Red River

I am sitting on the long front porch of a rustic cabin looking out over a small lake where beaver are busy building and ducks swimming, nestled in the mountains of Red River, New Mexico. It is absolutely beautiful here, being surrounded by Aspen and Pine trees that rustle in the breeze and the many sounds of wildlife. A great place to connect with God’s creation. My husband and I are here for a week to volunteer at a camp designed for adults with traumatic brain injuries. I have to say that I did not know what to expect on this trip which was good because every day had a different experience in store. The one thing that really stood out for me during my time here is the basic need we have as humans to connect with others and find common ground. It was wonderful to watch the excitement of the campers when they saw one another each day and that excitement to connect with each other did not fade as the week went on.  This was a unique experience for people to interact with many others who have a similar story or experience as they do and to just have fun and share a little part of their life. Many of the campers that I spoke with wanted to share their story and I believe it is a way of bringing you into their world so you can connect with them. The environment at this camp was filled with love and that is what we are all looking for, a place where we will be loved and accepted.

Each day we would drive down a steep gravel road from the cabin to the church where the camp was located. During that drive, I noticed the trees along the side of the road and how the ground at the base of the trees had eroded and you could see some of the roots of the tree. It made me think about how tall these trees are and how strong their roots must be to keep that tree upright even when there is a forceful breeze blowing. There is a scripture that I have been meditating on recently that God brought back to my attention while here and it is:

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; and will not be anxious in a year of drought. Nor cease to yield fruit.

I want to be like this tree and have my roots so grounded in Jesus that even when storms come my way, I stand tall knowing that I will be okay. In this verse, the water represents the word of God and the roots are our hearts. When we read or meditate on God’s word, it strengthens our root system which is our heart. When any storm comes to a well rooted heart, the automatic response is to look to God as our source and not ourselves.

What a way to live! To be worry free knowing that God will take care of every need, so you don’t have to worry about it and that is when the fruit comes. If a fruit tree does not have strong roots, you will see little or no fruit on it. The fruit comes naturally when there is a strong root system and there is no striving involved. When we build up our root system in our hearts with God’s word, the fruit will come naturally. Fruit like peace, joy, love, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness.  We don’t have to strive to make our own fruit. We focus on our roots and the rest will take care of itself.

Seedtime and Harvest

During my study time this morning, I started thinking about where the fear and the love of money comes from. I believe that it starts in us when we are very young. I remember growing up and we were not wealthy by any means, but we had enough. My mom was raising us because my dad passed away when I was 4 years old and fortunately she did not have to work, but we had enough money to live on. So basically, I was not one of those kids that got everything they wanted. When kids are asking for things the line a lot of parents use, and I used, is that we don’t have the money for that. I remember telling my kids that and their answer for it was to just write a check. Think about it, a child growing up hears that they can’t have what they want because of money and then they see commercials on TV of all these great things that they could have if they have enough money. This establishes money as the source for everything you want at a young age.

I was reading Ezekiel 17:1-10 and it talks about a cedar being planted in good soil and its roots growing down into the ground. That got me thinking of how that seed of money being the center of everything is planted into kids at a young age, then that seed is watered by the continual focus on money in our society. The roots will grow deep and that way of thinking will have a solid foundation when we grow up. I am not saying that we don’t need money to live, but the unhealthy obsession with having enough money is what I am talking about. I know that I had gotten to a point in my early adulthood (and I don’t think I’m alone) that if I had money I was happy and if I didn’t I wasn’t.  I can sit here and point to all the things that happened in my life that led me to that place, but will that help anything?

What can be done about it? Start planting some new seed. The seeds that are planted inside you will determine what you believe and what you believe will determine how you live.

Genesis 8:22      While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day                                  and night shall not cease.

There are certain things that are not going to change while we are on this earth and seedtime and harvest is the first thing on this list. When we look at seedtime and harvest we naturally think of farming, but it is so much more than that. We are planting seeds everyday with what we say and what we allow into our lives.  We plant seeds into others with our words, but we also plant into ourselves because the words go into our ears too. Whether good or bad, we will have a harvest from the seeds planted so why not have a good one. God says in His word that He is our source and to look to Him. The more of this I read, the more peace that I have knowing that I am in good hands and I don’t have to look to money for everything. This is not easy to do until you start planting the right seed and watering it. It may take time, but you will have a harvest when you stand firm.

