2 Samuel 18:1-20:26

“There is nothing hidden from the king.” 2 Samuel 18:13

In Genesis 16 we find the story of Hagar. Having been abused by Sarai, her master, Hagar fled from her. At a well in the wilderness, an angel came to Hagar and spoke over her unborn child. He told her that she would have a boy and to name him Ishmael which means, “God hears”. The angel blessed her and her son and commanded her to return to her master. So Hagar said to the angel of the LORD, “You are a God who sees me.”

Beloved, God sees you. There is nothing hidden from the King of kings. There is nowhere where you can hide from Him. There is no mountain high enough where He can’t find you. You can not flee to the depths of the sea and not be seen by His love. Even there His hand shall lead you and His right hand shall hold you. If you say, “surely the darkness will cover me, and even the light around me is like night,” even the darkness isn’t dark to Him; the night is bright as the day, for the darkness is as light to Him. There is nothing that can separate you from His love for you through Christ Jesus. Not one single thing.

As mothers we all too often hold ourselves to a standard we simply can not achieve. We look around us and see everyone else’s best qualities and then sew them together into a quilt of guilt for ourselves where we can’t ever quite measure up. We see the mom who always looks perfect and beat ourselves up for not being pretty enough. We can’t see that she cries herself to sleep at night because she’s found out her husband looks at porn instead of her. Even she’s not pretty enough.

We look at the mom who’s always so peaceful and serene with her kids and beat ourselves for losing our temper and screaming at our kids. We miss the moment when she locked herself in the bathroom because she was too overwhelmed and needs five minutes of PEACE. Even she’s not peaceful enough.

We read the highlight reel of Facebook and judge our blooper reel against it. We are not fair to ourselves. We judge ourselves by standards that no one can live up to. We see perfection in everyone BUT ourselves. The truth is that NO ONE is perfect except Jesus. No one can do everything. No one can be everything to everyone. No one can be someone to the whole world. But you CAN be someone’s whole world. It’s called being a mom.

There is no one in this whole planet that is going to love you and look up to you the way your children do. You gave them LIFE, that’s not a small fact that escapes their attention, though it often escapes ours. We fail to remember the gigantic role we play in keeping these people alive and setting them up for the best possible future we can. Our children are the greatest gift we can possibly give mankind. They are the future and when we train them up in The Way they should go, when they are old they will not stray. And the best way to do that is to be a great role model.

What if, right now, I start teaching my daughter to judge herself fairly by modeling it for her? What if, instead of just telling her she’s capable of anything she puts her mind to, I show her. What if I start teaching my children the power of forgiveness by first forgiving myself?

I’M NOT PERFECT AND THAT’S OK!

I need to allow myself to fall short from time to time. And I can’t expect the glory of God from myself because that’s not going to happen. That’s just not how it works! The glory of God comes from GOD. It’s not something we can obtain, just ask Eve. Nor is it something that we should strive to attain. It’s His glory, and it will remain that way. The glory that IS ours is the glory that God created for us. It’s the glory of doing what God created us to do. In the way He created us to do it.

What’s so fun about going to the zoo? We go to watch the seals swim, the lions prowl and the monkeys monkeying around. We delight in watching the animals be animals and do what God created them to do. What if, for this year, we delight in doing what God created us to do – be moms.

You know those moments when we think we’re alone and we’re putting some special touch on something no one will ever see or notice? It’s in those moments that we must understand there is NOTHING hidden from the King. He sees your bathroom fears and your silent victories over them. He’s keeping track of each diaper changed, every rough tear-filled night, every sigh of frustration, He sees them all. He’s there through them all because He loves YOU!

No. You’re not the perfect mom.

No one is.

BUT.

You ARE the perfect mom for your kids. You know how I know that? Because God chose YOU to be their mom! And God doesn’t make mistakes.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

2 Samuel 15:1-17:29

“So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.” 2 Samuel 15:6

(The continuation of yesterday’s post):

The sixty-first chapter of Isaiah details the favor of the LORD**, the tenth verse says, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed ME with the garment of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

My friend, YOU are that favorite son of the Father. YOU are that beloved daughter of the King. YOU are the Bride of Christ who has been given a robe of righteousness to wear. Did you know, there are two robes that are mentioned in the crucifixion of Jesus. The first is the scarlet robe that the soldiers put on Him to mock Him as king of the Jews. The second is the robe that the soldiers cast lots for at the foot of the cross. The first robe He wore as they mocked who He IS. They made fun of Him for claiming the Truth that He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And as we’ve read in Revelation that is the very name that is written on His thigh when He wears a white robe dipped in blood. The second robe He most likely wore throughout His entire ministry. It was a robe that according to John 19:23-24 was seamless. It hadn’t been sewn from several different pieces, but it had been woven seamlessly as a single piece of fabric. While the first robe represents Christ’s deity, the second robe represents His seamless perfection and holiness. A holiness that He has transferred onto YOUR shoulders my friend.

