Walking with God

Count it all joy……

God always answers prayer, sometimes the answer is silence……

Ever been in silence that seems so deep it almost has a volume all it’s own? A snowfall comes to mind, or standing in the woods in the hush of morning, just before dawn. Ever been in the middle of some task, and God drops one of those quiet thoughts into your mind? It comes unbidden and settles softly in the space of whatever you happen to be doing. Like a gentle snowflake that lands on your palm or tongue…..we can either recieve it or brush it away. You know it, it is that still small voice of the Lord.

I got one of those yesterday. It started with a crumpled napkin. I saw it and got a flicker of a thought, lighter than a feather it came. “I should save that,” I thought, as I collected it off the table……You see, when you have suffered a loss, a grief that is total and unexpected, you tend to think like that every now and then, even years later. It carves out a place, leaves a mark, changes you forever. It says, hang onto that because they might not come through the door ever again. Save that coffee cup because it was what they were using, and you may never see their face again. Not in this life anyway…..It says, keep that because she or he loved that, it was his, it was hers….A husband, a wife, a best friend, a parent, a child.

Loss carves a hole in you that you always seek to fill. But there is only One who can….

But here is what I realized yesterday, and not for the first time: I am thankful for what I have learned from my loss, because I cherish the people in my life more. I truly do know that it may be the last time I see them, this side of  Heaven anyway…….Grief teaches you to pay attention. To learn what makes the ones you love light up. Compliment them on big and small things……see what makes the life spring into their eyes and makes them walk a bit taller. Notice when they look down or troubled. Never hesitate to do these things, you will be so glad you did.

God can make something beautiful out of all our losses, whatever they may be, and once we have made it through we can be intruments of His comfort to others. In time we can rejoice. Hold fast to His hand and let him carry you into the daylight of His grace. I rejoice today because of all God has brought me through……It is Thanksgiving in the midst of everything! Or maybe in spite of everything.

I am filled with humble gratitude when I think of all the ways He has revealed Himself to me, I just can’t help wanting to share it…….”So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6,7

Photo of japanese maple leaf from birds and blooms dot com

God’s Blueprint

Eagles in falling snow, h.d. wallpapers

Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents.
It was loaned to you by your children.
Kenyan Proverb

“If you placed all the pieces of a watch into a shoebox and shook it for ten minutes, do you believe it would shake into a functioning watch? Of course not. What if you shook it for a year? Would a functioning watch then come out of the box? Say you were able to shake it for five billion years; would you then have a functioning watch? There is no possible way for that to happen. And if it couldn’t happen by chance to something relatively simple like a watch, it most certainly couldn’t happen by chance to our magnificently complex universe.” One Heartbeat Away, your journey into eternity by Mark Cahill

How did we get here?
What happens after we take that last breath?
What is the purpose of all this?

The Bible provides the answers and in his book, One Heartbeat Away, Mark Cahill lays it all out in a wonderfully systematic and logical way in light of what Scripture and our own universe actually tells us. Our Creator has left so many clues behind in nature itself; we have only to open our minds and hearts to see them. God has left us a blueprint to find Him in everything we see around us, and yet so many times we seek other explanations and alternatives that are grounded in theory and speculation, but not proof.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of this book…..

 “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?
 Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
 It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
a rocky crag is its stronghold.
 From there it looks for food;
its eyes detect it from afar.” GOD 
Job 39:26-29
 
Continuing the gratitude count today……..snow flakes gathered on pine branches, suns rays slanting through pines, more rain in the desert, exhilaration of the trail and the view from the top, crunch of frozen leaves underfoot, nature moments that catch your breath, jumping fish in a still lake, seeing so many bald eagles in Alaska I didn’t know where to aim the camera….. recognizing God’s footprints in everything I see, knowing that same God wants to know me…..#549-559

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The view from the top

The climber climbs for the joy of it, and because he believes the view from the top will be worth it. We climb too, knowing the Keeper of our steps holds our feet fast; though we slip He keeps us from falling headlong. Though the climb is strenuous and sometimes difficult He surprises us with joys unspeakable on the journey at every turn and infuses us with the hope of victory at the top where He waits…… 
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Acts 17:24-27
There will be many people at malls in the coming weeks, and rushing too and fro on the freeways, working, eating, visiting, sleeping, and all the while there is a God who waits for them to look His way. He does not need us, but He wants us!
His heart aches for knowing that those who do know Him will not speak of Him often enough, though they know the wonderful truth, the wonderful story…….Lord, make Your Word sing in our hearts and make the melody so bright, so clear, so strong that we can no longer keep it in!

