Posted on in 2012 Posts

Can You Hear Me Now?

What did we ever do without our technology?  I remember the days when my brother was stationed in Japan while in the Navy during the Vietnam War.  We actually had to wait for a snail mail letter before we knew he was OK if we saw a mishap in his area on the TV.  Today, my son who is in Afghanistan can actually call occasionally or send an email to ensure us of his situation.  Even though technology has come a long way, this week my technology tested me.  It started at the beginning of the week when my cell phone started acting up.  I would be on call and it would decide to reboot.  Other times, I would go to use it and the battery charge was at zero.   Then later in the week, my laptop decided to not be able to keep a steady internet stream and so the frustration built.   At times I was online trying to talk to someone about my new book and I would view the perfect conversation to jump into and interject.  However, my computer had other ideas.  It wouldn’t let me post a full post without kicking me off the internet over and over.  Did you ever have one of those challenging weeks? I only had so much time and all of this distraction was killing me.

I couldn’t believe how grumpy I got when my internet didn’t work right.  I thought, “Wow, I am really dependent on this service.”  Not only could I not promote my book, I couldn’t keep up with my games that my friends were expecting me to take my turn in either.  Then I couldn’t find a house I wanted to go see and when I went to look it up on Google maps, it didn’t work!  I couldn’t look up a recipe for dinner, pay a bill, or even simply email a friend.  I needed to make my monthly order of Melaleuca so I got my free products for the month and I was blocked from that as well.  The list goes on…you get the idea.  I literally spent an entire day whirling around and around trying to figure out how I was going to fix my internet.

It concerns me in some ways to be so dependent on something so worldly.  I began to think about all the time I spend on the internet and how when I didn’t have the perfect connection, it bothers me so greatly.  Then I started thinking about my relationship with God.  Sometimes my relationship with Him feels the same way.  I pray and pray and get nowhere.  I can’t come up with answers because I feel like there is a disconnect and I don’t want to go forward without knowing for sure it is His Voice that I hear.  That’s very frustrating as well.

So many times, when my internet is running properly, I don’t even stop to think about it.  It’s just something in life I expect to be there when I need it.  Isn’t that the way we go about our spiritual lives as well?  When things are going well, God may not hear from us as often as when our lives are in turmoil.  We somehow just take the connection we have with Him for granted until a crisis enters our lives and then we are whirling around trying to reconnect so He will be there for us.  Wouldn’t it be awesome to be as dependent on our relationship with God as we are with our internet service?  If you felt disconnected with God, would it consume your days and every thought until you were reconnected with Him once again?  Would you be so frustrated that you couldn’t move forward until it was repaired?

My challenge for you today is that you will take the time to reconnect with God and not take your relationship with Him for granted.  Take the time to charge your battery, reevaluate your connection and make sure that you are well grounded so that when crisis hits around you, you will be able to get through it smoothly with little rebooting required. When I now pick up my new phone and put it to my ear without dialing, a little microphone comes on the screen and says, “What can I help you with?”  Search your heart.  Where do you need God’s help today to ensure a clear, steady connection?  Then speak away and tell Him exactly what you need.  He’s better than SIRI, more accurate than Google, a lot more fun than games on Facebook, and He will never drop your call.  Sounds like the real deal to me!

Have a great week!

Isaiah 58: 2 and 8-9 (NKJV)

Yet they seek Me daily,
And delight to know My ways,
As a nation that did righteousness,
And did not forsake the ordinance of their God.
They ask of Me the ordinances of justice;
They take delight in approaching God…

8 Then your light shall break forth like the morning,
Your healing shall spring forth speedily,
And your righteousness shall go before you;
The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’

Posted on in 2012 Posts

Objects May Be Larger Than They Actually Appear…

 

Did you ever stop to think what you might do with your life if you never had to go to work another day?  How would you spend your time?  How would you fill your days?  Most of us don’t even have to consider that scenario because we are not at the point in life where we have enough money to quit our jobs.  I often dream though about living in a beach cottage spending my days watching the ocean waves crashing around, doing what they do.  I have illusions of long walks with my love, soaking in the rays and maybe having time to write a little here and there.  Other times, I find myself traveling to exotic places in my thoughts and having the time to actually stop and photograph the beautiful scenery all around me.  I love nature’s scenery and love even more when I am able to capture a piece of it on my camera so that I can share and remember that moment always.

All of these ideas would certainly bring me happiness…no job, unlimited income, beach living, traveling and having time to enjoy my husband and my hobbies in life.  As a Christian, I am not sure it would bring me joy however.  For in my years on this earth, I have grown to learn that my life in this dimension is not here for my enjoyment.  Rather, it is a training ground for my eternal life in heaven to come.  If I were to spend my days just doing the things that make me happy, I think I would quickly become discontent.  For I have found the things that bring me true fulfillment and joy are those things that I do for God.

I get so excited when we have a harvest moon.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  Have you ever seen it when it looks like you could reach out and touch the beautiful, full, orange moon? I have tried on occasion to photograph it as it appears so huge and majestic on the horizon before ascending into the sky.    No matter how hard I try, I cannot make my photos even closely represent its awesomeness in real life.  Once it ascends into the sky, it’s still pretty but nothing like it is while it is so close to us here on the earth.

