The Cleaning Bug

I have to admit that I’ve been bit by the Cleaning Bug. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m actually cleaning anything. Rather it’s a fascination with these amazing people who like to blog and run Facebook groups about cleaning. You can really learn some interesting information.

Like, once you get the waxy residue left from window cleaners off of your windows and glass, you can simply and quickly clean them with club soda and never have streaks again. Wow!

But the best are the videos of other people cleaning things with pressure washers and the like. It’s amazing really and can completely suck away 5 minutes of your life watching the repetitive motion of the sprayer going back and forth as beautifully cleaned surfaces are revealed. It’s addicting in a therapeutic way. LOL!

There is no physical way to effectively and thoroughly clean driveways and sidewalks without a pressure cleaner. Man power just can’t do it. This got me to thinking about how God has cleaned our hearts from all the stains of sin. He did it through the Christ Jesus sacrificial death and resurrection. Once and for all.

But how silly would it be for me to say that I need to get my scrub brush out and clean my driveway after I just had it pressure washed? It would be ridiculous. You’d think I was crazy if I started telling you how incredibly filthy the driveway was and then acted like I could do something to make it better.

How many times do we do this to ourselves. Jesus has already cleansed our hearts and even now calls us clean. It’s our faith that believes He did it.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”
John 15:3 ESV

I know this analogy isn’t perfect because eventually my driveway will need that pressure washer again. But my heart won’t. Thanks be to our loving father who made sure that Jesus’ sacrifice was once and for all.

“Then he said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will.’….  And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Hebrews 10: 9-10 NIV

I want to learn to catch myself before I start to call filthy what He has made clean. I am becoming today what I will be tomorrow. So right now, I’m going to practice acting like who I really am in Christ. Clean! Free from the guilt and stain of sin.

I am already clean!

Love,

In the Boat

When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. 24 And suddenly a violent storm arose on the sea, so that the boat was being covered by the waves; but Jesus was sleeping. 25 And the disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us, we are going to die!” 26 He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was [at once] a great and wonderful calm [a perfect peacefulness]. Matthew 8:23-26

It was Sunday morning, my first service back to church since my hysterectomy 2 weeks prior. Issues from a long battle with endometriosis led me to that end, but I’ll share more about that another time. {wink}

After service, as a family, we discuss what was spoken about in our classes and in our worship services. It’s always a fun time to look through the kid’s crafts and read over their papers from the week and share with them what we learned in “big church” and how God spoke to our hearts and into our lives. Each of them had talked about the account from the above text in Matthew 8. When Jesus was knocked out during a storm with His disciples. (This blog post’s picture is the crafts that they made.)

We talked about how sometimes it can be so scary when it is storming here and how they can violently wake us up while we are lying still, cozy and comfy in our beds!! And how there no waves or water we have to deal with, but how even in the midst, that it didn’t faze our Lord, because after-all He created it. He is in charge and all-powerful. We continued sharing about what a blessing it is to never have to be scared of anything and even if there are scary things going on around us- we don’t have to be afraid- because in the boat of life, Jesus is always in it with us.

Well, I didn’t think much of it after that, and was thankful for the truth but not clinging onto it for any particular reason.

The next day, I was having some small complications from the surgery but nothing serious so I called the doctor on call to ask her about it (because of course this happened on a holiday). I had stood a little more that Sunday with it being New Year’s and all. So I thought maybe that was what was causing some of the issues. The doctor told me to stay off my feet and rest and as the evening came I decided to finish setting up my prayer closet and after I got finished I prayed and spent some time with the Lord and boy, it was so sweet.  But as I got up I felt something and to my surprise things had worsened… I told my husband and decided to call the doctor again. Within about 15 minutes I headed up stairs to only find that it had intensified to the point where it was alarming. The doctor gave me a solution to see if we could deal with it, but in the next hour we were headed to the ER.

On the way, we contacted our family, friends and church family asking them to start praying. Immediately what came to mind was that Jesus was right there with me- HE was in the boat with me. I couldn’t do a thing but cling to that fact. What was happening to me could have severe consequences, but I didn’t have to fear because I wasn’t alone. So through tears, I just kept repeating to myself, Jesus, You’re in the boat. Jesus, You control the winds and the waves of what is happening. Jesus, You can make it stop at any time. Jesus, because You’re with me I don’t have to be afraid.

There are times in life when we can choose to panic and fear or trust that Jesus is in the boat and experience the peace that only He can bring. Will it be terrifying? It could be. Was I concerned? YES!!!! But did I have peace? Whew, like you wouldn’t believe. Because I was clinging to the fact that He was in the boat and it changed my focus. After all, I’m His daughter, He’s my Abba-Father and because of that even in a situation like this, I couldn’t be in better hands.

Do I always do that? Respond with this confident faith? No, but I’m learning to trust this truth.

I’m not sure what you may be facing in life today or in this season of your life, but can I encourage you that Jesus is in the boat with you? He doesn’t want you to be worried, afraid, fretful, fearful, but completely at peace, full of faith, resting totally in Him no matter what may be going on around you because at any point He can stop it with just a word. He doesn’t always choose to though because He knows the good that is going to work in and through it, and praise the Lord that He’s able to work all things together for our good, hallelujah?!

