A Three Year Old's Compassion

This is a story of a three year old who showed Christ's compassion and love....

Brayden had just received a gift from his sweet grandparents, but unfortunately he was not a big fan of the gift...a Raggedy Andy doll.  I suppose that Andy might look a bit scary to a child with his big wide eyes, triangle nose, and red hair.  After all, he does look DIFFERENT from what normal dolls typically look like. After several prompts from me, Brayden finally said "Thank you," quietly to his grandparents, but did not touch the doll for the rest of the trip.

A doll all alone and in need of some love. 

One morning after the trip,  I had set Raggedy Andy on the rocker, and Brayden saw him.

 "Mommy," he said,  "I don't want him, he looks so different."

So began a discussion.  I said, "Awww....poor Andy.  How does he look different to you?"  

Brayden pointed to Andy's nose and eyes and talked about how they looked different.  

'Brayden,' I said gently, 'Remember one of your favorite books, "The Love Monster,"  where no one wanted to love the monster because he looked scary and different, but then a Mama found him and loved him anyway?  He wanted a home too, but no one would love him at first.'  

We then proceeded to talk about his favorite "Jay Jay" plane book where it talks about how God loves those who are different. The story showed different looking planes.  

I looked into Brayden's eyes and said, "I think Grandmommie and Granddaddy wanted Raggedy Andy to have a home where he would be loved even though he looks different, and they chose you because they knew you would love him."  

The result: I have never seen a more compassionate three year old.  He took Andy into his arms and started hugging him and giving him kisses.  He spent the morning sharing his cereal with Andy, giving Andy a drink from his cup, and took Andy for a piggy back ride on his shoulder.  He cuddled with Andy while watching TV,  took Andy with him to Walmart, and even put chap stick on his doll.  That night he hugged up to Andy and went to sleep with him safely in his arms.  He is now in love with his doll because he took compassion on him and decided that Andy needed love to.

I wonder what would happen if we would love people the same way?  If we would not turn away from them because they were different, but if we saw them through the eyes of Christ....through the eyes of his unconditional love and acceptance. Maybe we should learn a lesson from this three year old child and show people compassion no matter how different they are from us.  We all may be different, but our hearts are all the same...broken and in need of a Savior.  Instead of looking down on others, lets take the time to show them Christ's love and point them to our need for Him.  

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:11

Living an Abundant life in the Spirit

Verse of the Week:

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man. Which is in him?  Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God.  Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. 1 Corinthians 2:11-12

Living an Abundant Life in the Spirit

I once read a very cool illustration that author/speaker, Dan Stone, would use about one of the ways some people grow in the Lord.  He would pick 4 people to come up to the stand to help him illustrate his point.  One person was God, another person was the human spirit, another person was the soul (our thoughts and feelings), and the last person would be the body.  He would place the human spirit and God side by side.  When we accept Jesus into our hearts, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside our heart, and our spirit and God's spirit join together create a permanent union.  Both begin to function as one unit. Paul even tells the Corinthians, Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? (1 Corinthians 3:15)

After placing God and the spirit together, Mr. Stone would then place the human soul in front of God and then the human body in front of the soul.  Here is what it would look like:

Mr. Stone then went on to say:

The body faces outward, toward the audience. That is the way God designed it, to receive its input from the external world, through the senses, and to transmit that information back to the soul. God designed the soul to face the spirit, to receive its primary input and direction and life from the spirit.  We are meant to hear God speak. But mankind's fall changed that. Because of the fall, the soul is turned toward the body.  Satan, through the senses, lured the soul to turn from its original purpose, from being an agent of the spirit, to instead being an agent of the body.  That's why the Bible talks about fleshly sins- bodily sins. [...] Until a person knows who he is and is living out of his union with Christ, the soul for the most part remains as it was.  It remains turned outward, receiving its input and direction and trying to receive its life from the pleasures of the body and world.  But it wasn't created to be that way.  This is the Christian growth: the Father/Son/Spirit wooing our soul back from its fascination with the outer (the body and world) to a fascination with the inner (the Spirit/spirit in union). Growing in Christ doesn't mean increasingly getting our act together, but being wooed back. The entirety of our Christian life is the process of our soul turning back to our spirit.

