Day 3 & 4

Well, after reading thru Luke 3 & 4, I'm still pondering it and am really having writer's block right now.
Jesus' birth and childhood, parents losing him in the temple, then finding him, Simeon's prophesy fulfilled, and then some....a lot of stories within a story in these passages. Then John the Baptist preaches, baptizes Jesus, and so on. So much to take in, it's hard to sort through it sometimes. I need to go back and read through this again some more. Still waiting for an"aha" moment but so far nothing yet. These days will happen and that's ok. A lot on my mind the last few days so that could be some of it. Just need to be still some more and soak in what God is revealing.
To be continued....

Day 2...Belief!!

Believe Him, Believe Him, believe Him!

That is pretty much the sum of what God revealed to me thru Luke 1 today. What an exciting chapter of hope that He keeps His promises and He WILL DO what He says He will do! But He also revealed to me what can happen when we choose not to believe what He says.
Zechariah was approached by an angel of the Lord about the impending birth of his son, John (a.k.a John the Baptist). When the angel told him that his barren and aged wife, Elizabeth, would have a son, he questioned the angel and doubted. So the angel made him mute until his son was born and the prophesy was fulfilled. When John was born and Zechariah believed, he was able to speak again. But he couldn't share the good news as long as he doubted. How many of us have a tough time sharing something exciting that we feel God has told us because there is still something in us that is doubting. That is a direct consequence of our own unbelief.

Then enters Mary, an great example of one who believes God and His word right away. She was approached very similarly when she was told that the prophesy of Jesus about to be accomplished and that she would be the one to bear him. We've heard this story many, many times. Yet, I still am amazed and can only imagine the fear and trembling she experienced at that moment. But she didn't doubt the truth and she showed her belief immediately following her news. And she was immediately blessed.
I love this passage from the Amplified Bible of what the angel said to Mary and then how she immediately responded. And this is my verse of the day...Luke 1:37. Something I can stand chewing on for a while.

Luke 1:37 (Amp)"For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment."

Then Mary's response astounded me:

Luke 1:38 (NIV) "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.
Wow! Have we ever responded to God so humbly and willingly when He gives us a task that seems so beyond our ability? It's not about our ability but His ability to use us despite ourselves, and our willingness to let Him enter in fully.
Then we go on to read about her running to Elizabeth to tell her the good news and how the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth, John leaping in her belly, etc. God blessed their belief and faith in Him. Then came "Mary's song" (Luke 1:46-55)-....a beautful account of her love for God and His promises. I can stand to meditate on that for a while. And praise God that He gave Zechariah the grace of returning his ability to speak again once he did believe which gave him the chance to declare God's faithfulness and love for all generations in Luke 1:67-79...and a son who was monumental for God's Kingdom. His grace is just as sufficient for us too.

This is hitting hard with me. I know I'm not believing everything God says to me. My actions show it, my thoughts show it. What blessings are being withheld because of unbelief? Or how am I grieving God because of it? Can we believe like Mary did? This is not to condemn but to just bring awareness that God wants to do more with us than we allow Him to.

I'm gonna end with this quote that I got off my husband's blog. Not sure if it applies directly to this but it can be in relation to it. Just has stuck with me since I read it yesterday.

God is more interested in winning all of me than in my winning all the world for him.

My New Personal Challenge...Day 1

Something that I admit I have always struggled with is staying constant in God's Word every day...I know it's a heart issue and that if I desired Him more, I'd want to spend more time with Him and desire in listening to His instruction and guidance every day. Well, I have been praying about it a lot lately and I have felt the Lord really prompting me to do something that it is a bit intimidating but also will help me stay the course with Him each and every day. I kept asking him, "Are you sure this is coming from you and not something I'm trying to do to "fix" what is a heart problem?" "Can I really do this?" Well, after going back and forth about it with him, He still hasn't let it leave my mind so I am going to take that as a big, "Yes"! and trust Him with the rest.

So I am going to start a year-long challenge that involves reading His Word each and every day. Yes, a year! Yikes! But with His help and prayer, I know it is possible. I am going to go thru the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs over the next year. I realize that this can easily fall into a "law-driven" thing and not a heart driven thing, but like I said, I am just trusting that God will take care of that as I listen to His instruction and guidance. Obedience is very much a heart issue, so if I'm willing to obey Him with a joyful heart, that in itself is a form of worship.

