You – Our Best Life

Tears of joy

I just heard the song… You Came by Jonathan and Melissa Helser What a beautiful song! It has been my morning meditation and prayer today as I have imaged Jesus waiting outside the tomb of Lazarus with tears still on His face. Oh the beauty and wonder as His tears turned from sorrow to joy when He called to His friend, Lazarus, and raised him from the grave.

Dear Lord, I pray that those I know who have died are your true friends and as with Lazarus, you stand outside their graves, with tears of joy on Your face as you call for them to rise again to new life.

Oh my Lord, my Love, my All in All – let us anxiously await and yearn for the moment when we too will hear Your call and will rise from the grave to see You anxiously waiting for us with tears of joy on Your beautiful face.

Tuned in to Him

A few weeks before Christmas a friend told me that she was praying that her son would develop a preference for Christian music over secular music. The comment came and went so quickly that I didn’t have time to really think about it, but since that conversation it has been on my mind and I think we should pray that her son and all of us will tune in to Him, regardless of the specific music we prefer. It we are tuned into Him we will hear Him in all music. We will hear His message in what is said, and what is not said. His message will come through everywhere, in all moments, quiet, loud, joyful, sorrowful, peaceful or crazy and in all moments a whispered Thank You Lord will boom louder than thunder at the foot of His throne.

Thank You Lord, Thank You Lord, Thank You Lord – please let my heart and lips never tire of saying Thank You Lord!

God’s Art

In the last few years I have begun to develop an appreciation and love for visual art. I was walking through a museum a few years ago when a light bulb suddenly went off in my head as I realized what billions before me already knew… each painting represented a moment in the life of a soul. That day I saw that some had shared a moment of their pain, others had shared a moment of their joy, some shared a moment of their fear, and at least one had shared a moment of deep understanding, a moment when that soul dove into the infinity of their present moment and then translated it onto a canvas.

I cried that day as I walked through the museum feeling humbled and amazed by so many souls laid bare before me.

Tonight as I was reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, he wrote about God’s art throughout creation and interestingly enough I read about this a few weeks ago in Romans during a bible study. Oh Lord please forgive my inability to quickly grasp what You are trying to tell me… tonight I think Your message finally broke through.

God has bared His soul before us… and oh how AMAZING it is!!!

What more is there to say other than – Thank You, thank You, thank You for the Grace to truly see Your Art, Your Heart, Your Soul!

You are welcome

Isn’t it interesting that in english the correct response to Thank you is You are welcome? You are gladly received or willingly permitted, admitted, accepted. Where did this originate? Perhaps a language expert could enlighten us on the true historical details of where this response originated from, but what if we let our imaginations roam for a bit?

Perhaps long ago there was a person or a group of people who truly passed on every Thank you they received to God knowing that anything they had done to deserve the gift of gratitude was from God, so in turn their response to Thank you changed from It was nothing or No problem and became You are welcome as an inspired message from God to communicate with others and let them know that they too were welcome in His Kingdom.

As I stretch my imagination to make this up tonight, I hope that my own responses to Thank you in the future will move away from the personally accepting phrases of No problem, It was nothing, and sure, to His inspired message of You are welcome with a prayer that I am nothing more than an instrument of communication.

Missing You…

My friends, I am not sure why but I have been distracted lately. Jesus hasn’t been at the forefront of my thoughts, instead I have been busy, running around, and missing Him. We took a yoga class together last night, and usually when He joins me He is helping me through, but last night in my imagination He was sitting there watching me (smiling, but still just watching). For some reason I have put Him aside instead of welcoming Him in?

As I miss Him, I am thankful for my previous posts that remind me that He is still here watching and waiting for me to call to Him again.

Please pray for me my friends, as you bask in His loving presence, that the veil covering me will be removed yet again, my eyes will be cleansed yet again, and again I will see only Him everywhere and in everyone!

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done!

A great prayer!

The other day I was helping my daughter out of the shower. She walked into the open towel and I wrapped it around her. She started to grab the sides, bundled it up and hugged it close. I gently tugged on it to free it from her arms so I could rewrap it around her, but she held it tight and looked up at me with a laugh and said, “I am giving my towel a hug and thanking it for keeping me warm.”

I hope I can remember her sweet prayer of thanksgiving for all of the graces shown to me throughout my every day.

Thank you Lord for the blessing of my three sweet little teachers!

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.

Regrets…

Some believe that Jesus told Judas Iscariot to betray him.

In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus said, “But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

If this is the case, then Judas acted out of obedience and faith in Jesus and he was given the strength to follow through with Jesus’ request. Imagine for a moment being Judas once things had been set in motion and he was outside the loving gaze and light of Jesus. Imagine the torture and suffering he put himself through questioning his actions, wondering if he had acted within the will of God or made a mistake. Imagine the tortured thoughts he experienced as he second guessed his actions under the criticism and hatred of those who had once called him brother, his fellow disciples.

It is so hard to keep our hearts and our heads clear and open to God’s message, and then once we are bogged down with fear of a mistake or acting selfishly rather than within His will, we pull yet further away from Him and our faith is so quickly drained from us.

I think it is in these moments of fear that we have to breath deep, and know our faith is being tested. The moment our faith begins draining from us, is moment that we must hold tight to it and thank God for our current suffering, questioning and lack of confidence in our actions or words. We must continue to reflect even more on His perfect plan and remember that sometimes acting within His will might not be comfortable. If we have stepped off the path, there is a lesson within each step and we must remember that He loves us so much that He will not let us stray far before He begins nudging us back on track.

I said something a few days ago that I so deeply regret, that I can now actually appreciate why some people take a vow of silence. I am not sure if I was on track or off track with what I said, but even through my regret I am trying very hard to be thankful for experiencing these feelings of regret, for the increase in my desire to be pleasing to God (through silence if necessary) and for yet another opportunity to empathize with Judas.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for everything.

Thank You

Almost every time I pray I ask for my family and friends to be blessed and kept safe, but what does keeping them safe really entail? What does blessing them really entail?

Do I mean for them to be healthy and kept out of accidents?
Do I mean for them to be comfortable and happy?

Will keeping them safe and blessing them bring them closer to God? I don’t know.

In Jeremiah 14:11-12
The Lord said to me: Do not pray for the welfare of this people. Although they fast, I do not hear their cry, and although they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I do not accept them; but by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence I consume them.

Was the Lord asking Jeremiah to refrain from praying for the welfare of these people because He knew that safety, comfort and blessings are not what would bring these people closer to Him? Is He saying that that they will only cry out to Him, present offerings from their hearts, and truly come closer to Him in times of war, famine and pestilence?

I am not sure, but reading this made me take a step back and wonder.

1. How often do I cry out to God in true joy and thanksgiving when I am safe, comfortable and blessed? Do these blessings help bring me closer to Him?

2. How often do I cry out to God in times of sorrow or conflict? Do these difficulties and challenges bring me closer to Him?

God wants us to cry out to Him regardless of whether it is in joy or misery. He wants to be there for us, He wants to be close to us and maybe sometimes we won’t let Him in until the difficult times arise.

God please help us to pray with humility knowing that we don’t know what is best, and help us to have faith that You do know what is best for all of us and will do everything in Your power to help us cry out to You.

Maybe my new prayer should be, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!