Even Paul told the Galatians to walk by the Spirit, and not the flesh. (Galatians 5:15)

That all sounds great right? I discovered the secret of abundant life: to live by the Spirit of Christ that dwells inside of me. However, here is what had me stumped for years....How in the world are we supposed to hear the spirit?  It is an audible voice?  It is going to flash signs in front of me, telling me where to go?  I wanted to live by the spirit, but didn't have a clue how that happened.  I would just simply do what thousands upon thousands of Christians do their whole lives, read the Bible and learn how to act like Christ based on what the Bible says. (Not that the Bible itself is wrong to read; it is vital to read to have deeper understanding of the things of God, but not when I use it to operate from the flesh.)  If I failed, then I would just clean up my act and try again. It wasn't abundant life, it was a frustrating life.  No matter what I did, I couldn't even begin to imitate Christ because my thoughts and feelings (my soul) were facing the external (the world and body), not my spirit.  I was expecting to imitate a perfect person through my broken body.  It is impossible for something broken to imitate something perfect.  I knew my spirit was perfect once Christ came and healed it, but my body and soul were still the same ole Katrina.  So what changed? I learned what the Spirit is....

Stay with me here....I am going to tell you what the Spirit is.  There have been thousands of moments in my life when my thoughts and feelings start responding to a situation in the wrong way, and I, of course, completely mess up. However, when I think back to that situation, I remember hearing a tiny little voice in my head saying, don't do it or telling me to respond in a different way.  Then I get upset with myself wondering why I didn't listen to that voice.  Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like our conscience right?  Remember in Pinocchio where Jimmy the Cricket sings, "And always let your conscience be your guide!"  That cute little cricket is not far off from what I believe is the most transforming area in the Christian life.  Your conscience is the door to your spirit.  Before you think I am spouting off blasphemy...here me out.

Everyone has a spirit and conscience.  Before a person gets saved, their conscience is based on their own set of moral values.  Their conscience/spirit is just as broken as their bodies and soul.  This is the result of us choosing to rebel against God and do things our way.  Anything people try to do apart from God is brokenness.  However, God sent Jesus to heal our spirit by dying on the cross for our brokenness.  When we believe and accept what Jesus has done for us, Jesus comes to live inside of us...that is the Holy Spirit. Our old spirit is made new with Christ's spirit.  In the end, our old conscience is replaced with a new conscience. I have heard people say that when they got saved, they no longer wanted to sin...where did that desire come from?  Not from our flesh, but from the spirit of Christ living inside of you.  A new set of moral values replace the old set.  New thoughts in our soul replace the old thoughts in our soul when we listen to the spirit.  Read 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 to illustrate my point:

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man. Which is in him?  Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God.  Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.

The new covenant has changed how we operate.  We no longer operate under the law of the old covenant.  People of the old covenant didn't have Christ's spirit, so they had no choice but to try to follow the law to the core  because they didn't have God's spirit in them to listen to. We now are under the new covenant and operate under the spirit. Unfortunately, because people miss this concept of operating in the spirit, Christians continue to this day to try to follow the law to the core through the flesh. Over 400 years before the new covenant took place, the prophet Ezekiel shared a prophecy of what the new covenant would look like:

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

We are able to observe God's ordinances when our soul faces our Spirit and not the body. When I live day to day, I am focusing on that little voice inside my spirit.  It gets louder the more I allow my soul to operate in it, and it helps me to daily live life abundantly whether things are going good or bad. It helps me to see who the real Katrina is in Christ...that is I am patient, loving, kind, and forgiving because of Christ's spirit in me. When I am tempted to blow a fuse with my son, Brayden, that small voice in my head tells me to stop and I remember that in Christ I can be patient with Brayden, and I am patient many times because of Jesus. When I blow a fuse with Brayden, I know it is because I was operating apart from the spirit of Christ in me.

When troubles comes, we can definitely tell where our soul is operating from based on our reaction to the problem.  Author, Paul Tripp, once said, 

Trials do not cause us to be what we have not been; rather they reveal what we have been all along.  The harvest the trial produces is the result of the roots already in our hearts.

When a trial comes, are we rooted in the spirit or the flesh? Jeremiah said it perfectly,

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

When problems come in life (not "if" but "when"), we have to ask ourselves if our reaction is rooted in Christ.  If we are having a pity party or responding in a way apart from Christ, then it probably means we are looking at the external and not the internal.  When problems come in life, it should make us run more to Jesus, not away. If we look to the spirit, we will experience abundant life no matter what. 

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (1 Corinthians 4:8-10)

No matter what life throws at us, we are ok because of the spirit of Christ living in us.  When  our soul turns to the spirit, we are able to handle life's trials with the joy that James talks about in James 1. Jesus even talks about how living in His spirit produces abundant life. He says,

If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as scripture said, "From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water." By this he meant the spirit [...]. (John 7:37-39a)

Water continues to flow out of my spirit and gives me the abundant life that allows Jesus to be seen and glorified to the people of this world. When my soul operates from the spirit it allows me to make decisions Christ would make, view the world through God's eyes, and bring God glory no matter what is happening.

