Walking with God

Coffee with God

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6:6

I usually go out to pray with a mug of coffee in hand. I don’t think God minds, in fact I think He likes it. It is our coffee time together. I like that we can do that. I like the fact that in spite of my imperfect Christian walk, my faltering steps, He loves me and wants to hear from me. I don’t think this takes away from how Holy God is. I am aware that He resides in unapproachable light, and yet here is the miraculous part, He also resides in me. Wants to reside in all of us. Maybe it seems presumptuous to think we can be that familiar with a Holy God, but it’s not so surprising…..Gideon asked for a sign from God, not once but three times, Jacob refused to go unless he received a blessing. Jesus restored Peter even after he denied Him three times…..that’s how much He loves us. That’s how much He wants a relationship with us.

Maybe it seems irreverent that I can dare to pray while enjoying my first cup of the day, but this is part of the wild ridiculous joy of the Christian life…..that because of Jesus, we have a restored relationship with a Holy God! Father to daughter. I talk to Him about the “stuff” in my life. Anything and everything that is on my mind, even though He knows it all anyway. I think that He loves to hear it from my own lips. I think it makes Him smile.

Really that is what all children want from their parents. For them to be interested in the little things that interest them….”O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

God is interested……..that is how it all began! Once He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, and now He desires to walk with us…..

Photos from Google images

The Miracle after the Silence……

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Luke 1:26-28

Four hundred years God has been silent……no new prophets echoing through the Temple Courts…..no help for Israel, only continual oppression from powerful nations around them. It must have seemed like the silence was mocking all their hopes for the future. How many years they had prayed, and waited for God to answer. A sign, any little flicker of hope, anything to grasp on to. And still, they heard nothing. But they read the words, they clung to belief. They held out. They held on.  A whisper of hope was all they had, and yet it was enough.

Then one day things started to happen…….Zechariah going into the temple one way, and coming out unable to speak, stunned at what he heard, saw. “Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,” Luke 1:11-14

He came out of the temple not able to speak, since he doubted what the Angel had said…….I wonder, in our modern reality-TV laden, overstimulated society……if Gabriel appeared would anyone notice? Would we even be able to hear him?
When you consider all these miraculous events………A virgin bearing God’s Son, a baby born filled with the Holy Spirit at birth (John), Zechariah struck dumb and they able to speak on the day of John’s birth…..is it any less of a miracle that we believe all these things and others don’t? That is what I pondered and it greatly humbled me this morning.
Mary said yes……and it cost her, Elizabeth and Zechariah said yes and it cost them, Jesus said yes and it cost Him. John the Baptist said yes, and it cost him.Yet they were also greatly rewarded. What an unspeakable gift……to be entrusted with this most precious gift, this knowledge, this truth. God’s own Spirit! The message to Mary from Gabriel is to us too, if we believe what Jesus said and have accepted Him into our lives. “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 
He is with us!……..We have this hope……the wait is over. He has come! Whatever you are going through, I pray that today you find strength and hope in this gift that God has so freely given us. Rejoice with me today in this good news which shall be for all people! Pray, and be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you…..so many need Him today.

Blogging as worship?

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17

The most excellent method of going to God is that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing people but purely for the love of God. We ought not to grow tired of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. Brother Lawrence

Can blogging be considered worship? After doing a bit of online study about the Biblical definition of worship I came away with my head spinning. Greek and Hebrew forms of this and that, and then the meaning of our English word on top of it all, which seemed pretty flat when you compare it to the all-encompassing description I found with the Biblical Greek and Hebrew terms. Paragraphs and pages were devoted to it. My brain got tired!

I found a couple definitions online though that summed it up nicely…..

Worship is the response of grateful and humble people to the living God where submission, sacrificial service, praise, profession, testimony and gratitude are freely expressed in innumerable ways. This is a much richer concept than mere corporate singing and praise once each week for 20 minutes – an event that could occur without any actual worship going on at all. Peter Towns


“My favorite definition of WORSHIP is: “our individual and corporate response to God’s revelation of Himself within the context of a covenant relationship” David Stone

Worship is a living expression of gratitude that flows as a result of experiencing the love and mercy of God in our lives. Everything we do can become a form of worship when we are lifting it up to Him as a form of praise. When we do that, we acknowledge where it came from and He gets the glory!

Even  a monotonous task can become a form of worship because when we give that task over to Him in obedience, He honors and sanctifies it.