So here's the link with the plan that I am going to be following just in case anyone gets on here and is interested in following along. It's only chapter or two of reading a day so it looks very doable. And even if you get something out of just one verse, that's great!

http://www.heartlight.org/devotionals/reading_plans/dailylight.pdf

I have also created a bit of a way to get something more out of each passage. I learned it through a study I did last year and it helped immensely. I simply write down in my journal any verses out of that passage that stick out to me and that I want to meditate on (usually 2-3 verses). I then will pray over them, and just kind of let is soak in and see if God is telling me anything specific, then I write it down as well. Then I write the question, "How can I put this verse into action"? James says to not just be hearers of the word but doers. I know I fall short of the "doer" part and really want to change that with God's help. After all, without Him, I can do nothing. In Hebrews it says "The Word living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword." How cool if I can really experience that as a reality in my life day after day...and not just on occasion.

In addition, I am hoping to blog each day about what God is showing me. Maybe a nugget or two of a passage that stuck out to me or that I am still processing. Hopefully it will bless someone who needs to hear a word or some encouragement on any given day. I'll let God lead that. He knows who that "someone" will be. It'll also be a source of accountability for myself. We'll see how it goes. I know I may fail on days, but I realize I am not under law, but under the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ. My heart will be the driving force here and nothing else. "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26

So here's my first nugget that the Lord has given me today. It's not ironic that He would plan this as my first lesson. You'll understand when you read ahead. In reading Psalm 1 and 2, I read about finding delight in the law (or instruction) of the Lord and what fruit will come of it.

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." Psalm 1:2-3

"Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling" Psalm 2:11

I realize I haven't delighted enough in following God's instruction and definitely don't fear the Lord enough. I pray that God will change my heart in this. Also the part that keeps coming back to me is the fruit that will come from it. After all, what do we try to teach our kids? Obedience brings blessings, and disobedience brings consequences...but we also want them to obey with a happy heart, then even more fruit will come of it. We all want to be "good" deep down and want to have some kind of purpose in life and know that we matter. My prayer today was that with God's help, I would start finding anything and everything to find delight in what God has instructed me in, and that He would start planting the seeds of His word in my heart more and more so that prosperous fruit would begin to come. I also realize this may not be an overnight change, but something that takes time, patience and waiting, but I must stay rooted in His word no matter what I see on the outside. Fruit doesn't form overnight, sometimes takes quite a while, so that is when I have to remember to stay rooted in His word, even if I'm not seeing results yet, and trust that He will not fail me in producing the fruit of His Spirit that He has promised. For His promises are true!

Thank you, Lord for Your instruction and Your unfailing love for us. And that you keep your promises! Help us to put your Word into action so we can see the fruit You long to bear in us. In Jesus Name, Amen!

The Silver Lining

The past month, we've had some things come our way that have not been all sunshin-y to say the least. It's been refining us and in the midst, and the clouds have seemed quite heavy. I've allowed some of it to really steal my joy and I had become a big ball of anxiety and fear because my focus was in the wrong place. Funny how that all came about after my last post. Though I would pray and pray for God to take away my anxiety, for Him to give me joy again, etc., etc., it would never come. I kept asking if my faith was too small or if I was doing something wrong, still no answer. After a while, I was just plain frustrated and just got cranky and emotional all the time because nothing seemed to be happening. Then I started trying to fight everything on my own and it just made me feel worse.

Then my husband went to a prayer service last week and he told me about how they spoke of how God sometimes wants us to have "reaching" faith. The kind that asks us to overlook how we feel and come out of our comfort zone when we ask for His hand in something. He wants us to reach up and take hold of Him in our prayers. For instance, if we are asking about financial provision, sometimes He wants us to give Him something out of our finances as an extra measure of faith, even if it's small, rather than just ask and wait for Him to do something. Or sometimes we need to go and ask someone else to pray over us in a situation instead of trying to pray by ourselves.

