Revive Us! April 24, 2009

2 Kings 4:1-7 A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.” So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.” So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”

How do you raise a generation who fears God and seeks holiness? How do you teach that humility precedes holiness to a people of such independence and pride? How do you seek to have broken vessels filled with the spirit of God. The task is daunting and at times seems unattainable. I know this, it cannot be done by the ideas of man. It will not happen because we have some cool new way of presenting God. It will not happen by implementing some new program. When the widow went to Elisha, she had nothing to stop the creditors from taking her sons into slavery but some olive oil. I can tell you this, if someone told me that the mortgage company was coming to take my little one, olive oil would not be a comforting thought. I would probably panic, had a prophet given me those instructions! However, as a youth worker, I see the enemy taking our kids onto slavery on a weekly basis. As ministers, parents, leaders, we having nothing in and of ourselves that could snatch them back from becoming slaves to the enemy of our souls. However, we do have the oil of the Spirit of God. I am praying and asking The holy spirit to be released in a powerful way among the teens that I work with. I am asking for deliverance from bondage, freedom from fears and a group of teens who can say that they have seen God. I am not interested in a youth group full of kids who can play church, talking the talk and faking holiness, I want to see the fire of God resonating from them as they seek His face. Messy? Yes, but nothing worth having comes easily or without cost! What about you, have you come to the place where you have exhausted your man made efforts to see change in a situation? It’s time to seek the face of God…not just his hand and what He can do for us, but His face! That is my heart right now! I pray that you too will begin to come to the end of human resources so that all you can do it seek Him.

Nothing….My filthy rags. April 9, 2008

There is nothing inside of me that is good. Nothing. All of my best efforts come to nothing. That is where I am at this moment. Now before you think that I am all depressed and down on myself, I will tell you straight up, I am not being a victim. I am however becoming aware of my weakness. I am becoming aware that even my strengths become liabilities when they cause me to trust them instead of God.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I began to feel that familiar numbness coming back to my spiritual life. Like my spiritual senses were becoming dull. All desire for the things of God was gone. I mean I could not even pretend to want to read my bible…or spend any significant time in prayer. I did not even want to listen to worship music at all. (if you know me, that’s a big deal.) So, I added some old school R&B to my ipod and embraced my spiritual apathy, whole heartedly. Another thing you have to understand about me, I don’t do anything halfway! I am fully in or I am fully out. I had depleted all of my own natural resources. I had nothing left to give anyone.

Last night, the small group (12th grade girls) that I lead came over to the house to discuss the book we are doing. … (experiencing God). I laugh even now at the irony. I am supposed to lead these girls to experience this God, who felt so distant even to me. We had not met together during the last two weeks…(the weeks of my apathy) but were getting caught up last night.

Here is what God did. Our conversations were about recognizing when God is speaking, or doing something, how to not feel so dead spiritually and how to want God. Crazy! Here are these beautiful girls, asking me how to do the very things that I have been avoiding. God spoke through me to them, and in turn reminded me that It’s true, I can’t do anything without Him. I can’t even want Him unless He first plants that desire in me. Even when I am feeling so deadened and disconnected from Him, He is at work, wooing me. I can’t do it. Do you get that?? It’s such a foreign concept in our world, there is no formula, there is NOTHING I can DO to make me want the things of God.

To go a little deeper here, It was my fault that I became disconnected in the first place. See, I tend to get cocky when I am doing “good” spiritually. I tend to coast through life relying on my own wisdom and my own abilities. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that my Father in heaven allowed me to wander far enough away from Him that I felt my need for Him. It reminds me of a time when my own daughter was three years old. She had a problem with wandering off in the grocery store, the mall or wherever we happened to be. Well, one day my husband and I decided she needed to learn that it was not a good idea. So we were in a store and when she wandered off to look at a toy display, we hid from her view. We could see her, but she could not see us. It took a few minutes for it to dawn on her that she was alone. I could see the emotions flickering across her face. When it finally registered that she had walked too far this time,her chin began to quiver and her eyes began to tear up. We came out from our hiding places, which were within two feet from her, and she was both angry and relieved. It may sound like a horrid thing to do, but she never wandered off again after that. I believe that God does the same with me. When I venture off of the path He is on, He just stops and waits for me to realize that I am doing it alone again. He never leaves me, but He just sort of hides Himself. Well, I am obviously a much more stubborn child than my own daughter, I don’t learn so easily. I wander off to look at my own version of toys, which I will plainly call idols. I whore myself out to all sorts of other lovers, self, people pleasing, recognition, pride, television…the list is long.