Romans 5:19 KJV says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous.” According to this verse your sins didn’t make you a sinner, Adam’s sin did. Likewise, your goodness doesn’t make you righteous, Jesus’ does!!! Beloved, your salvation doesn’t rest on your shoulders it rests in your heart and in your mouth. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:10) You need only to believe in your heart that Jesus is who He has said that He is and done what He said that He did and you are justified. Once that has happened and you truly believe it wrapping your whole heart around the Truth that Jesus died for YOU and saved YOU from eternal condemnation starting in this VERY MOMENT, well, I dare you to keep your mouth shut about it because you won’t be able to. I’m living proof of that! Once I finally wrapped my brain around the Truth that Jesus MADE me righteous, well, I’ve done everything I can to spread the word that YOU have been MADE righteous too.

It’s GOOD NEWS! That’s what the word “Gospel” means, good news. News that’s so good you can’t help but spread it around. News that’s so good you can’t help but to be changed by it. In fact, it’s news that’s so good it inspires you to BE good, to DO good, to SPEAK good. My friends, God isn’t good to you because you’re good. He’s good to you because HE IS GOOD. That’s who He is! And the second we start believing that our actions have the ability to diminish His ability or willingness to be good to us, is the moment we diminish who God is. We put Him in a box and tell Him that He’s only allowed to be “this good” to us because we’ve only been “this good”. But according to Romans 5:7-9 that’s not how God works. “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” God can’t fit in a box; He’s too big and too great for that. We’ve got to stop putting limits on how much goodness we can expect from God. He’s a GOOD God, there is no end to His goodness and faithfulness and mercy.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake [God The Father] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in [Jesus] we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus died the death meant for us, so that we wouldn’t have to. Jesus paid the price on our heads because He knew that we couldn’t afford it. And in Him paying the price, WE reap the reward! Jesus was made sin so that we might be made righteous. We were sinners and He was righteous, but through the miracle of the cross He became a sinner and we became righteous through faith in His sacrifice on our behalf.

God isn’t good because you’re good. God’s good because HE IS GOOD.

Do you believe it? Then SPEAK it to someone today!

*(from yesterday’s post) What about all the colors? Light is composed of every color the eye is able to see and many that it isn’t. When we see the color white we’re seeing ALL the colors at the same time. White is the color of purity and righteousness. Hence if you’re wearing a white robe of righteousness you are wearing every color you could ever imagine and then some! A coat of many colors!

Is that what they meant when they translated Joseph’s coat had many colors, I doubt it. Does that mean that Joseph’s literal coat was white, I have no idea, but again I doubt it. It doesn’t sound very practical to this mom of two, for a shepherd boy to wear a white coat. But symbolically…. I LOVE IT! 😀

**While I don’t have the time or space to put it all in here I do recommend HIGHLY that you go through and read that chapter and declare those words spoken over YOU by the Lord God Almighty!

2 Samuel 12:16-14:33

“Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves, for thus were the virgin daughters of the king dressed.” 2 Samuel 13:18

As some of you might imagine I have a particular fondness to the stories of Tamar in the Bible. There are three of them, Tamar the daughter of Judah and mother of Perez and Zerah (Genesis 38), Tamar the daughter of David and Tamar the daughter of Absalom the son of David. Two of these Tamars are mentioned in today’s Word of the Day. The eldest Tamar’s story… well, it isn’t that great to be honest. She has a horrid thing done to her; her own half-brother violates her and then casts her aside like yesterday’s garbage. And yet in the midst of telling us this story the narrator mentions her robe with long sleeves. And at first glance I’ve always just assumed he was mentioning it because she tore it in mourning. But today, reading it in a new translation, I noticed a footnote that blew my mind. The robe that she was wearing is described with the same words as Genesis 37:3.

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. *Footnote: a robe with long sleeves.”

I find this extremely intriguing. That the favorite son of the Father of the nation of Israel and the beloved daughter of king David, the man after God’s own heart BOTH wore robes of many colors that were characterized by their long sleeves. And what’s with the big deal that the sleeves were long?

