Christmas Blessings

As mid December arrives and I am finishing up my shopping, I feel fully entrenched into the “Season of Stuff”. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthdays, the buying and giving and eating of stuff can get a little overwhelming. I find I can too easily get caught up in all the food, decorating and gifts that make up the stuff of these holidays and lose sight of the things that really matter. So how do I attempt to guard against all this “stuff”?

I too easily begin to think of how much stuff I have as how blessed I am. My thoughts return to those verses I read in Luke 1 as Mary gives praise when she visits with Elizabeth that I wrote about in “Considered Blessed”.

48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.

Another lesson comes to mind, especially as I compare this passage to something I read very shortly after this passage in Psalm 46

16 Do not be overawed when a man grows rich,
when the splendor of his house increases;
17 for he will take nothing with him when he dies,
his splendor will not descend with him.
18 Though while he lived he counted himself blessed—
and men praise you when you prosper—
19 he will join the generation of his fathers,
who will never see the light of life.

Mary doesn’t call herself blessed in Luke. Her challenging life didn’t suddenly get better. Joseph stood by her, but we don’t ever hear about them obtaining great amounts of wealth. Jesus worked as a carpenter, just as his earthly father had, to earn a living. They worked hard to keep a roof over their head and food in their mouths. Add to this the fact that her children didn’t see eye to eye, and she watched her eldest die on a cross. Not the picture of a blessed life. Yet, we look back at them from the vantage of a future generation and call her blessed, because God was doing great things through her. Her blessing had nothing to do with “stuff”. God worked through her, giving us Himself in human form.

Compare that to the passage in Psalms, where the rich man counted himself blessed while he lived (v 18) and people tended to be in great awe of him, but when he died he had nothing. Here’s the adage “you can’t take it with you” right in scripture. All his earthly stuff did not bring him eternal life, his blessings were temporary and created no lasting legacy. It is so easy to fixate on those kinds of blessings, but are those the kind I want?

Don’t get me wrong. God does give us stuff, sometimes lavishly, and it is ok to ask Him to do so. We just don’t need to be fixating on God solely as a dispenser of stuff, using that as the measure of how blessed we are. Again, I find I need to keep an eternal kingdom perspective of blessings.

This was hit home for me by what one of our worship leaders said one Sunday morning –

“The blessing is not what God gives you, the blessing is God Himself.”

How appropriate for this Christmas season, to remember that the real blessing is God sending His only son, Jesus, to dwell with us, and to save us.

So, as we draw close to Christmas, I wish you Christmas Blessings, not just for stuff, or even joy and peace, but the presence of God Himself in your life.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (NIV)

Be Wary of “Me”

I apologize in advance if it seems I’m on my soapbox today. For some reason God stirred this up in me to be on guard about, and I feel like I just have to write what I’m thinking.

I often hear the advice to personalize scripture in prayer or study to apply it to your life or claim a promise. Great! Awesome! I am all for this. God wants a personal relationship with us, and He wants to relate to us personally. Applying scripture to our personal situation helps better connect us with God.

However, we get in trouble if that is the only way we look at scripture. A classic example of this is John 3:16 –

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (KJV)

We personalize this verse by substituting “you” for “world” and “whosoever”. “You” is a part of the “world” and “whosoever”, so we are not incorrect in doing this. But, in our “me” oriented society we often begin to think “ignore world and whosoever” and think of this verse only in terms of “you”. We have now changed things. God did not use the word “you” in this verse, He used the word “world”. He wants us to know that we are part of that world. He also wants to know that it is more than about us. His love and His plan are much bigger than just us. He loves all of us individually and as a whole, and the scope of His plan is world wide. When we concentrate only on a “you” version, we will lose sight of some of the greatness of God as focus only on ourselves.

Another example of personalization potentially going too far is when it is suggested that you re-write the scripture to make it apply to you. Then you read the scripture and memorize it in this form. Yes, read the scripture and put it into terms that make it apply to you, but don’t let that be the only way you view the scripture. I personally have a problem with memorizing personalized scripture. If I memorize it as written, I should have no problem personalizing it when needed. If anything, personalized scripture should be a secondary memorization, not your primary resource.