The good news though, even though I had nothing to give to that small group last night, God showed up. He helped us all to see that even the fact that I was discontent with my lack of desire for God, was the hand of God moving my heart. He showed me this verse this morning:

Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.

All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, O Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

Among all the gods, there is none like you… among all the idols that I erect in my life, there is none who can compare to Him! None of my “toys” will be able to come close to filling my emptiness. I want an undivided heart, to love Him. I want all the other lovers to fade away in the presence of God Almighty.

Great is HIS LOVE TOWARD ME. not my love toward Him. Even if I were a junkie, in an alley somewhere, His love for me would be the same. It is His faithfulness that will see me through to the end. It’s His loving kindness that will woo me to Him. Thank God, it is not reliant on my desires or lack thereof!

Like a child February 1, 2008

My daughter (8yrs old) came into the living room this week to ask me if we could cuddle. I said sure and put my laptop down to make room in my lap. As we sat there talking about her day at school she began to ask questions about God. Her main question seemed to be how did one get to know God better. I began to tell her the normal stuff, you know, read His word, pray to Him and listen to Him when He speaks back to you. She looked at me intently and said, well, i do pray and I do my devotionals…..but I have not heard Him speak back, HOW does that happen? I felt the Holy Spirit leading me as I picked up my bible next to me and began to read out of I Samuel 3:1-21. I love the story, so I am posting it:

The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.  One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.  The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.  Then the LORD called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.”  And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.  Again the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” “My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.  The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD : The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

  And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.  At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end.  For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.  Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’ “

  Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision,  Samuel answered, “Here I am.”  “What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.”  So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.” And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD.  The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.

I went on to explain to my daughter about how God can still speak to His people, if we will listen. It may not be an audible voice, but he speaks in many ways. I love that it says above in verse 3 that the lamp of the Lord had not yet gone out. The lamp of the Lord was supposed to burn all night. So that means that God spoke to Samuel in the night. It has been my experience that God does speak to me more often at night. My only reasoning, is that is the time when I am most still. Since I was about 13 or 14, God has given me prophetic dreams often revealing things to pray about for others or situations that need to be covered in prayer. I would always wake up right after the dream, with an intense concern for the situation. If you know me, you know that it would have to be God to get me out of bed in the middle of the night!

Anyway, I digress, the point is this, I have been really wondering If God was real to my daughter. I know it’s not my job to make God real, but I don’t want to make Him appear small to her either. I was beyond excited when this conversation ended because she got really excited too. She asked me to please pray for her to begin to hear the voice of God. That she would be open to dreams and visions from Him. Praise God!! I was able to lay hands on her and pray that her spiritual eyes and ears would be opened to God. I am just overwhelmed by God’s grace that He would woo my little girl into a relationship with Him. I don’t know what he has in store for her, but I pray that like Samuel, as she grows up, God will not let her words fall to the ground either!

How does God speak to you? Are you being still enough to listen to Him? There is nothing in the world more transforming to one’s soul than to hear the voice of God. Nothing more intimate than to have the secret’s of God’s heart revealed to you. He longs for this type of relationship with His people. He is not a stoic God who is detached from His children. He longs to be intimate. He longs to share what is on His heart with you! Seek Him and you WILL find Him!

sleeping January 8, 2008

Have you ever had a limb fall asleep? Maybe you fell asleep lying on your arm or maybe you sat on your foot for too long. You really don’t notice it…until you try to use it. Then it can seem as if small needles are pricking you from the inside as blood rushes to bring its life back into the slumbering entity. That to me is the most painful part of this whole sleeping limb thing.

There is a part of my spirit that fell asleep long ago. I remember when it happened. I remember choosing to cut the flow of life to that part of me because it was too overwhelming at times. So I chose to pretend it did not exist. I pretended that it was no longer relevant. I chose to ignore who I was created to be!