Living Out of the Past

Have you ever said something to another person and they took what you said completely different than how you meant it? I think we all have experienced this in some way or another. It is amazing how you can say something and the meaning of it can completely change because it was taken out of context.   This happened to me about a week ago when my husband was away at church camp and I had our high school youth group over to our house for our weekly meeting. We had a good meeting and some of the kids hung out afterwards until about 9PM, which was awesome. I told Paul about how the meeting went later that night and that some of the kids stayed late, he thought it was great. I was sharing with someone else about the evening and when I said that the kids stayed afterward to hang out, the response was “you probably thought they were never going to leave”.  I said, “no, I was surprised that they wanted to stay that late and it was a great night”.  Later in the conversation there was another comment about how I probably wanted them to leave and I had to correct it again. After the interaction I started thinking about how people can hear what your saying and come up with a completely different conclusion.

We all have our past experiences from growing up and those experiences shape who we are. They are still locked away in the chambers of our memory and they will stay with us forever. Those same experiences will shape the way we perceive everything that is going on around us. So, when one person looks at the bright side of a situation, you will have another person who looks at the bleak side of the same situation. We filter all that is going on around us through the lens of our experiences and this is what shapes our attitudes about what goes on in our lives. Think about it, if someone was raised in an environment where there were hostile confrontations on a regular basis, then they may grow up thinking that any discussion is handled with hostility. They will play out the entire conversation in their head prior to and more than likely, it will come to pass just as they imagined it.

Proverbs 4:20-23               My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

This scripture tells us that the issues of life come from the heart and I believe that I have been describing an example of what it is referring to. If we keep our focus on what has happened in the past and keep repeating it, then all we are going to have is the same results. If we renew our mind and focus on what God’s word says about us and what He wants for us, then we will probably have different results in our lives. Many times, we blame circumstances for the outcomes that we have in our lives when we should really be looking at where our focus is. We have a choice when it comes to our response to any given situation and that choice will decide the outcome. You may be struggling in some area of your life right now and the best thing you can do is keep track of your thoughts in that area. Are you having a repetitive response to a situation that may be on auto pilot? It would definitely be worth it to dig in and find out where your mind goes when the situation comes up and maybe it is time to redirect those thoughts. I know that I have done this in many areas of my life and it has really changed my outlook and the outcome of many situations. Our mind directs us through this life, so it is worth the time to evaluate what is going on up there. It has helped me, also it has shed some light on how others may be thinking about things. Just a thought.

Do you have a dream?

Did you ever have a dream?

When you ask a young child what they want to be when they grow up, their response is usually something that they dream of doing. It is very sweet to listen to children tell you they want to be an actor, a doctor, a veterinarian, a fireman, or a number of other things. Sometimes in the process of growing up, we lose our dream. My husband and I spend a lot of time with middle school and high school students and their dreams are not as vivid as a younger child. Most still have an idea of what they want to do but then the thoughts of “how am I going to get there?” start to creep in.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could just keep the same enthusiasm throughout our lives as we had when we were young? Feeling like we can do anything we want to do and there is nothing that will stop us. Many times, we settle because the road of our dreams would cost too much or take too much time.

The reason I started thinking about all this is because I was reading the story of Abram and how his journey with God started. In Genesis 11:31 it describes Abram’s father, Terah, packing up his family and their belongings with the intent to go to Canaan. We don’t know if God spoke to Terah like He did Abram and ask him to go because the bible doesn’t say but for some reason Terah had a dream of moving his family to Canaan. At the end of this verse it states, “and they went as far as Haran, and settled there”. These few words tell us that this man stopped short of fulfilling his dream. He went so far and then he settled. Who knows, maybe it was a hard journey, or someone got sick or they just ran out of steam. The fact is, instead of keeping his eyes focused on the dream, Terah settled in a place that may have felt comfortable at the time. He let the fear of the unknown take over his dream.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to settle. I want to go full speed ahead and trust that God has my path. Now can I say that I do that all the time, absolutely not. Just think about how freeing it could be to know that you did not stop half way there, because that is about where Terah stopped. God has a great plan for our lives and it is already mapped out, all we have to do is trust Him and walk in it. (Jeremiah 29:11)