Why do I feel this way? First, we begin to believe that the Bible is all about us. It is not. It is all about God. The good news is that in His lavish love for us, much of what is about Him has benefit to us and for us, so extends to us. Second, we have rewritten scripture, a very dangerous place to be. When we change words to suit ourselves, we run the risk of changing at minimum the scope and possibly the meaning of what God has to say to us. God may have something to say that is bigger than just you, but if you have changed it, you might miss it. Finally, this can be a trap leading to self idolatry. We make everything about us, including God. Our wants and needs become more important than God. They become the gods or “idols” in our lives. If the Bible needs to be all about you, then you prioritize what God can do for you over knowing Him. With Christian maturity comes the growing understanding that He is enough and having a relationship with Him is the point. Don’t let over use of personalization rob you of this truth.

So in summary, I’m not saying don’t personalize scripture. I’m just saying to guard against letting that be the only way you interact with scripture.

Ok, I’m stepping off the soapbox for today. Choose Joy!

My Happy Place

It’s so weird, just a couple of weeks or so ago, I watched a video where the speaker described a situation where while waiting on direction from God, what appeared to be an answer, upon closer inspection wasn’t. Right now I am experiencing that very sensation, not sure if what looks like an open door is an answer or not. What sounded exciting and good at first has left me unsure, and with a level of peace somewhere between zip and nada. So I’m questioning why I feel that way and thus am confused.

As I try to work through my confusion, trying to assess my pride, ego and other potential personal roadblocks, I find myself getting frustrated. My frustration leads to impatience, I have no peace (imagine sounds of screeching tires and shatteringly glass as I come to an abrupt halt) and I realize I’ve tried to take control of the situation. Impatience and lack of peace are not fruit of Spirit lead activity. I need to get back to my “happy place”.

So what is my happy place? For me my happy place is where I find peace. You know how all those de-stressing exercises tell you to envision a pleasant happy place to relax. My happy place is like that only that it is not about temporarily coping, but having real abiding peace that unfurls those knots that form in my stomach. My objective it to operate in that place as much as possible and recognize when I’ve wandered off and return there as quickly as possible. I have to admit that my success rate at this is less than stellar. I’m a work in progress, so I’m writing this to remind myself to be more diligent in guarding my thoughts.

In my happy place I believe the following –

God is in control, always all the time. (Psalm 115:3, Isaiah 45:18-19, Isaiah 46:9)
God loves me lavishly and without limits. (John 3:16, Ephesians 1:6)
He has plans for my life and those plans are for my good and the good of His Kingdom. (Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28)
Nothing that happens to me as His child happens without His knowledge and consent. (Job 1:10-12, Luke 22:31)
Based on all these facts, I can trust that whatever is going on is in God’s control, He is taking care of it, and what is best for me is His plan. I start worrying when I start doubting.

So how do I get there? I remember each of the above. I work through the list one at a time asking myself do I believe each truth. As I am reminded of these truths and get it settled in my mind, I find I can let go, relinquish control, and amazingly the knot in my stomach unclenches and I find peace. My goal is to remember these truths quickly and do a better job at keeping my focus on them.

So as I remember these truths, I sense God saying to me

Just Wait.

So, yes I’m still confused, but no longer frustrated and anxious. Maybe this is a door that will open, maybe not. Either way is ok. The knots in my stomach are gone, and I have peace, find rest, and am working on cultivating a little patience.

God is good.
Choose Joy!

And Then Silence

As I looked over this blog I realized I hadn’t posted anything in over two weeks. It made me pause, because I have a stack of “ideas” to explore, and usually God leads me to an area to reflect. Even though I’ve been busy these past couple of weeks, I really couldn’t use it as an excuse, because, honestly, I’m always busy it seems. So why haven’t I written? Then I realized that I had not received any prompting leading me to a specific topic. God has been silent.

