentally). Let me play it out for you below:

I wrote down the prayer above in desperation because the Enemy had been plaguing me all day about taking my Sabbath day off from housework to spend time with God. He was mad because I was doing precisely what God had called me to do, so he started casting seeds of doubt into my mind about my own calling as a writer. “What is the point in being a writer if ‘no one‘ is going to read what you write“, and “Why go to Bible Study when no one is listening to what you have to say or wants to hear what you think?“ He had me hooked! Heh, heh, heh, but luckily those little doubt sprouts can‘t stand up to the heat of the True Light of the world. So I held them up to Him and asked Him to deal with them, which He promptly did. He led me to www.incourage.me (a website I highly recommend to any woman) where I read the blog about dreams. As I read I could feel my spirit rising up within me in defense of her own calling as a writer and a mother. At this point God reminded me that He and I had dealt with this very same issue before, when I wrote “Mommy Guilt“ and His Spirit led me to recall that lesson to mind by re-reading that post. Well, the work He started in me through reading someone else‘s blog about Mommy Guilt He finished by having me read my own blog about Mommy Guilt. But He put the icing on the cake when He then reminded me of a day, not that long ago, where I was laying on my bathroom floor sobbing… because of the Mommy Guilt vs. “working for God“ battle that was raging in my mind creating an identity crisis in me once again. As I laid there I gave God everything, my name, my dreams, my hopes and aspirations, my duties as a mother and a wife, everything that I think makes me me; I laid it down at the cross and asked Him to take it all. And when I felt that He had taken all of me, I asked Him to show me how He sees me. What His dreams for me look like. Immediately (how gracious of Him to be so giving, He certainly doesn‘t always answer so quickly), I saw myself with my sisters in Christ at our Parks & Prayers meeting. Then He showed me standing on a stage teaching a large room full of women about Him. Then He showed me sitting at my computer typing, writing these blogs and books and whatever else God dreams up for me to do on here. All of these things I had dreamed of doing myself, so I was grateful to Him for giving those things back to me to continue dreaming them… except where were my children? Where was my husband? So I asked Him “Lord, where is my family? Where do they fit into the dreams?“ And again He showed me a picture. This time I was at a Mom‘s in Prayer meeting at the school where I “drag“ my four-year-old along with me and sit her in the corner of the room with her little princess bag filled with activities and snacks. But He didn‘t show me from my own perspective, He showed me from hers. From her seat in the corner she sits and watches her Mommy who loves her desperately pray with other ladies who love the Lord. And she listens to us pray for her, and her brother, for their friends, for the school and the teachers, for our community and the nation. She sees that and she hears that every week! Every week! The vision was so overwhelming that I‘m glad I wasn‘t standing, because if I had been, I would have fallen to my knees.

Free to Be Me by Franchesca Battastelli (This is one of my FAVORITE songs, not only does it just make me happy, but it reminds me that God doesn‘t expect me to be perfect.)