Here is my final thought:

God's goal is to take us from the external to internal, from looking for life in the world, the body, or the soul to experiencing true life in the union of our spirit with God's spirit. -Dan Stone

Resources: Dan Stone and David Gregory "The Rest of the Gospel"
                   Trip and Lane "How People Change"

My Identity in Christ

Verse of the Week:

Therefore, if anyone is IN CHRIST, the NEW CREATION has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

My Identity in Christ

Here's a story... I was at the end of my rope with Brayden.  It was a tough mommy day in which I felt like I had disciplined non-stop.  While I had managed to be patient and calm throughout it all, I was about to blow a fuse.  "God give me more patience and perseverance!" I cried out. I wanted to be the most patient mom I could be...but my "me" focused prayer didn't work...I blew my fuse. Once again my flesh won.

Another story...I had another incidence, where Brayden was misbehaving in front of people.  As a mom, I was embarrassed and felt that his behavior reflected on my abilities as a parent and what people thought of me. I could just see people saying, "Man, he is really getting out of control. Katrina needs to get a tighter rein on him."  I wanted people to see Katrina as a strong Christian woman who had it together and who was an amazing mom to her two boys.


Another story...Brayden was behaving so well in Sunday school and was a perfect angel. "Yep," I thought to myself,  "Look at my kid and how well he is acting.  We are awesome parents. See everyone!! He is a much better kid than y'all thought!"  My pride had exploded to bigger than the size of Manhattan.

Another story... It was time to deliver another meal to a mother with a newborn.  Yep, it was my opportunity to show people how kind, generous, and loving I was. Maybe the mom would mention my name on facebook by thanking me for the meal and make me look good.

Last story...hang in there with me there is a point to all of this...There has been an incidence once or twice where when I wrote another blog entry and submitted it, I told myself, I was writing for Jesus, but somewhere inside of me my motive was to make myself look good.  I wanted to be an amazing writer with so much wisdom and knowledge to share.  I wanted to look famous...despite the fact that my Blog is titled "It's All about HIM and not me."  My blog was supposed to be for His glory, and here I was thinking of glory for myself.

Believe it or not, these five stories have something significantly in common. It was my identity.  I wanted Katrina to be this amazing Christian, wife, mom, and writer who was considered loving, kind, patient, and generous among her peers and friends. 

What I wanted my identity to be...Super mom!

My identity was based on what people thought of me, myself, and I.  If I failed, which I do and did, then it was a blow to my soul. I was willing to work hard for this identity because it made me feel good and worth something, but, in the end, I was deceiving myself if I thought all this would bring me fulfillment in my life.

We tend to use the world to establish our identity. People want to feel good about themselves and reach to the things around them that will make them feel good.  Some people get their identity from their wealth, job standing, from what people think of them, from the amount of friends they have, from their looks, from whether they are a good parent or not, from their athletic abilities, from their grandchildren, from their successes, or even from their behavior.  We use the things of the world to help us feel good about ourselves, but here is the problem: the things of the world are temporary, broken, and will not last.  Basing your identity on the broken things will only create an even more broken spirit.  That is why basing your identity in Christ is so important.  It is the  ONLY lasting solution.

Lets back up and view this from a gospel perspective.  Christ came to rescue the broken which is everyone in this world.  He is the only one unbroken.  If you ask Him, he will come INTO YOUR HEART and heal you from your brokenness.  God views you through the eyes of Jesus, as unbroken, as righteous, as beautiful, as a masterpiece.  In His eyes, you are clean in an unclean world. 

All that sounds good right? Lets dig a bit deeper though. When you ask Jesus to come into your heart, you are literally asking him INTO YOUR HEART!  Christ's spirit is living inside of you. Don't believe me? Well, lets look at a few of many verses that shows that he does.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through HIS SPIRIT IN YOUR INNNER BEING so that Christ may DWELL IN YOUR HEARTS through faith. (Ephesians 3:16-17 emphasis mine)

When Paul talked to the Corinthians, he said:
Do you not realize that Christ Jesus IS IN YOU? (2 Corinthians 13:5 emphasis mine)

Or my personal favorite:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ LIVES IN ME. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 emphasis)