Today’s Wednesday and I’m off work so I’ve got some time to actually dig into my research and WRITE, so I’m going to. I wanted to see if the same phrase was really used to describe both of these robes and what that phrase actually is. When I found it, I was not disappointed.

The phrase in Hebrew is transliterated as: “kethoneth pas”. Kethoneth is a tunic or under-garment; a long shirt-like garment usually of linen. It is from an unused root meaning to cover. OK, that makes sense, but when I looked up the meaning of pas I was in for a dramatic surprise. Expecting to see that pas mean color I was befuddled to see that it means, the flat (of the hand or foot), palm, sole; of the tunic reaching to palms and soles (figuratively). “Uhhhhh….. what???” I thought, “Where on earth do they get the translation that this special robe had many colors???” So I continued reading, by implication (plural) a long sleeved tunic (perhaps simply a wide one; from the original sense of the root, that is, of many breadths). OK, now I have this picture in my head of this beautiful virgin girl walking around in a robe that’s so long it covers her hands and feet when she walks and is so wide that it hides the curves of her body. Now THAT makes sense. Plus she’s a daughter of the King so you can imagine that this wasn’t any ordinary sheath dress with a simple fabric and no ornamentation, *pbbbft* NO WAY! I’m sure it was decked out with all kinds of fancy needlework and sequins and made of the finest linen or silk that money could buy, she was the daughter of the King after all. But, there was something that still just wasn’t lining up for me, what about the colors? There was a link to the root word and its definition, so I clicked on that to gain a little more insight. “Pasas: to disappear, vanish, cease, fail”. And BOOM like lightning it hit me what the significance of this robe is!

But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what that is. 😉

2 Samuel 8:1-12:15

“And the LORD gave victory to David wherever he went.” 2 Samuel 8:14

There’s a verse that I live by that I think you should be aware of. It goes right along with this verse of the day about David’s victories. No matter where David went or who he was fighting, he had victory. It was the same for Joshua, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised Moses.” (Joshua 1:3)

Victory is part of being a friend of God. He is not a loser, God ALWAYS wins, period. And guess what, while David and Joshua and Moses had God with them, you have God IN you. My friends, it’s not just wherever you set your foot that you will have victory, it’s wherever you sit, wherever you stand, wherever your voice carries, it’s YOU. God’s presence lives in you just like it lived in the wilderness Tabernacle. His voice is your voice and His hands are your hands.

You may have heard of the Midas touch, well you’ve been given something much better. You’ve got a Divine Touch. Your hands have the power to heal the sick. Your voice has the power to mend soul-deep wounds. Your arms have the power to help the lost find their way, all because the Spirit of the Living God falls afresh on you each and every morning. His mercies are new and ready to save you from anything you may face during the day.

In Genesis when God calls Abram to leave his family and everything he’s ever known it’s not without a promise of benefit. God tells him that He will bless Abram so that he in turn can be a blessing to others. (Genesis 12:2) According to Galatians 3:29, “If you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” So if you have confessed that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, then you are considered Abraham’s child and are eligible to benefit from the promise that God gave him.

The honest to goodness truth is that God WANTS to bless you. But He doesn’t want to just bless you. He wants to bless you so extravagantly that by blessing you He will be blessing those around you as well because they’re standing close enough to be splashed by the tidal wave of His Grace pouring over your head. How awesome is that???

2 Samuel 3:26-7:29

“Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?”

It is ALWAYS wise to consult God before diving headlong into a battle with the enemy. But I especially like how David phrases his question. “Should I go?” and “Will I win?” It’s kind of a big deal isn’t it? Knowing if you’re going to win the battle before you even go in, it has the potential to change the entire outcome of the battle. If you’ve been told by God beforehand that you WILL win the battle, but your team is losing at the moment, then you know the battle must not be over yet right?

If God has said that He would work all things out for your good, and He has (Romans 8:28), and they’re not looking good at the moment then God must not be done working things out then eh?

I really need this message today! It’s been a rough day. Sean woke up early to work out only to come back to bed frustrated and unable to work-out because Anna and Skippy were asleep on the couch in front of the TV. (They sleep together when there’s a storm.) When I went to get dressed for work I tried on my new pants but ended up taking them off because I had a little voice in my head telling me they’d look dumb with my shoes. When I came out to the kitchen for breakfast I looked into the living room and saw a gaping hole in the new blanket I had just finished crocheting! Just like my morning, my sweet little granny squares were unraveling from the centers. I have put DAYS, not hours, days into this blanket. Making each tiny delicate square from yarn that was given to me as a Christmas gift. I spent days designing and deciding just how I wanted to fit them all together. Weeks went by before it was all finished. But then things started unraveling. The first one I figured was just a fluke and I waved it off. But then it happened again, and again, and I knew I needed to do something. So I spent another DAY going through and pulling each center apart, tightening them back up and knotting them closed.