……and here is one of the best parts, anytime we talk about God, He hears it! That includes writing about Him too……. and blogging! 

“Then those who feared the Lord talked often one to another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His name. Malachi 3:16

Tomorrow I will have more thoughts on what blogging has done for me personally…….Stay tuned.

Multitude Monday

Photo courtest of Vermont Outdoor Guide Association

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load…..Sara Groves, “When the Saints”

Lately I have been speculating on what it really means to follow Christ. It’s a question I ask myself here in my sheltered comfortable corner of life. This is hard to put into words. I have been mulling it over for several weeks now. God has placed in my heart a question and a challenge. I have been aware of another road that is taking shape just beyond the edge of my thoughts. I see Jesus and others walking on it and I find myself wondering what my life would look like if I really stepped beyond the borders of my safe existence and said yes to giving Him everything.

For He is always asking something……I just don’t always listen. I was challenged yesterday when I saw a quote from Katie’s blog, in it she says,  “If we are really following Jesus, we will go to the hard places. Being a Christ follower mean being acquainted with sorrow. Because we must know sorrow to be able to fully appreciate joy. Joy costs pain, but the pain is worth it.”

I have the luxury of asking the question, the ones already doing the work of Christ know they are doing what He asks, they don’t need to ask the question……But asking the question is good. Just the asking takes courage sometimes. I don’t believe God wants us to browbeat ourselves and render us immobile with guilt. He wants us to look in our hearts and find out what He is asking of us right now, this very moment. There is always something He is asking us to do.  Being obedient to the simple things……. Knocking on a neighbor’s door, making a phone call to that person that God whispers to my spirit, driving across town to pray with a friend who is struggling.

Lord, help me right now to be obedient and open to Your Spirit. Help me never be afraid to ask the hard questions, for they can lead me closer to You. Keep my heart soft and my tongue filled with kindness and help me to see through Your eyes of compassion the needs right around me. Amen

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:36-38

I continue my endless counting today, with Ann and many others……….for there is much to be thankful for today and everyday…..Your tender mercies, friendly faces that smile back, cool breezes through the window, words that inspire, joy in simple accomplishments, yellow sliver moons, purple mountains at sunset, stars that shine in the desert, groceries in the pantry, courageous people being the Hands and Feet of God all over the world, Moms that send leaves in the mail. #496-#506

holy experience

What is faith?

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My definition of faith: “Faith is the absolute certainty that what we believe will come to pass.”

Websters definition of faith: b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust

Ever tried to explain your faith to someone? It is like explaining the concept of eternity. Our finite minds just can’t get a grip on it. It is a good exercise though to think about why you believe a certain way and how you came to those beliefs.  Trying to articulate it is not easy. People say, “How can you be so sure?” Here are a few reasons why I have faith in God.

God has proven Himself over and over through circumstances and changes in me and other people…He is faithful, even when I am not.

Because the Bible says so and I believe the Bible to be God’s inspired word. “So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” Romans 19:17 NLT 

Through answered prayer and miracles that can be explained no other way.

Because of everything I see in the world around me.  

The Holy Spirit within me verifies that it is true.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16:13

Many people take issue with the fact that Christians seem so dogmatic in their beliefs, that we refuse to entertain the possibility that we may be wrong. The question then becomes, why would I want to devote my whole life to a belief system that I really wasn’t sure of? 

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11:11

If we have evidence of things not seen, that would mean that there is evidence that we can see, hear and touch. Something that is tangible. What it takes is opening up our hearts as well as our eyes.  I came to the conclusion that the odds of all of this just happening on its own were a statistical  impossibility.

And I had praying parents……

To me, this question of faith is fascinating. I found myself going down a rabbit-trail that wouldn’t end. I couldn’t find a place to end this post, I kept thinking of more verses, more questions. The simplest way to put it is, I once was lost but now as found, was blind but now I see!

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

Photo Mark Wilson, Globe Photo

We are God’s offspring…..

