Writing Through the Bible in a Year

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

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!“

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

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.

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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.)