Promises of God

Settling into His will

Be on your guard [constantly alert], and watch and pray; for you do not know when the time will come. Mark 13:33

If you have ever missed a plane or a train, you know how disappointing it feels. Commuter trains are especially fast. In the two minutes it took to buy the paper I just had to have, the train left me in the dust.

Ever feel like there is some big definitive thing God wants you to do and you either haven’t figured it out yet or He hasn’t informed you what it is? If you grew up in church like me, you probably heard that “God has a plan for your life” a hundred or so times. Well, He does have a plan. He wants you to know Him and He wants you to walk hand in hand with Him for rest of your life, all the way into eternity. End of story.

Once we have done that, He will lead us in the other big decisions of life…….”in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:6

We don’t have to feel that God’s plan is on a train and we just missed it. His timing is perfect and as long as I am praying and seeking His will, I can rest in the fact that He will lead me in the right direction. God is extremely creative! If I miss an opportunity, He will supply another one. He is extremely patient. He doesn’t hold His plan above our heads waiting to see if we can figure it out, it is all mapped out perfectly in His Word!

The challenge is resting confidently in His will as we begin to live it out.  These promises are ours to help us on the way…….

“This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.” Isaiah 48:17

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” Psalm 32:8

photo from google images

A Year filled with Promise


So far this New Year feels much like the old one for me, since I am working. As I stared out through the windshield on my morning commute, grateful that there was almost nobody on the road (hey there’s a blessing!) I thought about the New Year and what it means. I wonder how the year went so fast…..In my honest reflection, I had to admit that there are some circumstances that I do not feel positive about going into the New Year. But then I thought about the Big Picture. All the good surrounding me. Good friends, good family, and surrounding on every side are God’s promises. When I think of everything He has brought me through how can I be anything but eternally grateful and also hopeful for what’s ahead?
While we all wish each other a New Year full of  prosperity and blessings, we know that there will be things that happen that will stop us in our tracks, take the wind out of our sails, make us want to crawl through the wardrobe and find a secret world like the Narnia kids. Just today I heard of a dear blogger who lost her husband on Christmas Eve, and another who lost her home and everything in it and yet…..and yet…. she is grateful that they all escaped unharmed.

Sometimes you have to stare really hard through the fog of our circumstances to see the good that surrounds us. But it is getting easier for me to do this, I am happy to say. It is nothing that I have done, it’s everything He’s done and continues to do. This is not just looking on the bright side. What it is, is knowing, remembering, all those times before when I thought I couldn’t…… and He said….Yes you can, I will help you. I have promised to never leave you and I never will….It is knowing who He is.

As I was thinking these things, He gave me one of those confirmations. As I was praying the song I needed to hear, Mighty to Save came on the radio, and right after that, Jesus Saves. He was telling me twice, not to worry.

God is in the outfield, and you are the fly ball, He says, “I got it!”
He is also across the chasm with His hands outstretched, saying “Jump, I’ve got you!”

Just like He grabbed Peter when he started to sink……..Why did I ever doubt?

Isaiah 40:31 – but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Psalm 71:5 – For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth.
Romans 5:2 – through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Psalms 27:5 – For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
Ephesians 3:20 – Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…..

Christmas in the Desert



Desert Botanical Gardens

Thought you might enjoy some Christmas decorations with a bit of a Southwestern flair……

Down here in the desert we have to be a bit creative when it comes to outdoor lighting…..
  

What we lack in “Christmas” weather, we make up for in spirit!

Stillman/McCormick Railroad Park, Scottsdale Arizona

Of course we also have the more “traditional” setting up North in Flagstaff if we dream of a white Christmas!

 Hope you are enjoying His blessings this Christmas Season……

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Luke 2:10

Photos from flicker, google and arizona travel

When you are stressed…….

“But now, this is what the Lord says…he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel; Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior….Since you are precious and honored in my sight and because I love you.” Isaiah 43:1-4

Now repeat the above verses with your own name in place of “O Jacob” and “O Israel”

When we are suffering and our hearts feel overwhelmed by the pain of our circumstance, even though we know these words to be true in our minds, they don’t always find their way into our hearts, where they are needed the most. What about when someone we love is suffering? We want so to comfort them, to say and do the right thing, to take the pain away, or at least help them make some sense out of it. In our haste sometimes we say the wrong things, or say nothing at all because we really and truly have not been in their shoes. We don’t want to speak of something we have never experienced for fear of sounding critical or presumptious like Job’s friends. Their kind of help could be included under the subtitle: “What Not to Say to a Hurting Person.”