So as I pondered this, I realized this wasn’t a bad thing, God has not left me. I even still feel His presence in my life. This has been an opportunity to strengthen my faith. I’ve spent a good bit of time asking how, where, when, and what does it look like questions to God. So far I haven’t received answers. My weekly Bible Study has been talking about being in the wilderness, like the Israelites leaving Egypt and wandering in the dessert. I am at a transition point in my life. We’ve joined a new church and I’m praying over whether or not my sabbatical from leading women’s Bible study groups is coming to an end, and if so, what will that look like. So far God has been silent and this has extended to my writing as well.

I realized that if I believe (and I do) that God is still there, then He will speak when He is ready and in His time. I also think my resolve to continue writing is being tested. Will I seek out things to write about? Will I continue to declare His praises even when there is silence? Since this blog flows from things I’m dealing with, I decided maybe I should write about the silence. Here is where my reflecting has led.

First it has helped me clarify the difference in between being lost in a desert of disobedience and separation from God, and being in a time of wandering, waiting for God to reveal the next step. It is refining my patience and building my faith as I continue to learn to wait. I can look back on past times of waiting and know that God has perfect timing.

Additionally, as I lay in bed winding down from the day, I realized that in the silence I could find comfort and peace and rest. I am at a place where I can simply abide and be still. When Alex was a baby I would hold and rock him to comfort him when he was fussy in the middle of the night. I sensed God doing the same thing for me. I remembered the softness of the night, the warmth of the embrace, the occasion stoke on the head, and the same words I would whisper into my child’s ear, “Its ok, I’m right here.”, and then, silence.

Why Come Back?

Several of the things I’m looking at right now seem to be calling for reflection on wandering away from God and returning to Him. The Bible study I’m doing talks about the “perks” of sin versus the costs and asked us to look at a time in our lives when the “perks” helped us forget the costs. Since I spent over 15 years wandering away from God, I had plenty of times to reflect upon. I have been baffled in my thoughts, and realized if I could get a better grip on my own situation, I might be better able to relate to others.

My problem was that I had plenty of “perks” in my desert wandering time and I as look back, I didn’t see much in the way of cost. Even now, I have trouble identifying the costs in some ways. Even though I ended one marriage in divorce, I married the love of my life Ken, had great paying jobs, a nice home, nice cars, nice vacations, and despite infertility issues, was able to give birth to a son, my precious Alex. By worldly standards, not a bad life, there wasn’t much in the way of downsides to me.

So why did I come back to God? To be honest I’m not even sure I wanted to come back to God, or more accurately, saw a need to come back too close to God. I still acknowledged His arm’s length existence in my life, flirted with the idea of attending church, knew I should teach my son about Jesus, but never could muster up any enthusiasm for reconnecting in a personal way.

Here’s a real eye opener for me. I’m not sure I ever chose to go looking to come back to God. He was much more interested in me than I was in Him. He used my loneliness after our move to NC to get me to try a neighborhood Bible Study group. My need for human contact outweighed any belief in the Bible Study making any difference in my life. Boy was I wrong. During this time God began to show me how much He loved me even where I was way out there in the desert away from Him. I wasn’t useless or of no value. Those were the hidden costs of wandering for me. I often felt useless, lonely, unsatisfied and unsure of my purpose. God was the answer to those issues, but the “perks” of my life helped me remain numb to those feelings much of the time.

I didn’t know to go looking for something better. I didn’t realize how often I had been shielded from major disaster. I was content in my desert. God, however, was not satisfied for me. He desired something more for me and pursued me. I read this morning in some study notes in my Bible “No loyalty, achievement, or honor can compare to loving him”. However, I had to taste the living water again to know that. The “perks” of my wandering had dulled my taste buds and numbed my senses to God’s love and presence. So why did I come back? Because He came and got me. Did I find something better? Absolutely. I know who I am now, and can claim peace and joy even in trying circumstances. The time I now spend with God is much more satisfying than anything it replaced. I wish I could find the words to explain it better. I matter.