So in that, God has also helped me learn "reaching" faith since. Here's my story. Hannah has had lice on and off for 3 weeks over the past month, and I have really let fear set in that we would never get rid of them. I've been trying to fight it on my own and have just gotten plain exhausted emotionally.
Finally, my husband reminded me to ask God what it is He wants to teach me through this. So I asked the Lord, "What are you trying to show me through this, Lord? I'm at the end of my rope". After that, last week, those silly bugs came back after a week of not seeing any. First I panicked again, then I began to pray, then I did a triple treatment on her head, but at the same time, I was prompted to pray over Hannah as I was treating her head, and not just pray for the lice to go away, but I was prompted to bless Hannah in my prayers and asked God to make this somehow a time of learning and growth for us, and if it is His will, to PLEASE take the lice away as well. That was also I believe a "reaching" faith.

How many times do we take a miserable situation and still use it to draw attention to God and use it for His purposes right then and there? Or do we just complain and fuss about it? I was doing plenty of the complaining and fussing and the enemy was enjoying it too much. So I turned the tables on him. And guess what, no lice since!! And as I look back, through the refining and sifting of stuff, God also showed me that lice is a lot like our sin. How many of us really want to carry sin around all the time? When it's there, if we don't sit at Jesus' feet every day, it can get out of control. When God wants to remove something from my life that doesn't belong there, He has to sit me down and make me still so He can tend to it. But I have to be willing, just like Hannah had to be willing to sit and let me look through her hair every day. She couldn't get rid of that lice on her own. She needed me to do it for her. Now am I willing to sit at the feet of my Jesus and let Him tend to me the way Hannah let me tend to her?

And to finish off, I was talking with a friend yesterday over email. And as I was typing to her when she asked how she can pray for me because she heard about all I was going through, I layed out some things, then in the end, began to start realizing all the answered prayers that God had given me over the past week aside from all the things I was dealing with. I realized there that my focus had been in the wrong place all along, and that's why I was getting so beaten down. And as soon as I started focusing on all the things God has blessed me with and the answered prayers that have come this week, I began to thank Him wholeheartedly because He was indeed answering prayers. I just wasn't noticing them in the midst of the "storm".

To name a few:

He gave us a buyer for Tim's truck last week to help with our finances

He has provided me with a way to make some money at home in the fall

He provided Becky the job this week she has been praying for

He got me through my surgery on Monday with no problems

Despite Faith's broken arm, she has been in great spirits and has had no pain.

And my friend's step-mom just found out that she is free of cancer after we've been praying for her for several months.

And that's the silver lining!!

Prayer - is it always our last resort?

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thes. 5:16-18

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints Eph. 6:18

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:5-7

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matt. 6:33

I've come to realize lately how many times I make praying my last resort instead of my first response. It is only after trying everything else under the sun to fix a problem or get thru a situation that I finally throw my hands up and cry out to God for help and mercy. How much frustration and failure would I be avoiding if I just "prayed continually" throughout my day?Or how many times do I pray about something but don't get the answer I want or in "my' timing so I go about doing it "my" way still? We should be praying each morning when we rise that what we choose to do that day will put us in line with what God would have us do. And then continue praying throughout the day in all things.

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

I love this passage because it reminds me that I am a mere sheep and how desperately I need my Shepherd to guide me and protect me from the "slaughter". We can get ourselves in a heep of trouble if we don't stay close to our Shepherd each and every day. And that involves continual prayer and being in the Word.

In the end, His ways are much higher than ours and His wisdom is always perfect. If I go along life trying to do it all myself, I will most definitely screw everything up, keep myself unprotected, and ultimately have a disaster on my hands. But praise God, by His Spirit, I can pray in accordance to His will if I choose to seek Him first over all things, and walk in freedom and victory in every situation. That, I believe, is where "giving thanks in all circumstances" can be a reality...when we know we've prayed throughout our day and that we have put ourselves under the guidance and protection of our Shepherd.

The Battle Within

I know a few months have passed once again. It's been tough to put into words where I'm at these days. But I had a friend last week who I haven't seen in over a year ask me how my heart is through the things I told her I've been working on day-to-day. It really forced me to think and be able to put it into terms where my heart is. So I think a good way to put it is that there seems to be a battle raging for my heart right now. And it hurts a lot. And ugly things are coming out of me because my flesh is crying out from the pain. And my flesh doesn't want to submit to the things of God. But the pain still means that things are waking up again, which is good. God is waking up passions and desires I didn't know I had.

I just finished going through the book "Waking the Dead" a few months ago and it is all about waking up your heart from the "sleep" that our day-to-day routines of life can put us it in. We can easily forget what we're put on this earth for. And sometimes it is easier to not be aware that we are in a battle, whether we like it or not. I believe God is waking me up to that reality.

