Tag: God

Eating Peas

11/12/2013Prayer, Spiritual Growth, , , , , 11 Comments

This is a picture of our grandson Jake when he first started eating solid food. He’s about to get a bite of peas.

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He quickly learned that he doesn’t like peas!

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However, he opened his mouth again! He trusted the person feeding him. He knew we loved him, and we would never ever hurt him.

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Today, Jake is four. If I were to put peas on his plate for dinner, the conversation would probably go something like this:

Jake: Yaya, I don’t want peas.
Yaya (me): Jake, you have to eat them, they are good for you.
Jake: No, I don’t like them.
Yaya: Don’t you want to grow up to be big and strong like your daddy?
Jake: Yes, but I can do that if I eat cookies!
Yaya: No you can’t Jake, you need your peas.
Jake: Yaya, I’m not hungry!

We give our children healthy food, even if they only want candy, because we know that candy won’t produce a strong, healthy body.

We are a lot like Jake when it comes to eating our ‘spiritual peas’. What are spiritual peas? That would be the hard things in life that the Lord puts on our plate. I don’t have to imagine what that conversation would sound like, I’ve had it…

God: Marcia, you have to go through this difficult thing.
Marcia: God, I don’t want to.
God: You have to, it is good for you.
Marcia: No. I don’t like this.
God: Don’t you want to grow up to be like Jesus?
Marcia: Yes, but I can do that without having to endure this.|
God: No, you can’t, Marcia, you need to walk this path.
Marcia: God, I’m ok where I am.

God knows the future. He knows what I need to experience now in order to be prepared for what the future holds. He knows where I will need to be strong. He knows where the Evil One is going to come against me. He knows where I need to grow. Therefore, God very carefully prepares my plate with just the right amount of peas.

Romans 5:3-5 because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame…”

God will not overload me with suffering. I know that there will also be sweet desserts – times of celebration and rejoicing. And, there will be some really nice steaks because he knows how much I love to study the meat of doctrine.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Just as Jake’s peas produce a healthy body, so our suffering produces a healthy spirit: a spirit that hopes, even when things appear hopeless.

What difficult thing has God put on your plate? Do you believe that He has your best interest at heart, because he knows what you will need in the future?

Of Mice and Men

11/08/2013Sharing the Gospel, Spiritual Walk, , 8 Comments

Years ago, we lived in Missouri and our neighbor, Trudy, had a cat that liked to regularly deposit a dead mouse at her back door. Typically Trudy tossed the mouse in the trash before anyone else saw it, but one morning I stopped by early, and there it was! Yuck!

Not being a cat-person, and revealing my ignorance of cat behavior, I asked Trudy what that was all about and Trudy explained, “She thinks she’s giving me a present. It’s what cats do.”

Right! Just what every woman wants: a dead, somewhat bloody, mangled mouse dropped on the doorstep first thing in the morning. Clearly the cat didn’t understand Trudy. And, I didn’t understand the cat.

But think about it, that cat worked hard for that mouse. This was a house cat for the most part, so to get to the field, she had to get out of the house. Then she had to cross a storm run-off ditch to get to the field. Then, she had to find the mouse in a very large field. And, she had to catch him. Her gift shopping had to be done quickly. Even with all the hard work and effort, her gift went straight to the trash.

I think that is exactly how God sees our efforts to please him if we are not saved.  No matter how hard we work to please God, no matter how many gifts of generosity, service, philanthropy, and kindness to others we do, each one is like laying a dead mouse at God’s feet and saying, “Here’s another present!”

It’s just all dead mice.

God is not impressed with any work that we do to earn his favor, or our salvation. He doesn’t find it pleasing. He tells us this in Romans 8:8 “Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”

To please God, we must belong to God. We must have faith in the God who saves and in the instrument of that salvation: God’s one and only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Sometimes I think we get the cart before the horse, and we try to show God that we are worthy of salvation, so we bring him gifts… dead mice. Instead, we need to come to him for salvation, believe what He says, and receive the salvation that he offers.

Then, we do have to get to work! He has ordained works for us to do, works that prove our faith, not earn our faith. It must be in that order. When we work for God because of our faith, he not only finds our gifts acceptable, but he rewards them.

One day, we will have the privilege of giving gifts to Jesus. We will not give him dead mice; we will lay our crowns at his feet.

The Big One

10/03/2013contentment, Spiritual Walk, The Furrowed Brow, , 3 Comments

We left off talking about ‘the little ones’ and that God reminds us we are little so that we might see him as ‘big’, but I have to ask, “How big is God?”

Or perhaps the question should be. “Is God bigger than me?”

And the answer is: “Yes, but only when I’m OK with being the little one.”

Why am I not always OK with being little, and letting God be bigger than me? Because so often, I don’t credit Jesus with being big enough to do all the things I need him to do, or want him to do. Does that sound familiar to you?

If, like me, the answer is sometimes, yes, then naturally we have to be ‘the big one’ because if he isn’t big enough, someone has to be. It might as well be us.

