Strong Roots

Remember – it is trees with the strongest roots that bear the most glorious fruit!

My friends, dig deep into the Gospel, connect with others in prayer, silent or vocal, believe Him and in His wonderful promises, and LOVE – only then can you bear fruit worthy to be set before the King.

Colossians 1:9-10
… we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s  will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.

AMAZED

My mind is a jumble of thoughts as I think of infinity buried in a point where everything on the inside is bigger than what is on the outside, and how difficult it is to wrap my earthly mind around this, as I look at the night sky and feel infinitesimally small, but then attempt to accept or believe or have faith that there is something or some place so much bigger buried and hidden from us in a point, in a second, in a planck length.

And then I am AMAZED to the point of tears with an aching joy in my heart knowing that somehow, mysteriously this is TRUE…

 

Our powerful tears…

So many believe our tears are a sign of weakness, because they don’t know Your secret sweet Lord.  They don’t understand that in the moments of our tears, we are powerful as You fill us with Your Holy Spirit and He fills us with Your strength!

Lord,  thank you for all of the tears that flow so freely from my eyes in moments of both joy and sorrow. I feel so close to You in these extreme and powerful moments of my life and I long to fill these moments with gratitude and prayer.

Please soften our hard hearts sweet Lord, and release the flood gates of the tears that so many hold back in fear of what the world believes.

Say it!

Have you ever been flipping through the channels and come across the end of a preacher’s sermon as he asks you to accept Jesus into your life?

When I was little I was in the kitchen eating a snack and a preacher was on our TV.  I started watching and became quite engrossed in the show.  At the end he asked everyone who truly believed to stand up and say it.  I stood up right there in the kitchen and said it. I was little, but I truly believed it in my heart.

Am I saved, am I filled with the Holy Spirit?  Many would say yes you are saved and this is all that must be done, but in the many years since this incident I fallen over and over again.  I have let false gods dominate my life many times, even now.  I have wandered far from God to the point that I have completely forgotten about Him for long periods of my life.

Yet through all of this, I have come full circle and again believe the answer to this is a resounding Yes!  I have strayed far, but looking back I see that Jesus has brought me back.  I have fallen, but looking back I see that Jesus has picked me up. I have sinned and still sin often, but so gently Jesus shows me my sin helps me to see how it is an assault against Him, a thorn in His head, a slash on His body and a nail in His hand, and I know any desire to repent and change is inspired by Him for me.

For almost 3 years I have been asking you to say, live and believe “It is our best life” with full faith that if we do this then it will be!

I am now asking you again with full faith to literally say (Out Loud)

Dear God I know I’m a sinner and I want Your forgiveness!
I believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for my sins. 
Please wash me clean from all sin, shame, and guilt.
Jesus come into my life to be my Lord and Savior.
I ask this in your name Jesus. 
Amen!

If you pray this prayer or another prayer of surrender from your heart then I believe it is not the end of your story resulting in an immediate and easy road to your salvation, but instead the beginning of your part, your role to be played, within God’s great story in The Book of Life with Jesus as your Lord, your Savior, your Friend, your Beloved!

Say it out loud my friends!  We can’t even imagine the awesome power that our God has entrusted us with even before we decide to follow Him.

I have forever struggled with how God selected the names within The Book of Life.  Why would my name be written instead of anyone else’s name, how could He choose one child over another?  As I have written this blog, I think I am finally starting to understand!

He has given us the power to add our names to The Book of Life. Through a prayer of surrender, we surrender our individual stories that we have been writing and we add our names to His book so He can begin writing our stories within the grand story of His Book, The Book of Life!

Come Thou fount of every blessing!

I love this song!  It has been a favorite of mine for a long time.  I even composed a very sad version of it on the piano once while visiting my sister.  She is so sweet, she saved it and every time I visit I can find it tucked safely away in her piano bench.

This song came on while I was running today and it hit me… every thing is a blessing, the good, the bad, the confusing, the hurtful, the funny… EVERY THING.  His fountain is always pouring down on us and it is all good!  There are so many times when we don’t understand or believe that it is good and even times when saying something is good will bring anger, frustration and hatred from others, but His ways are mysterious and His plan is big and every move He makes is made with one thing in mind… bringing all of us home!

Whoever coined the phrase, “S’all good”, knew what they were talking about!

S’all good my friends.  Have faith through your tears, believe through your pain, and say Thank You for EVERY THING!

Thank You My Love for keeping Your focus on bringing us home, despite our tears.

A beautiful change

In Mark 11:24 Jesus says

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,  believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

I love this statement in the Bible.  It has been very close to my heart for a long time and it is one of the reasons I so strongly (and selfishly) believed and prayed for My Best Life for so long and this statement again held true when I began believing and praying for Our Best Life.

