You Need the Key

Every door has a key and I’ve just found ours.

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. ~ Genesis 4:7

I can’t believe it’s been a year and a half since God opened my eyes to how this verse applied to a situation in my life.  Because this scripture had been marked in my brain as a reminder about maintaining control, I didn’t realize God was talking to me again about a current situation when this verse began to play like a tape in my mind.

Over the past several months, Brad and I have been praying and believing for God to move mightily in our lives.  Our prayer: Close all the wrong doors so no man or spirit may open them and open the right door so no man or spirit may close it.  After months of frustration and listening to a friend’s testimony, I began to realize that God had been “closing all the wrong doors,” just as we’d asked.  So we began to thank Him that He’d already opened the “right” door and asked Him to lead us to it.

I ran into a friend the other day who said, “You must be missing something.”  I was so frustrated at that comment…but God revealed to me tonight that he was right and that “something” was huge to God.  Our actions and our words can define us.  If we are not careful, sin will master our lives, cutting off the hand of God to bless us.  But as I discovered tonight through talking with God, we can master sin and don’t have to be mastered by it.

We’ve wanted God to shut all the wrong doors and open the right one.  Every door has a key and I’ve just found ours.

Without Love

The Holiday Inn was booked so we decided to spend the weekend at All Children’s Hospital…

Well, ok, not really. I mean who really “decides” to go to a hospital, especially for their 5-week-old baby?  I really must say that if there’s ever a need to take a child that age to a hospital, All Children’s is really the place to take her.  Everyone was so nice and considerate and handled us with kid gloves…except for one person.  After we were discharged and safely home with our little angel, I began to decompress and unwind.  As I thought about how one person treated us, making me feel horrible about my mothering abilities, and how all the others had made us feel like it would all be “OK,” this verse came to mind: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal,” (1 Corinthians 13:1).  This scripture is from the “Love” chapter and I’ve never thought of it in regard to anyone other than family or friends.  But really and truly, we interact with human beings—some going through life’s trials and some just going about their everyday lives—and as such, need to treat everyone with “kid gloves.” 

Father, thank you for opening my eyes to see how one person’s tone, words, and actions can raise a woman up or send her crashing in pieces to the floor.  Lord, I pray that I would walk away from this experience would make me a stronger person, but would also increase my capacity to love others the way they need to be loved…the way that I need to be loved. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.

Do Not Forget

But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his counsel. ~ Psalm 106:13

I have notes on my bathroom mirror & in my journal, all to remind me of the great things—the miracles—the Lord has done on my behalf.  All of these reminders and still I worry, still I wonder how it will all turn out.  How can it be that I can know the awesomeness of His power and might and still wonder about making health insurance premiums or buying diapers or other things that I worry about, but God does not?  And God does not worry, because everything belongs to him, from the depths of the earth to the mountain tops, (see Psalm 95:4).  And I have seen His great and mighty power, so why do I worry?

The answer is painful: Because I have forgotten, ignored, and put out of my mind all of the things He has already done for me.  Just like the Israelites forgot all that God had done for them in Egypt and at the Red Sea, still they turned away.  The sad part is they didn’t look at it as turning away.  They just saw themselves as moving steadily along, as they always had.  But in the end, it became disaster for them.

Lord, I don’t want my foolishness or my need for answers now—before you are ready to reveal them—to be the reason for my missing the things you want to do in my life.  Father, I pray that you would not let me run ahead of what you are trying to show me and accomplish in my life.  Help me to always remember the miracles, especially as I look at my daughter, and even as I realize that my husband and I have made it this far together and now with her.  Thank you for all the things you have already done and still have to do.  I pray that I would always remember that even when I can’t see how You will get it done, that it is not for me to worry about, but it is for me to trust in You to do it.

This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord. ~ 2 Kings 3:18

My Trust

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust ~ Psalm 40:4

What is faith if it’s never tested?

What is love if it’s never stretched?

What is trust if it’s never asked of us?

What’s the point if we don’t walk them out in the hard times, as well as in the good?

My two favorite verses are becoming clearer to me every day.  “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” and “everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith,” (John 16:33, 1 John 5:4).  We are never given the opportunity to overcome anything if life is always perfect inside our little bubble.  But we don’t live inside of bubbles; we live in the world.  God asks us to be a shining light to the world, but we’re only able to do that when we’re tested, stretched, and asked.

Thank you Father for showing me that trust is only trust when I use it, faith is only faith when I follow, and love is only love when it’s unconditionally given.

