Scattered

Have you ever considered who or what you are putting your trust in? Who or what do you trust to protect you? Who or what do you trust with your most important decisions? Who or what guides your steps? Who or what would you trust with your most valuable possessions? Who would you trust to take care of the people most important to you?

Do you trust Siri to get you to your destination?

Do you trust the 24 hour News Channel to keep you up to date on world events so you can protect your family?

Do you trust the financial institution to make good decisions with your money so you actually have some when you are ready to retire?

Do you trust your pastor to tell you the truths that will save your soul?

Do you trust the interpretation of scripture you have grown up with to be THE right answer to all of life’s theological questions?

Do you trust your children’s teachers to teach them the things that will make them succeed in life?

Do you trust your friends to meet all your relational needs?

Do you trust your family to meet all your expectations?

Do you trust that cell phone to protect your child when they are out of your site?

Do you trust that cell phone to protect you when you are out and about?

Do you trust Facebook to build and maintain connections in your life?

Do you have a trusted book or author to teach you important, life altering truths?

Do you have a favorite ministry that you put all your faith in?

Do you trust yourself to get the job done right?

I recently went on an event where I was encouraged to unplug for almost a week. I decided to not only unplug but to travel without my phone. This event included an 8 hour adventure into the great outdoors alone with God. My youngest was very disturbed that I would wander into the woods all alone without a lifeline…cell phone. She wanted to know how I would get help if something happened to me.

I obviously returned from that adventure no thanks to the wonders of technology. I also found out a little about trust while I was there. I found out why there was so much internal chaos and tension in so many areas of my life even with television and books and Facebook and cell phones and friends and pastors and ministries to manage all the things in my life. I had plenty of trust…but it was just misplaced.

I wasn’t trusting God. I wasn’t believing He was in charge. I wasn’t believing He would do all He has promised. What is the opposite of belief? Yup, that was me. WAS!

WAS…and then I came home and got BUSY!

Yesterday, right before I started writing this post, God nudged me and reminded me I was doing it again. I know it was Him because it wasn’t condemning. It was gentle. He was asking me how I had been spending my time. He was asking me where I had been putting my trust. My anxiety was up and my countenance was low and He asked me to stop and look at Him. He asked me to stop and get back together with Him. He asked me to put down everything in my hands and just spend time with Him. He asked me to get out of the 4 or 5 books I’m in the middle of reading and get into the one He wrote for me.

And then He said it again thru the words of a preacher that He knew I’d be hearing last night. He confirmed what He had said just in case I wasn’t paying attention the first time. This was good. It was good because I have a track record that God is changing. I don’t know what your experience of hearing God is, but I tend to hear SLOWWWWLY. It isn’t uncommon for me to finally clue in to what He has been saying on about the 3rd day and the 3rd or 4th attempt to get my attention. But this time I knew what He was saying when he said it and He provided a really quick confirmation that it is important.

He is building my trust in Him, but He needs my attention turned to Him to do that. It is no wonder I feel so unsettled and so scattered with my trust thrown around in so many places other than the One place with any power.

Ink with Wings

Have you ever been in the middle of reading and something just flew off the page and into your head and you couldn’t get it out? Has that ever happened while you were reading something familiar as if this was the first time you had ever seen it? Has it happened with a truth that seems so common sense that you aren’t really sure why it never hit you like that before?

Did Oprah call those lightbulb moments or was that Al Gore?

That is what they feel like to me. Those moments feel like someone reached over and flipped a switch and all of a sudden I see or understand something more clearly than before. My handsome fella is always saying he is going to write a book of common sense. I think the thing that flew off the page at me today might fit somewhere in that book.

“A sword is not a real weapon when it is still in the sheath. It must be taken out and used as needed!” – Beverly Sawyer, HeartQuest devotional

Sounds pretty common sense, huh? Anyone older than two could probably tell you you have to take the sword out of its case in order to be able to use it properly. I suppose you could whack someone in the head with it but that isn’t exactly what a sword is designed to do.

It’s just a common sense quote until you read it in context and THEN…THEN it spreads wings and flies. It comes alive or it did for me.

What happens when you read that sentence in the context of spiritual warfare? What happens when you find out that quote was referring to the sword of the Spirit – the Word of God?

Here it is in context…

“This is “Rhema” – the “living Word”; Stay in the written Word and in close relationship with the “living Word”. Allow Him to show you how to apply the truths you read. A sword is not a real weapon when it is still in the sheath. It must be taken out and used as needed!” – Beverly Sawyer, HeartQuest devotional

Until fairly recently, the past few years, the bible was pretty dry for me to read. I read it. I went to a Christian University and attended the bible classes. I owned more than one. I owned more than one version. I have more than one Bible app with more than one version on each one. I frequent websites on my computer that make it handy to read the bible even when there isn’t one handy. Big deal. It still seemed dry.

And then something happened. It started coming alive. It started to matter. It started to make a difference in my life. I began to see things I had never seen before in stories I had read or heard all my life. God began to highlight scriptures that I needed for particular circumstances in my life. Bible stories began to take on a form other than flannel.

The bible became more than a book to pound people over the head with. The words began to leave the pages and make their way past my eyes and into my heart. The word became the Word in my life.

I’ve got a long way to go. There is much I’ve read but haven’t “seen”. There are promises I struggle to believe are for me. I could write a whole new post about people in the bible who believed the promises without living to see their fulfillment yet they still believed and we got a front row seat into the fulfillment.

Today His Word and word have become much more dear to me. His word has become much more alive. My desire to take his words out of the book and apply them where they go in my life has become much more real. I no longer want to see the words in that book left in their cover. They don’t belong there. They weren’t meant to stay there.

They were meant to fly!

New Year…New Life…New Hope

Happy New Year!

I wonder how many times that was said when the clock struck 12:00am? I wonder what all became new at 12:00am other than the number on the calendar that moved from 2014 to 2015. I wonder how many babies were born at or just after midnight around the world. I wonder how many dreams were born.

I’ve seen people’s dreams and goals and resolutions for the New Year posted on Facebook. I’ve seen hope expressed for a better year than the one they just lived thru. I’ve seen hope for another good year. I’ve seen plans to fulfill lifelong dreams and plans to begin to dream.

And as the New Year begins…I’ve seen people celebrating and people grieving. I’ve seen people expressing joy and people expressing despair. I’ve seen the same things I saw yesterday.

Is new really just a number on the clock or a date on the calendar?

Plenty of people set goals and resolutions to begin the new year.

Plenty of people will break those goals before the week is up.

Nothing new about that…

Plenty of people will make a promise to love better.

Plenty of people will break that promise before the day is up.

Nothing new about that…

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9

Nothing new? Where is the hope for a new year if everything stays the same? Where is the hope for a new year if there is nothing new under the sun? Where is the hope for reconciliation and progress and redemption if there is nothing new under the sun? Where is the hope for hope when its been lost if nothing ever changes?

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

¹⁷ “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. – Isaiah 65:17

⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. – Romans 6:4

For You are my hope, O Lord GOD;
You are my trust from my youth. – Psalm 71:5

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord. – Jeremiah 17:7

⁵ Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. – Romans 5:5

Happy New Year! May your year be full of all the newness that He provides! May your heart be filled with hope and joy enough to share! May God’s goodness and love fill every part of your life in 2015…and beyond!