Faithful Friday: Diving In

There's that old adage that says, "Write what you know."  Well, I'll confess it here and now, despite how I may act, I don't know much.  I suppose being now securely in my mid-twenties, the "wisdom" of my "all-knowing" teen years has abated.  I look around and I realize the more I learn the more I am aware of what I don't know.  Believe me, sometimes the hardest words to say are, "I don't know."  We're taught to believe that it's a cop-out answer, and sometimes it is a brush off, code for "Just leave me alone.  I can't/won't give you the answer you're seeking."  But in all honestly, a lot of times I genuinely don't know.   I'm learning to humble myself and say, "I don't know; let me look into it and we can learn together."

Okay, since now you know that I don't always know, (Friends! anyone?), here's one of the lessons I'm learning: God loves a bold heart- so start diving in.

I really enjoy the messages of Joyce Meyer Ministries.  I like her approach.  Her messages aren't sugar-coated and she gives a lot of practical advice.  Basically she tells it how it is- we live in a broken world that you can't control, but you can control yourself, your attitude and behaviors; complaining and inaction won't fix the world-it starts with you.

Sometimes I start my morning listening to Joyce Meyer via her iphone app.  One morning she spoke about how God loves a bold heart.  He loved the boldness of David who didn't sit back and quibble over how he was going to defeat Goliath; rather, he just trusted God and went out and did it with the skills he had.  I've told you about how planning can get me into trouble.  I start to think too much...yada yada.  Well this message kind of struck home and it reminded me of another passage that's stuck in my heart.

Jeremiah 31:22 begins with "How long will you waver oh faithless daughter..." It is the verse that pierces my soul when I am discerning what to do and am inactive.  Waver-yes that about sums up how I can refuse to set my mind to one path because I'm afraid of failing, sometimes hoping someone or some circumstance will push me in one direction or another.  Faithless daughter- ouch.  The sting of truth.  The verse comes shortly after Jeremiah 29:11 which promises that God's ultimate plan for those whom he loves is to prosper them.  So I imagine God in this verse saying "I [just] promised you that in the end you will prosper and not be harmed; trust me; step out in faith and do."

I am learning to apply this in everyday life.  As Joyce Meyer has discussed, it starts with the mundane tasks.  For her it was putting a cart back at the grocery store.  For me it's been dishes.  We don't have a dishwasher, or rather we have two dishwashers and our dishwashers are powered by elbow grease.  In our (rather tiny) kitchen, those dishes pile up, especially if we have guests over or if we try and get fancy with our meals.  This morning was one of those mornings where the magic cleaning fairy didn't visit us in the night, so I awoke to quite a mountain of particularly dirty dishes.  It was almost overwhelming to think about cleaning them, but I'm learning.  I didn't think about it. I just did it, as I've done before, and I'm always surprised at how quickly the task goes.

It makes me think, how often do I "deliberate" to the point of inaction?  All the while giving more and more of an opening for the enemy.  It's a special kind of procrastination to put off doing something simply to put it off, not because you wanted to do some other specific thing instead, but purely out of avoidance and sloth.  It's the kind that always brings on the bad guilt that festers in me and makes me insecure about other things.  So for me, I'm learning obedience, discipline, and trust, I suppose, through simple everyday tasks like doing the dishes.  Complaining and magnifying that mountain won't make it go away, but it will make me inactive and unhappy.  I'm learning it's better just to dive on into the task, trusting that it's for my benefit and if it isn't I'll be rescued from it.

Faithful Friday- Surviving Spiritual Storms

In the midst of the storm, it is hard sometimes to find hope in the darkness.  God's promise to prosper us and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11), to give us a future and a hope can be hard to hold onto as we perceive calamity.  Sometimes we feel like Job- we are going along, living good lives, perfecting our hearts and surrendering and singing praises; until the enemy attacks and takes away a bit of our security.  We may stumble, but we pick ourselves up by holding onto whatever goodness is left, no matter how small.  And sometimes the enemy takes away everything in his power to take away-he strips us bare of our blessings and taunts us to give up our last vestige of hope.  He tries to convince us that God has forsaken us because He has allowed the enemy to take away our blessings.  It is in these times, when the ground slips out from under us, however, that we are most tightly held.  How wonderful to have our distractions removed that we might focus on Him.  Those wonderful blessings upon which we based our happiness and judged our standing with the Lord, cannot hold a candle to the gift of Christ in eternal relationship and salvation with the one true God, and that is a gift that I shamefully confess I overlook too often.  It makes me think that in the midst of my despair as my world feels like it is in upheaval and I face incredible loss, God is righting my priorities.  He tells me to cling to Him first, above all else.  He says, "Watch this, as I play Jenga with your life!  My Spirit will fill the holes and uphold you and you will not topple over because you are Mine."

Each storm I face, I must hold onto the hope that it will make me stronger.  I have to return to the story of Job, who lost everything, and then God revealed Himself, His majesty and divine, ultimate power-and then blessed Job ten fold for all that was taken away.  I know that my God has the power to restore all things, to give me answers to every prayer, and trust me- I try to give Him the solutions to my problems- but I am so thankful that He overrides me. I remind myself that His ways are not my ways and His ways are higher than mine.  He sees the ripples before they form and He knows that my solution is temporary and He uses His powers not to give temporary gifts, but lasting ones.  So I will be thankful for the "no's" I receive, and I will praise Him in the midst of the storm because His will is done and out of it His blessings will flow like a river milk and honey.  Oh friends, I will certainly falter in this life, seeking temporary comfort instead of divine relief.  But, when the haze of shock subsides and I find myself knocked to my knees- it is then that I will realize that I am perfectly poised to pray.  In these moments, surely I am held closer to the heart of Christ who suffered first.  You see, I believe in a creator God, not a destroyer.  Sometimes in life, as in art, in order to create some things must be deconstructed.  That part of refinement can be painful, but the beauty of being made a new creation makes pain worth while.  New creation is exciting.  I am learning not to wring my hands when God moves in my life, but to rub them together excitedly in the knowledge that something good is coming out of this and I have a front row ticket to see God at work.

Yesterday bad news came knocking and then it let itself into my peace of mind and told me how it would alter so many of the things I'd planned and expected for my future.  In the light of a new day though, I can recognize that even when bad news waltzes right in I don't have to lay out the welcome mat and feed it some snacks.  I don't have to get caught up, bending over backwards to entertain bad news and how it might affect each facet of my life.  No. Paul tells me to keep pressing on toward the goal (Philippians 3:14) and reassures me that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).  When the rivers overflow the bank we can look at the tragic mess that's left behind and forget to move forward.  OR we can look for what was strong enough to endure, what's left standing.  We can be thankful for the fertile soil that's left in the wake of the storm and use it to grow new and better dreams.

In the eye of the storm there is peace.  If you stay where you are the other side of the storm may hit you, but if what if you could move with it?  Who do you think stands in the center of that supernatural peace and conducts the winds of change?