Entrance to village church in South Warnborough, Hampshire, England. Image courtesy of flicker
A.W Toser…..”What I believe about God is the most important thing about me.”
“We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in Him and we cannot help being happy; we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we were destined in our creation. If we love everything else but God, we contradict the image born in our very essence, and we cannot help being unhappy, because we are living a caricature of what we are meant to be.” Thomas Merton, The Waters of Siloe
 “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. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Acts 17:24-28
Not much time to post today, but I will leave you to quiet meditation with these selections, which say it much better than I ever could anyway……blessings for the day! Lori

Remembering our Brokenness

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14
Looking back is good sometimes. It reminds us of all that God has brought us through and I think it gives us the courage to keep walking. Remembering where we came from and what God has done for us is humbling. We remember the victories, the parts of us that were mended along the way, all the joys strewn along the path. We collect them like shining treasures, even the heartaches, because He got us through those too.
I broke a figurine the other day when I was dusting a little over-zealously. I heard a sickening thud and distinctly heard pieces break off. I was afraid to look. I already knew what it was, the little angel that I bought my roommate for her Birthday. “Don’t worry, she wasn’t expensive,” I said, “I wanted to go back to that store anyway. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“I don’t want a new one,” she said. “I will glue her back together.” She gathered the pieces and put them carefully on the shelf in her room. I was still insisting on buying her a new one, when she looked at me pointedly and said softly, “It means more knowing that someone loves her enough to put her back together.”
I think when she said that she was thinking of how God puts us all back together, but especially how He put her back together. She was remembering when she was broken. 
Her life was changed one morning in an instant when a truck driver who was thinking of too many other things pulled in front of her and broadsided the cement mixer she was driving. Yes, I said cement mixer. She has never been afraid to tackle anything. She remembers broken glass, and being pulled out of the truck by two good samaritans who happened to be eating their lunch close by and saw the whole thing. She remembers spending six long months in a body cast. Today she tells anyone who will listen that it was the best thing that ever happened to her. That it saved her life.
She fought through the pain of therapy and made a full recovery ahead of time. Then she moved to a strange town, my hometown, and ended up getting a job where I worked. At that time I was still grieving over the death of my husband but I clung to my faith in God and I guess she was watching me, because she started asking me questions about the God I worshipped. “How can you still be so positive?” she would say. “Because of everything He has done for me,” I said back.
About a year or two later, the woman who did everything on her own in life because there was no one to do it for her, met Jesus and was baptised in a river with a crowd of witnesses and me, and she has never been the same since.
 She has held that gratefulness fresh like a flower, close to her heart ever since. She remembers being broken. I think that is why she has an unquenchable desire to fix people, things, situations. That is her gift. She is a joy to be around and a strong witness for Jesus by how she lives her everyday life. She is the first to offer help to a neighbor, to sacrifice her time, to go out of her way, all
Because she remembers who healed her…..and who keeps healing her still.
She is a fixer, like He is a fixer. And we are all broken angels sitting on a shelf, just waiting to be picked up and glued back together if we will let Him. As He repairs us, we help to repair others……
Even Jesus was broken so that we could be healed of our brokenness…….”so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Hebrews 9:28

Thank the hero in your life today…..

We all know them, they live in our neighborhoods, we see them in our children’s schools, we have known them throughout our lives, people who sacrificially go above and beyond the call. We marvel at how they can do the things they do, how they can sacrifice so much. We think of them as everyday heroes. Maybe you are one of them……The thing about these people that defines them so wonderfully is that they don’t think of themselves as heroes at all. They see a need, sometimes a big one, and they step in to fill it. They don’t sit and think about how it might affect them, how much they might have to sacrifice. They don’t ponder, procrastinate, wonder if God wants them to do it, they just do it.
What got me started about all this is that I was thinking of my folks neighbors. They learned that their boss was going to institutionalize their severely handicapped son and they did the unthinkable and volunteered to take him into their home……as their own son. When I am home visiting I see the bus pull up with him in it, a full grown man now. They must care for his every need. This means diapers, feeding, lifting. And yet they do it joyfully.
You never know what someone is going through at any given moment, what burdens they carry. Still they keep on. Maybe they have three jobs but they still go out of their way to help others. I bet we can count off ten people we know right now that do amazing things on a day to day basis. I know two people who take service animals to rest homes and hospitals. Imagine the smiles they are greeted with, shaking hands that reach out, remembering better days.
Let the everyday heroes in your life know that you have noticed! Smile at the woman emptying the trash cans at work, the man trimming the trees, your waitress who looks burdened. Everyday there are people rising out of bed early and instead of spending their golden years at leisure, devoting the rest of their days in service to others, standing in the gap for someone. Doing the work of God.
Maybe they don’t even know God, but they are doing His work just the same.
And think about this. Think about all the many issues that divide churches today, divide the world really. This is one thing we can all agree on. Helping one another, serving the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphans among us is right and everyone knows it.
If we could all unite on this one point, forget about the other stuff that doesn’t really matter, just do this one thing, think how the world could change. “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” Titus 3:9

