Every Petal

The world is fickle, but in the garden of God, EVERY petal of every daisy says, “He loves me."

Go Get the Gift

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  That man should not think he will receive from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:5-7)

“…if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. “  (Proverbs 2: 1-5)

God’s goodness offers us what we cannot possibly have without Him, and yet we don’t benefit from it without some element of our participation. Even the astonishing gift of salvation must be received before we are saved, with the groundwork for that amazing gift requiring something from us.  “If you confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  (Romans 10:9)

That’s because it is about a relationship with God.  Religion asks us to follow rules and gt in line.  But God invites us to know Him and be joined with Him and to see His goodness as we take risks to believe He is trustworthy.  Father, Son, and Spirit offer us all the best…the guidance of a wise and loving Dad, the sacrifice, passion, and adventure of a Lover, and the joy and purposefulness of life with a Companion who helps us recognize the opportunities of the Kingdom that unfold in our day, and delight in what this Family is about.

But look at the passages again and see the action words there.  Look at the “ifs and then” in these verses.  Apparently gaining wisdom requires our attention, focus, time, and responsiveness.  The relationship and mystery of choice and believing and discovery is an on-going one, the depths of which we will never exhaust.  We can learn to know the mind and ways of God.  It is truly a gift.  Lean in to get it.  

Come and Get It!

“The work of God is this:  to believe in the one he has sent.”  (John 6:29)  That’s it!  And…that’s Jesus.  And that’s too easy, we think. We need more to “do.”  Or we need some more appealing way to “be.”  And so we tend to either drape on religious trappings or absorb secular thinking so as to either purchase our “enough-ness” or to keep God at arm’s length by our busyness.  But neither will get us to the heart of the matter.

Our heavenly Father is GOOD, lavishly good.  Therefore, we can know He will always work toward that which brings healing, freedom, and life.

Christ has already won the battle.  Therefore, we have to make far less effort to wage a war against evil, and are to be about distributing the goods He has already gained by His blood.  We are to stand in the truth that the authority has all been given to Jesus.  We are to walk in a way where His presence, through our availability and responsiveness will be the avenues by which heaven comes to earth because we are the priests of our time to speak that blessing, and carry the treasures to the thirsty and hungry and broken and sick.  His government has already begun and it will never end.  We are the ones who go into the deserts and war-torn places in society and in individual hearts to bring that Good News.

There are all kinds of cultural trends that are highly advertised and heavily funded and by which the church is measured as “intolerant” any time we speak up about it.  But we must be careful to not get in the position where we are responding to society’s agenda in a defensive position instead of keeping our ears and hearts to the pulse of the Father, the truth of Jesus as Lord, and the Spirit’s movement to guide us to what’s been prepared for us to do, and moving forward in that. 

Do we believe?  Do we have any measure of courage to really do the things He invites us into, or have we settled for being nice people who attend church, who don’t steal, who don’t kill, who give our token amounts of money, but not our whole selves to His call? 

When will we dare to pause and see what He is saying about our priorities?  When will we dare to keep commandments because we believe in His wisdom and care? When will we give our tithes and offerings, because we believe He takes care of those He loves.  When will we risk responding to the nudge of the Spirit to pray for someone at an unexpected moment or help a stranger we meet because we trust His leading and perspective and dare to think that this might be the moment we will see a miracle happen before our eyes? 

Our work…our MAIN work is to BELIEVE.   And a heart that believes will regularly be called into action in the ways that God created that person for, the ways that that individual can uniquely reveal the identity of the Father.  It’s the greatest reason why we’re here, to love Him and to join in the family business of bringing hope because everything we need has already been purchased and is waiting for someone to come and get it.  

Carrying Treasure

Each morning, get up and sit in the quiet for a bit, and look again around the empty tomb, remembering that your fight is never for victory, but FROM it, and receiving the power of that message newly. 

