FAILED LETTERS

Like crumbled crackers, broken words are scattered into thousands of dusty pieces.  Only God can take their dry, brittle, breaking moments and reshape them for His glory.  With His handling, fatally spoken words and broken promises will no longer be death letters.      

A hot pink brush I bought at the beauty supply store was wrapped in plastic, printed with promising words.  They were clear:  the brush would soften skin.  "May even use on hands and elbows."  I bought the barlike scrubber, took it home, unwrapped it, and placed it by my bathroom sink.

I wanted softer hands, so before walking away, I could not resist an immediate trial.  I soaped up with silky expectations and began to scrub. 

"Owww!"  I gasped, startled.  The very touch of its harsh nature against my sensitive knuckles hurt!  I tried again, with a much gentler touch.  No way!  Its sandpaper texture was hopelessly painful.  My hands were quickly reddened even by light scrubbing. 

I wondered if I had picked up the wrong package.  No, I absolutely remembered the writing on the wrapper.   

The words were a broken promise, and all I could do was feel regret.  I could not change the nature of the scrubber's gritty, pink sand.  It was what it was.  Disappointed, I placed the pumice in a container with my pedicure brushes. 

Disappointment is the natural product of broken promises.  The broken words on the wrapper of the pink pumice only cost me a little pain and $1.10.  It was a simple, frivilous experience.  But other broken words, sincere-seeming, heart-spoken letters of promise, cost so much more.  Their pain is real and deep; they are complex and drastic.

We have all known the deep pain of failed letters.  We have all experienced life's climatic changes of broken words.  Words undone.  The unravelling of language delcared with assurance.  Such seasons cast clouds over our souls.  They wound to our spirit's core.  Our hearts are cut by their vanity and meaningless shards. Their faithless nature rocks our world and our faith in those who spoke them, and it can threaten our faith in God. 

As a pastor's wife, I have seen many suffer with the sting from promises failed.  Words spoken were first apples of gold.  Their eventual intangibility turned them rotten and bitter.  The spouse who promised to never cheat again; the repentant father who drank again; the children who said they would never do drugs again; the mother who promised she wouldn't leave anymore; the parents who pledged prayer with their children but were always too busy; the boss who said he would understand missed days but never did; the insurance company who said they would pay medical costs but blamed someone for not reading a clause; the family who in great disbelief realized the hopeless words of a doctor who had said everything would be OK; the teenager who married to honor her parents and later dealt with deep betrayal of her new husband.  And, you can think of so many you know who are victims of words unfitly spoken.

Words unfitly spoken are the opposite of those Solomon spoke, when in Proverbs he said words fitly spoken are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver" (Proverbs 25:11).  Appropriate words are beauty.  As perfect and ripe as the most lucious apples in the most exquistie setting is the language of love.  Fit words are appealing, and their appeal is appetizing.  Their taste is sweet.  Their gift, comforting and nourishing.

Yet, "unfit" words are unhealthy, unappetizing, inappropriate, and incompetent.  They, contrary to golden apple in pictures of silver, are rotten fruit in a moldy basket.  They are voices of vice, meant for destruction.  Sour.  Bitter.  Unedible.  Indigestible.  Such is a picture of broken promises, or malicious daggers.     

Perhaps you have encountered the dagger of unfit words.  Someone you held in esteem told you something that created a chasm in your relationship, or someone misled you, either intentionally or not intentionally, which brought a sea of grief to your life. 

I have encountered unfit words.  Plainly, it is pain at its worst.  It bruises the soul and scars the heart.  It creates bondage and breeds rejection.  YET, touched with God's healing balm, the worst wounding words become beauty.  Like a sweet butterfly, they join enjoy transformation from a stale, embryonic state to winged life.  The ugly, vile, vain language no longer holds captive but is captured by the Creator and remade into God's glory.

