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Friday, August 26, 2011

Being Available














"My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.'”
Luke 10:39-42

I am a serious planner and a hard-core scheduler. Always have been. I plan EVERYTHING. I plan birthday parties, Christmas celebrations, get-togethers, family outings and reunions. I plan dinners typically the evening before, I plan out my morning time with God, I plan weekends by Tuesday nights and daily household chores. I consider it pure joy to sit down on a Sunday night with a pen and pad of paper to map out the events for the upcoming week.

I'm afraid to say I still lay Chloe's clothes out every day. And she's 11.

I suppose there's other words to describe this characteristic trait. Perhaps I'm a control freak?

I believe there is good in planning and organizing. I think God is honored when we take care of lives and find a good balance between all of our daily responsibilities. But I also think there's amazing peace and freedom to be found in allowing ourselves some wiggle room in our daily routines. I think it's as equally God-honoring when we allow ourselves flexibility in our schedules to make room for God to do His work in and through us. Let's call these... life interruptions.

It occurred to me the other morning when I was "busy" with my day. I had, literally, a laundry list of things I had to get accomplished. The usual stuff... do laundry, clean floors, make beds, run 306 errands and make dinner. I believe this was the same day I had also created a "back-up list" of things I wanted to get done if I found myself with some extra time. They consisted of the following: fix the light in the laundry room, sort through old photos, clean out old, dirty tubs in my basement, clean out my dogs treat cupboard, replace the light bulb on the front porch, finish cleaning out the garage from the garage sale, return all of the tables I'd borrowed for my garage sale and send 2 thank you notes and 4 birthday cards (mind you these birthday's were still several weeks out. Don't judge me... I'm a planner!) :) I had mapped out each event and found myself quite joyous to be able to cross them off my to-do list with a permanent marker when I'd completed a task. (Oh the joy of a completed task! A planners dream come true!)

But then it occurred to me. In all of my busy-ness... in all of my hectic-ness... did I allow room for God to use me? Completely? Was I leaving room for Him to take me to the places HE had prepared for me that day? Was I yielding to God and His divine plan for me?

See - a scheduler... a planner... is a person who truly doesn't appreciate when they or their schedule is interrupted. I find it most difficult to stop doing what I had planned to do and "do" something else. For instance...

A storm's arrival after I've planned an outdoor event or party.
A sick child during a long-planned vacation.
A husband who has to work late after I've prepared a big meal... his favorite... with dessert.

Priscilla Shirer describes these interruptions in her book Life Interrupted like this... "When the yellow-brick road of our lives veers off in some unexpected direction."

I don't like being interrupted. The feelings that it stirs within me include uneasiness, frustration, irritability and resentfulness. I don't "do" interruptions well. They are disturbing to my goals and plans and I don't like the loss of control I feel.

But I wonder how much my life would change... your life would change... if we began seeing these interruptions as opportunities. If we truly changed the way we looked at these irritating disturbances and started seeing them as Divine Interventions. I wonder how seeing through this lens would change our perspective. We just might be opening ourselves up to the greatness that God has for us. Priscilla Shirer goes on to say that, "Believing that divine interruptions are a privilege not only will cause us to handle them differently but also to await them eagerly. Knowing that we have an opportunity to participate in God's purposes should cause us to sit on the edge of our seats in anticipation of divine interventions disguised as life's interruptions."

God has a plan and a purpose for our lives. And we have a choice to follow that plan and purpose or to be so wrapped up in and consumed by our own plan that we miss out on our calling completely. HIS calling.

God always has something better for us. Something far greater than we could even hope or dream for. Always.

You may have been late for that meeting, but you missed a car accident on the way that could have ended your life. A God appointed divine intervention.

You cringed when the phone rang from an unknown caller only to discover it was your best friend from college living out of state who desperately needed to hear your voice. You didn't have "time" to talk with her, but you soon discovered that she needed to hear your words of encouragement because after 20 years of marriage, her husband just told her he doesn't love her anymore and is filing for divorce. A God appointed divine intervention.

Your mother is ill. She was just diagnosed with Parkinson's and is going to require round-the-clock care for the end stages of her life. You instinctively want to offer your brothers home or your sisters home for her to stay. After all - you're busy. You have a life. You're too consumed by your own "things" to be disrupted. But after she moves in, you discover the blessing and joy of spending quality time with her every day... and consider these moments as some of the most precious times of your life. A gift. A God appointed divine intervention.