Ask, seek, knock…..

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.
Corrie Ten Boom

He who hung the great lights and set all this in motion still has everything under control…….We get hung up on the hows and whys of everything, but there are some things we don’t need to know. Even if He did supply us with the specifics they would be way beyond our grasp anyway. We like to congratulate ourselves on our own intellegence, but our knowledge next to God’s is puny. We think we have everything figured out, but go outside and gaze at the harvest moon as it climbs into the sky and see if you still do……The only thing we need to know is the One who started all this. Once we know Him, the hows and whys don’t really matter anymore.

Ask……Seek…..Knock…..

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7,8

Get close to the One who breathed into you the breath of life and you will begin to live the way you were meant to all along……

Sing the song of the morning stars and be thankful this day that you are breathing air, that you get another day to live, and wake and work. Know that any problem you have can be worked out, worked through. Hope is there as long as you have breath, and there is always more than enough hope when we know the Hope-giver.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew {their} strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; {and} they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. C.S. Lewis

How to stay young at heart…..



Willow tree angel of the heart
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it…….Proverbs 4:23
My best friend Elaine and I recently re-connected with some dear people who were some of the first that we met when we came to Arizona years ago. Ruby sold Mary Kay and I ran out of lipstick! We had an instant connection cemented by lots of laughter. I don’t know why we lost touch, and it doesn’t really matter. Life has a way of carrying people in different directions sometimes, but I always believe that God loves to orchestrate reunions too. What a blessing it was to find that none of us had changed much, and our hearts had not changed at all! It seemed to me like the last 8-9 years had dissolved and that we were all standing in the same spot we were when last we met.
Isn’t it a blessing to have friends like that? Ron and Ruby will be the first to tell you that “old age ain’t for sissies.” They have had their share of health problems and surgeries, but they have retained the secret of youth. Laughter, their love for the Lord and each other, staying in the Word, (both are leading Bible studies), keeping up on current events, watching the Pastor’s  four children and learning new things. Most importantly they have not forgotten how to laugh at themselves! They don’t allow their own problems to consume them, but realize the importance of listening to others concerns and joys.
Their home is strewn with signs of life, children’s toys, open Bibles on the table, books with markers in them, paintings and new photos on the walls and cookies in the jar. Even though they are in their seventies and probably have many aches and pains, they dress sharp and they stay positive. They know the Source of hope! Theirs is a home full of life, a house of hope. A place where you want to take off your shoes and stay awhile. They have figured out the secret of staying young at heart. We all know youth won’t last, but our hearts can stay young forever. That is something we have control over!
Have you ever visited a home and a people that have given up? You can’t wait to get out the door!
What a blessing it is to re-connect with old friends, and what a blessing to find that all the important things have not changed; for it is the Spirit of God that draws us together. No matter what our age, background, cultural differences, the Spirit of love binds our hearts and dissolves the differences that the world wants to put between us so many times. We have become a society that seeks to separate…..Sometimes we separate ourselves, and that is never good. There is so much we can all learn from each other at every age!
Thank you God for bringing us back together with our special friends at just the right time……….and thank you for the magic of laughter, which came just as easy as it ever did to us all, even after years apart, what a blessing!
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Philippians 2:1,2

“You will not find a soul mate in the quiet of your room. You must go to a noisy place and look in the quiet corners.” Robert Brault

A Rational Response

Faith is a rational response to the evidence of God’s self revelation in nature, human history, the Scriptures, and His resurrected Son. W. Bingham Hunter, “The God Who Hears.”