Lord, today I pray for all these heroes today, and especially on my heart are our soldiers coming home, many of them with life-changing injuries having to go through many months and years of therapy. May there be loving hands to help them, support them, love them, and visit them in their times of loneliness. May they find peace and comfort in Your Spirit, Amen.
“This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” Titus 3:8

Living Psalms

A psalm of Asaph. The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. Psalm 50:1

Ever felt like a living Psalm of praise? When prayer turns to praise that’s what happens. I found myself answering a question this morning that I didn’t even realize I was asking…..:..”What does having a relationship with a living God mean to you?” This is how I would explain it. It is like going along with life and seeing things one way….thinking one way, living one way. Then, in one spectacular moment, or maybe years of little moments put together, someone comes along and throws the switch on a floodlight. You see things you never thought were there.

The backdrop of your life is lit from behind with Someone whom you know to be the source of all that light.
Your perspective on life, everything you thought you knew…….changed in an instant. Magnified. Every moment becomes a miracle and everything is suddenly colored with meaning. You see the sweep of God’s Arm in every spectacular move of nature, you suddenly hear the symphony that has been playing all along. You realize there is a plan to it all, and you are part of it, were wanted, loved into being……not necessarily by your earthly parents, but by your Creator parent, the One who set the whole thing into motion. The One who keeps it all going.

You are struck with amazement that this is a God who wants to know you personally. It is a bit like falling in love, but better because this love will last forever.

You are lifted to the heights of Heaven and you want to tell everyone……You keep walking down the road but now the road looks different. Now you are aware that there is a God who walks beside you. You feel eternity coursing through your veins. You suddenly know how it feels to pass from death to life.

Here is the miracle. You go through the normal sorrows and trials and frustrations of life and you realize He is still there, He hasn’t left. As you walk further down the path, you realize that sometimes He allows extremely painful things into your life, and you don’t know why. Sometimes you cry out and He is big enough to handle that. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:14 He knows better than anyone what we are made of. And He also knows that sometimes we need to grow. Growing doesn’t happen without pruning……..

The miracle continues when we find ourselves praising in the midst of the pruning sometimes, hard as it is. We make it through. We start to see our weakness as His strength. We come to know that God allows certain things in our lives so we can minister to others going through the same thing.

We hold joy like treasure bursting within us. He has made our bodies His sanctuary and we are breathless with thanksgiving at such undeserved Grace. We celebrate the manger and the empty tomb every day. We want to tell everybody, but we don’t and we are not sure why, but it leaks because it simply has to. We are living sparks of His greater light but we know we are far from perfect…….We praise Him because He has brought us through so much and we know that He will be there waiting at our last breath.

Out of this world and into the next…….finally Home.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16,17

Weighing in on the side of Love

“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 Corinthians 10:23,24

When Paul was speaking to the Corinthian believers, he was trying to get them to understand that although they had liberty to do certain things, it wasn’t necessarily in their best interests or the interests of others to do them. They had issues that were dividing the church and they were squabbling amongst themselves about what was right and what was wrong. Basically they wanted to know what they could “get away with” and “what they couldn’t.” Paul said that wasn’t the issue, love was. Placing stumbling blocks in front of others was the issue.

Anytime we in the church do something, we need to remember it affects the church as a whole. The eyes of the world are watching what we do. Does that Pastor have the right to burn the Koran? Yes, because this is a free country. Should he? Absolutely not. People have been burning Bibles for centuries. What should our response be? I don’t care if every Bible on earth is burned, the Word of God will still stand forever, and it will still be in our hearts. No one and nothing will ever change that. There are times to stand up and there are times to “stand down.”

Paul said, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. 1 Corinthians 10:31-33

Here is the difference. If someone told me I could no longer worship publicly in my church and that if I did so, I would be incurring someone’s wrath, that now becomes an issue between me and God, because the Bible says not to forsake the “assembling of ourselves together” in worship. So I would have to choose obeying God rather than man.  I think we can agree that burning the Koran will do nothing but harm everyone involved. That is my take on the situation…..Hop on over here to Cliff’s to see a view I agree with!

Final thought…..what if Christ had exercised His liberty when the decision was made whether to go to the cross? He had every right to stay in Heaven and write us off. But thankfully that is not how God works….His motive is always and forever, LOVE.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8