God does not exist for our comfort. He doesn't NEED us to complete His purposes, yet He still chooses us to partner with Him. As Priscilla eloquently writes in her book about a Life Interrupted, "His calling you means that He has chosen YOU above anyone else to do what He is asking. YOU are the one He singled out and pinpointed as His partner for a particular project."

There's a country song that's lyrics come to mind, "I could have missed the pain, but I'd of had to miss the dance."

In this case, the pain (at least for me) is the rescheduling. The realignment of my day. The course derailment. But the truth is that if we choose not to yield to the Father, then we could miss the thing that's intended to bring us the greatest joy.

Looking back on my journal from January 27, of this year, I find a prayer I wrote out. It says this...

"God - give me an open heart and an open mind to the things you are calling me to do for you. Prepare my heart to hear from you and prepare my feet to GO where you lead. Amen." In essence, I am asking God to change my desires to match His. I might have my plans... but God, teach me to want what you want!

Let's remember He still has the whole world in His hands... and He sees the bigger picture. We only see a small slice of the pie. Trust Him to lead. Trust Him to guide and direct. And He will do it!

Carol Kent says in her book, Becoming A Woman of Influence, "If we waited for formal teaching moments to make a difference in the lives of others, most of us would miss the opportunities to 'be Jesus' to the people we have the privilege of influencing."

When we yield to His divine interventions and surrender to His will for our lives, we give Him permission to use us in powerful ways!

Like Joyce Meyer says, "Don’t be so busy with your plan that you ignore God if He tries to change it."

Will you and I allow ourselves to be interrupted as God deems fit? Will we give up our tight grip of control so that He can use us for greater things? I pray we do! This world doesn't need Christians who are control freaks. This world needs Christians who have made their minds up to follow Christ with everything they have. And to surrender everything to Him, even their perfectly orchestrated schedules. We are telling His story... do others get to see His perfect power displayed in us?

Finding JOY in the JOurneY,



www.wendybender.blogspot.com

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Daily Discipline














My daughter has been on a "tooth brushing strike" here lately. Just this summer, really. She doesn't want to brush her teeth. She claims she's not certain why she has to do it and how it makes much of a difference. She's constantly making excuses for why she can't. I mean really. How much sense does it make that you shouldn't brush your teeth when you're just going to eat again and get them dirty?

I guess it's a phase that many girls her age go through. Maybe? Hopefully it's not just mine! TELL ME it's not just mine!

The other day we were talking about her next dental check-up. She asked me when it was and I told her it would be coming up this fall. I told her, "You don't want to have the dentist examine those teeth and get after you for having not brushed them, right? Because he will know!" Her response was, "He won't know. I can just brush them REALLY good the night before my appointment!" She then proceeded to "show" me how good she could fool him by grinning that big smile revealing her freshly cleaned teeth from just minutes before our conversation. "See mom! They're white and you'd never know I hadn't brushed them for a few days!"

Indeed... her teeth SMELLED fresh.
Indeed... I could tell that she had worked hard that evening to polish them up and get them to APPEAR healthy and well cared for... but the truth was it was a cover up for what was really happening on the inside of those teeth and gums.

And it got me thinking. Isn't this how we are a lot of the time with our faith and with our walk with God?

I see it countless times. We long for the healthy relationship with Him. We long for closeness and intimacy with the Father. But reality is that it takes some work, on our part, to make that happen.

We want things from God. We pray for things like healing, protection, strength, patience, mercy, balance and peace. But we forget that we have a role in this relationship. We want the benefits from a relationship with the Creator of the universe - but we are quick to forget that there are things God wants to teach us through our trust and obedience.

God longs to give us the desires of our hearts. He does. There's a biblical promise that proves this to us. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." The word delight comes from the Hebrew word, anag, meaning “make yourself moldable and pliable”. He needs for us to make ourselves available to Him so that He can mold us into the person He created us to be. If we aren't able to keep in close relationship with Him and yield to His molding and plying, then He can't use us for the greatness He has called us to! And He certainly won't be able to give us the desires of our hearts.