Jim and I were talking about it the other day and he reminded me, “Lori, the moon that you see so brilliantly on the horizon is the same moon you see in the sky.  There’s no difference.  It’s just when it is against the big dark sky, you have no perspective as to its size like you do when it is beside something here on earth.”  I thought about that.  Wow.  He’s right.  Sometimes it is so close that I feel like I can touch it and other times it seems so distant, I even forget it is there.  Isn’t that like it is with God?  We often get so wrapped up into our lives that we forget how big God really is.  We look at our problems and lose our perspective.  He seems so distant and uncaring at times.  We pray and pray and never seem to get answers.  We begin to think He can’t handle our problems.  Maybe we need to get involved.  Maybe this job is just too big for God.  We’ve all been there.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded that the God who created the earth and saved us from our sins is the same God who reigns in heaven today awaiting our arrival someday.  As we draw closer and closer to Him, He is magnified—it is as though we can reach out and touch Him.  As the chaos invades our lives, we lose our focus on the important things and start serving our own selves, He becomes smaller and smaller as we fade farther and farther away from Him into our deep, dark sky so to speak.

Maybe we need to adjust our thinking.  For example, what does your prayer list look like?  Mine usually has things like, please sell my house, help me sell houses and books so I can make a living, protection over my husband, children and their families, etc.  You get the picture.  I challenge you this week to forget your wish list as you have your daily devotions.  Spend time simply focusing on how big and wonderful God truly is.   Praise Him for loving you and caring for you even when you don’t feel Him so close to you right now.  Instead of asking Him to do things on your checklist, ask Him what you can do for Him.  Ask The Holy Spirit to make the requests on your prayer list be His requests and not yours.  Beg God to come near—let you feel how huge He really is and how small the sufferings in this life are in comparison to that which is eternal to come.

For the same God who walked along with the disciples here on earth is the same God who has now ascended into the sky into His heavenly realm.  He wants us to cling to Him and know of His majesty even through the tough times in life.  He doesn’t want our joy to be dependent on our circumstances or surroundings; rather, He wants to fill us with joy that goes beyond anything we can imagine or explain–just like the difficulty in conveying the true beauty of the harvest moon in a photograph.

God desires us to draw near.  Even when He seems so distant and far from our reach, cry out to Him!  He’s still the same, it’s just that our perception has been altered.  He wants to be SO BIG and bright in our lives that we will no longer even see the chaos, our suffering won’t matter anymore and our wish list will surprisingly become insignificant.  He wants to change our dark skies to blue!  The truth is, He is way bigger than anything we face in this life.

James 4:8 (NKJV)  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

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Posted on in 2012 Posts

You’ve Got to Take Your Foot Off the Brake if You’re Going to Move Forward

Before we were married, Jim took me and the kids—his and mine—to Gatlinburg for a long weekend so that we could all get to know each other a little better.  We had all gone hiking up one of the mountains in the state park where he planned to propose to me during the trip.  However, one of the kids was sick and it just didn’t seem to be the right environment as she whined up and down the mountain, so he kept my ring in his pocket and continued to watch for the perfect moment to ask me for my hand in marriage.

There weren’t a lot of parking spaces near the trail we were hiking on so we had to park on a small spot on the side of the skinny mountain road on a very sharp incline.  When we were done hiking and all piled back into the car, Jim put his foot on the gas pedal to leave but we didn’t move.  He tried gunning it a couple of times and still nothing.  So the boys climbed out to see what was going on and why we weren’t moving.  The back tire was hanging off the edge and they thought maybe it wasn’t getting enough traction, so with the two boys pushing, Jim tried again to no avail.  Some nice hikers saw us trying to get out of the parking spot and offered us a hand too.  Before we knew it, there were about five men pushing from behind to get us on our way.  They pushed and pushed and again…nothing.

Then one of the men came from behind the van, knocked on Jim’s window and asked, “Do you have your emergency brake on by any chance?”  Much to Jim’s dismay, he reached down and low and behold, found the brake on.  It made sense because we had been parked on such a steep incline, he just forgot to take it off when we started again.  We all laughed as we realized that we just made about five strangers sweat and work to try to move our van that was never going to move even if there were ten pushing!  Once he released the break, he easily pulled out of the spot with no help at all!  Had Jim not been so distracted about once again not finding the perfect moment to propose as he had planned and not been so tired from the trip, he probably wouldn’t have been so preoccupied and forgot to release the brake when we were leaving.

I think about this and still giggle to this day.  Poor guy had a plan and between the kids and I, it kept being thwarted.  I think about that story and can relate it to our Christian walks.  How many of us feel as though we are in out of control situations, like being parked on the edge of a cliff on a steep incline?  Our first inclination is to put our emergency brake on and stop everything isn’t it? You know…take control to make sure we are safe.  Often we feel like we push and push and never get anywhere.  Or sometimes when we find our plans not going as we thought, we get tired, and we simply loose our focus on God where our true power lies.   Sometimes, we just forget that we have God’s power over us when we are in scary situations as we feel weak and vulnerable.  There is no need to put on the emergency brake.  It might require our friends who are not in the middle of our situations to come alongside to remind us that we need to let go, or release the brake so to speak though when we can’t see it ourselves.  As Christians, we are given God’s power through His Holy Spirit.  With God on our side, we should have no fear.  If we simply release our control, God is free to show His power and keep us safe from those things that cause us to fear and prevent us from moving forward.

My prayer for you is that you will call on God’s power in your life this week.  May He be more real to you than ever as you cling to Him through your trials, looking to Him for His mighty power to get you through.

Isaiah 40: 28-31 (NKJV)

28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.