In my reading of Scripture today about Jesus resurrection I was thinking about how people want proof that God is real, proof that the Bible is real, proof that Jesus really was raised from the dead. If they only had “proof” they say, then they would believe. Yet there was proof. Is proof:

Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:19,20

All the evidence is in…….Jesus was seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses after the resurrection. Nobody ever denied that the tomb was empty, but instead they offered up different theories as to why it was empty….by His very resurrection from the dead, He proved that everything He said was true. Mary was the first to see the empty tomb, then she ran to tell the disciples. Peter and another disciple ran to the tomb and saw it empty…….”Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.” John 20:8-10 

But Mary stayed behind at the tomb and Jesus appeared to her……… John 20:11-16

He is a rewarder of all who seek Him.

“A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.” Ravi Zacharias

Continuing my gratitude count today, gratitude that God has left so much evidence around us…..He wants so very much for us to find Him, to know Him……Thankful today for the endless traces of His presence…..Just enough oxygen for us to breathe, just enough warmth from the sun, just enough heartbeats to keep us going, just the right amount of blood that pumps through, carrying life……shelter from the elements…..laughter to give us hope, just enough gravity to keep our feet on the ground and keep us from spinning off the planet, enough wind to make us wonder…..enough faith and joy to keep us from giving up, and more than enough love to save us, even when we don’t deserve it…..#538-548

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Rhythms of life…..

Greer, Arizona

Ah……Finally there is a chance to “feel” Fall. Crisp days and cold clear nights are something we wait for anxiously here in our part of Arizona. While most of the U.S. is dealing with their first snow storms and freezes, we are feeling like October in November. Finally I am getting in the mood for pumpkin pie and chili, and Christmas baking, and warm fires. It’s funny how even though you move away from a place, that place stays with you. I am remembering Northern California and stacking wood with my Dad and sitting on the floor cracking walnuts with my Mom, getting the worn flannel shirt out of the closet for the first time. Endless leaves in profusions of color, wet and soggy from the rain, sticking to everything they touched. Bach’s concerto number 3……which to me only and always means fall.

When I moved here I thought that maybe I would lose the rhythm of the seasons entirely. But I have been here for years, and I have noticed that a pattern of seasons all its own emerged anyway. Fall here means something a bit different than what I grew up with. It means sowing the winter rye if you have lawn, and buying flowers you can’t grow in summer…..There is a rhythm, really, to the whole universe wherever we are, we carry it with us. It’s a part of Gods grand design. There is a steadiness to dawn and dusk, summer and winter……reassurance that all will go on as it has before.

Since I started having a regular morning prayer time, I have noticed a pattern emerge within myself. It feels steady, and right…..it’s as if I am mirroring the bigger pattern that is happening all around me. It’s a way of setting things right in my own world, or rather, laying everything at God’s feet once again, my small offering of praise.


Tlaquepaque Chapel, Sedona Arizona

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

Marching orders……

I would like to wish all veterans past, present, and future a blessed Veteran’s Day, we love you and we appreciate your sacrifices to preserve our freedom and protect us all…..We thank you, our prayers are with you!

Really, we are all fighting in a war of some kind or other. No one has to tell you that, we all feel it. The Bible compares the Christian life to a war, and a race. Nobody goes to fight a battle without a battle plan, or a directive, some marching orders. Jesus said right before He went to the cross in His agonizing prayer in the garden, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” He knew that the war was almost won….

He gave us our marching orders too. How many times I have struggled and asked God for that one definitive thing in my life that He wants me to do, and yet all I have to do is open the Bible and it is laid out plain and simple. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

And then there is this……

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Matthew 25:34-36

Sometimes I remind myself of my little cat. If he sees a bird outside or hears a strange noise, he won’t go directly to the source right away. He will walk all around the perimeter of the room until he gets right underneath it then he slowly raises up and sets his sights on it. He really thinks he is sneaking up on it, and it’s kind of comical to watch. But really it’s quite smart. This approach works when you are entering into battle, but not when you are skirting what God is telling you to do.

I go round and round, trying to figure out a less painless way to do what God tells me plainly to do in Scripture…..Asking God for His will for my life when He has already given me my marching orders! I look for a way involving less sacrifice or even no sacrifice, going for that other angle instead of the direct route of going head first into the battle.