Transformation is possible, friend!  It is God's gift for all His wounded warriors.  In many points of dark crises of my soul, God has spoken light into my nightmares.  Illuminated with Jesus' love, I have had to cling to shimmers of hope until Christ casts His cross in my waters and healed me.  Each time, it was a marvellous miracle in my life!  It still is.  I am comforted so much to know God hears every spoken word and wayward thought.  I can, with promise, share the joy of God's grace that is only found in a healing Jesus.  And, I will forever praise Him for His pure words that were and are a curing, comforting balm.

If you have received unfit words, please now receive the following unbreakable promises.  Set their purity and holiness and perfect fit above your painful memories.

• The "words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6).
• "All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal" (Psalm 119:160).
• "The eyes of the LORD keep watch over knowledge, but he frustrates the words of the unfaithful" (Proverbs 22:12).
• "So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).
• "'My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever,' says the LORD" (Isaiah 59:21). 
• "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
• "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you" (John 15:7).

Dear friend, God is faithful, loving, merciful, and healing.  He loves you with zeal and passion.  He covers you with that love because you are His child.  His very own.  And He watches over you and yours.

Take heart this very day and give all broken words to Him.  Jesus will speak to every letter the enemy has lodged in your soul.  He will reach into that secret place of your spirit and pick up all broken promises.   He will handle them.  Reshape them.  Breathe on them.  Give them new purpose.

With His handling, fatally spoken words and broken promises will no longer be death letters.  They will be language of life and living.  What once caused refluxive bitterness will become promise and peace.

God heals. . . . He's reaching now toward your worst word wounds.   

Glorifying His Transforming Power,





List your own scripture that edifies God's word in your life.  Meditate on its reassuring truth and be prepared to use it during temptations and discouraging times. 


All scripture is from the NIV.
Definitions from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

EASTER WINGS

Tiny yellow wings flapped in my pint-sized hands.  The chick's little feet felt sticky and scratchy, as she pranced around on my palm, trying to dig her baby claws into new ground.   I wanted to caress her, and I wanted to let her go.  I wanted to stroke her fuzzy coat, and I wanted to give her back to the old chicken farmer.  As a child, I was always intimidated by what I did not know, and forty years ago, a special visit with my grandfather to see one of his farmer friends was my first time to hold a baby chick and my first look into a chicken house.

The woods of North Georgia are full of chicken houses and chicken farmers.  And except for their undeniable, diffusive, distinctive smell, chicken houses were an enigma to me until that warm day when I rode with my grandpa in his beat-up pick-up to visit a friend who had bunches of new chicks.

It was a bumpy, breezy ride of expectation and intimidation.  I was going to hold a baby chicken!  The anticipation seemed beyond bearable, as I sat in that old Ford that smelled two parts vinyl, one part oil, and one part Brylcreem.  I wondered how it would feel to have cotton fluff rub against my hand.  And I wondered if my fear of God's sweet creatures would deprive me of the possibility of loving one little bird.

Papa and I got out and greeted the kind, rugged gentlemen.  He showed us one of his chicken houses, which was flooded with waves of golden color and sounds of peeps that echoed from the tin roof.  The farmer took one of the maizey wee ones in his giant, sun-damaged hands, and we all walked down to a grassy spot and stood.

My chance to hold the chirping chick had arrived.  I stiffened my arms and reached, as she was given to my care.  War was on the minute her soft, wee self was placed in my palm.  I tried to not be afraid, but all I could think of was the strangeness of her twiglike feet and razor beak.  My grandfather's patriarchal voice kept saying, "That little chicken can't hurt you, Andrea. Let her walk around in your hand.  Dont' be scared." 

But, I was "scared."  And the tiny yellow being grasped my awed heart.  She was not happy and wanted out, so the old chicken farmer reached over me and gently took her back, while freedom and guilt covered me like a cold rain.

I left in disappointment.  So much for fear-blinding love.  My ten-year old heart felt failure.  You might say I did not earn my Easter wings. 

Today, forty years after my visit to the chicken farm, I have Easter wings; yet, they are not earned.  They are not able to be earned.  They are not earthly symbols.  They are divine substance.  They are truth.  They are real.