Then walk out the door and into your day with that perspective, having reminded yourself that the folded linens of re-ordering the world began long ago and is not done, having breathed the air of that truth and keeping in mind that there are ears longing to hear that hope.   Now be ready to watch for the situations, people, and divine moments in your sphere that He is ready to refresh, heal, and restore in the opportunities of THIS day. 

We are the fortunate bearers of a treasure.  We can give it away all day long and never run out of the supply He is waiting to have shared with hungry hearts and thirsty spirits.       

 

Tell Him

Praise the LORD, O my soul; ALL my inmost being, praise his holy name.  Praise the LORD, O my soul, and FORGET NOT ALL his benefits—who forgives ALL your sins and heals ALL your diseases, who redeems YOUR life from the pit and CROWNS YOU with love and compassion, who SATISFIES your desires with GOOD things SO THAT your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 

The LORD works righteousness and justice FOR all the people of Israel:  The LORD IS compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.  He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; HE DOES NOT TREAT US AS OUR SINS DESERVE or repay us according to our iniquities.

For AS HIGH AS the heavens are above the earth, SO GREAT is his love for those who fear him; AS FAR AS the east is from the west, SO FAR HAS he removed our transgressions from us.

AS a father has compassion on his children, SO the LORD HAS compassion on those who fear him, FOR HE KNOWS how we are formed, HE REMEMBERS that we are dust.

AS FOR MAN, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.  BUT FROM EVERLASTING to EVERLASTING the LORD’s love IS with those who fear him, and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH their children’s children—WITH THOSE who keep his covenant and REMEMBER TO OBEY his precepts.

The LORD HAS established his throne in heaven, AND HIS KINGDOM RULES OVER ALL.  Praise the LORD, YOU his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.  Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who DO HIS WILL.  Praise the LORD, ALL his works everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the LORD, O MY soul.  –Psalm 103

Loving the Yes!

I was reading this passage this morning:  “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.”   (Romans 8:9)

The word that caught my attention was “lives.”  To live is to breathe, to influence, to move, to have room to be.  And I wonder how much more the Spirit could/would live in me if I widened the area for His space in my life.  I wonder what all that could look like.  And it is clear that I can give Him all the room I choose. 

That’s the thing about free will…we get to make the choice.  We get to decided to a pretty good degree how we will spend and invest this thing that is our life.

A danger for the Christian is in settling in to just thinking of ourselves as believers and easing into a routine of church attendance but not to keep activating our faith to give Him Lordship moment by moment.  If we discover His joy in us and His massive heart for the world, if we catch a glimpse of His desire for great plans of good to pour from heaven to earth, our “yes” to Him becomes the oxygen of our day. 

He is good.  And His love endures forever.  Why wouldn’t I choose to see how vast it is by offering my ears, my heart, my time, my abilities, my possessions, and all my “yeses” to Him?  

p.s.  As I was ready to post this, I realized that this little guy's posture looks like the "Y" of a yes.  Gotta love it!

He Brings Life Through You

We are continually in the process of birthing and rearing.  There are basics…nourishing ourselves in His presence, in the Word, and in both attentiveness to His instructions for life and in running to Him to offer confession and receive abundant grace for all the times we need to cast off sin and turn our direction.  We need the fresh air of His Spirit’s movement.  We need His living water.  Those patterns of life will get our body in good order for what the Father desires to bring forth.

Each moment we choose to trust Him, each time we exercise faith and remember what is most true, every second we lean in to believe instead of to worry, we are going through the “contractions” of life, getting us closer to anything He is bringing forth through us.  We don’t usually have the waters break and the baby get birthed without the diligence of the process.

We “birth” each time we get to an opportunity and say yes.  We birth when we obey when He leads us forward.  We nurse the infant and feed a growing toddler and encourage a struggling teen when we keep doing the work He brings our way.  There are many children of all kinds that need food each day and each one of them has amazing potential and great gifts with which to do good.  But be assured, there is always enough food.  It is the intent of the Father that all the children have what they need, and our work to give them tastes and tell them about the feast they are daily invited to.