The last thing I wanted was for all those days of hard work and love to come apart. This blanket has been a work of heart from the very beginning, to see it destroyed would be… upsetting. So to see that even after going through each individual square and redoing them, they’re STILL pulling apart, well, I nearly cried right then and there! But Sean looked at me and said, “just fix them. It’s OK.” And so I did.

And while I sat there staring at those gaping holes and loose ends and feeling defeated and downtrodden a little voice inside just kept saying, “you’re not finished yet.” And I’m not. Not finished with that blanket, not finished with this Bible in a year challenge, not finished writing, not finished being an awesome wife and mom, not finished making new friends, not finished climbing the corporate ladder… I’m not finished yet. As much as this “Get ‘er done” girl wants to put a big red “DONE” stamp on everything and defiantly cross things off my ever-growing to-do list, I can’t; because I’m not done.

I have more to do, always more to do. More battles to win and more wars to fight. I haven’t reached the end of the loose ends, because just as I tie one off another unravels and I reach a new beginning, a new chapter, a new challenge, a higher rung. And it keeps me fluid, moving like water.

I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for seven years. Getting back out into the world has been harder than I expected. It’s not impossible and I’m stubbornly determined to make it work. But it’s not without its drastic changes and heartaches. My life is different now and I have to accept that. There once was a time when my highest goal was to feed, change and nurture a baby that is now feeding itself, uses the restroom quite proficiently and isn’t even with me for most of the day. My children have grown and I with them, but not without a few growing pains along the way. Yes, I’m having moments in this season of transition where my centers are unraveling. But then God blesses me with the time to sit and tie them back together. And for that moment, if only for that moment, the blanket of my life filled with unfulfilled hopes and dreams is whole and useable.

The battle’s not over yet. God’s not done working good for us today my friend. If God is with us then who could be against us? I mean REALLY? Who? Who can stand against a child of the One True King and live? We’ve read the end of the book (Revelation) we know how the story, our story, ends. We win! We’re just not finished yet.

Now off to figure out how to get to work today, my tire’s flat.

1 Samuel 23:1-25:44

“And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand.” 1 Samuel 23:14

Every day Satan seeks to steal, kill and destroy us, but God doesn’t give us into his hand! Faith in His love gives us hope.

“These three remain faith, hope and love; the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

One tiny mustard seed of Faith can make mountains move (Matthew 17:20), uproot trees, casting them into the sea (Luke 17:6) and then solidify that sea allowing one to walk upon it (Matthew 14).

One door, opened through Grace, to the true dwelling place of a living hope in things unseen can hold you captive and revive your spirit with abounding heavenly joy, peace, rest and the full assurance of a security that upholds you according to the promises of the Eternal One who is not able to lie. (Hebrews 11:1, 6:18, Acts 2:26, Romans 5:4-5, Zechariah 9:5, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, Romans 15:13, Proverbs 10:20 & 13:12 Job 11:18)

But 1 Corinthians 13:13 says that Love is the greatest of all of these. Love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Love dies on a cross in its lovers place (2 Corinthians 5:21). Love rises from the dead and proclaims justification and righteousness for the Beloved (Luke 24:1-7, Mark 16:1-6, John 20:1-10, Matthew 28:1-10, Romans 3:23-26, 5:19, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 12:23, Deuteronomy 33:12, Song of Solomon 2:16). Love holds out nail-pierced hands and pulls you to His wounded side and shows you the scars of your birthplace. And says, “Look, touch, know that you are loved THIS much. Feel the place of your origin, the place where water and blood spurt forth and you were born and washed clean, made new and fresh as a babe, Beloved child of God; come. See the place where flesh and bone combine to create Bride.”

Yes!

Faith is strong.

Hope is soft.

But Love is the union of the softest hope and the strongest faith. Where faith and hope fall short, Love conquers all. When faith just can’t quite cut it and Hope isn’t quite long enough to reach us, NOTHING can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus. Neither height, nor depth, length nor breadth, angels nor demons, nothing in all of creation is able to separate us from what love has done for us.

Not even what you’ve done.

Jesus loved you first. Therein lies the POWER of the Spirit of Love we’ve been given. There is power in our love for Him, but it can’t hold a candle to the power of His love for us. And fully receiving the softness of His love for you is the strength that saves. Praise be to God!