Knowing that Christ is in you is life changing.  When Christ came into my heart, Katrina's spirit died and was crucified, and now Christ's spirit lives in me.  Yes, my soul (my thoughts, feelings, mind) and body are the same, but my spirit will never be the same because it is Christ's spirit aka the Holy Spirit that lives in me. That is the miracle of salvation.  It changes everything. "How?" you ask.  Here's how:

1. It changes how God views you.
Before Jesus, in God's eyes you were subject to condemnation and eternal punishment for your sins, but because of Christ, you are forgiven, accepted, and loved by God. Romans 8:1 says, Therefore, there is now NO CONDEMNATION  for those who are IN CHRIST JESUS, (emphasis mine)  God used Jesus to rescue you from his eternal judgement, and in His eyes you are a new creation.  You are forgiven, accepted, and loved...NO MATTER WHAT. Romans 8:38-39 clearly states that nothing will separate those from the love of God who have Christ living inside of them.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD. (emphasis mine)

Who cares what other people think of you.  The God of the universe loves you unconditionally because of your new identity in Christ. No longer do you have to look to facebook to feel good about yourself, how many friends you have, or receive the approval from people.  The unbroken One loves you more than anything broken in this world.

2. It changes how you view yourself.
You realize that In Christ you are all the things Christ was because His spirit is your own.  Sure your body and soul may say different, but your spirit says you are.

You realize that:
In Christ I am patient.
In Christ I am kind.
In Christ I am loving.
In Christ I am a saint.
In Christ I am a masterpiece.

No longer do you look to the world to define who you are.  You know who you are and it can change your behavior.  I am not saying we will never mess up...if we do, it is because we are operating on the flesh and not the spirit (the spirit has changed, the flesh hasn't).  If we focus on our behavior, we are going to mess up, because we are focused on the flesh, but when we focus on who we are in Christ and truly BELIEVE (or have faith) that we are those things, then you see a change come from it. 

I heard a story one time of an experiment that was done on some teachers.  They placed these teachers in a classroom where there were a few low level learners.  However, they told these teachers that these low level learners were advanced high level learners.  Because the teachers believed this, they began treating those children as if they were smart and talented throughout the school year.  When the students saw how their teachers saw them, they became high level learners.  The point of this story is that if the teachers told them they were low level learners like they were, they would have stayed that way, but those teachers told them different so they believed different.  The same with our identity in Christ. Knowledge of who we are in Christ can change our behavior, because we are those things in our spirit.

3. It truly changes you.
2 Corinthians 5:17 talks about how you are a new Creation, and you are! It says, Therefore, if anyone is IN CHRIST, the NEW CREATION has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (emphasis mine)

Your spirit is a brand new creation. It really has changed, folks.  I once asked my dad what changed when he accepted Christ as a teenager.  He told me, "Katrina, I no longer wanted to sin."  Before Christ, people's spirit/conscious was based on what they thought was right and wrong.  They created their own moral standards, but when Christ comes and dwells inside of your spirit, your standards are now Christ's standards.

Even those who are living life opposite of what Jesus lived still have that spirit change.  Author Dan Stone described it like this:

During my early twenties I had a friend in Hopkinsville. He was a saved boy but wasn't practicing it, and I was a lost boy and was practicing it. So he and I would go out together and do the same sinful things. Not long ago we ran into each other and reminisced about that. He said that he has been bothered every night when he went home and went to bed after our outings.  He had done something that he hated. He was remorseful. Not the the point of repentance yet, but remorseful. But I did the same things and it never bothered me. It never punctured my nature, because my nature was saying, "Good for you!" But his nature was saying, "That's not me. That's not me." (From the book, The Rest of the Gospel)

Some people have a spirit change but do not live their lives operating from the spirit and so we do not see any Christ-like change in them, but that doesn't mean that the spirit is not within them telling them to stop.  When people begin to operate from the spirit, wow the change is amazing!

As Jimmy Cricket used to say, "Always let your conscious be your guide."

In this case, "Always let your Spirit be your guide."  Let's operate on our true identity.

Let me conclude with this thought.  Authors Dan Stone and David Gregory once said, "Any Activity that's giving you your identity is an idol."  When we turn to the world and the things in the world to gain acceptance, self worth, and love, you have made that your idol. While it may give you fulfillment temporarily, it will never produce the lasting fulfillment you desire. Basing your identity on Christ leads to a lasting identity because Christ is unbroken and will never fail you. Christ lives the life in you and gives you a brand new identity, and BOY, what an identity it is!

Tragedies...Where are you God?