It stems from the verse in Ephesians 5 that says "Wake up, oh sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you". But as we know, when light is shed on the darkness, and it wakes us up, sometimes what we see or feel doesn't feel so good (kind of like the pins and needles when when our limbs are waking up from being asleep or numb) because it's just part of the process. But we know that in the end, there is purpose in it.

There is also an enemy trying to discourage me from walking out what God is revealing. And I have to choose not to believe the lies he wants to throw at me. That's where the battle is raging the most. I am also finding myself clinging to some of these desires at times more than I am clinging to God, and am scared that God will not fulfill them if I hand them over, which in the end, makes them an idol. I have to choose. I'm having to fight so hard not to take my eyes off the One who put these desires in me. Because it is only Him that I can fully trust with them.

But in the midst, I'm praising God for the grace to be able to still enjoy where I'm at. I know it's part of the journey and I must find peace in the midst. I can still laugh, have a light heart most days and focus on the blessing He has already so freely given, and that is God's grace on me. But the reality is, there is a war in the heavenly realm that is battling for my heart, because to God, my heart is worth fighting for. That concept is so hard to grasp. I have issues like a lot of people I've known with believing that I am worth fighting for. But that is the Truth that He has spoken over me and I have to choose to believe it even if I don't feel it. He wants our hearts fully so that He can make it just like His. And it is only by the power of Jesus Christ that makes that possible. I'm excited to see where God is taking me on this journey. It's tiresome at times, but it will be well worth it in the end if I continue to keep my eyes on Him.

God's Dwelling Place

For the past month or two, I have been kinda struggling with some ungreatfulness. Though Tim has a job and is bringing in income for us, things are still getting tight due to sales being so low the past several months. So we've been feeling the economic downfall to a degree.
Well, whoever is reading this, might remember a year and a half ago, when we moved into this house, how incredibly excited we were and how we thought this house was way more than anything we ever could have dreamed of hoped for. We couldn't stop talking about it for months. And don't get me wrong, I still love my house, but have been a getting really impatient about the things that we want to do in it to fix it up better to be even more pleasurable. And ever since money has started getting tighter and tighter, I started seeing more and more things I wished I could do to polish things up a bit so to speak. It needs new windows badly, there's still 3 rooms that I want to paint, we want to have hard floors in the main living areas, new patio, the list goes on.
Well, as I was focusing on these things so much, I began to almost dislike my house to a degree and had completely forgotten how much this house meant to us when we first moved in and the fact that it is still the same house and that it still has some of the wonderful qualities about it that drew us to it in the first place. It was "perfect" for us in our minds back then.

Well, the Lord as been speaking to me lately about the meaning of my name. Bethany means "dwelling place of God". And I"ve grown to love that meaning more and more as I've realized the reality that God dwells within my heart and that I am a "dwelling place of God". I was confessing to him last week about my ungratefullness toward this house and all the complaining I've been doing about all the things I wish I could do right now to fix it up more. It's definitely not a perfect house. No house is, and it needs quite a bit of work in areas. But nonetheless, it has still been very functional and has provided our needs to function as a family and then some.

I've also been having a hard time with focusing only my sin in my life lately, and how i can't get it together in the areas I know I need work on. And it's been dragging me down a lot and I have been confessing that as well.

God then spoke right to my heart. He said "Bethany, when you were created, I saw a perfect child, and saw your potential, and only saw the good in you, and to this day, that is still all that I see. When I began to dwell in your heart, I said 'Wow! Look at what I have created! This is amazing'! And that has not changed. You are being used for My purposes and are very much fulfilling the call in your life, whether you can see it or not. And I find pleasure in dwelling within your heart, for that is what I created you for."

And that my friends, is how he wants me to dwell also in my own home. When I look to see what has accomplished in this house and in our lives over the past year and a half (not material things), all I can say is "Wow! God is really at work in our lives, in this home, and this house has been nothing less than a blessing to us thus far". It may have a some flaws, but He is still blessing us in this home and will continue to do so, and will fulfill His purposes, and that is what is important. Thank you, Jesus,, for what you have done and what you will do in this home and in my heart. We have only just begun.

"In him you are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit"...Ephesians 2:22