OK, I know that sounds shocking, but let’s be honest, is Jesus big enough to… — rescue the world from terrorists? — have your back if you step up at work and act like a Christian? — cause 90% of your money to go as far as 100% — reconcile you to a friend you haven’t spoken with in years? — go into a jail cell and comfort your family member who sits there? — equip you to teach that Bible study you’ve been asked to teach? — overcome a porn addiction? A substance addiction? — pull bitterness out of your heart by its root? — strengthen you to choose to forgive even if you don’t feel like it? — fill your heart with love for the un-loveliest person you know? — set aside resentment, jealousy, covetousness? — pry your hands open to let go of the thing he’s wanted you to let go of for years? — fill your heart with love for him instead of anger? — remove the grief from your heart and replace it with joy? — sit in a college dorm with a lonely and hurting student? — take care of your children/parents when you are not available — handle emergencies so you can turn your phone off for an hour on Sunday? — walk into a hospice room and welcome a tired child into his loving arms? — find you a job? — be your date on Friday night? — teach you to be content in all your circumstances? — love you even with all the ugliness in your heart? — save you? — use you?

Is God big enough? The problem isn’t that he’s not big enough; it’s that we don’t trust him. Yet, we know that he is totally trustworthy. The barrier is the distance between what we know in our minds but refuse to believe in our hearts.

Oh, that we could be like little children all day, every day, sitting at Jesus feet, trusting him to run the world. Trusting him to run our homes. Trusting him with our hearts. Trusting him with those we love.

Isn’t life so much easier and better when we agree to be the little ones.

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My goal with this blog is to share my life with you, to be vulnerable, to be honest, to be open, to be small, so that we might all see God bigger and bigger.

The Little Ones

10/03/2013contentment, Spiritual Walk, The Furrowed Brow, , Leave a comment

Every now and then I see her. She is a happy little girl with blonde hair sitting on a tricycle with the handlebars broken off. There are other toys around for her to play with. But she always chooses the tricycle. It’s not safe. If she were to fall, she could really get hurt. But she doesn’t seem to care. She pedals and with both hands on the gooseneck, she tries to steer. I’ve never seen her actually succeed. But she’s always smiling.

There is something about her that makes me think of the verse in Matthew 18 “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Why didn’t Jesus say, “unless you become mature and serious and all grown up?”

What is Jesus looking for? What must we change? What is it about little children that we’re missing?

I’ve thought a lot about that recently. I’ve thought about what it means to be a little child, to be small, to be insignificant, and to be little.

The little ones are totally dependent on the big ones to take care of them. They are told when to get up, and when to go to bed, and though they may whine or complain, they still go. They are told when to eat, and what to eat. They are given limited choices, this shirt or that shirt. Every day in the future is ‘tomorrow’ and every day in the past is ‘yesterday’, there is no real understanding of ‘time’. And, they never worry about whether or not the rent will be paid, or if there is food in the pantry, they just assume there is, or will be.

The little ones trust the big ones completely.

The little ones are not afraid to laugh at silly things. They poke bugs. They wear diapers. They can’t pronounce all their words. And they’re not embarrassed by any of it. They are content to sit and hear the same story told over and over. They like to cuddle before bed. They like to hear bedtime songs sung off key.

The little ones just like to be around the big ones.

I think this is what Jesus wants. He wants us to abandon all of the things that separate us from him and from each other. Independence. Self-protection. Worry. Complaining. The need to have everything ‘just right’.

He wants us to trust him completely.

He wants us to like being around him.

It is not easy to be little. It’s not easy to let go of all the things that keep us from sitting at Jesus’ feet and worshiping with abandon. People might be watching. We might get laughed at. There’s work to be done.

Does God ever bring you a memory, like me on my broken tricycle, to remind you that it is OK to let down your guard and be little, so that you might more fully love and trust your very Big God?

Holding On! Walking Forward!

10/03/2013Spiritual Walk, The Furrowed Brow, , , , Leave a comment

As a little girl, the biggest, strongest, most courageous, fearless and handsome man in the entire world was my dad. It seemed there was nothing he was afraid of, and when I was close to him, I didn’t need to be afraid either. I knew he’d take care of me no matter what.

If we were in a situation where he knew I needed to stay close for my protection, and his peace of mind, he’d hold out his finger and I’d grab hold. All of us kids knew to grab hold, and we didn’t argue. When my siblings and I grew up and had children of our own, we would laugh as we recalled stories of how trained we were to hold dad’s finger.

In the final hours of dad’s life, when he was barely speaking, and rarely opening his eyes, I asked him if he remembered how he’d hold out his finger to me. He nodded and slowly and lifted his finger off the bed just a little. I grabbed hold.

I asked him if he was going to see Jesus that day. He said, “Yes.” I told him that when he saw Jesus, to look for his hand, and to grab hold of Jesus’ finger and not let go. He said that he would. A few hours later, he did.

Why is this story my very first blog entry? Because today, my life is in transition, and I’m not sure where I’m going and I don’t want to wander off and get lost in the crowd, or find myself in a place that I am not prepared to navigate. God is moving me from my cozy little cocoon, where I’ve taught for over fourteen years, from the women who know me, love me, and listen to me week after week into an area that I am not sure I recognize. I feel like that little girl who needs to see her dad hold out his finger, so that she can grab hold and know she is safe and protected.

Without realizing it, my dad taught me well. He taught me as a little child, to grab hold of my Father’s finger. And, so, I look to my Father, God, and I am grabbing hold of his finger.

I am holding on tight, because I know that He will guide me and He will protect me. He is the One and Only, the biggest, strongest, most courageous, fearless, beautiful God in the entire universe, for He created the universe, with His finger. He created me. He has a plan for me, and He will bring that plan to fruition.

So, as I begin this next chapter, I want to say “Thank you!” to my dad, thank you for teaching me to hold on. And, to my Father, to whom I am holding, “I’m so excited to walk this path with you, for I know, that no one can snatch me out of your hand.”