I am starting to find it very interesting that the more we believe and the more faith we have, the less we ask for in prayer.  Jesus knew about this beautiful change that happens within our hearts when we believe and He buried this wonderful secret deep within His statement for us to find as our faith and belief increase.

Lord please help me to remember every day, every hour, and every minute to believe and to have faith in Your Will so that my prayers of request decrease and my prayers of love, thanksgiving and gratitude increase despite the weather within my life.

Lord thank You for Your Divine Will… it is full of love and goodness for EVERYONE.

Please let this be my prayer…

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, my Love.

Cheerleaders!

About 2 years ago there was an evening when I was working out with my music turned up!  At one point a song came on that really moved me, and for a moment I imagined that I had a cheering squad lined up on either side of my elliptical stretching back behind me to infinity.  The line began with my cousin, my mother-in-law, my grandmother and great-grandmothers, but continued stretching on and on with millions of women cheering for me, cheering me on and telling me that I could do it!  The image didn’t last long, but I was moved to tears in that moment.

I think, when I imagined them that I was actually calling for them and they came and have stayed to cheer for me and help me find the way Home.

They lead me to books, they lead me to teachers, and they have helped lead me to Jesus!

Call for them… they will come and cheer for you too!   Our imaginations are so powerful when we believe my sweet friends!

Look for the little flowers!

This morning I saw a man stop and offer help to an older woman who was pushing her own wheel chair across a parking lot.  It was a lovely scene, quiet and small and probably not noticed by many.  I love seeing these small and beautiful moments of kindness and goodness in the world.  They remind me that God’s tapestry is full of small and beautiful pictures that we can see even now.  I like to think of these small moments of goodness as the little flowers decorating the trim of His tapestry.

I think His tapestry is also full of large scenes of which we only have the ability to see small portions.  When we focus on the small parts of the large scenes, we might see what we perceive to be evil.  We might notice the drops of blood, a weapon, a betrayal, a death and if we don’t have faith to trust that these things are necessary parts leading up to the overall goodness of God’s scene, His plan, His beautiful tapestry, then we lose hope in the goodness of God and His ability to use any and every action of ours to finalize His beautiful and good plan.

I know it is very cliche to say, but I must repeat what so many others have said before me.

Jesus please help us to focus on the small things, help us to seek out the little nuggets of golden goodness You have sprinkled throughout everyday, and when something bad happens help us to remember that our faith is being tested, and that we must believe in You and have faith in You and Your ability to turn anything all around and upside down.

Write it in the stars!

I am reading a book that talks about soul mates.  To enjoy this book you have to first be open to the idea of reincarnation.  If you can consider this with an open mind, then the book talks about the fact that you might not spend every life with your soul mate.

While reading this book I was thinking about this a lot and it made me wonder… what if my husband and I aren’t soul mates like I have always thought?  What if we are just heavenly acquaintances working together in this life? This thought made me so sad.

Fortunately, I usually bounce back pretty quickly.  I was sad for about a day, but then I decided there is no way for me to truly answer this question and maybe the answer hasn’t been written just yet anyway… maybe our free will comes into play as the question is slowly answered over the course of our lives through our thoughts and actions.

Therefore I am going to return to my original belief, that now has a little more substance and thought behind it.  We are soul mates!  Believing this with more conviction than ever, I now want to continue loving him, but loving him more, continue caring for him, but caring for him more, and continue connecting with him, but connect with him more. I want to find my joy in bringing him joy!

Then when this life is over and our souls meet again… we will have so much love in our hearts for each other, so many wonderful memories shared and so many lessons learned together that we will be soul mates… we will have written it in the stars!

Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Fearless

What scares you?  What scares me?

Can you verbalize it?  Do you even know what makes your heart start pounding, your blood run cold and your eyes glass over?

I don’t think I know for myself.  I am fearful of sitting down to think about and fully realize what scares me.  A few things sit on the edge of my mind that I am aware of, but I don’t want to verbalize them.  I don’t want to think about them for fear of them coming to be.

How do we attempt to live fearlessly with these fears lurking in the shadows of our minds?  I don’t think we can, allowing them to lurk gives them power over us.  I think we eventually need to realize these fears, accept them as our fears and then believe through faith that if these fears come to be, God will still lead us through the valley to an even higher mountain beyond.

Habakkuk 2:4 says it and Paul repeats it in Hebrews 10:38, “The just shall live by faith.” By faith is the way God planned for us to live out our lives, day in, day out, minute by minute.

I want to live fearlessly… I want to live by faith!

I have work to do, and if you are not already there, I hope you will join me, my friends!