Now my concern is that many are where I was. The “perks” of their life keep them satisfied on the surface, and they don’t even know they are missing something. I think too often we think of those outside of a close relationship with Jesus as mired in misery and longing to be rescued. I don’t think most people view themselves that way. They are fine with their lives. Maybe that’s why so many are too busy to take the time to study the Bible. They don’t see the need for it. Maybe that is why I have become so passionate about doing Bible Study. No matter why someone attends, God still has something to say to them. I’ve seen it over and over again, starting with me. So my prayer is for opportunities to teach and be available where He desires and primarily for Him to fervently pursue those that desperately need Him, even if they don’t even realize they need pursuing.

Choose Joy!

Changes and Choices

I woke up this morning wondering what I would be writing about next, and realized that I didn’t have a clue. Then I did my Bible Study homework for the day this is what came about.

I was studying today about freedom from the shackles of sin and we were to read the following passage and note the Israelites’ condition. What resulted can only be from God, because I certainly wouldn’t have though of it.

Exodus 1:8-11 (NIV) –
8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.
10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

I underlined the following “did not know”, “deal shrewdly” (or wisely in the version in the book), “fight against us and leave”, and “forced labor”. While I’m not sure I actually followed the author’s instructions, God wove a strand between these phrases that describes our current lives much too often.

We as a culture “do not know” God any more. We had failed to know Him or have forgotten who He is. We decide to “deal shrewdly and wisely” with our situations, based on our own worldly knowledge. We fear that what we have and desire in our lives will “fight against us and leave”. So to keep this from happening we go into “forced labor” to hold it all together, trying to store up as much stuff as possible.

It is no wonder we are often left feeling stressed out, overloaded, unsatisfied and discontent. Our response to this is usually to make some changes and cut something out. Why is that usually attending a Bible Study, or church on Sunday, or reading the Bible, or prayer time?

The place where we can find peace, rest, contentment and satisfaction is often the first thing we chuck overboard when we feel overloaded. Is it because we don’t know what we are tossing away? Do we know God well enough to know what He has to offer, what He as promised or to trust Him enough to handle it all? Somehow, my being in control and looking out for myself sounds safer than letting Him take over. The world will tell you this is the safe way every time, but have you found that to be true?

The danger of cutting back just a little is that it will lead to a little more and a little more until we wake up one day and realize that we have made God a stranger in our lives. I have heard (and said) many times that I’m just too busy to study the Bible and spend time with God. That is the path to the wilderness. I know, I have been there. It is dry and parched. I spent too much time stressed out, dissatisfied and trying to find happiness. The world’s standards said I had a great life, but it was so much work to maintain that façade. What was the next thing to make us happy? Everything seemed just one step away from disaster, contentment was fleeting. I don’t want to go there again.

No matter where you are in your relationship with God, there is more to know about Him. So if you are thinking about making some changes, don’t push your relationship with Him to the side. Seek Him, He will find you.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30 (NIV).

Considered Blessed

Recently I was reading a devotion passage from Luke 1, which contains Mary’s song of praise when she goes to see Elizabeth. Verses 48 and 49 spoke volumes to me that day and have inspired some study. In fact, there is more than I can cover in one post, so this will probably become a multi-part post.

Most of the time we consider ourselves blessed when good things happen to us. We feel blessed when we feel good. Not that those times aren’t blessed, but it is easy to feel blessed in those times. We don’t need help with the easy. We need help with the hard. We rarely consider trials, burdens, or suffering to be blessings.

Here are the verses in the NIV translation, because I think it conveys well something I discovered.

48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.

When I looked at the word “humble”, I was amazed as I discovered a couple of things. In the Greek it is a noun, not an adjective or a verb. That means it is referring to something, not something Mary was doing as a verb, or describing Mary as an adjective. It is referencing the “humble state” Mary was in. Here she is talking about her situation, not her actions or attributes. God had taken note of her humble situation, not her humility.

