Are you building your home with love, strength, wisdom and grace?
Or
Are you tearing it down with your very hands by words of strife, anger, jealousy and hate?
Great questions of evaluation for our hearts as we close in on Mother’s Day…even if you don’t have biological children, you can still have a “momma spirit” to love and influence those around you. 💗
Being thirsty in our faith can lead to grouchiness, scattered and haggard feelings, aloofness and just plain neglect or meanness. God never called us to lead lives proclaiming He is a great big God and He loves everybody while grouching on everyone we meet. He didn’t call us to be His disciples and share His light with this world and totally ignore those in need because our agenda is too full that day. No, this ought not be the way we live our daily lives, and when we get to this point, we really must step back and evaluate the root of the issue.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Now, look, I’m going to interject here and tell you, this post is in no way giving credence to those who are in rebellion against the faith and are always trying to harass and demean the Word of God and His people. I am in no way, shape or form going to give credit to that kind of foolishness. I know too many great Christians who are loving, kind and compassionate.
However, I have seen too many really good followers of Christ who just simply “miss it” when God opens a door of opportunity, because they are at the point of parchment, and they can’t see for the dust in their eyes and the dryness on their tongue. I know this place all too well, and I have to daily refill or I will return to old habits that take me right back to that desert land. We all can get there when we don’t realize this truth:
WE HAVE TO WORK FROM THE OVERFLOW!
You see, it’s kind of like we are like a conduit through which the Lord flows, and when we stop getting filled, it’s as if we shut off His flow and try to continue on our own. Our strength is only so strong. Our faith is only so faithful. Our diligence is only so diligent, and that is because we are only human. We are not God. From God, all blessings flow. In God is found all the love, mercy, hope, joy, everything for which the world is looking. Through God, we have all the strength, faithfulness, and dedication we could ever need. He is our everything, but we must go back to Him for the filling.
When we allow Him to pour into us and through us, all this world needs comes gushing out. Let Him fill your cup to overflowing today; so, it might “gush all over” those around you and to whom you minister.
As I walk down the halls of the hospital and enter through the ICU doors, I am reminded one more time how precious and how unpredictable life can be. When the storms rage, we hit our knees, crying out to our God, begging for mercy and grace.
Yet, sometimes, I wonder why we do not call on His name before that moment. Is it because of self-reliance? A strong will? Stubbornness? A rebellious heart? Or just a simple determination to make it on our own until we realize that thought doesn’t work as well as we thought it would? If we could actually see His great love for us before the storm, I wonder if we might turn our hearts toward Him before the rains came.
He is always there, from the moment we take our first breath to the time we breathe our last. He is there in the midst of our celebrations, and He is there in the depths of our despair. Often, we do not see Him, because we are blinded by our own fleshly nature or our own hidden pain.
Our blindness does not change His presence nor His ability to hear and see us. He is there, awaiting our call, at every moment of every day, all we have to do is call on His name. He will answer. Every. Single. Time.
Klear.com
We toil, and we struggle to get the work done in a day. We hurry here and hurry there, scrambling to stack the hours into weeks and weeks into years. We are constantly busy with something new, something pressing, something important that must be done right now, in this moment.
Then a crisis hits. A tragedy befalls our friends or our family, and it seems everything changes in an instant. We are then focused on that problem, that issue, that crisis which has taken center stage.
Too often, the everyday life and the momentary crises can take over, and we forget to live in the moment. We neglect the importance of living in the here and now. We bypass any and all around us, like an ostrich, we have our head in the sand, seeking dutiful ways to bow out” gracefully” of the life and purpose we live.
King Solomon reminds us that in Ecclesiastes that “there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) There is no new emergency that hasn’t been before. There will be no new ‘created agenda’ which has never been thought of or tried. Everything we encounter, someone else has already experienced. In one way or another, someone has walked that journey of pain, sorrow, joy or apprehension that you are walking right now. It is only new to us and our lives.
Sometimes, we have but one moment to make an impact on a life around us, and we miss it, because we allow the cares of this world to blind us. Sometimes, we are placed in strategic locations, a funeral home, a hospital hallway, an ICU waiting room, even a grocery store line, to reach someone right in the moment of their need. If we are not living that moment deliberately, we can miss it!
Let us never be so caught up in the present crises, the present family issue or anything else, that we fail to remember why we are here. Let us never be so consumed by the present chaos of our lives that we can’t live in this present moment and reach someone else whose life needs His hope maybe even more than we do.
Did you see that baby cowering in the corner, trying to hide from the screams and profanity swirling around her head?
Did you notice the young boy who got into a fight at school, making his friends a substitute for his anger, because he can’t hit his abuser?
Did you recognize the young teen shielding her face from the crowd, looking for the one who will make her feel loved and secure?
