For the Love of...

Happy Saturday!  I hope you have had a great week!  I know I did!  Today was the perfect start to Fall!  Sunny and 90...Praise the Lord!  I couldn't ask for a better day!  There is so much joy in sunshine...it's like a hug from God saved just for me!  I went out to Target today in search of a product I have fallen in love with...have you ever fallen in love with a product only to find that it's no longer made anymore...or it's no longer carried in stores?  This is what I found today.  I went looking in three stores and was disappointed.  As I drove home, God began forming a thought in my mind...We've fallen in love with the world's product.  Whatever the world culture is selling each of us (for some it's instant gratification, for others it's wealth, of others a big house with lots of space, for others the perfect job, for others time...the list goes on) we've fallen for it. Then, when we search God for a refill on the product we love, we come away disappointed.  Why?  Because we've fallen in love with something that is not from God.  God loves us so much that He created the world perfectly just for us...SO much that He sent His son to die to save us from eternal darkness!  God fills us with light yet we remain loyal to the darkness.

Now, to be clear, I'm not equating shopping to darkness....I AM equating the misplaced love of things to darkness.  God created us to love.  In our sin we direct our love toward man made things--even God made things--and in no time at all we've lost sight of God.  I was reminded in my shopping venture that there are few things I need and even fewer things I love (though I throw the word around easily enough).  I was reminded that the one true origin of my love is God and He is where my affections should be directed.  He is first in all things!

That's it friends, short and sweet!  The love of God overflows from my heart so I can share it with you!  Have a blessed Sunday and a beautiful week!

Wait...

Waiting can be the longest and hardest process of a person's life.  Christian or not, we spend much of our lives waiting.  We wait for high school...then we wait for college...then we wait for our career.  We wait for the bus, we wait at a red light, we wait in traffic.  We wait for the microwave, we wait for the coffee pot, we wait for water to boil.  We wait in line, we wait on hold, we wait for change.  We wait at the doctors office, we wait for results, we wait for a cure...  Waiting sometimes seems a chore...a necessary evil...a waste of time...above all, irritating and many times painful.  The Christian is told to wait on God.  Psalm 27:14 tells us to "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Luke 12:35-37 urges us to be alert and keep our lamps lit as those waiting for their master to return.

...

I had written out this beautiful 'message' last night....I was going to send and post on time this week...and in my haste, I lost the whole thing.  I had written about waiting...it was eloquent and lovely and expressed exactly what I wanted to say; the point being that we should wait IN God rather than wait ON Him, work WITH Him rather than Against Him...and perhaps this message is better suited to another time, because God stopped me.  I spent much of last night upset and frustrated at myself that I lost all my hard work and then sat down this afternoon to recreate the beauty of last night's Saturdays with Sara...and I realize as I sit here, that I have made this about me.  I have become the center goal rather than God.  I have turned this great blessing to encourage others through the wisdom God has given me into a vessel of praise for myself.  It may not look this way on the outside, in fact to you it may seem the same, as though nothing has changed.  But as I think over the past months and consider my heart, I see the truth is I have stopped consulting God and allowed myself to lose sight of the purpose.  So, lets revisit that purpose.  

I began Saturdays with Sara as a letter of encouragement to two of my dear friends which morphed at God's push into this blog.  God had prompted me to send you a weekly email encouraging you to persevere in your mission and run the race with strength and confidence in the Lord.  I woke up early every Saturday morning, I prayed, and I allowed God to lead.  Somewhere along the way, that purpose got lost.  At some point in the past few months, I have become the center of my life...and God has become all but forgotten...a memory...an afterthought...I'm not sure where to go from here other than to return in prayer to God.  I desire to be His hands and feet.  I desire to use the gift He has given me to encourage and uplift you, my dear friends and the people who read my blog.  This, I believe is still part of God's plan.

I need to begin again to wait in God for direction.  To rest in God's timing.  Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that God makes all things beautiful in HIS time and has set eternity in the hearts of men, but we can not know the beginning from the end.  The point of my prior email (the one unsent) was that as we allow God's love to overflow in our hearts...as we allow His will to direct our paths...as we serve Him using the gifts He's blessed us with we lose sight of the wait and it becomes less difficult...waiting becomes more of a joy as we see and feel how God is changing and shaping us through our works and our wait.  (it made more sense before).

Now that I've reminded myself of why I'm doing this, maybe we can get back on track.  I am so thankful to God for the journey he has brought me on...the changes He has made in me.  Without God, I would not be who I am today and could not become the woman He created me to be.  He has a purpose for each of us, and as we WAIT in Him, we begin to see glimpses of His big picture.  We will never know the end as God does, but we can rest in the truth that He has only our good in mind and take comfort in the fact that God is continually changing us and transforming us through our trials and through our waiting.  SO, the encouragement for myself today, and I hope for you, is to serve God confidently, love God's creation with the same zeal that He does, and live our lives in a way that can point ONLY to God!  

I hope I've expressed my heart well today to the Glory of God...and I hope you have a great week!

"1.21 Gigawatts"

Well, so much for the coolness of last weekend, here comes the heat just in time for Labor Day...September is here and I am SO ready for it to be fall.  The build-up of anticipation is on the verge of bubbling over.  It's true there is a time for everything under the sun, and as the end of a season draws near our hearts quicken with anticipation for that burst into the new and exciting frontier God lays before us.  This past week sped along in a blur...looking back, I find myself confusing where in time I actually stand...a friend referenced the "flux capacitor" (Back to the Future?)  in an email this past week and I feel as though I am in need of one...a trip into the past to fully understand and comprehend where God has taken me.  Do you ever feel lost within your week?  Not sure what the date is, when that deadline was, where did Tuesday go???  No?  Ok, so it's just me then.  In the midst of all this confusion and blurred hindsight I have neglected the one thing that is truly important...I seem to have a knack for forgetting my God who has brought me this far and loved me through each and every harried moment...this I feel ever so deeply.  We all go through these times of dry faith...out of the word and therefore out of touch with the Spirit within us, my "dry spells" seem much closer together than anyone else I know.  Thankfully, I remain habitual in prayer.  Talking daily, many times hourly, with God.  Listening for His input.  Waiting for His guidance.  Asking His forgiveness. All the while seeking to find myself in the center of His will.  And even though Satan tries to convince me that I fail at this, I know he is wrong because I know the peace that passes all understanding...I know that gentle wave of calm and serenity, even through the storm rages all around I have shelter and peace in the center of God's will.  I could be doing better, for sure!  But, God does not call us to be perfect!  At the end of our short post this evening I am reminded of my favorite name for God: Jehovah-Nissi, The LORD is my Banner!  This powerful name of God is announced at the top of my blog and it is what I wish for people to see when they see me.  The Lord, my banner.  Of course, I know that the Lord is not always the banner I choose to fly...sometimes I find my banner is much darker.  There are all sorts of banners, flags we fly to announce our arrival in life, flashing neon lights selling what we have to offer, alerting those who see us to the truth of our character and the focus of our lives.  What banner (or banners) have you flown today?  This week?  I challenge myself, as i challenge you, to be conscious of my banner throughout the day...Am I carrying the banner of Christ?