My Easter wings are freedom, love, hope, faith, peace, mercy, and more.  I received them through grace, God's unmerited favor.  Jesus earned them for me. He paid for my wings, my eternal freedom.  With His own life's blood, I am redeemed.  I was purchased with such a high price, though I am such an unworthy one.

Jesus paid for my Easter wings with thirty-nine flogs from the cruel cat of nine tails; a crown of thorns that ever so painfully pierced through His submitted scalp; many abusive voices of prejudice, ridicule, and violence against His innocence; soldiers' saliva on His divine face; bruising blows that beat His humble body beyond identity; a heavy, half-mile walk of stones, spit, and dreaded death; six hours of unimaginable pain from six-inch nails, profuse blood loss, and slow suffocation; and six hours of dark chasm between Himself and His Father that finally ended in Christ's sacrificial death, as He cried, "It is finished" (John 19:30, NIV).

Christ's completed His sacrifice, then, hope was realized and fulfilled, when three days after Jesus' divine offering, our destiny was forever changed.

Divine life and light poured from heavenly dimension into Christ's cavelike tomb and into His mortal body.

With power and victory and truth, Jesus rose from death to forever defeat its hold on us. 

Now, failure no longer means failed, fear no longer means defeat, sin no longer means sure condemnation, and dying no longer means death!

Because of Jesus' life, His blood offering, His sacrifice, His obedience to the Father, and His victory over death, I have Easter wings. 

"Wings" are a way of flight or ascent, and my Easter wings are my source for soaring with Jesus.  Abundant life now.  Victory forever.  And one special, God-chosen day, my Easter wings will fly me home and right into His arms.

Praying for you, dear friend, as you soar with Christ through Easter and the week ahead,






Sources: www.thefreedictionary.com, www.biblegateway.com, and wikipedia.

Hot Coffee

"Our Saviour kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, 'I can clean that if you want.' And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin."

Max Lucado 

I grasped the smooth ivory handle, picked up the cup, and placed it to my chapped lips that craved comfort from a cold, damp, windy night.  Feeling the not-warm mug press against my mouth, I sipped, then, wanted to spit.  It was lukewarm, which didn't meet my great expectations.   

Needing to catch the attention of our waitress, Jeff and I looked her way and politely motioned to her.  "I'm sorry, but my coffee isn't hot."  She sweetly apologized and returned minutes later with another cup and plenty, even more than I could drink, of fresh, steaming decaf.  Seeing the waves rise from my mug, I was relieved, and ready to move ahead and share some lovely moments with my love.

Lukewarm coffee would have diminished our date.  It was a late rainy Monday night, and my husband and I had just attended a beautiful revival service.  We wanted to share our souls and bask in the afterglow of God's blessings.  A quiet booth in a warm cafe with cups of coffee seemed the perfect capstone.  Lukewarm coffee just wouldn't have got it done. 

Lukewarm is perfect for a baby's bath, but not for coffee.  It makes it stale and steals it pretty aroma.  And, it makes a clear statement of "I am not the best" and "I could be hours old."

For coffee lovers, a cup of hot brew summons the senses.  The sight of steam dancing over a cup is alone bliss.  The coming warmth is calming.  The idea of the approaching flavor prepares the taste buds for unreserved, heartfelt sipping.  Which is why you do not see signs advertising "Cool Coffee Served," or "Fresh Roasted Lukewarm Java." 

But cool coffee helps me understand, . . .  to inhale and drink in, . . .

the God-breathed analogy in Revelation that rivets me to its text and shakes me to my soles.

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth" (Revelation 3:15-16, NKJV).

The Lord cares about our passion for Him.  He takes it personally and checks it with His own sovereign thermometer.  He tries our savor to taste and see if we're a worthy drink offering.  Our temperature reading measures the worth of our worship.

God desires we are red-hot, on-fire, passionate worshipers and disciples.  He had even rather find us cold than lukewarm. 

Why would God rather we be cold than room temp? 

