Loving God and Loving People on purpose
I promise I don’t go looking for other people’s words to put on my blog. But sometimes I can’t help it. If I don’t link to it, the rocks will cry out 🙂
I don’t just heart Beth Moore. I “love” her whole family. Love is in quotations because we’ve never met. But I think if they just got to know me, they’d like me. Especially Melissa. I think we could be BFF’s.
Here’s her thoughts yesterday:
http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/2009/10/coffee-shop-hop.html
Don’t you just love His Word?
“Open up before God, keep nothing back;
he’ll do whatever needs to be done:
He’ll validate your life in the clear light of day
and stamp you with approval at high noon.
Quiet down before God,
be prayerful before him.
Don’t bother with those who climb the ladder,
who elbow their way to the top
Bridle your anger, trash your wrath,
cool your pipes—it only makes things worse
Before you know it, the wicked will have had it;
you’ll stare at his once famous place and—nothing!
Down-to-earth people will move in and take over,
relishing a huge bonanza.
Bad guys have it in for the good guys,
obsessed with doing them in.
But God isn’t losing any sleep; to him
they’re a joke with no punch line.
Less is more and more is less.
One righteous will outclass fifty wicked,
For the wicked are moral weaklings
but the righteous are God-strong.
God keeps track of the decent folk;
what they do won’t soon be forgotten.
In hard times, they’ll hold their heads high;
when the shelves are bare, they’ll be full.
Wicked borrows and never returns;
Righteous gives and gives.
Generous gets it all in the end;
Stingy is cut off at the pass.
Stalwart walks in step with God;
his path blazed by God, he’s happy.
If he stumbles, he’s not down for long;
God has a grip on his hand.
I once was young, now I’m a graybeard—
not once have I seen an abandoned believer,
or his kids out roaming the streets.
Every day he’s out giving and lending,
his children making him proud.
Turn your back on evil,
work for the good and don’t quit.
God loves this kind of thing,
never turns away from his friends.
Live this way and you’ve got it made,
Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone,
rolls virtue around on his tongue.
His heart pumps God’s Word like blood through his veins;
his feet are as sure as a cat’s.
Wicked sets a watch for Righteous,
he’s out for the kill.
God, alert, is also on watch—
Wicked won’t hurt a hair of his head.
Wait passionately for God,
don’t leave the path.
He’ll give you your place in the sun
while you watch the wicked lose it.
Keep your eye on the healthy soul,
scrutinize the straight life;
There’s a future
in strenuous wholeness.
But the willful will soon be discarded;
insolent souls are on a dead-end street.
The spacious, free life is from God,
it’s also protected and safe.
God-strengthened, we’re delivered from evil—
when we run to him, he saves us.”
I don’t sew. My mom tried a few times to teach us. (Remember Jill?) I suppose I’ll use my creativity in other ways. But it doesn’t matter that I don’t sew. This site still makes me haaaaapy:
I’m in counseling. Have I mentioned that, Internet? I am. But as my best friend would say, I would go to counseling even if I didn’t need to just because it’s so incredibly interesting.
But yeah. Hard stuff with hard stuff. But as our pastor says, “Hard doesn’t mean impossible. It just means hard.”
Anywho, I learned the most fascinating (to me) thing the other week. So. In all families there are roles that have to be played: nurturer, provider, person with problems, person with solutions, helper, one who needs help, etc. And it’s as if those roles are written on pieces of paper and each are placed on a chair. In a functional family everyone plays musical chairs. One day someone is the nurturer. The next day they have a crappy day and they need nurturing. One day someone causes problems. The next day they help someone solve their problems, etc.
In a dysfunctional family it’s as if there’s a nail on each person’s ass and they sit down on one role and no matter what else happens to them, they still have that role stuck to them. So even if they need nurturing, they still nurture. If someone else acts out, they still play the “black sheep” role, etc.
Whoa. That explains a lot. Normal people just get to be normal people going through the crappy and happy parts of life. Not as a certain type. Just as them.
Nice.
My 2 year old is punishing me today. But the weekend away from him was soooo worth it!
Grandpa & Grandma picked him up on Friday night and I didn’t miss him until Sunday. We’ve never been apart that long and it was time. Good for everyone.