Praise the Lord, this surgery complication happens sometimes and for many different reasons. And recovery has been much smoother since then, but boy was it a nerve wrecking. Maybe it was just so I could write pen these words and encourage you that He’s in the boat with us. That He’s never left you or me alone and that His love, His hope, His peace is undeniably ours.

Lord, for those reading this today, may this truth sink deep into their hearts, as I ask for You to help it sink into my own. May we be people of faith that trust whole-heartedly that no matter what– You are in the boat right beside us– no matter what we’re facing. And even if it seems like You’re asleep, unaware of what we are facing. I pray that you will help us to confess for doubting Your presence and Your Word and trust that You are with us in ways we won’t be able to fully comprehend until we are with You and we are like You in eternity. Help us, Lord, to fully know that just like you did with your disciples, you can do with us and in a moment bring peace that passes all understanding even amidst the crazy, scary, or unexplainable to us. I pray all of this in the Name of Jesus, Amen.

Because of Christ and His Love,

Jesus, All in All- All You Need

All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16b-17
Christ is all in all. Colossians 3:11b

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Listening for Jesus or Looking for Cupcakes?

And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” and Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:10

 

One of my goals for the New Year is to sit in God’s presence and just listen. In one of my listening sessions after a sweet time in Jesus’ presence, I heard Him speaking to me about my children. This year my word for the year is discipline. I’m not a disciplined person naturally, but it’s vital if I want to be the person God calls me to be and spend my time wisely. I had been praying over my children that day pretty intensely and the Lord spoke to me about being disciplined in teaching them about God’s Word, memorizing it, learning to listen and hear from Him, and just getting comfortable in His presence.

So that afternoon I set forth accomplishing what God had told me to do! After a few rounds of a matching game, I told them we were going to praise the Lord, work on starting to memorize James chapter 4, pray and then listen because God wants to speak to us but we have to intentionally listen. As we listened to the music it did my heart so good to see the smiles on their faces as we worshipped the Lord and raised our hands in praise. We then put James 4:1 to a rap, my mom would make up these awesome tunes to help us put verses to memory but fitting the words into phrases is easier than trying to remember a tune for me! {LOL} Then we prayed and talked to Jesus and then I told them to listen…

In the text where our passage above is from, we find a young Samuel whose job it was to assist and help the prophet of Israel, Eli, in the temple. After the work was done and they were lying down for the night the Lord called out to Samuel. He immediately got up and ran to Eli saying, “Here, I am” not realizing that it was the Lord that was calling him. This happened three times because Samuel had never personally heard from the Lord. In fact, 1 Samuel 3:1 it says that word from the Lord was rare and precious in those days. So it was no surprise why he didn’t expect it to be from the Lord. So Eli instructed him to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” So He did, and the Lord prophesied to Samuel what was going to take place.

Unlike in the times of Samuel, we have the amazing gift of being able to directly hear from God ourselves because of Jesus’ sacrifice that allows us to literally converse with God. He can speak personally into our hearts and He desires to, but are we listening? Or are we too busy, too consumed with our lives and looking for what we want to really stop and just be with Him and wait in His presence to see if He wants to share something with us?

After a few minutes of listening with my littles, okay more like 2, it’s hard for a 3, 5, and 6 year old to sit still and listen to me let alone the Lord who they can’t see- but I want to start to practice- I asked my oldest if he felt like God spoke to him and he replied, “Well, I heard that I need to be more thankful and bless others.” I was honestly shocked, but then I had asked the Lord during those quiet moments to speak. It was so applicable to where he is in his life and I thanked the Lord for speaking into his heart. Then I asked my 5-year-old. He said, “God told me I was the only one that could eat the rest of your birthday cupcakes.” After I composed myself from laughter, the Lord smote my spirit with the reality that many times I may say that I’m listening and ready to heed the Lord’s response, but in reality I’m just doing it to feel better about myself with every intention of hearing what I want to hear and looking for what I want… OUCH. Have you been there?!

My prayer is that I’ll learn to listen and obey every time, and when I fail to quickly ask for forgiveness allowing God’s abundant grace to wash over me. But I pray that together, you, me and my babies, will become true listeners of Jesus and that when He speaks we will genuinely and wholeheartedly be able to say, “Speak, for Your servant is listening” with every intention of truly listening to Jesus and not looking for cupcakes.

Because of Christ’s Love,

 

 

New Year Reflections

Do you see what this means–all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running–and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. ~Hebrews 12:1-2 (MSG)

godly-inspiration-moms

I have been doing a lot of reflecting on 2017. I remember entering the year with some goals in mind. There were a few things I hoped to accomplish. On January 20th, 2017, my plans changed. I lost my publisher. They closed down without notice. It forced me to really look at my writing and pray through what I wanted to do moving forward. I had a book that was done but no way to get it through distribution. I had to redo the Make Your Moments Count book and truthfully I think it turned out better the second time around. Even though I was pulling out my hair to do it. Kind of frustrating to go through the process of putting a book together twice. But God knows! He ALWAYS knows best. Read more