He will give you the basic bread and fish for each day.  As we take what He hands us, give thanks for it, and offer it up to be multiplied, we will eventually find that we have fed thousands on the hillside of our lives.  It is the stuff of miracles.  It is the option for every single day.  It is how we join in bringing heaven to earth.  

Your Field

Our lives are about discovery…being awake, and watchful to find all the things we can that are evidence of the heart, sovereignty, and on-going activity of the Father to bring heaven to earth, and then to respond to the signs, tugs, nudges, and slightest movements we can that invite us to participate.  It’s funny…faith starts before we can see a lot, but as we walk with Him and get increasingly familiar with His ways, we begin to notice more and more going on around us and can start to see it through His lens in clearer ways.  

There are many things to distract us, but if we will give our time, our eyes, ears, and hearts to looking at who He is and what He’s about, the landscape becomes increasingly breath-taking.  To bear the fruit, we are invited to prepare our soil, planting seed, watering and tending to the young plants of our belief.  We don’t earn the soil, He’s given us a plot of land He calls our life, but we get to choose what and how much we produce on it.  Some days seem just hand to the plow without seeing growth or fruit.  And then time passes and we one day stop, look back, and see that there has been a trail of harvest from our fields, and what started as a tiny plot became a vast garden as we kept at it.

Let's Get This Party Started

The first step to success is in deciding what you are going to embrace.  How do you want to live? The choice is totally yours, and though you might have suffered damage at points in your life, you still have a will and a God who is at the ready, and more than able,  to guide you forward.  No one can force you into anything and no one can make the choice for you, but courage IS yours, it is there for the taking and, just like other good things, increases as you practice it. 

We get tricked into thinking that the battle is going to be a long haul on a difficult road, but that is, in a sense, a lie.  The victory comes when you decide to enter the battle.  The enemy tries to convince you that you are at the front door of an endless fight, but we know he doesn’t have a good track record for telling the truth. 

Once you set your mind to pick up your sword, the battle has been won.  Yes, you will continue to have choices to make along the way, and you will need to persevere, but the victory is in hand once you choose.  The rest is the unfolding of it as we then keep our eyes set on our King and stay in step as He leads. 

I am stunned every day that I get to have endless access to the God of the universe. I can get His wisdom. I can see miracles happen.  I am the recipient of His care and His provision.  I get to participate in His goodness coming to earth and redeeming territory in hearts, and lives, and relationships.

I can watch His faithfulness be unfurled in the things I pray about and find firm footing as I follow His instructions.  It is a crazy good opportunity, and as I keep walking it out, I can feel the transformation that has occurred inside of me.  I have a lot more to learn, but I get the privilege of choosing how I will invest my life.  He gives seed that I can hold onto tightly because I am afraid to enter in to the events as they come, or can keep in a sack full of seed in the corner, storing it up for some “better” day and totally miss the chance to see what could have grown on what looked to be unlikely soil, or that I can sow generously into the moments as I come to them and not worry about His goodness running out. 

The best part is that our mistakes, though we may need recovery time and healing, do NOT keep us from the invitation.  At ANY point in life, it is a matter of a decision.  What do we want?  Are we ready to be all in?  Today He is hungry to hear your “yes” and to get things rolling for all the good His heart is bursting to bring.

Do Not Fret...

“I’m holding on to Your promises.  You are faithful.  YOU ARE FAITHFUL.”   A good reading to soak in with this is Psalm 37.   

All In

Jesus is able and, more astonishingly, willing to use whatever is at hand. 

A small lunch of a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish were used to feed a hillside covered with hungry bellies. Some dirt and spittle became ointment that opened two blind eyes.  A prostitute’s body became a vessel of belief and holiness and good works.  A stormy sea became the canvas of power and peace.  A tomb became an empty room because it had no purpose anymore. 

There is nothing in your day that He can’t work with.  He created every molecule we’ve ever seen (and every one we haven’t yet) to be a part of the great story.  He made every human being to know the joy and freedom of the dance.  He designed all the rest of creation to speak of His goodness and His ways. 