My man’s love language is definitely gifts. We’re super frugal cause we have all kinds of goals with our money…so we can use it for Good Stuff. But he knows when it’s a good idea to splurge. Like on me, for example.
Saturday I had a full day at the spa. A full day. Everything. Massage, facial, manicure, pedicure, lunch, hair cut and highlights. Oh yes I did!
Then we spent like 4 hours in Barnes & Noble. If you don’t know, that is like one of my favorite ways to spend 4 hours. And something I don’t do with a toddler very often. It’s a fun, cheap date night too.
We went to an awesome coffee shop downtown and had a ridiculously fun dinner with four of our favorite couple friends. Good food, good wine, good attention all on me. What a great birthday!
Thanks, hon. You spoil me and I’ll let you.
Year number 30 – I refuse to let you suck. It’s gonna be a good one.
To inoculate me from the praise of man
He baptized me in the criticism of man
So I would die to the control of man
– Unknown, but I’ll never forget it
Isaiah 6:1 “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.”
“Our soul’s history with God is frequently the history of the “passing of the hero.” Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged. Take it personally: In the year that the one who stood to me for all that God was, died – I gave up everything? I became ill? I got disheartened? Or – I saw the Lord?
It must be God first, God second, and God third, until the life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any account whatever. ‘In all the world there is none but thee, my God, there is none but thee.’
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.”
– Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
I told you – stream of words all the time in my brain. The following is a combination of a book I read, thoughts I’ve been thinking, a Bible Study I did a while back and two different sermons. I would quote and footnote it, but 1)that would get messy cause it’s all intertwined in my brain, 2)this is not a research paper and 3)I’m lazy…
Ephesians 5:22 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”
So the Bible Study pointed out 4 things Biblical submission is NOT:
1. It doesn’t mean women are under the authority of men in general
2. It does not mean inequality
3. It does not mean wives are to treat their husbands like God
4. It does not mean slavery (Paul uses a different word for slaves and masters in Ephesians 6 than for wives and husbands)
It DOES mean to “place in order under.” Paul didn’t dislike women, he liked ORDER! He advocated order in the church, order in government, order in business, and, yes, order in the home. Galations 3:28 (“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”) and Ephesians 5:22 could spill from the same man’s pen because Paul regarded husbands and wives as spiritual equals but with functional differences.
We must never forget: God is good and loving. He would never give approval to meanness or abuse. Any misuse of submission by either the husband or wife is sin.
Think of marriage as a 3-legged stool. The legs are a submissive wife, a loving husband, and Christ. All three legs must be in place for marriage to work as God intended. A wife submistting to an unloving husband is as lopsided as a loving husband sacrificing for a domineering wife. When Christ is not the head fo the marriage relationship, the stool falls indeed. Paul pictures for us God’s ideal marriage relationship. Sadly, many Christian women are trying to keep their stools balanced with only one leg in place – their submission.
I think that’s where boundaries come in. Biblical insubordination happens when Higher Authority calls you to not submit because it would be a sin to submit. This is really hard for us humans to do with pure motives.
But because of this book I read, and one of the sermons I heard, I still can’t let go of the idea that God delights in training His children on the path of submission to imperfect authority. Romans 13 can be from Paul, too, because he knows that submitting to the proper (imperfect) authorities puts you in the center of God’s will. Sometimes God can’t bless us simply because we’re rogue! He’s too good of a Parent to do that.
Ephesians 6:5-8: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Chirst. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.”
When I read this, it’s tough as a Western Believer. What about the slaves’ rights?! Paul isn’t giving approval or disapproval to slavery. He was saying as slaves, serve like your Master is Christ.
Now I’m not a slave. Except to Christ. (Whose yoke is easy and burden is light.) But as a follower of Jesus, I’m a slave to none and yet servant to all. I think the bottom line on this kind of submission is trust. Not in the person you’re submitting to. In Yahweh – and the fact that the One whose eyes search to and fro about the earth sees how you’re being treated. And He is our Judge and Advocate! (Lam 3:58-59)
In Ephesians, the order Paul writes is first to those who are to submit, and then to those in authority. It takes an intentional decision to submit our mind and will in order to learn from others, especially when we clearly see how they’re not perfect authorities. But, frankly, submitting is only submitting when you want to do your own thing! And proper authority is never going to be perfect authority. Besides, in the Word we’re never called to sacrifice something just for the sake of sacrificing (Matt 13:44-46). We do it to gain all the more of Him! And He is a very worth-it Reward (Gen 15:1).