Where is God in all of this? Where is His mercy? Where is His grace?
Do you see that man marching off to war, preparing to slay a few demons of his own in the battle?
Do you notice the woman working three jobs, living a frazzled, exhausted life, simply trying to give her child something a little better?
Do you realize the old man wandering the halls, the same who doesn’t even know his children’s names who desperately long to love him and reach through his darkness?
Where is God in all of this? Where is His mercy? Where is His grace?
Some ask and plead. Some scream in demand. Some just sit and stare. Others simply walk away, veering this way and that, never making much sense of the journey.
“He’s always there and always faithful,” says the church walls. “Just look up and you will find all you need,” states the sign as the tender ones lie dying on the front steps. My mind wonders if we really make a difference. Do we really share and care?
Some lash out in anger. Some wallow and cry. Others become cold and stone-like, never realizing hope knocking at the door.
His love never wavers. His mercy never fails. Just because you cannot see the sun through the tornadic clouds doesn’t void its reality. Hurricanes never validate the lack of peaceful showers on the ‘morrow.
Some answers I will never find until the other side. Some questions will still remain after the crisis of one life has vanished. Yet, I have found this truth to remain: He is faithful. He is love. He is true.
He will be there when you need Him even in the quietness of your soul. He will never leave you in your deepest sorrow or shame. He will remain when all else fails, when everyone else has disappeared into the dark of night. He will remain. He will be a shield. He will be a refuge.
Just call on His name and find He is the Hope which remains.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105
https://isaiahministries.wordpress.com/tag/covenant-of-grace/
DailyVerses.net
He is my Rock when the waves of life crash in. He is my Fortress when the enemy of my soul threatens to consume. He is my Deliverer of the temptation for my own demise. He is my God, in whom I trust and take refuge from every storm. He is my Shield who protects me when I refuse to protect myself, and He is the Horn of my Salvation when I have found trouble and cannot escape. He is my Stronghold of strength that never lets go, no matter how far I try to run and no matter how deep the muck and mire becomes…Thank you for who You are and who I am not. ❤
What have I learned in these 28 days of this Love Me Challenge?
1. Challenges can be fun.
2. Challenges can be challenging.
3. Sharing your heart in factual questions/answers about yourself can be both fun and challenging.
4. Sharing your heart by answering questions from someone else’s creation can draw out things you haven’t thought of in years, or even, never really put a lot of thought into until that moment.
5. Lots of people read these kinds of posts but not so many join in with you…But that’s ok! 😉💕 … and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the “join ins,” as well as, the encouraging words. You guys are simply the BEST! 💗
Life can feel like a heavy blanket resting on your chest, soaking up the rain, getting heavier and heavier. You can choose to get lost under the weight, dwindling down to nothing, expelling all the air from your lungs. You can close your eyes and simply allow the pain to wash you away in the storm.
Heartache and grief is bound to come to each one. If it hasn’t visited you, just hold on, your hour will come when reality slams through the door like a hurricane, and you wonder if the sun will ever shine again. Those days, the air can become so suffocating, as if your house is on fire, and you’re caught within the fumes and the smoke, grasping for one more chance to breathe again.
In that moment, in that lapse of time, you have to choose to breathe again, even when it is a struggle. Those are the minutes you will have to fight to survive. If it takes clawing your way out of that pit, then claw you must, but never give up.
Never lie down and give up the fight so easily. Never roll out the red carpet for death to seize your mind and your soul. Never let the reaper consume you with hopelessness and despair. He will try, and he will scream horrors upon horrors to make you see him. Don’t let him win.
There is Hope. There is a better way. Hope will bring light into the darkest night. Hope will return the song to the wind. Hope will chase away the clouds in due time, and Hope will help you to breathe again.
Just take one tiny breath. Take one tiny step forward, and whisper His name, “Jesus.” He will answer. He will give you breath to breathe…
Something I feel strongly about…
There are few things for which I will live and die, but these are a few…
My God
All He is to me, all He’s done for me, and all He has promised
He has created my world. He sustains my world. He is my world.
My Loves
Who they are and what they mean to me
They are my world.
PS. Just as a side note… too often, in today’s culture, there are too many “fighting and dying” for so many things of not much value and not much “reward.” When you choose to ‘feel strongly’ about something, and you choose to fight for it, just make sure it is truly something worth fighting for, not just the latest trend or the latest, greatest and loudest scheme of the politicians or other agenda driven group to get your attention! 😉 …There are things for which to fight, and there are things for which to sacrifice a life, just make sure you are certain those things are right! … okay, that is all. 🙂
This.
This feeds my brain…
Books, Books and more Books.
…and this, this is the best food for my brain and my soul…
Wholeness out of Brokenness
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