When I looked up the meaning of the original Greek word (Strong’s Number G5104 if any of you like that kind of thing), here’s what I found. The word tapeinosis is defined as “humbleness, lowliness, humiliation, low estate, made low, and vile”. For Mary to use this word, seems to indicate that she does not consider her situation to be comfortable or necessarily good. Possibly she is referring to her low social or economic status. Also, the average onlooker would consider a young unmarried girl being pregnant as a humiliation at the very least. Her situation had been made low, hardly the hallmark of blessing.

As I later looked at the word for blessed, I found that in this verse it is used as a verb and not as an adjective as found in the Beatitudes. As I sorted out that this meant, if I had been wearing socks, they would have been blown right off. I found an incredible contrast. Verse 48 is describing two different views of the same situation. While Mary made reference to her humble state, the generations would actively call her and her situation blessed. Mary could see her situation from her limited human view and through the Holy Spirit that others would see it differently, a blessed situation, receiving the favor of God. Mary could see this because she knew God was doing great things for her.

Here is a seed of the promise of our joy that we can water. What our human eyes see and emotions feel may be one of burden or suffering, but God’s perspective can reveal another view, we have received His favor. How can this be? This comes from knowing God intimately. If we know Him well enough to trust in his love, his promises, and knowing He is doing great things for us, we can believe there is another perspective. Here are just a couple of God’s promises that apply here.

Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Romans 8:28 - “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

If we believe He speaks truth, then we can find the hope and comfort that lets us know our joy is coming. Our short term sufferings are for our long term good and for the good of God’s Kingdom. Perspective beyond our own may reveal blessings. Maybe we can’t even see that perspective. Our feelings may not change at that moment, but I find comfort in knowing that God says it is not happening in vain. I just may not be able to see it. Do you know Him well enough to trust Him for that? If not, is now the time to get to know Him better?

Choose Joy!

Fear of the Lord

We had a great discussion this past Sunday in our Sunday School class at church and I thought it would be interesting to write about it as a follow up.

We were looking at Psalm 19 and verse 9 says “The fear of the LORD is pure” (NIV) and our teacher said that often the word fear is explained to mean awe or reverence. He then went on to ask what we thought about that. Someone said if it said fear it means to fear and that they indeed had fear of the Lord. I came home and looked up the Hebrew word used for fear in this verse. Strong’s defines it as a noun meaning, fear, reverence, piety. This same word is also translated in the KJV as dreadful and exceedingly afraid.

So, here are my questions –

Do you fear the Lord?

Should you fear the Lord?

I would love to hear your thoughts, and so as not to bias you, I’ll wait a few days before posting my thoughts as a comment. You of course know I have an opinion, wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.

So, ponder and comment. FYI, we never even got to the “pure” part in class.

Choose Joy!

What Is A Blessing?

As I began writing about a passage God had been teaching to me, the subject of being blessed and blessings became central and I realized I needed to get a better idea of just what being blessed or a blessing really is. So, I looked up the words used in the Bible for bless, blessed and blessing and found their definition. Then I began to ponder what all this was trying to tell me. Here’s where I am.

So what is a blessing? It is a gift, a special favor, mercy or benefit. It can be praise or thanksgiving. I also found it interesting that the Old Testament word “bless” can also be translated “to kneel down”. This evokes an image to me of humbleness in the act of giving or receiving a blessing. I will not be surprised if at some point God uses this visual idea to show me something. The New Testament word is “eulogia”. It means praise, thanksgiving, the extolling of another, generosity, and gifts. One definition included “to give a blessing is to act kindly”. Our word eulogy is related to this word.

Looking at it from the perspective of being blessed as opposed the blessing itself, the New Testament Greek word for blessed means “receiving God’s favor, fortunate, good, happy”. So it is not unexpected to think of happiness as part of being blessed. Some Bible translations translate the “Blessed” in the Beatitudes as “Happy”. However, I think I need to be careful of falling into the trap of thinking that the only times I have received God’s favor is when I feel happy. Receiving God’s favor isn’t limited to when I am happy. There are times we still have received God’s favor, but circumstances may not necessarily make me happy.

I can receive and give blessings. When I bless God, I am ascribing holiness to Him. When He blesses me there are two general categories the blessings fall into, temporal (vocabulary refresher here!) and spiritual. I can also bless others in temporal and spiritual ways.