If we are cold, we know it.  We shiver in our sin.  We see uncovered goosebumps climb our barren arms.  And we sense the approaching agony of a frost-bitten heart.  We know our desperate need to find a warm place by God's flame.  We envy those fellow saints who pass us, doing their Father's business, while bundled in fleecy wools and cozy leathers.

If we are lukewarm, however, we do not feel.  We are not concerned.  We are not moved.  The fire we see in others does nothing to our need.  Their godly coverings do not make us jealous.  We do not desire to find a fire and warm our flesh.

"Lukewarm" means lacking enthusiasm or conviction; to be indifferent; unconcerned; uninterested; apathetic; Laodicean.*

Laodicea was one of the seven churches Christ addressed in the book of Revelation.  They believed they had no spiritual need.  They did not see their need for covering.  Christ therefore counseled them, "buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see" (Revelation 3:18, NIV).    

Jesus wanted to give the Laodiceans a new beginnning and fresh vision.  He wanted them to have their own personal revelation of Him.  He pleaded and said, "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (3:19-20).

Christ wanted the Laodiceans to be close to Him.  To sit down with Him and dine.  To have an intimate meal with Him and know Him.  To know He loved them. 

Jesus wants the same for me and you.

He wants us to see.  He wants us to have personal need awareness.  He wants to give us His gold in exchange for our perceived wealth.  He wants us to experience the pain of spiritual blindness, so we can realize the poverty of self-life. 

Jesus wants us to be honest with ourselves and encounter His word, which is Christ Himself.  He desires that we know Him, not just serve Him, and not just know of Him.   

Do you know Him?  Do you dine with Him?  Do you sit down with Him?  Do you gaze at His beauty as He sits across the table?  Do you let His eyes slice your darkness? 

My coffee was lukewarm that chilly, Monday night.  It was not acceptable to me.  It's lackluster presence could have dulled the beauty of a blessed evening. 

I had to confess my need.  I had to bring the problem to the server, so she could fix it for me.  It wouldn't have been right to do it myself.  It wasn't my place. 

Jesus wants to be your server and fix things for you.  Do you taste the bitter water of indifference?  Are you struggling to choke down staleness? 

Let Jesus fix things for you.  Call Him to your table and tell Him your need.  Give Him your lukewarm chalice.  Jesus' own hands will take your cup, bring you a new, clean, empty vessel, and pour into it warmth, healing, life, and love.  You will not be disappointed.  You will no longer live alone from worldy wealth.  You will not want your old cup back.

Do not be afraid to let it go.  Do not be afraid to give up you lukewarm drink.  Do not be afraid of His transformational presence at your table.  Do not fear His humble hands. 

Great expectations wait to warm your soul.

Because He First Loved Us,

        





*Definitinon is from www.thefreedictionary.com.

Running Risks

Last week was filled with days of dappled clouds; some of them poured rain with profuse drops.  The coincidental cool air created perfect moments for curling on the sofa with a fleecy throw, a cup of Earl Grey, a passionate devotional, and ears to hear water drizzle and God's voice whisper.

A lone, misty afternoon in the center of the week gave me that opportunity.  I thought I would use the clammy weather and quiet time to read, pray, and ponder.

Before I could make a nest on my sofa, my plans changed.  Faint squeals broke through my God thoughts.  I peered through the blinds of my backdoor.  Four little feet were running up the walk.  Four little eyes were fixed on their goal, looking for their mimi to help them over their final hurdle.

When I opened the door, Olivia, my three year old granddaughter was drifting behind her twenty-one month old sister, Ella.  Olivia was running.  Ella was racing.

I have never seen a baby hyperventilate, but I thought Ella just might provide my first opportunity.  I could hear and see her breathing.  Her vast brown eyes on her sweet, small face were looking up and straight into me.  Her thin, brown pigtails were bouncing.  Her tiny baby teeth were shining.  Her rosy cheeks showed baby bliss.