In close examination of the the second action word in this verse, give, we learn the Hebrew word, nathan, means, "to ascribe or write, add, and apply." You see - God has already provided for us everything we need for this life. Galatians 5:22-23 says, "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, He will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." If we were created in His image, and we were, then all nine of these characteristics are true about us. We have been given all that we need to survive this battle here on earth and it's God's desire to release these to us, but we have to be willing to come before Him broken, availavle and ready to do the work required to fulfill our end of the bargain.

All too often I hear other Christians say things like, "Where was God when this was happening?" And, "I'm just not hearing from God." I hear things like, "God must have forgotten about me", "My life is a mess", "I can't get on the right track" and, "I can't feel this 'joy' that others talk about." And my response to them is almost always the same, "What are you doing to cultivate your relationship with God?"

You see - it's not a one-way street... this relationship with God. In fact, a relationship is never a one-way street. It's a shared road of responsibility. I have to give something in order to get something. It's just the way it works. Galatians 6:7 says, "Remember that you can't ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow." Like those teeth that Chloe has been ignoring. If she continues to ignore the health of her teeth, it will only produce a poor check-up at the dentists office this fall. Our spiritual lives are the same way. If we neglect the health of our relationship with God, we will produce a harvest of "decay and death." (Gal 6:8 NLT)

We must get to the place where we are fully and completely dependent on Him. Realizing that apart from Him we can do nothing. We must develop a daily discipline of loving Him apart from what He can do for us. Instead of focusing on Him only when we are at the end of our rope, we need to throw Him the rope and let Him lead us to the greatness He has prepared in advance for us.

Spending time... quality time... with God daily is essential for our well being. It isn't a suggestion or an option.. it is a necessity. Just like tooth brushing daily is necessary for the health of our teeth, spending time with God with praise and gratitude, studying His word and meditating on His promises daily is essential for the health of our spiritual bodies.

In my Daily Devotional book entitled "Jesus Calling", Sarah Young writes about our walk with the Father this way,

"Keep walking with Me along the path I have chosen for you. Your desire to live close to Me is a delight to My heart. I could instantly grant you the spiritual riches you desire, but that is not My way for you. Together we will forge a pathway up the high mountain. The journey is arduous at times, and you are weak. All I require of you is to take the next step, clinging to My hand for strength and direction. Though the path is difficult and the scenery dull at the moment, there are sparkling surprises just around the bend. Stay on the path I have selected for you. It is truly the path of life."

I encourage you to stay with it. Stay in constant communion with God and see what He can and will do FOR you and THROUGH you. Remember - if we DELIGHT (make ourselves moldable and pliable) ourselves in the Lord, He will GIVE (add and apply) us the desires of our hearts.

Psalm 37:23-24, "The steps of the Godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand."

He's ready. Are you?

Finding JOY in the JOurneY,



www.wendybender.blogspot.com

Monday, August 15, 2011

Scripture Memory: August 15

Well - back to school is just right around the corner. Stores are filled with all the great school supplies (don't ya just love the smell of new, fresh pencils and notebooks?) and there's a feeling in the air that change is a coming! The end of August means back to the grindstone. Back to schedules and homework. I am so thankful that God gives us fresh beginnings, aren't you?

If you have chosen to join me on this scripture memorization journey... know that I am proud of you. And that I have been praying for you since the first week of January!

Here is my verse for August 15:

Psalm 51:10 (NLT)
"Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.”

Just like the school year is fresh and new... I ask God to renew in ME a clean heart. A heart like His.

What's the verse YOU'VE chosen this August 15th?

I am praying for you!

Finding JOY in the JOurneY,



www.wendybender.blogspot.com

Monday, August 01, 2011

Scripture Memory: August 1

Ahh - the sweet month of August! Not only is it my mom's birthday month (LOVE you mom), but it's also back-to-school month for my almost 6th grader!!! I can't believe that the summer is nearing the tail end! Where did it go? I hope YOU'VE had a wonderful summer with the ones YOU love!

If you have chosen to join me on this scripture memorization journey... know that I am proud of you. And that I have been praying for you since the first week of January!

Here is my verse for August 1:

2 Timothy 2:4 (NLT)
"And as Christ's soldier, do not let yourself become tied up in the affairs of this life, for then you cannot satisfy the One who has enlisted you in His army.”

Isn't it so awesome to know we have been enlisted in His army??

What's the verse YOU'VE chosen this August 1st?

I am praying for you!

Finding JOY in the JOurneY,



www.wendybender.blogspot.com