Bring your life…body, mind, spirit…time, will, abilities…attention, resources, dreams…dishes, laundry, every moment of the work day and the errands and the play of your week.  Especially bring your mistakes, your heart (broken though it may be), and all the stuff that you’ve consider a waste.  Not everything has been for your good, but it can all be an ingredient of the phenomenal recipe of redemption, a testimony of the power and purpose of what He can do with a life. 

You may be familiar with the cooking show where the baskets of ingredients for the dish hold some bizarre things the chefs are required to use.  Never forget that Jesus is the most amazing chef ever.  There is nothing in the basket of your life that will make Him unable to produce a delicious result.  Our willingness is the crucial ingredient in the recipe of a masterpiece and there is NO end to the pantry and fridge He has access to if we bring that to the table.

Honestly, there may be some cutting and simmering ahead in your life, but you truly don’t have to worry, for He knows exactly what He is doing and will not for a second do anything that isn’t for the glorious recipe He is creating.

He’s already been declared the winner.  He (and you) will not be chopped.  So jump into the basket of the contest today and see what He will do with you. 

You may think that I’ve stretched for an analogy here, but you mustn’t forget that this line of thinking (fragile lives from baskets) is totally biblical…God was pretty impressive with a little guy called Moses when He lifted him from one.

Love, Purpose, and Beauty

The rhythm of the Holy Spirit is perfect.  He never missteps.  He is the ultimate Fred Astaire on God’s dance floor. 

I, as a partner, am learning.  I trip once in a while.  I forget some of the basic steps periodically.  My timing is sometimes off.  But all of it works better in my Ginger Rogers role if I both practice my steps and let my Partner lead. 

The Holy Spirit is directive enough if I am but willing to be led and to move with Him in the grand spins and leaps, if I will respond to the slight nuances that make this a thing of beauty, and if I decide this dance is something of wonder and will loosen myself up to the enjoyment of the experience.  It takes trusting Him, but He is so amazing it is increasingly difficult not to.  I am hungry for what He will do and what I will get to see as the music of today begins to play.  It is the way to find love, purpose, and beauty all at once.

Learning to See

Let us be vulnerable enough when we read scripture, when we hear solid teaching, and when the Spirit gently brings something to our attention to look at our own lives honestly.  It is human nature to use magnifying glasses to examine others and rose-colored ones to look at ourselves.  But maturity doesn’t come with that kind of gathering perspective. 

We don’t have to go digging for self-issues, which takes our focus off the right place, but we can be willing to respond when He brings some piece of truth about us our way, for if from Him and from those who love us who are willing to bring a concern our way, it is part of the gift of pruning He does.  It is love, packaged in a way that those who are wise will receive.  You don’t have to blankly receive everything that is brought to you, but it is good to pray about it and to take it to someone who knows you well and is willing to be honest and let them help you discern.  (See Proverbs for evidence of instruction to listen and the benefit of those who are teachable.)

If our conscience is so insulated that we deflect the work of the Spirit in coming close to our own reality, we will not experience the transformation that intimacy with Him is intended to bring.  He loves us.  And He frees us from bondage and releases us into greater freedom if we are honest with Him.  Hiding is second nature to us it seems.  Let’s commit to keep walking into light and truth, trusting that He is more than enough to help us forward in increasing health, wisdom, humility, and strength.  

Who Am I?

Identity has been the hot topic of recent days.  It’s all over the news.  In the past several weeks Bruce Jenner’s new photos seemed to be everywhere.  He has certainly been successful in altering his appearance, but can Bruce truly change who he is by dabbling with his hormones and taking severe measures with surgical procedures?  No one can deny that he has altered himself, but does it change him at his core?  What does his DNA, present in every cell, say about who he is?  Many will contend that people should honor his choice to be Caitlyn.  Some say Bruce is a hero for his courage.  He has certainly added some new dramatic pages to his story. 