Yet in the beginning they did the best thing they could do, they surrounded Job with comfort. They wept with him…..”Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” Job 2:13

Sometimes the best thing to do is to sit beside them in silence. Grasp their hand, put your arms around them. Pray with them. Pray for wisdom to give Godly advice, and wait……If you are the one hurting, know that God has not left you……How could He ever leave the one He created? Who called you by name?

God is not like your earthly father. Difficult circumstances do not mean He has failed or abandoned you. He has not left you at the school gate. God does not forget the child He made. He has not put you to one side while He is busy with other people. He is not bored with you, and He did not leave you midproject. He adores you. In fact, He promises (and God is incapable of breaking a promise) in Joshua 1:5, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Beth Redman, “God knows my Name”

I dedicate the above selection to my best friend Elaine today, who is going through a very difficult time with her Dad right now.

A New Start

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22

I broke my rule of being disconnected this weekend off, what can I say? Although, WIFI being what it is, I could not post anything……On the first evening there, while eating out on a patio over-hanging the Oak Creed in Sedona, an evening thunder storm blew in. We ate to the chorus of cicadas who were heralding in the storm…..they always seem to know it before we do.

When we stepped off the curb we were treated to the most beautiful complete rainbow we had ever seen. The contrast was breaktaking. It really was one of the highlights of the whole trip. Those of you who have spent time in the desert know that rainbows don’t happen all the time, except in late summer when storms come and go frequently….

This was one of those times when God says, “Hey, remember me? I am still here, and I haven’t forgotten my promise. Forget all those scientific explanations on the hows and whys of rainbows, I am the God of science. Science is me playing with my chemistry set for fun!

Everyone was leaning out of car windows, out on their balconies with cameras flashing…..trying to catch God at work. I only wish I could have posted the whole thing, which my friend took and perfectly got the two shots to line up…..It refused to post side by side.

We walked back to camp in the rain…..glad to be handed such a gift as such a time when it was sorely needed……I like to think that every living thing that witnessed it, did not take it lightly but somewhere deep in their being, they remembered a covenant made by a God who loves them….

 
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.  Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” Genesis 9:12-15

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22

Faith like Noah

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 6:11-12

I am celebrating rain today. We finally had the kind of rain that people in the desert dream of. Sideways, torrential rain. All this rain puts me in mind of Noah. I am trying to imagine the kind of faith it would take to keep on building an Ark for anywhere between 55 to 75 years. (This figure was developed by a very smart Biblical research guy, not me.) I also could not find anywhere in the Bible where it says that the people taunted Noah while he was building it, but given the cultural climate I would say it is a strong possibility they did. The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Genesis 6:5

Ever had someone say to you, “You really believe all that stuff?” Referring to the events in the Bible. They look at you with a bemused mixture of disbelief and bewilderment, and sometimes downright anger depending on who you are talking to. You may as well have just told then that aliens had kidnapped you from your bed and then flown you back to earth in time for work.

All the while Noah just kept hammering away, mixing up more pitch and sawing up more cypress. And watching the sky….It must have been very hard for he and his family. Lets face it, if we are to be honest, even if a 8 foot tall heavenly messenger came complete with thundering voice and glowing countenance, sooner or later they go away and you are left with insulting crowds and a clear sky with no rain in sight.

He just kept building. Just like we keep on believing. We belong to the family of Noah after all. When we really start to count up the ways we exercise our faith on a daily basis, we realize we have quite a bit in common with Noah after all. We pray to a God we can’t see and we believe He answers and we look to the sky just like Noah did.

“Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.” Genesis 7:6-9

I wish I could have seen it. All the animals walking peaceably side by side, leopards, elephants, goats, crocodiles, as Noah stood by the door with his staff….Thank you God for Noah’s great faith, and for the rain.

Answers from the Psalms


You cried to me in trouble, and I saved you; I answered out of the thundercloud and tested your faith when there was no water at Meribah. Psalm 81:7

Counting hope today in expectation of the answers……”In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation!” Psalm 5:3 We can pray in expectation because we know He is faithful. I love the idea of David laying his requests before God in the morning…..He wasn’t afraid to be open and transparent before God….and vulnerable. He knew that God would answer because of all the times He had answered in the past. He also knew that true faith means coming before the Lord with full assurance that God had already worked it out!

David made some big mistakes just like we all have, but he still knew that he was God’s child. He knew that his help truly came from the Lord and no one else. Maybe you had a parent you could never count on. You always had hope that at least one time they would come through for you, but they never did. One time give a word of encouragement. One time, show up for the game. One time, say they loved you, were pulling for you, were on your side. You gave up, on them, on yourself….feeling you must not be worth it.

But take heart, because our Heavenly Father is not like that. He is in the bleachers cheering you on. He always has been. He says, you are mine and you are worthy! We need to look no further than Calvary to remind ourselves that God thinks we are indeed worth it.

“For you have heard my vows, O God; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.” Psalm 61:5 #361

“They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.” Psalm 22:5 #362

“I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.” Psalm 40:1 #363

#364 flowers in summer, #365 laughter when all else fails, #366 answers, expected and unexpected, #367 the gift of health, #368 time off work, #369 air-conditioning when it’s 112 in the shade, #370 parents that were there……

holy experience

Lo, I am with you always…


This morning right before I awoke I dreamed I was staring at the sky much like the one above, and as I was gazing at it, a very large hand came reaching down out of the clouds. It was huge, a God-sized hand, the biggest thing I have ever seen in the sky. I gasped and turned around, hoping someone else was seeing it too. But nobody did.

I think sometimes God sends us little messages to let us know that He is with us. He knows we are weak, get tired, lose hope, need our spirits lifted. I know it lifted mine this morning. I don’t think there was any deep message in it, except that God was saying, “I am here.” Maybe this message of hope is for you today.

“The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.” Psalm 34:7 Even Jesus needed angels to comfort Him in the garden before He went to the cross. If He needed their comfort, what makes us think they don’t tend to us as well? I think if we could really see the spiritual activity all around us, it would greatly change how we live from day to day.

Jesus knew of it, and the demons who greeted Him knew of it too, but most of the time we are woefully ignorant. And sometimes, the here and now is painful, blinding us to it even further. All we can see is the hopelessness of our circumstances. Sometimes though He breaks through and reaches us where we are.

I had just lost my husband and I was walking around in a black vacuum. The grand-piano sized grief had settled on my chest and I carried it everywhere. One day I was checking out at the grocery store. As the checker handed me my change and looked at me, I felt some undescribable. It was as if Jody himself was looking out through his eyes saying, “Everything’s gonna be fine.” I have always thought it was an angel. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1:14
All these years later, the memory has not dimmed. I was shaken by the encounter and rocked by emotion. I fled the store. But at the same time it gave me hope. He was right of course, everything was fine eventually. Everything will be fine for you as well. Whatever it is you’re facing, He is with you!

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand. Psalm 37:23,24

Keep looking to the sky!

Encouragement from Paul

Painting by Richard Serrin
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Col. 3:1-4

I can see Paul with his parchments in this cold, dank prison cell. Praying for his church. Praying for us all. This gives me encouragement today, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” people we may not even be aware of….praying for us, for the race, and at last the finish line…..”let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

May you be surrounded by the peace of Jesus today….

To see more of the artwork of Richard Serrin go here.

Evening Praise


As I was walking this morning I felt an unaccountable gloominess. A flatness. I waited for the joy that usually comes when I listen to the songs of praise, but it didn’t come. For someone who has just started a two month sabbatical, just coming off a wonderful vacation I should feel ecstatic, joyful. But the feeling doggedly haunted my steps. I praised God anyway. I passed some chalk drawings on the driveway, highly unusual in a retirement community; hopscotch and people with stick arms and legs. The whimsical innocent drawings of childhood made me smile, but there was also a sadness behind it. I was reminded of how much time I am missing being so far from my 7 year old niece. But my Father knew all the things I was feeling and He had a surprise.

I think sometimes He allows the gray feelings so that we can recognize the brightness of His Presence when it comes. That way He gets the glory. I settled into my “prayer chair.” I thanked Him for the day, for my health, my breath, and that of my family, friends. I needed something else. I started praying for whatever and whomever came to mind, going down the list. Then as so often happens when I need to hear from God, I opened His word and this is what I saw.
Isaiah 55:6-12
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
How did God know exactly what I needed to hear at that moment? What I got out of it was this. God is omnipresent, unchanging, omnipotent. Nothing is a surprise to Him. He knows exactly what I am feeling at any moment…..and here is the important part. He cares about His daughter enough to come down to my humble place of prayer, to quicken His Spirit within me, to completely obliterate the grayness, and totally change my outlook…..and He did, all in a matter of minutes! And if He hadn’t? He would still be God, still be in control. I would still love Him just as much because He is worthy!

I may read those same verses tomorrow and it won’t have the same effect at all, but today, He shone a light behind them just for me and maybe, hopefully, for someone else reading this as well. Those verses leapt off the page and into my heart, and blasted me with His brilliance and again I was caught off guard!

We really do serve an awesome God. Thank you Father, for surprising me once again with Your joy!