Our pastor Terry talked about a military chaplain who is also a colonel. Terry was talking to this guy about his high-up position and this colonel goes, “I don’t think about how I’m elevated to some high position. I just think about how God’s given me a bigger towel to wash more people’s feet.”
Now. If every authority treated people like that, submission would be easy! But we know that’s not how it goes with greedy, sinful people who often use position to define themselves and fill up empty places in their hearts.
I don’t know. I’m inclined to believe that El Roi (Genesis 16) sees all and He’s got our backs if our hearts are sincere in our faithfulness to Him. And from that perspective of the Most High, it’s not hard to see how God’s power travels through the channel of obeying imperfect authority (without enabling abuse) – cause our aim is to serve The One Perfect Authority.
Galations 2:20 (Message): “My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me!”
“God loves you with a perfect love. According to 1 John 4:18, perfect love drives out fear when we’re willing to accept it. Have you ever feared someone would cease loving you? Not only have I feared it, I’ve experienced it. God has carefully and graciously allowed some of my fears to come true so that I would discover that I would not disintegrate. I’ve experienced a few things I was sure would destroy me. But guess what? They didn’t. Not because I’m so strong, but because God taught me to survive on His unfailing love. It wasn’t fun, but it was transforming! I’m slowly coming to accept that the only thing I absolutely cannot survive is the loss of God’s love. That is a loss I will never have to try. His love endures forever. That’s what He means by perfect love driving out fear.
I am [loved by many people and] am blessed, but the Word of God uses the phrase unfailing love 32 times, and not once is it attributed to humans. Every single use of the phrase refers to God and God alone. As rich as the love others can extend, only God’s love is unfailing…
In his marvelous book Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God, Francis Frangipane wrote: “There are many aspects to the nature of Christ. He is the Good Shephered, our Deliverer and our Healer. We perceive God through the filter of our need of Him. And thus God has ordained, for He Himself is our one answer to a thousand needs.”
How gloriously true! But God is not only the answer to a thousand needs, He is the answer to a thousand wants. He is the fulfillment of our chief desire in all of life. For whether or not we’ve ever recognized it, what we desire is unfailing love. Oh, God, awake our souls to see – You are what we want, not just what we need. Yes, our life’s protection, but also our heart’s affection. Yes, our soul’s salvation, but also our heart’s exhilaration. Unfailing love. A love that will not let me go!”
– Beth Moore. I heart her. I want to be her best friend. I’ll settle for one of the many, many people whose lives have been changed, in part, by her writing.
So yeah, I realized it’s been months since I’ve written something that was my actual words. Songs, blogs, sermons, books. Everything is speaking to me right now and the theme is singular. Does God work that way in your life too, Internet?
Anywhosiewhatsits, it’s time to lighten up. For a bit. Name that movie: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”
Anyone? Bueller?
I saw some mommy-blog the other day had this tag line under her blog title:
“We can’t both look good; it’s either me or the house.”
Hee hee. I had a wise person recently suggest that I ask my man what his base line needs were around our teensy home. If I could only manage to get one or two housekeeping things done, what would they be?
His answer was so freeing: Dishes done and meals on time…since the first will prevent fruit flies (oops) and the second is important to good family time. I can do that! I can do that!
Actually, I’ve been doing that pretty well. Except for the dishes. But dinners have been fairly routine. It’s just that I’ve been stressing over all these other things that turns out don’t even matter to the guy. Well, they do, but they’re not worth stressing over, even in his estimation.
Nice.
I’m turning 30 this weekend. Did I tell you that, Internet? I thought I’d have so many more things figured out when I was “in my thirties.” Oh well. I’m realizing I’m in good company. Lots of adults don’t feel like one. Whew.
I always have a stream of words going on in my head. This is not always a good thing. But tonight it’s from You’ve Got Mail. “I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.”
I’m such a sap.