Temporal blessings are temporary, and are often for provision and secular, the meeting of earthly needs. Often these types of blessings make me feel happy.

Spiritual blessings are obviously spiritual in nature, those relating to the Kingdom of God. These things impact the spiritual realm and the earthly church, corporately and individually. The length of their effect can be eternal. Sometimes these blessings make us happy. Sometimes I’m not sure I am even aware that I have blessed someone or have been blessed in spiritual ways until much later, if at all here on earth.

I’ve also noticed that blessings can be short-term and immediate, or long term and even multi-generational. For example, being able to put food on the table today is a short term immediate blessing. In contrast, the prophetic blessings such as Isaac and Jacob gave over their sons were long term, meant to be fulfilled throughout the generations. The same can be said of God’s covenant blessing to Abraham, it delivers eternal impact.

I know this has been a bit dry, and probably incomplete and less than perfect, but I really wanted to get a handle on blessings and being blessed before I went any further. So, I like having this to refer back to, knowing that being blessed means receiving the favor of God. This has also opened my eyes to think about the types of blessings I have been seeking and the types of blessings I should want to receive and give. Yes, I do want my earthly needs met and blessed, but am I seeking to be blessed and to bless in the spiritual realm?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Until next time, Choose Joy!

Why Choose Joy?

Lately it seems that so many of us are struggling with something that wants to rob our joy. The following is something I wrote a while back on another site, but I thought adding this here would remind me that joy isn't a feeling, but a promise, and why it is so important to choose joy. So here's an updated version.

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If you get many emails from me you probably have noticed I sign most of them with "Choose Joy!" and I thought an explanation of why might make a good introduction. So here's the deal.

While leading a women's Bible study discussion group, I was looking for a way to summarize what had been a rich week of teaching into something easy to remember, yet practical. I finally came up with

Believe God
Choose Joy
Resolve Daily

What I mean by this is -

Believe God - Simply believing in Jesus for forgiveness of sins and salvation is the first step. I have to believe God actively, daily, and on an ongoing basis. I have to believe He is who He says He is and that He can do what He says He will do. He is always in control of everything and every situation. Losing sight of this basic truth is one of my big stumbling points in my faith walk. I have to continually believe these truths. If I don't have this straight in my mind and heart, I'll not have much success with the next steps.

Choose Joy- First I must not confuse joy with happiness. Happiness is a feeling, based on moods and circumstances, and is often very fleeting. Joy on the other-hand has nothing to do with how I feel, but is a promise from God. It is a characteristic of the Holy Spirit working in my life (see Galatians 5:22). Psalm 43:4 says God is my joy and my delight. Jesus told the disciples in Luke 10:20 "However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (NIV) God is my joy and I should have joy over the fact that my salvation is secure. These are unchanging reasons to have joy that have nothing to do with how I feel or my circumstances. However, I have to choose to accept those reasons and keep them in mind, especially when the feelings aren't so happy. Psalm 30:5 tells us "weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." (NIV) I have to choose that promise and based on step one, believe God that my joy is coming. I can do this if I remember to believe that God is in control of everything, all the time, all the way, completely, period.

Resolve Daily- This one may sound simple, but it is important. I have to remember the first two every day, and resolve to make them part of the the foundation of how I live each day. I have to resolve to believe and choose every day.

Once I had put all this together in my mind, I knew I needed reminding of it on a regular basis, so the email signature was born.

So -
Choose Joy!

We Must Begin Somewhere

Welcome to my blog. That may seem like a silly thing to say, but necessary, since you are taking the time to read this.

Why am I starting a blog? Well, I'm not sure there is a short answer, but the medium answer is that for quite some time I have been struggling to develop a way to share lessons God has been teaching me. Initially, I had thought to develop an audio delivery process, but that has proved to be just too much for me to accomplish right now. So for now, I thought I would try writing as a way to organize these ideas and to see if it makes any sense at all. So this is a beginning. We'll see where we go.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

Choose Joy!