When you read the very next verse (Genesis 11:32) it says, “The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran”. So, I guess we can completely count out the fact that he may not have had time to accomplish his dream, but I think that fear may have eaten up all his time. It is sad that Terah died half way to his dream. This makes me want to push harder toward mine and not let fear talk me out of it, how about you?

Day of Silence

Paul and I downloaded an App called “Easter Now” that sends you alerts with the daily and hourly happenings of Jesus during the Passion week. This brings it all home, I never really thought about what Jesus was doing each day during this week and it seems He was pretty busy. Passion week begins with Jesus triumphant entry when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday.  On Monday, Jesus went to the temple, along with His disciples, and drove out the vendors that were making a marketplace out of God’s house.  On Tuesday, Jesus went back to the temple to teach and He offended the religious leaders. Wednesday was a quiet day in the gospels and one can only guess what Jesus may have been doing, I imagine that He continued teaching since He did not have much time left. Thursday at 6pm (which was technically Friday by the Jewish calendar) Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover meal then they went to Gethsemane, so Jesus could pray. The Jewish day started and ended at twilight (which is 6 pm), so their days were a little different than ours since we go from midnight to midnight. According to our calendar, Good Friday started with Jesus betrayal, arrest, flogging, crucifixion and then His body being placed in the tomb, all by 6 pm. Then there was silence.

Imagine how Jesus’ followers felt after 6 pm on Friday. I’m sure the time spent from the moment the tomb was sealed until Sunday morning was full of doubt, turmoil, uncertainty, grief and many other emotions. This reminds me of how things may go for us today. Life is going along and then tragedy strikes or a crisis crops up and we are asking God why this happened and then we hear silence, just like the apostles. I went through this when the company I had worked for (I was with them for 15 years) reorganized and I was told to move to another state or I was out of a job. My husband was not working at the time and I knew that I was not going to relocate so to say that I was stressed out is an understatement. When I communicated my decision to them, I had a wide range of emotions including, grief, fear, and uncertainty. How are we going to live? What will we do now? Will our comfortable lifestyle change? All these questions kept running through my mind and I would like to say that they were quieted by my faith, but they were not. I knew in my heart that God would take care of us, but the fear and uncertainty were screaming louder than my faith. I was having my day of silence, when I could not hear anything and wasn’t sure what was next. Fortunately, my silence did not last long because my husband received a call from a company, the very next day, stating that they were interested in interviewing him for a position and he started working a short time later. We never know what is happening behind the scenes with God. It may feel like we are in silence but really it is God working His plan behind the scenes.  I know that I was so fearful about our situation (because I am a control freak) that I was drowning out any kind of reassurance that God was trying to give me.

On Sunday, the disciples received the answer to all the questions that were running through their minds because the tomb was empty. It took some of them longer than others for the fear and uncertainty to calm inside, but they all eventually came out of their silence. We can trust that God will do what He says He will do and that is enough during our times of trouble.

Romans 8:32 NASB

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Happy Easter All!!

Living in Peace

Living in peace, that is what we all crave today, don’t we? To have peace instead of all the violence and to have peace instead of all the debating and drama. To be able to start each day knowing that everything is going to be okay, knowing that the weight of the world is not on our shoulders. We pray for peace in this world today but have turmoil going on inside of us. Praying for peace is a great thing to do and I am not saying to stop that, but I believe that real peace starts on the inside of each and every one of us.  We all crave that peace that surpasses all understanding when we are in a storm.

This time of year, has great importance in this quest for peace. We are about to celebrate all that Jesus did for us on the cross. When Jesus went to the cross, He did so for everyone on the earth, but He was a game changer for all who would believe and place their trust in Him. All the hype about Easter with bunnies and eggs can be a distraction to keep our focus from the importance of this season. I am not saying that celebrating Easter is bad because it is a fun time for kids and families to gather and enjoy. We just need to take time to remember the importance of the season and what brought the celebration about in the first place.