This week the spotlight shifted to Rachel Dolezal. president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.   She is a woman who has gone to far lesser measures than Jenner to change both her appearance and the way she is perceived, but has attempted to still.  Rachel is different than Bruce in that she has apparently tried to re-write her story.  She backtracked and claimed a different man to be her father than the Caucasian man in Montana who is named on her birth certificate.  It will be interesting to see how the public responds to this on the heels of the Jenner story.

All of this cultural talk about identity has gotten me thinking about my identity in Christ.  As believers we are members of a family, we’ve been offered an inheritance, and we’ve been given the rights and responsibilities that come along with being in this family.  Our inheritance is immense, and it isn’t just for the heaven we will eventually inhabit.

Jesus said, “ALL authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  He has the keys and has opened the way for us to walk the earth in humility, yet in power.  Only being led moment by moment by His Spirit will let us have any idea of what is at hand for us, what we have been uniquely made to be.

If I BELIEVE Him, I will listen,

If I LISTEN, I will learn to hear His voice.

If I HEAR His voice, I will follow.

If I FOLLOW, I am likely to see and be a part of the miracles of His presence as He moves in what He leads us to.

If I SEE miracles and lives changed through the rhythms of His heart, I will likely believe in greater measure.  And so His presence on earth increases.

“And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the INCREASE of his government and peace there will be no end.”  Isaiah 9:7

I heard recently of a woman who toward the end of her life explained that she “got tired of the smoke and decided to jump into the fire.”  Amen, sister.  I do not want the end of my life here to result in facing a victorious Lord who is asking me why I didn’t believe He meant what He said and dove in to see what all that meant.

It is time to give Him room to be LORD.  That’s the identity of a believer…to be an all in man or woman who grabs the invitation to bring heaven to earth and keeps saying “yes” at every opportunity.     

     

There is Sweetness in this Journey

There is no limit to what God will do when we trust Him to be at work through difficult times.  He sees the ingredients of trust as no small thing. 

Sometimes we feel flattened, pressed far too thin, as if something rolled right over us.  We were caught off guard—life is inevitably like that sometimes.  We still have a choice of what to do now.  We offer ourselves before Him, as laid out as we are feeling, knowing Him to be good.  The reminder of truth brings us strength.  God covers us with the oil of grace. 

Sometimes we are in a season where day after day seems to roll us flat.  Yet He is not absent.  He is not unaware of the challenge and is moved by the sweetness of the everyday offering He sees when we are willing look challenges in the face and trust Him.  He will waste none of this offering.  Trust Him.  You will be amazed at what will be built as you do.  All the layers of feeling flattened, of His oil of grace, of the sweetness of trust, of the nuttiness of life (for we aren’t in denial). 

The picture He gave me to go with this was a beautiful piece baklava.  And even though I couldn’t fine one to post here, I will have that image with my coffee this morning.  

It's a Feast

Prayer is time we make available to get to know God better, to be shaped in His presence as He brings things to our attention that we hadn’t previously considered or understood, and to respond to Him as we talk about life. 

It proves to be an important time set apart at the beginning of the day and on-going throughout it that has the capacity of increasing “on earth as it is in Heaven.”  It is where we can discover the ingredients He is ready to use for the recipe He is making that will be called “today” and where we find what our role is in bringing that glorious meal to the table.

Rest, Child

Strength comes when we know who God is and we know who we are.

Strength doesn’t always posture in a warrior-like stance.  Sometimes it is seen in pausing what was thought to be the plan for the day in order to help someone or listen.  And sometimes it is a nap in a green meadow.  

Invitation to Soak

Invitation #1:  For the next 24 hours, let praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come from your lips as often as possible.  You will be positioning yourself well for all kinds of things.

He will receive the worship He deserves.  The battles you face will have the most powerful weapon engaged for them (though I am not asking you to pray for them, just to worship).  Your heart, mind, and spirit will be refreshed. 

Soaking in His presence this way is a spiritual breather we need when we’ve believed He just has a huge and impossible to-do list for us.  No.  He loves when we come to Him.  The joy of the Lord is your strength.  Rediscover that today. 