Ella's passion bubbled over.  Yet, she was running too quickly, and stumbled, and fell.  Her tiny, less than two-year old legs could not support her massive zeal.

Before I could move out the door to pick her up, Ella had picked herself up, rushed, and jumped into my arms.

She had no bumps, no scratches, no bruises.  Only smiles and hugs and kisses and an innocent, loving look that poured purely into my soul and melted my grandmother heart.

That passion of my brave little granddaughter has now become my personal desire of imitation.  Her quick little steps convict me of soul neglect and remind me of the joy of the One Who always waits for me. 

God waits.  Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is There, anticipates my running to Him.  He longs for my unreserved rush into His always open arms. 

And, I should, in kind, anticipate the arms of my Father God and race toward Him, undaunted, with whole attention, gazing upward and inward into His holy countenance.  My soul should long for His embrace with uncontainable excitement and leaping faith that does not care about the dangers of the hard ground beneath my feet.  The risks of bumps, bruises, scratches, and skins should mean much less to me than missing my Father's arms.

God's open arms must mean more to me than the bruising language of another who had rather I just "work" for Jesus than sit as His feet.  His waiting presence must mean more to me than the scratchy experience of being misunderstood by those who see my God-moments as a waste of time.  God's courts must mean more to me than the jabbing voices within my own fleshly self that mourn for more television and extra personal pampering, and God's receiving of me must mean more to me than ideas of others who think I overspiritualize life and frown on my desire that God see me as His pure lover.

As Ella ran up the merciless, ashen pavement, I am quite sure she knew she could fall.  She is a smart little lamb.  Her senses are very keen.  Her mocha eyes miss little.  Yet, her mimi's arms were worth the risks to her. 

My Father's arms of love are worth all possible risks.  Risks must lose every persuasion on my soul.  I must bow my being, every fiber of me, before the God of the universe, my God, the Lover of my life, and allow His light to permeate my self-consciousness and fill me with God-consciousness. 

Let's let go of our risks. . . .

Let go of all risks. Grasp courage.  Allow God's glory to diminish any thoughts of painful reaching for His love.  Embrace the gritty texture of danger and run boldly and fearlessly on the coarse concrete ground below.  Clasp in your heart contented dreams of leaping into your Father's arms.

Grasping, Clasping, Running, Leaping,   

"My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me" (Song of Solomon 2:10, NIV).

HOPE IN HIS HAND

"God will mend a broken heart if you give Him all the pieces."

-Aesop

Every beat of your heart is one, lonely cadence of force that shares a part in your life.  You will experience about three billion heartbeats in your life, and if something goes wrong with your heart's rhythm, you will likely notice.  You may then say that your heart flutters, or skips, or races, or hurts.  And though you may not know what is wrong, you know something isn't right.

Your spiritual heart is much the same.  When something is wrong, you know.  You may feel afraid, angry, betrayed, bruised, confused, desperate, depressed, dissatisfied, empty, helpless, homesick, hurt, lonely, useless, or worried. . . . Emotional "rhythm" seems not quite together.  You may not realize the depths of your feelings, but you know something isn't right.

Endless possibilities may have provoked your "heart pain":  a best friend betrayed your confidence; you had some bad news about someone you love; you worked and gave up time for yourself and your family for a career that now makes you bored and empty; you were applauded for a unique accomplishment but now feel only useless and unworthy; guilt seems to spoil every chance of happiness; envy for the lives of others eats away what contentment you have; you are tired and just want to be appreciated for what you do; you wonder why certain people who matter to you ignore you or treat you with contempt; you wonder why life is not fair.

Your "heart pain" may even be from casual indifference and neglect.  "I'll get around to God when life slows down."  "It's soccer season."  "I'm working overtime; I just can't think of the Lord right now."  "I'm too stressed to read my Bible everyday."

Or, your heart may have "damage" from many mistakes, regrets, or traumas.  It's been so much easier to shut down the pain than deal with it.  Now, maybe you are numb . . . emotionless . . . passionless.  You wonder what it would be like to feel again. 