Verse of the Week:

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Tragedies...Where are you God?

Why God? Why?  I had just received tragic news via text that one of my friends had lost her baby boy. Later she asked her friends to pray that God's glory be revealed in this situation.  So I began to pray for exactly that, but while praying for her throughout the week, a new question formed in my mind: How is God's glory ever shown in such awful tragedies?  How is His glory shown when a couple who wants kids keep having miscarriages, or when a family who was so excited about having a girl lost their daughter at birth, or when a husband and wife who want to have kids cannot conceive. As I pondered the question, I began to remember one of my favorite heros of all times, Corrie Ten Boom.  Corrie was sent to a concentration camp during World War II for hiding Jews in her home. There in the camp she encountered senseless tragedies and watched numbers upon numbers of people die.  She saw an evil in that camp that no living human being should ever see.

One day when I was younger I remember watching Corrie on TV talking about her experiences in the camp. She said something that I will never forget,

 "There is no pit so deep, that He is not deeper still."

There is no tragedy so awful that God is not present in it all. His glory can still be seen in the worst of worst times and in the darkest hour. "How?"  I asked and prayed, "How can God's glory be seen when there is nothing but evil present?" Then God brought a verse to my mind from the book of 1 John.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him.  [...] No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:9, 12)

God's glory is revealed through people and their love for one another. People see Christ through the lives of other people. God's glory is in his followers, and He is made known through they way that they respond to situations in their lives.

No matter how deep Corrie's pit was, God was still there, evident through the life of Corrie and her sister Betsy in that concentration camp.  Together the sisters were able to share the gospel and provide comfort and love to countless women even in the darkest of times.  In the worst of the worst, Christ was there in the life of his followers.

Another scripture comes to mind...

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

When Christians face senseless tragedies and trials, they have a chance to show their faith, though refined by fire, is genuine and real. And when they show the world Christ in the darkest of situations, Christ's glory is revealed.

I used to think that at the end of verse 7, when it talks about Christ being revealed, that it meant when Christ returns to this earth, but then I realized that it goes much deeper than that. Christ is revealed through the lives of those who love Him, whose deep faith sets them apart from a world who has no hope without Christ.

I look at that couple I was praying for, and realized something.  God's glory is indeed being shown in this awful tragedy.  His glory is being shown in that baby boy's parents who have shown such a deep faith and trust in God in the midst of it all.  Their attitude in the midst of it all has indeed glorified God. Instead of drowning in a sea of bitterness and hatred, they have risen above it all and continued living life full of hope and love because they know who holds that sweet boy in the palm of His hands.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

Thank you Lord for showing me where your glory is truly shown.

True Humility

Verse of the Week:

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5:5b

True Humility

A while back I had had a wonderful day with my husband and son. We had just enjoyed a fun time being outdoors, and watching my two boys together made my heart swell with love. After being outdoors for most of the day, it was nice to go inside, relax on the recliner, catch up on emails, and check my facebook. As I quickly scrolled down on the newsfeed of facebook, my eye caught a post. It said something along the lines of this: "Had a wonderful evening with my friends tonight." Then the post tagged all the people that were there... many of them my friends. Immediately my day went from wonderful to bad.  Why wasn't I invited? Did they not like me?  Hurt filled me. Maybe I was considered weird or maybe my hearing loss turned them off. I began to go through things I had done in the past wondering if I had hurt someone's feelings or had done something to make them dislike me. For two days I wallowed in self pity over it. My self esteem hit an all time low. I thought God was humbling me so I began to put myself down. I cried out to God to take away the hurt, but it continued to plauge me. Can anyone relate?

One morning during my quiet study time I started doing some deep soul searching.  I believed God was teaching me a lesson on humbleness but my perspective of what being humble truly was was completely distorted. Yes, there was a lesson for me in humbleness, but it wasn't about putting myself down and having a pity party. I read a definition in the dictionary about humbleness, and it said, "having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc."  People tend to take the words insignificance and inferiority and think that they are supposed to put themselves down, but insignificance doesn't mean putting ourselves down. Here is my definition of humbleness: changing our focus to God and giving Him the glory.  When we shift our focus to giving God the glory, we strip ourselves of our glory and make ourselves insignificant. Our focus is not about ourselves but about God and what we can do for Him, which is love Him and others.