Not What You Thought

The enemy has quite successfully convinced us that the ways of the Lord are chains around us, and bars that imprison.  But if we test them, we find that they are wide tiles that, if we are willing to stand on them become a place of freedom.  As we embrace more and more of the gifts He’s revealed as good, we find we have a whole dance floor on which to live.  There is room to stretch and breathe and live and grow.  The truth that will be discovered is that the dance floor has become a garden. 

In a “me” culture it is difficult to imagine the breadth of life in being in submission to anyone.  The reason it is good is that this Father, Son, and Spirit are all about our well-being and continually working for our good.  The more room we give them, the more freedom and life we will have.  This discipleship life isn’t about becoming a new kind of puppet; it’s an invitation to partnership in His amazing plans for even more life to be released wherever He takes us.

Don't Sell It

I am not going to waste today. 

I will not be persuaded to take a second-level path to escape by letting fear run me.  I will not be tugged by the lie that God isn’t powerful enough or truly active on my behalf.  I will not try to buffer the way myself if it means deciding that He may not come through to be who He says He is.  Nor will I devise a route of my own design out of being convinced that I am some exception to the call of love, trust, and obedience.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle through the process sometimes or have fear trying to nibble on my heels.  I feel him trying to get to me.

But I have a choice.

So instead of letting fear rob me of the good that He is working and bringing,

I will believe Him.

I will walk with as much integrity as I know how to instead of sacrificing it to the idol god of comfort-on-demand.

I will trust Him to be walking by my side and helping me forward.

I will not expect life to be perfect, but I will believe He is using all things for the good toward His bigger plan as I trust and follow Him and that He will guide me with wisdom and truth, and redeem broken things as I seek and listen and do what He asks.

I will walk life out by not sacrificing the gift of this day in unbelief.  It is too valuable for that.  Today is woven with opportunities to grow in knowledge of Christ’s work and life, to live in the freedom that He bought for us, to watch it unfold as I dare to not stop to catch myself, but to trust that He is present and to watch for His amazing answers arriving over the horizon. 

Belief grows strength in us.  Joy in His promises sinks roots deep.  Hoping forward develops the branches of life as they reach sunward and bring glorious and delicious fruit. 

I can squander my day with disbelief and fear and timidity.  Or I can say “Not on Your life!  I will remind myself of Your goodness and Your promises and wait for the best to unfold.” 

I won’t see the best stuff if I don’t let myself lean in to what He says is true and good.

Trust is the oil of your day.  Don't sell it.

Next Step

You may not be sure what to do. 

Consider this: 

Ask God for wisdom. 

Spend time in His word (continually), particularly in sections that speak to the issue you are facing, but also widely to grasp the big picture. 

Listen for God’s word as He speaks to you. 

Get counsel from someone who is more knowledgeable and experienced than you are at this point or in this matter, and pray for discernment. 

Keep listening for God’s word to you and for the sense of His Spirit as He moves and leads. 

Do anything you know to be good steps, even if they are costly to you or if they seem “not enough” in your perspective. 

Keep listening as He continues to guide. 

Keep in rhythm with what He tells you. 

Trust that He is working in many unseen ways as you do your best to follow Him. 

He is faithful and He will lead.  He knows who He is working with and asks only for access to a contrite heart that desires to know and do His will.  He goes all the extra steps to help us.

Taste and See What He Has Available

Fasting is the opportunity to taste things beneficial and present besides food.  I’ve never done a lot of it, but am hungry for what He would let me experience if I offered Him more of the space of my life and let Him nourish me in new ways.

He has offered me the chance to taste all kinds of realities so that I know what stocks the Kingdom’s storehouses, then given me keys to come and get what I now know is available so it can be retrieved and given to others as I recognize the need for it as I walk through my days. 

I won’t probably get much new understanding if I focus on surviving the time without food and how hard it is.  But what might be found if I am willing to sit at His table and see what He’s planned for the menu of a feast He’d love to serve? There are usually plenty of seats free.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.  The recognition of it will transform your life.