In any case, you want freedom from heart misery.  You want a heart that beats with perfect, rhythmic, contented forces of purpose.  You want the "something just isn't right" ache to go away.   

My friend, you are not alone in your pain.  Everyone has personal history of an imperfect heart.  And everyone has only One door to deliverance.   

Salvation of our souls is found in Jesus.  He is the only way to our Father.  Likewise, salvation from a wounded heart is also only found in yielding to God. 

I can testify of God as the only way to wholeness because He is my healer and deliverer.  He is my Creator, Elohim, Who loves me as I am, so much that He will not leave me as He sees me.  He understands all of me, and He formed all of me, including my heart, the abyss of my hopes, hurts, and thoughts.  God  knows me. He gets the mysteries of my soul that blind me.  He comprehends me completely.  My complex personality and all its baggage and wired connections make sense to Him. 

And, my pain does not shock Jesus.  He is not one bit intimidated to look at my gross, oozing wounds and place His holy hands in my bloody sores.  He sees them all for what they are and empathizes with my weaknesses.  And yours.   

He sees your hurt through His eyes of personal experience, His own sacrifice and suffering that surpass all other griefs.  Jesus knows pain so fully.  While on this earth, He was intimate with sorrow, torture, and loneliness.  And Jesus' remembrance of His suffering allows Him to embrace your feelings as no one else can.  You cannot possibly hurt apart from His empathy. 

In tandem with His intimate sense of your hurting heart, Jesus has all the love of Father God.  So, when Christ senses your hurt and sees your suffering, He knows you from both the perspective of unfathomable love and unprecedented pain. 

Jesus is affected.  Compassioned.  Moved.  He hears your heart beat.  He hears your heart speak.  He lives to take it in His hands and hold it and heal its brokenness.
 
Yes, Jesus lives to heal your heart.  His healing for you is personally and beautifully designed.  It is whole, godly wisdom.  It is a balm made just for you.  It is His best.  It is the incomparable best.

Christ ALWAYS knows best.  And, He knows the why of every what in your life - all those deep answers and mysteries of dark glass that you really want to know now.  And, rather than giving you answers, He often chooses to give you healing and rest.  His rest is your gift to receive.  His rest is the joy of laying down the weight that slows you down to molasses' pace or knocks you to a cold, hard ground or kicks you into a pale pit.  His rest is the peace of feeling chains break and later looking behind to see them left at the altar you wisely prepared for you and your God.  His rest is a fresh, smooth road for running grace.   

Running grace!  Freedom to keep your eyes on Christ and give Him all you have!  And the liberty of running grace comes with a bonus!  Don't you love a bonus?  I do.  I am always excited to open an extra gift box and see what's in it. 

Jesus' bonus gifts are the best of all worlds!  And His running grace comes with a powerful side item:  hope. Why is hope such a big deal?  Hope gives life.  It lets us breathe.  Hope for that special something we can't see with our natural eyes causes us to hang in there when we want to quit.  We believe, we know, God is faithful and that His word is true.  We therefore believe and know He is in control and that things will get better. 

So, we do not give up.  We do not give in.  We keep running.  And waiting.

And while waiting, we allow Jesus to do surgery on our hearts.  We yield, and let Him work.  We know that any pain from his doctor hands will be worth it, for Christ only has our good in His perfect heart, and with His perfect touch from a perfect heart, our wholeness begins.  

When, at last, Christ completes a layer of wholeness in our hearts, we soar.  Our yielding, trusting, believing, and enduring give God glory.  Healed, we rise above grief, fear, anxiety, and regret.  The carnal world with its demanding ways and seducing voices no longer anchor us down to a permenant sinking state because Jesus' scarred hands have handled our hurt.

As we soar, we find raw truth in our stillness.  It is a truth only found in surviving the providence of pain.  It is a truth only found in running grace:  Feelings and circumstances do not determine your destiny.  God's divine hand does.

Clinging to God's Healing Truth,

Real Renewing

Please absorb this awesome truth!  God has been dealing with me on the importance of our minds being renewed, and in that light, I share these words with you.

Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a two-stage process. It involves taking off the old and replacing it with the new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell or were taught by those around you; it is the attitudes and ideas that have become a part of your thinking but do not reflect reality. The new is the truth. To renew your mind is to involve yourself in the process of allowing God to bring to the surface the lies you have mistakenly accepted and replace them with truth. To the degree that you do this, your behavior will be transformed.

Charles Stanley

So often, I have run ahead of God, and in my zeal for a transformed mind, layered over the old.  May the Lord, in His wisdom and strength and through His anointed word, break all lies apart, piece by piece, giving us a smooth layer on which to build His truth!

Thank you for the extra notes of encouragement left on the last post.  We all need encouragement, and your thoughts mean so much to me!  I had intended on spending more time on a post, but had a sudden interruption in my plans with a short hospitalization.  

I'm doing fine now, and I arrived home this afternoon after a two-day stay, having had some problems with low blood pressure.  Thank you for praying, for I know you will!  God has everything right in the palm of His mighty hand!  HE IS FOREVER FAITHFUL!!!

Much love to all,

LIFE WITHOUT BORDERS

"In the rush and noise of life, as you have intervals, step home within yourselves and be still. Wait upon God, and feel His good presence; this will carry you evenly through your day's business."

- William Penn

 We all live in the land of ordinary.  Our days begin the same.  Our sun arises, and we awake.  Our morning routine begins.  Our thoughts churn with the needs waiting for our hands, feet, and lips of clay.

The needs around us, waiting for the imprint of our lives, press us to our own need, often sending us to our knees, bringing us to the reality of our human hearts and will.  We know we are flesh.  Imperfect.  Flawed.  Limited.  Sometimes broken.

And in brokenness and limitation, we turn to the cross, and lift our minds to its reality:  grace, redemption, peace, restoration, healing, joy, life, possibility.  For all humanity, the cross works with its power.  For us, the truth of that power invades our mortal souls and kills excuse to cling to our limited flesh.

Our flesh can be His glory.  Our weakness can be His strength.  Our strongholds can be His deliverance.

Our unknowing can know God's omniscience.  Our pride can know Christ's humility.  Our need can know His grace.

Our limited can be God's unlimited!

Christ never lived in the ordinary.  Yes, He was a man as well as the Son of God.  Yes, he walked, talked, breathed, lived, suffered, and died as a human being.  But, Jesus never viewed His life as ordinary. 

He could not.  He would not.  For His life was not His own.  It belonged to His Father, and Jesus only lived to please Him.

What He did, everything Christ did, He did not do for Himself.  Jesus magnifed God the Father in all.

And, His desire for us is the same.  If "anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward" (Matthew 10:42, NIV).  Even a drink of water is not mundane to Jesus.  He looks at our hearts while we do the great and small. 

My friend Sonja, from http://www.bitsandpieces-sonja.blogspot.com/, sent me a beautiful biography about her father, Armin Gesswein, who was a mighty prayer warrior and man of God.  In that book, Everything by Prayer, the author, Fred Hartley, speaks of the way we often disconnect the mundane of our lives from the spiritual.  He tells that everything we do is spiritual when we are living as a servant.  Even cleaning up your child's vomit is serving God when you love Him with your whole heart.

Be encouraged.  In the great and small of your life, God is beside you.  With you.  In you.

Look for God's limitless in your ordinary.  Expect His power in your walk with Him.  Search for His hand in all you do.  Listen for Jesus, even when you are changing a diaper, digging up weeds, wiping a dish, or waiting for one so dear. 

Live your life without borders.  Live your life with His heart.  Live your life in God's unlimited!

Thank you for you patience in my limited posting!  I am diligently working on a slight change of scenery on my blog, per direction of the Holy Spirit.  Change begets change, and the life of the fire we had back in November has begun death of the ordinary in my heart.  With all things new, I so want to be a channel God can use.  Thanks again, and much love to all.