My eyes began to open up to the pride and selfishness I was showing to that facebook post. It was all about me, myself and I. Why wasn't I invited? Why was I not part of the group? I deserved to go to the gathering. Then I realized something God was asking me, "Why was going to the party so important?" In light of Jesus, it was so insignificant. In light of me, it was so important. People, including myself, like to climb the ranks of social status and make themselves look good. How many likes or comments did I get on facebook? How many friends do I have? Do people like me? Do I dress and have the home decor that would meet the approval of others? Do I donate money for causes to make myself look good? Am I climbing the ranks of social status in my job? Am I talented enough in a sport to WOW people when they watch me play? Our motives tend to be prideful and selfish.

Here is what I am learning:

Pride- focusing on ourselves
Humility- focusing on God

It is all about HIM, folks, not about me.  When I began to understand true humbleness, the verse 1 Peter 5:5b began to have deeper meaning: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. I began to understand why God opposes the proud, it was all about THEM! He needs followers of Christ who are focused on giving Jesus the glory not themselves.  He gives grace to the humble and uses them because He knows that the humble will give Him the glory.

My perspective on that facebook post began to change. In light of God, it didn't matter one bit if I was invited or not. What mattered to God is that I make myself available to loving my friends and others.  Being available if they need me; talking with them about how they are doing; asking questions about their lives; and making them feel important...invitation or not. Philipians 2:3 says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others. Wow! So I need to treat others as if they are more important! That is true humility.

Dear Jesus, thank you for showing me what true humility is. Help me to love You and others with the same kind of unselfish love that Jesus displayed for us. To You be all the glory.

It is all about Him, not me.

Why does God allow bad things to happen?

Verse of the Week:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Why does God allow bad things to happen?

Why do bad things happen?  Living in this fallen world, it is so hard to see people go through pain and suffering.  Disease, death, famines, broken homes, broken relationships, accidents, deception, hate, rejection, shootings, and massacres seem to be evident everywhere. Why does a loving God allow this?  Because people do not understand God's reasons behind tragedies, they grow hateful and resentful towards our Creator thinking that He is not the loving God they think He is.  They want nothing to do with a God who allows bad things to happen.

God allows evil because since the beginning of time, through Adam and Eve, we chose a life of sin over God. When Eve decided to disobey God, sin came into the world. Where sin is present, a place will always be broken.  Therefore, God allows evil to endure in this world. However, people tend to think that He is the one that causes the evil, but we are the ones that brought evil upon ourselves.  In fact, God in his great love and mercy created a way to defeat sin: through his son, Jesus Christ.  Jesus bore our sins upon the cross so that we could be made new inside and receive healing for our broken messed up hearts.

It is human nature to want to be free.  We spend our lives pursuing freedom.  Wars have been fought for freedom.  I have never heard of a person saying that they want to be locked up in a cage for the rest of their lives.  A person rarely likes to be told what to do and then beaten into submission.  We cherish freedom.  Therefore, God gave us a free choice: to choose to follow Him, or choose to reject Him and live a life of sin.  He really is a loving God because he gives us the freedom to choose.  He doesn't beat us into submission.

Therefore evil dwells in the world because of our own choices.  However God still will use evil in this world for good because He is sovereign.

Growing up, I clung to Romans 8:28 during hard times: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."  I didn't understand why hard times came upon me, but I knew it was for my own good.  You see, we can't see the whole picture, but God can, and everything is going according to His plan, both good and bad.  Yes, God allows bad things to happen, but He has a reason behind everything, even if we cannot see it.

In the story, The Proposal,  I read about a man name Jennings who was struggling with why a God would allow bad things to happen.  His friend, Palmer, responded to his question by using Jennings' daughter, Penny, as an example: 

"Let me ask you something Jennings. If you were God, and you could see that Penny was walking along a path that would take her directly past a poisonous snake, might you put a hole in her path to stop her?"

"I might."

But then she might break her little ankle.  The snake would hear the commotion and slither away without Penny  ever knowing he was there, but you would have saved her from a  worse fate."

Jennings stared at Palmer.

"Would you want Penny angry with you forever over something you couldn't explain but you knew to be for her best?"

This is a very simple example, but it illustrates my point.  All things do work together for good, but it is hard to know that when we cannot see the whole picture.  God can. 

God uses troubles for many reasons: to mold and shape us, to protect us from something bigger, to make us depend on Him, to show us His grace and mercy, to bring about things for His glory, etc.  Oftentimes we may never know the reason, but there is one.  All we can do is trust in Him and know that it all works together for good for those who love Him.  

Instead of blaming God for your troubles, keep loving and trusting God during your troubles!  He is the best person to have by your side during the tough times AND.... He has your best interests in mind!