Recently, my loving Jesus began to bring to mind this sleeping limb. He is calling me to begin using this sleeping part of me. This part that I have buried beneath layers of fear of man and the unknown for so long that it lays dormant within me. The more I try to move, the more painful it becomes as life rushes back into my soul.

This sleeping part of me is one of the spiritual gifts that He imparted to me long ago. I am so broken hearted that I hid from it for so long, but I am so grateful that He loved me enough to wait until I can handle it. I don’t want to have to tell Him one day, that I buried it, No, I want to be a good steward of what He has given me. I want to use it to His glory!

Oh, for more thoughts on stewardship go check out Tam. She just wrote something about the same topic!

emotional sex? October 31, 2007

I am reposting this for the girls of inside out youth group.

Yes, for those of you who read Just another day’s blog, I am referring to her latest, go check it out!!

See, the two of us lead a girls small group that meets weekly. One of the things that came up last night in our little group of wonderful and honest high schoolers, was the issue of boys! Shocking, huh? I think we spend a lot of time in the Christian community warning our kids about the perils of premarital sex but very little is ever said about the emotional side of relationships. We spend little time talking to our girls about the fact that as females, we crave an emotional connection. We crave intimacy, not necessarily sex. The common misconception with the teens that I have come into relationship with over the past ten years or so, is that intimacy just means sex.

Last night, we talked to the girls about the issue of the emotional side of relationships. That when we share our hearts, our pain, our disappointments, our fears, our dreams and our hope with a man, we feel bonded to them because we just gave them a piece of our heart. Then if by chance we have a friendship with a man who shares his own heart, oh my goodness, we begin thinking we have found THE ONE! Somehow we feel that he obviously feels the same, or he would never have shared such “intimate” things with us! The truth however, is for a man, he is just talking! No big deal! He does not feel that he just got “naked” in front of you! He is not feeling that he just bared his soul to you!

Can you see where the confusion can come in between males and females? We really are a different sex! We are wired very differently. I see it too often that a girl ties her soul to the soul of some boy who listened to her heart, and shared his own with her then when the relationship ends, he takes off with a small piece of her fragile heart. I just feel that we need to do a better job at preparing girls and guys for that matter, for relationships and the boundaries that should be in place. We must teach them how to guard their heart. It does not mean we teach them to be fake, or to have up impenetrable walls! We just have to teach them how to “do” relationships. We are not born knowing how to be in a relationship.

Any thoughts?

October 9, 2007

THis is him…being him!

1. Who is your man? Jon-sensitive, hilarious, best dad in the world, amazing preacher, leader and so wise, it is sick!

2. How long have you been together? forever…ahem, what I meant to say was: married 9 1/2 years

3. How long did you date? almost 3 years including a year long engagement.

4. How old is your man? 33- I was jail bait! : )

5. Who eats more? hmmm… gonna say him…but wouldn’t know it by looking at us! : P

6. Who said I love you first? Him

7. Who is taller? He is

8. Who sings better?hahahah… me…but he can carry a tune! He is an amazing melody carrier for my family of harmonizers!

9. Who is smarter? That is a toss up… we are both very smart, just in different ways…I think our IQ’s were within points of each other…. 10. Whose temper is worse? TOTALLY mine!

11. Who does the laundry? me

12. Who takes out the trash? Jon

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? me – but only bc its the side that’s closer to the bathroom … stealing this answer from Mandy…

14. Who pays the bills? Me

15. Who is better with the computer? Me

16. Who mows the lawn? hubby

17. Who cooks dinner? definitely me.

18. Who drives when you are together? depends on how out of control I am feeling… He teases that when I am stressed, I like to take the wheel! : )

19. Who is the most stubborn? SOOO me..

20. Whose parents do you like the most? hmmm what an incriminating question…. (see how I evaded it?? lol )

21. Who kissed who first? HE did…

22. Who asked out who? I did… I was 15 he was 20.. i asked him to homecoming…

23. Who proposed? he did.

24. Who has more friends? definitely him.. He is a people person where I tend to be a hermit.

25. Who has more siblings? He does… I have a brother. Jon has a sister, a half sister and two half brothers.