Jesus last words before He ascended into Heaven gives us no doubt what we are to do:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28:19

 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Matthew 25:34-36

Making a dent in eternity

When the New Testament speaks of God’s kingdom it never, ever, refers to heaven pure and simple. It always refers to God’s kingdom coming on earth as in heaven, as Jesus himself taught us to pray. We have slipped into the easygoing language of ‘the kingdom of heaven’ in the sense of God’s kingdom being ‘heaven’, but the early church never spoke like that. The point about heaven is that heaven is the control room for earth. Heaven is the CEO’s office from which earth is run – or it’s supposed to be, which is why we’re told to pray for that to become a reality. And the point of the Ascension, paradoxically in terms of the ways in which generations of western Christians have seen it, is that this is the moment when that prayer is gloriously answered. N.T. Wright

I had a thought yesterday that has imbedded itself and I can’t let it go. It is that our prayers make a difference for eternity. When we pray we make a connection between Heaven and Earth. Our words are not just going into the air, they are going to the very throne of God. I think we will be surprised to find that when we get to Heaven, every prayer we ever prayed has preceeded us there. Every prayer gathering we ever attended, every desperate cry in the middle of the night, every anthem of praise lifted up in the early hours of the morning, every single one is counted, heard, considered and cherished by the God who never slumbers nor sleeps. The Bible says the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, not just a little!

I had noticed a shift in my prayer life over the past week or so. Some feelings crept in unannounced, and before I knew what was happening, they had crowded out my prayers! I have been hard on myself….. tallying up the things I have not done for Him, and disregarding everything else. What I was essentially saying was, “God I know I am not doing this, this, and this for you, so I don’t think I am worthy enough for You to hear my prayers. Of course I am unworthy, but I rest in the One who is!

Forgive me God, for withholding my prayers, for though I was praying with my lips, I was condemning myself with my own feelings of unworthiness in my heart….. I don’t have to measure up to my own or anyone else’s standards in order for You to hear me when I pray, I can rest in your Son alone and his total and complete work of restoration on the cross! Thank you, Lord for getting me on the right track again and for reminding me that when I pray, I really am making a dent in Heaven.

Thy kingdom come, thy willl be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…..

Photo of C.S. Lewis prayer closet taken from the movie, “Shadowlands”

He’s listening……

When I am tempted to complain about God’s lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence. I reserve a few minutes a day for God, but how many times do I drown out or ignore the quiet voice that speaks to my conscience and my life? “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock,” have become familiar words from Revelation, often stretched into an evangelistic message. But Jesus addressed those words to a church full of believers. How many times have I failed to hear the soft knock on the door and thus missed God’s invitation. Philip Yancey, “Prayer”

For as long as I can I remember prayer has been a part of my life. Kneeling by my bed as early as 7 or 8 years old I don’t recall what I prayed for, but I do remember having the assurance that God heard me. This is one area where I have not wavered in my faith. I consider it a tremendous gift from God and it humbles me greatly because I know it isn’t anything I did on my own, but only possible through the power of His grace and mercy.

There are other areas, however, I continue to struggle with greatly such as fear. Right alongside the faith that He hears, is the fear that has nipped at my heels constantly throughout my life. We all have different gifts and different weaknesses. Some struggle with severe doubt that God hears their prayers and some like me struggle with the fear of failure, of not measuring up. Whatever our particular weakness is, we know that the root cause is lack of faith. How do we get that faith? One way that helps me by hearing the word of God.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

There are many things we can hear that stir our fears up but a study diet of the Word causes us to rest in Him who has all things under control, even when it seems that chaos reigns all around us. In a way, I am grateful for my fears because they have made me cling to God more than someone with loads of self-confidence. If you have doubts today, I would encourage you to keep on praying, keep on believing. Know that He hears you in spite of our weaknesses. Even the Apostle Paul was not exempt:  

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

We can also be comforted knowing Jesus is praying for us too! “My prayer is not for them alone, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” John 17:20

Here is a question, is hope that He hears our prayers enough even when our faith is weak?

I think of all the ways prayer has changed me over the years, growing my patience, bringing me closer to the Lord and to other people, causing my faith to increase, and helping others not lose heart, for these reasons and others I continue my count of blessings today……a Mom who taught me the importance of prayer, Sunday school teachers and others who planted seeds in my early life and sacrificed their time for me, friends who were role-models of prayer, and a Dad who became a man of prayer through my Mom’s prayers, a very best friend who shares my faith as we share our doubts and fears together in prayer……And God who is always listening….#527-537

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