Burdens

Verse of the Week:

Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

Burdens

In the movie, Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins is chosen as the ring bearer; destined to take the evil ring of power and destroy it in the mountain of fire. As he carries the ring and embarks on his journey to the mountain, the ring grows heavier and harder to carry.  The ring becomes a immense burden the longer he carries it. In the end, the ring takes hold of him so much that when his travel companion and loyal friend, Sam asks him if he remembers his wonderful home,  Frodo replies:

 No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass. I'm... naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil... between me... and the wheel of fire! I can see him... with my waking eyes! 

The ring became so heavy and burdensome that it consumed Frodo to the point that he was surrounded by darkness with no memories of the good things in life.

Often times people tend to focus so much on their problems, that it grows to be a burden.  At first the burden may seem light, but the more they carry it on their own, the heavier it becomes. Eventually the burden takes over their lives, and they are unable to see past it and focus on the good things in life.  They cannot see any way out.  The harder they try to fix their burden, the worse it becomes, and eventually they are hopeless because they cannot get rid of it or fix it.  They begin to despair and wonder why life is even worth living.  And some eventually give up...

Burdens often enslaves us and master us.    In 2 Peter 2:19b, it talks about how we are slaves to whatever masters us. 

For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

Whatever you are obsessed with in this life is usually what has you enslaved.  The more you focus on your burden, the more it enslaves you.  

It is human nature to look at a problem and try to fix it. If the washer breaks down, we call someone up to fix it.  If your son falls and scraps his knee, you wash the wound and put a band aid on it. If the car needs the oil changed, you change it.  If the dishes need to be washed, you wash them.  

However, have you noticed that if some of these things do not get fixed immediately, it becomes a burden?  Suppose your washer breaks down, and you call someone to fix it, but they cannot fix it; the burden becomes greater.   The problem grows bigger, and you begin to ask yourself, "How can we afford to buy a new washer? How am I going to get laundry done? My husband needs a clean shirt for his work party tonight and my son is running out of pants to wear!"  You start to panic and the burden gets heavier and heavier to the point that you are frustrated. 

We are usually fine and breeze our way through life when things go great. As long as we are able to solve and fix things, life seems easy, but I have learned something about the origin of burdens.  Burdens come about when you try to fix things and cannot.  The harder you try to fix it the worse it gets and the heavier the burden.  Burdens come about when you have the illusion that you are in control.

Jesus has something to say about burdens....

 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

For those of you who are not aware what a yoke is, it is a wooden cross piece that is attached to an animal that helps them to pull a heavy load in a wagon or cart.  Jesus is saying that the yoke He has is easy to pull and light.  He is saying that we can find rest in Him.

When a person cannot fix a burden something must happen to lighten that burden, it is called SURRENDER.

When a person realizes that they cannot fix something, they realize that if they keep carrying the burden, it will grow heavier, so they surrender that burden to someone else, Jesus.  He is in control of the situation, and nothing ever happens that is out of His hands.  All things are under Jesus' feet (1 Corinthians 15:27, Ephesians 1:22, Hebrews 2:8).

Here is the problem, whenever, we give our burdens to Jesus, we expect Him to FIX it.  Here is the reality: sometimes He does not fix it.  You see, God doesn't promise to take our problems away, but He promises to be with us as we go through them.  Jesus clearly says, 

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.  (John 16:33)  

Jesus didn't say that we would not have troubles, but he did say to take heart, because he has overcome the world.  He is still sovereign. 

So when a person sees a situation that ends in hopelessness and grief, and it nearly rips a person's heart to shreds, God is still sovereign.

So how does God lighten the burden? Remember how we are slaves to whatever masters us? It is all about the focus; the more we focus on the problem, the heavier the burden, but the more that we turn our eyes to Jesus and see the problem through His eyes, the lighter the burden! Your worry is replaced with trust.  Your negativity is replaced with shimmer of light.  You realize that you are not alone and that someone is there with you through it all.  If you don't understand why something happened, you are ok, because you know that someone else does understand.

If I am going to be mastered by something, then let it be Jesus!  Let him consume my thoughts, may His own thoughts reflect my own.

I have seen what happens to a person when Jesus is not there.  They have no hope. Day by day they try to fix their burdens never succeeding. Day by day they see negativity in this world that eventually consumes their thoughts.  When they finally have had enough of it all, they despair because there is no one to turn to.

Someone once told me that Christians use God as an illusion to bring them comfort when they have problems.  Even if He is an illusion, I much rather have hope in an illusion than despair in nothing.