When Jesus went to the cross He said, “It is finished!” and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. (John 19:30) At that moment, Jesus had finished all that He came to earth to do and that was to reconcile us back to God. Everything that God does is intentional and with a purpose because with the resurrection of Jesus on the third day, all was complete. Jesus had claimed us back as His and with that, we can now live in the kingdom of God. Many don’t understand the concept of living in the kingdom of God, but Jesus references it over and over again in His teachings. We have a choice of where we are going to live from because Jesus tells us there is an option when He says, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm”. (John 18:36) What does Jesus mean when He says, “Not of this realm”? It seems that there is so much more than we can currently see, and I think we forget about that or maybe never knew it. Jesus was mocked and beaten here on this earth because of His message about a better life for us. Let’s not continue this cycle and find out what Jesus was really talking about when He said that His kingdom is not of this realm. Remember that everything God does is intentional and has a purpose, so Jesus’ statement cannot be ignored.

Ephesians 1:3-5 NASB

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

These verses show us that God’s intention from the very beginning was to have us as His children, holy and blameless before Him, and to give us access to every spiritual blessing He has through Jesus because of His loving grace. We now have access, in the spiritual realm, to all God’s blessings because of Jesus and our part is to believe and receive it. Things may not always look great in this physical world around us, but we know that we have access to the finished works of Jesus which include every blessing we will need in this life we are living here and now. 

 Now that is something to celebrate during this season!

Our Thoughts Our Life

The past week has been incredibly busy with our youth group kids out of school for spring break and Billy came home from boot camp and we added a new addition to the family, an 8-week-old Yorkie puppy named Jasper. I wanted to post this last week, but my days got away from me so here are the thoughts that I had from our bible study.

Our thoughts will shape our lives. The way that you think about any given situation will enable your response to that situation. If you get disappointed, angry, offended, or anxious, that emotion will consume your thoughts until it shows out in your life in some way. I remember the old saying, “if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all”.  That sounded like great advice, but can we really live by that?  Jesus tells us in Matt 12:34 that “out of the mouth, the heart speaks” so this is telling us that whatever we are thinking or dwelling on in our thought life is what is going to eventually come out of our mouths and show up in our lives. When time is spent during the day thinking about the anger, disappointment, offense or anxiety, we are not present for what may be going on right in front of us. Not only do we miss out on the present, we are setting ourselves up for a bad outcome in the future.

In our bible study last week, we talked about King David from 1 Samuel. God had anointed David to be king but first he had to serve the current king, Saul. David did great things in his service to Saul and the people loved him. All of this made Saul jealous, so he continuously tried to kill David. In 1 Samuel 10, David is running from Saul and he is captured by his enemy, the Philistines. He was afraid, so he acted like a madman in front of their king and they let him go. David was able to make a quick decision and was successful in everything that he did because he knew that God was with him.

Some of the Psalms were written by David and when you read them, it is easy to see that David was writing all his feelings down on paper. This may be the first documented case of journaling. Psalm 34 & 56 were written by David during the time I referenced here. In these Psalms, David wrote these words:

“The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and rescues them”.  “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, in God, I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

We can see that David knows that he has God on his side because out of his heart, his mouth spoke. Couldn’t we all use this kind of knowledge when going through our day? I believe this is the message that God wants to convey to the world today. We do have the God of the universe on our side and He wants to help us. God tells us in His word that He has a divine protection for us and our part in all of this is to believe it.  We will feel fear at times, so when we feel that fear it is time to place our trust in God and to believe what His word says about our protection. When we are in a difficult situation, we can place our trust and focus on God and He will give us wisdom to help us in our time of need. Our thoughts are where we can have victory, or we can be defeated. Don’t let your thoughts defeat you. Get yourself a promise from God’s word that will fit your circumstances and meditate on it today. God just wants us to trust Him and the only way to do that is to know what He says He will do and believe it.

2 Peter 1:2-4 tells us this truth:

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.