Whatever this world may throw at me, I choose to make You my center, my core, my trust.

Surrounded

[Jesus] did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child's father and mother.  ~ Luke 8:51

As the days and weeks draw closer to the birth of our baby, Brad and I are putting the finishing touches on preparing for her, including believing and speaking over how we expect the delivery to go.  From the very beginning of her life inside me, I’ve been praying and speaking over her and over the delivery.  I’ve had so many people tell me it can’t and won’t go that way.  But the Bible assures us that there is power in the words we speak and if I’m going to look forward to and speak over the event, it may as well be good, (see Proverbs 18:21). 

One of the things we’ve been advised to do is to have a birthing plan in place.  Now, after reading their suggestions, I think most of the items are a little odd, but nevertheless a birthing plan is necessary so that the hospital and those attending me are clear on our wishes.  While there’s still more to discuss, there are two very important things we want implemented for the delivery: We want to have worship music playing, as Savannah reacts to it the best and most and it will keep us focused on God and the beauty of the miracle that He’s bringing forth.  We also want only Brad and I, along with whatever necessary medical staff, in the room.  This is for two reasons: 1, it started with Brad and I and God and 2, it will keep only the things we are speaking and believing for in that room.

In the story of the “dead” girl in Luke 8, Jesus would not allow anyone in the girl’s room except His disciples, as well as the girl’s parents, who had sought Him out.  It’s very important, in every event in life, to keep only those around you who are believing, speaking, and walking in the same direction as you.  All others are either going to deter you or get you to believe and speak something else, something other than the promises that God gave you.

A Spirit of Self-Control

Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. ~ Genesis 4:7

It’s been reported that in the third trimester of pregnancy not only do the symptoms of the first trimester come back, but they are intensified.  Yesterday was the day that it all seemed true for me.  I couldn’t find anything to calm my heartburn and everything, including drinking water, seemed to trigger it.  I was exhausted, having gotten very choppy sleep.  And emotionally, I was both drained but at the same time, charged.  Something happened at work that frustrated me.  I wisely, decided I would ignore the situation until another day, when I thought I would be calmer.  All the way home, I questioned my reaction to the situation: was I reacting to due to stress, due to lack of sleep, due to hormones, due to pride, or a combination?  In talking with my husband, he said it was just a test, saying that the end of the marathon is never easier than the beginning, but crossing the finish line in victory is so sweet.

This morning when I woke up, I realized that while physically, medically, my hormones may be coursing through my body, effecting my emotions, my thoughts, and my reactions.  Spiritually, I didn’t have to succumb to any of that.  God whispered His promises to me and those are the things I’ve chosen to stand firm upon: I have the mind of Christ; I was not given a spirit of fear, but one of Power, of Love, and of a Sound-Mind and Self-Control (1 Corinthians 2:16; 2 Timothy 1:7).  And because of that, I have the power to keep myself calm in the fact of temptation and of adversity.  I don’t have to let my emotions control me.  I have been given the tools and the power to overcome them.  Just because many have fallen prey to it doesn’t mean I have to anymore.

Thank you, Father, for this beautiful and amazing promise you have given to me today.

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. ~ 1 John 5:4

All Is Yours

My child, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. ~ Luke 15:31

It’s difficult to understand the depth of this scripture if you don’t understand the depth of the One who said it.  In a world that believes that “change” is the only constant, words like “always” and “never” get cast aside because they can’t be true if change is continuous.

But again, to understand this scripture, we must first understand the One who said it.  It was Father, our heavenly Father and He is:

Elohim-power & might; Jehovah-Nissi-The Lord our banner (who goes before us and lifts us up); Jehovah-Rohi-The Lord is my Shepherd (guide & protector); Jehovah-Rapha-The Lord is my healer; Jehovah-Jireh-The Lord will provide; Jehovah-Shalom-The Lord is peace;  El-Roi-the strong one who sees (who opens our eyes); and more.

When God, our Abba Father (the one who tenderly loves us as His own sons and daughters), tells us that all—everything—that is His is ours it includes all of His love, all of His strength, all of His wisdom, all of His provision, and so on.  I know you ask, “How can this be, when I’ve lost my job, my hope, my income, my car, my friends, my parents, my childhood, my health…?”  The answer lies in Jesus Christ.  Romans 13:14 tells us we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  That phrase “put on” means to “clothe” or “sink into” (as you would your favorite sweatshirt or jeans).  When we “put on” our Lord, we put on His character and everything that was available to Him and that is how everything (all) that is God’s is ours.