I am reminded of a song that I sung as a little girl:

I will cast all my cares upon you.
    I lay all of my burdens down at your feet,
And anytime I don't know what to do
   I will cast all my cares upon you.

Thank you, Jesus, that we can lay our burdens down at your feet!  To you be all the glory, Amen!

Desires of My Heart

Verse of the Week:

Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

     trust in him and he will do this:  Psalms 37:4-5

Desires of My Heart

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Ps. 37:4)  Boy does that verse sound good! How many times have I desired to own a million bucks, to travel around the world, and to live in a nice 3 bedroom home.  From the sound of that verse, it looks like God is my own personal genie giving me all the desires of my heart.  Right?  Many people are deceived by this verse and expect God to give them what they desire, and when He doesn't, they reject him or grow angry because he isn't that kind loving God that they thought He was.  I remember talking to a girl about prayer one time, and she told me:

"I have tried that before, but it doesn't work.  I never get what I ask for."

Not all people are asking God for a million bucks.  Some people are asking him for very good things such as peace in a home, safety of a loved one, and healing for a friend, but when He fails to give them what they want, they turn away from Him thinking what kind of loving God would allow harm to come to people? 

People tend to forget the first part of the verse, "Take delight in the Lord..."  What does it mean to truly delight in the Lord?  I read in a book one time that to delight in the Lord means that you want what God wants, not what you want .**   You love God so much that you can't help but desire what he desires.  When you delight in God's will, thoughts, and plans, they eventually become your own will, thoughts, and plans.  

Think of it this way.  Lets say Brayden, my son, falls in love with music when he grows up. For those of you that don't know me, I can't carry a tune when it comes to music.  I cannot even play an instrument other than 2-4 notes from piano lessons that lasted a month. To top it all off, I never really cared to listen to music any more because of my hearing loss; it just doesn't sound the same with a cochlear implant.  I much rather be running, hiking, playing basketball, bumping volleyballs, hitting tennis balls, tossing a football around, and throwing disc golfs.  I am an athlete not a musician. I would prefer that Brayden like sports too.  However, I love our son to much to make him do what I prefer, so if Brayden decided that he wanted to play the piano, sing songs, and become a musician; I would take delight in his passions for music and support him at all costs.  I would attend all of his concerts, listen to all of his songs, and provide him with music lessons to support his passion.  I would support him because I loved him and his desires are more important than my own desires for him.  I would not pressure him to play sports simply because it was my desire for him to do so, but I would desire what he wanted to do with his life. I desired what Brayden desired. 

 It is the same way with God.  I love God so much, that I can't help but desire what he wants. There are many things in my life that I have greatly desired.  I have desired to be a children's minister in a church; I have desired to work in the medical field; I have desired that some of my loved ones be healed of cancer; I have desired that I be healed of my hearing loss, but God said no.  However, when I shifted my focus on God and looked at His heart and His great love for me, my desires changed.  I desired what God desired. Sure I had a preference on what I wanted to do in life, but more than anything I wanted what God wanted.  The more I trusted in Him and grew in my relationship with Him, the more I wanted to do his will.  I knew He knew what was best for me.  He directed me into teaching which was not my first choice, but I grew to love it.  He didn't heal my ears, but I have seen how He has used my hearing loss to be an inspiration to others and to bring Him glory.  My loved ones struggled to win over the battle of cancer, and in the midst of it all, their deep faith has been an inspiration to me and others.  They have both passed away, but I know that they are happy serving God in an amazing place.  God's will is perfect; and I delight in the fact that He knows what is best. 

Lets take it a step further and not only reread verse 4 of Psalms 37, but verse 5 as well:

Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

     trust in him and he will do this:

The key is to trust in God! When you are committed to doing his will; then you begin to trust in him on all aspects of your life.  In the story, On The Trail Of The Truth, God was talking to a young woman, and here is what He said:

When you trust me completely, as your Creator and Father and friend, when you trust me so much that you know I will do the best for you, when you trust me enough to want my will in your life, that becomes the desire of your heart.  The desire of your heart is to do my will.  And when you want my will for your life, and you want that more than anything else, then I will give you that-I will certainly work out my will in your life, And it will be the best possible life you could ever have! You will have the desire of your heart, and everything you could possibly hope for shall be yours-because your life is in my hands, not your own.

I want my life to be in God's hands, not mine.  I delight in you, Jesus!  My desire is what you desire! Mold me and us me and make me into the person that will bring you GLORY.  I love YOU!

 Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

     trust in him and he will do this: