Friday, September 30, 2005
I took a trip to the beach last week. While hanging out with my family was incredible - some other really great stuff happened. So, here they are.
I realized that for far too long I have been placing my worth in earthly terms and seeing myself perhaps how other people do or don't see me instead of trying to hear and understand how my Father sees me. I've really got to start listening to him speak his love for me more often. A couple of weeks ago I read the verse in Psalm 139 that says, "I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Say what? I have never praised him for that. If anything I have only cursed him for how I am made. I've praised him for who He is but never for who I am. But His word says I should so - I'm going to start. My earthly relationships hinge on how well I understand how much He loves me. I can't give something I don't understand.
The other thing I learned is that understanding my self worth is a part of the freedom He gives through His spirit. When it comes to freedom I'm really not grasping the full picture. You know that commercial where the girl is walking down the street listening to an MP3 player that is also her cell phone and her shadow is dancing around like crazy? Most of the time I feel like that's me. Like there's this other person just dying to get out and start dancing but she can't because I'm restricting her to the rules that have bound me for so long - the rules of church, the rules of what you're supposed to look like as a good girl, the rules of how much you're supposed to be involved and what you are or aren't supposed to say. All she wants to do is dance - there's praise in that, praise to the Father and good church girls just don't dance - even when the song that's playing is a praise and worship song. So, I'm working on understanding the freedom God gives and how to use it to edify the church. There's an entirely new ball of wax.
The last thing God rekindled in me was the desire He has always seemed to blow on. After months of simply being - he reminded me this week of my place within His will as servant and friend and that neither one of those titles are inactive - but active and require great faith and perhaps huge amounts of trust to be carried out. I'm not okay with the idea that there are 33,000 people dying of malnutrition everyday and that I spend most of my time every week in an office building where I do little to change that fact. I'm not okay with the idea that there are even more people who don't know the love of my Savior and are dying without him and I do even less about that! My sin of inaction was overwhelming this week. I've been asking him for years now to use me. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. I want out of my comfort zone. I want out of a comfortable life and into something that makes a difference.
What I'm grateful for is that while the Lord was speaking to me about faith - He was also speaking to Marty about faith. I'm so glad I have a husband who is seeking the same way I am and that we're both after something that we understand is bigger than ourselves.
How about you? What's the Lord saying to you right now?
I realized that for far too long I have been placing my worth in earthly terms and seeing myself perhaps how other people do or don't see me instead of trying to hear and understand how my Father sees me. I've really got to start listening to him speak his love for me more often. A couple of weeks ago I read the verse in Psalm 139 that says, "I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Say what? I have never praised him for that. If anything I have only cursed him for how I am made. I've praised him for who He is but never for who I am. But His word says I should so - I'm going to start. My earthly relationships hinge on how well I understand how much He loves me. I can't give something I don't understand.
The other thing I learned is that understanding my self worth is a part of the freedom He gives through His spirit. When it comes to freedom I'm really not grasping the full picture. You know that commercial where the girl is walking down the street listening to an MP3 player that is also her cell phone and her shadow is dancing around like crazy? Most of the time I feel like that's me. Like there's this other person just dying to get out and start dancing but she can't because I'm restricting her to the rules that have bound me for so long - the rules of church, the rules of what you're supposed to look like as a good girl, the rules of how much you're supposed to be involved and what you are or aren't supposed to say. All she wants to do is dance - there's praise in that, praise to the Father and good church girls just don't dance - even when the song that's playing is a praise and worship song. So, I'm working on understanding the freedom God gives and how to use it to edify the church. There's an entirely new ball of wax.
The last thing God rekindled in me was the desire He has always seemed to blow on. After months of simply being - he reminded me this week of my place within His will as servant and friend and that neither one of those titles are inactive - but active and require great faith and perhaps huge amounts of trust to be carried out. I'm not okay with the idea that there are 33,000 people dying of malnutrition everyday and that I spend most of my time every week in an office building where I do little to change that fact. I'm not okay with the idea that there are even more people who don't know the love of my Savior and are dying without him and I do even less about that! My sin of inaction was overwhelming this week. I've been asking him for years now to use me. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. I want out of my comfort zone. I want out of a comfortable life and into something that makes a difference.
What I'm grateful for is that while the Lord was speaking to me about faith - He was also speaking to Marty about faith. I'm so glad I have a husband who is seeking the same way I am and that we're both after something that we understand is bigger than ourselves.
How about you? What's the Lord saying to you right now?
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
I hate this feeling. Failure. It comes out of nowhere most days. It sucks the most when you've really been trying hard to accomplish something - to conquer that which seems to keep tripping you up. And there you are again - flat on your face, feeling as if nothing has been learned. This struggle is hard.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Found this here
I found this great article this morning on the armybarmy blog. Stephen Court posted it but I don't want anyone to miss it. So, I'm going to put it here as well. It's an article an aethiest wrote to a newspaper. He's also written a book on the Booths. See what you think.
Faith Does Breed Charity We atheists have to accept that most believers are better human beings. Roy Hattersley By Guardian Newspapers, 9/12/2005
Hurricane Katrina did not stay on the front pages for long. Yesterday's Red Cross appeal for an extra 40,000 volunteer workers was virtually ignored. The disaster will return to the headlines when one sort of newspaper reports a particularly gruesome discovery or another finds additional evidence of President Bush's negligence. But month after month of unremitting suffering is not news. Nor is the monotonous performance of the unpleasant tasks that relieve the pain and anguish of the old, the sick and the homeless - the tasks in which the Salvation Army specialise. The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character. Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil. The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive. Faith schools, as they are now called, have left sectarian scars on Northern Ireland. Stem-cell research is forbidden because an imaginary God - who is not enough of a philosopher to realise that the ingenuity of a scientist is just as natural as the instinct of Rousseau's noble savage - condemns what he does not understand and the churches that follow his teaching forbid their members to pursue cures for lethal diseases. Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Last week a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexuality is a mortal sin. Late at night, on the streets of one of our great cities, that man offers friendship as well as help to the most degraded and (to those of a censorious turn of mind) degenerate human beings who exist just outside the boundaries of our society. And he does what he believes to be his Christian duty without the slightest suggestion of disapproval. Yet, for much of his time, he is meeting needs that result from conduct he regards as intrinsically wicked. Civilised people do not believe that drug addiction and male prostitution offend against divine ordinance. But those who do are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, replace the sodden sleeping bags and - probably most difficult of all - argue, without a trace of impatience, that the time has come for some serious medical treatment. Good works, John Wesley insisted, are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists. The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. The close relationship may have something to do with the belief that we are all God's children, or it may be the result of a primitive conviction that, although helping others is no guarantee of salvation, it is prudent to be recorded in a book of gold, like James Leigh Hunt's Abu Ben Adam, as "one who loves his fellow men". Whatever the reason, believers answer the call, and not just the Salvation Army. When I was a local councillor, the Little Sisters of the Poor - right at the other end of the theological spectrum - did the weekly washing for women in back-to-back houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves. It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. The Bible is so full of contradictions that we can accept or reject its moral advice according to taste. Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night. The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army. © Guardian Newspapers Limited
Faith Does Breed Charity We atheists have to accept that most believers are better human beings. Roy Hattersley By Guardian Newspapers, 9/12/2005
Hurricane Katrina did not stay on the front pages for long. Yesterday's Red Cross appeal for an extra 40,000 volunteer workers was virtually ignored. The disaster will return to the headlines when one sort of newspaper reports a particularly gruesome discovery or another finds additional evidence of President Bush's negligence. But month after month of unremitting suffering is not news. Nor is the monotonous performance of the unpleasant tasks that relieve the pain and anguish of the old, the sick and the homeless - the tasks in which the Salvation Army specialise. The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character. Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil. The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive. Faith schools, as they are now called, have left sectarian scars on Northern Ireland. Stem-cell research is forbidden because an imaginary God - who is not enough of a philosopher to realise that the ingenuity of a scientist is just as natural as the instinct of Rousseau's noble savage - condemns what he does not understand and the churches that follow his teaching forbid their members to pursue cures for lethal diseases. Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Last week a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexuality is a mortal sin. Late at night, on the streets of one of our great cities, that man offers friendship as well as help to the most degraded and (to those of a censorious turn of mind) degenerate human beings who exist just outside the boundaries of our society. And he does what he believes to be his Christian duty without the slightest suggestion of disapproval. Yet, for much of his time, he is meeting needs that result from conduct he regards as intrinsically wicked. Civilised people do not believe that drug addiction and male prostitution offend against divine ordinance. But those who do are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, replace the sodden sleeping bags and - probably most difficult of all - argue, without a trace of impatience, that the time has come for some serious medical treatment. Good works, John Wesley insisted, are no guarantee of a place in heaven. But they are most likely to be performed by people who believe that heaven exists. The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. The close relationship may have something to do with the belief that we are all God's children, or it may be the result of a primitive conviction that, although helping others is no guarantee of salvation, it is prudent to be recorded in a book of gold, like James Leigh Hunt's Abu Ben Adam, as "one who loves his fellow men". Whatever the reason, believers answer the call, and not just the Salvation Army. When I was a local councillor, the Little Sisters of the Poor - right at the other end of the theological spectrum - did the weekly washing for women in back-to-back houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves. It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. The Bible is so full of contradictions that we can accept or reject its moral advice according to taste. Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night. The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army. © Guardian Newspapers Limited
Friday, September 16, 2005
Morning Blend
This morning I went to Starbucks. I ordered something much closer to desert than coffee. I asked them to make it "light" so that I wouldn't feel bad about my choice. Then....oh, and then....they let me call it breakfast!!!
Oh how I love Starbucks!
Oh how I love Starbucks!
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Leading from the Margins
I never read links. Hardly ever. But the article linked to the title is worth the read. It was relevant to me anyway. I hope you enjoy!
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Friday, September 09, 2005
"Sunset sailing on April's skies
Bloodshot Fireclouds in your eyes
I can't say what I might believe
But if God made you he's in love with me"
~Five for Fighting
I ran across this song one day driving home in the middle of a thunderstorm. When he got to that line - if God made you he's in love with me - I had a mental halt. Everything started swirling and I just thought "how true that statement is!" I know it's a love song from a guy to a girl. So what it's also about broken pieces. I just kept thinking about that line and how, if we could all just wrap our minds around it for each other how we could actually just grasp on to the way the Lord wants us to live our lives as the body of Christ - and not just the body but as followers of Jesus in a broken world.
I want that to be my motto. Not if but since. "Since God made you he's in love with me." He made us for each other. To enjoy - not judge. To love - not mock. To befriend - not alienate. To pray for and with - not despise. How often do I get that wrong. I wish I could tattoo that in my heart and on my mind. I wish that line would run through my thoughts every time I looked at someone so that my heart and mind couldn't go to the base things like types of clothes or hairstyles, the way a person speaks or eats. All those things begin to matter so much to us don't they? And yet Since God made you, he's in love with me! It's an incredible revelation to me that I have not fully grasped and certainly have not put fully into practice. But I know I want to try.
Bloodshot Fireclouds in your eyes
I can't say what I might believe
But if God made you he's in love with me"
~Five for Fighting
I ran across this song one day driving home in the middle of a thunderstorm. When he got to that line - if God made you he's in love with me - I had a mental halt. Everything started swirling and I just thought "how true that statement is!" I know it's a love song from a guy to a girl. So what it's also about broken pieces. I just kept thinking about that line and how, if we could all just wrap our minds around it for each other how we could actually just grasp on to the way the Lord wants us to live our lives as the body of Christ - and not just the body but as followers of Jesus in a broken world.
I want that to be my motto. Not if but since. "Since God made you he's in love with me." He made us for each other. To enjoy - not judge. To love - not mock. To befriend - not alienate. To pray for and with - not despise. How often do I get that wrong. I wish I could tattoo that in my heart and on my mind. I wish that line would run through my thoughts every time I looked at someone so that my heart and mind couldn't go to the base things like types of clothes or hairstyles, the way a person speaks or eats. All those things begin to matter so much to us don't they? And yet Since God made you, he's in love with me! It's an incredible revelation to me that I have not fully grasped and certainly have not put fully into practice. But I know I want to try.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:16 - 18
2 Corinthians 4:16 - 18
Monday, September 05, 2005
Warning! Controversial Content Included!
"I'll never give to another third world country again," she said to me as I sat waiting for one of the phones to ring. I just simply nodded my head. I didn't have the time and I didn't know if it was the place to go into the discussion.
We were sitting in the room at The Salvation Army answering the calls coming in from people wanting to know how they could help and other calls from people wanting to know how they could receive help. I was and I'm still amazed at the amount of people who want to give of their time and their money and their resources. I shouldn't be though.
Anyway, she said that to me and it hasn't left my head ever since. I guess I couldn't get past the short-sightedness of the comment.
What I want everyone to know is that I understand the incredible loss we have suffered in this nation. I know that there have been probably thousands who have lost their lives and many more who have lost jobs, homes, cars, family, everything. What I haven't lost sight of though is that no matter what - this country is still better off than any third world country. At least many of those who have been displaced have shelters to where they can go. When the Tsunami hit Thailand last year I don't believe that was an option for most. What I also know is that the President has also already given $10 billion as a down payment to the recovery of this country. I don't remember what his gift was to those affected by the Tsunami but I don't think it came close.
Anyway, all I know is that third world countries will still need our help in the middle of this and after this and I hated to hear someone say that she'd never give again. Yes, I believe we should give to our fellow Americans - over and over again we should give. But please, I'm begging, let's not forget to give to those that would look at our poverty level and think they had struck it rich.
Thanks,
Joy
We were sitting in the room at The Salvation Army answering the calls coming in from people wanting to know how they could help and other calls from people wanting to know how they could receive help. I was and I'm still amazed at the amount of people who want to give of their time and their money and their resources. I shouldn't be though.
Anyway, she said that to me and it hasn't left my head ever since. I guess I couldn't get past the short-sightedness of the comment.
What I want everyone to know is that I understand the incredible loss we have suffered in this nation. I know that there have been probably thousands who have lost their lives and many more who have lost jobs, homes, cars, family, everything. What I haven't lost sight of though is that no matter what - this country is still better off than any third world country. At least many of those who have been displaced have shelters to where they can go. When the Tsunami hit Thailand last year I don't believe that was an option for most. What I also know is that the President has also already given $10 billion as a down payment to the recovery of this country. I don't remember what his gift was to those affected by the Tsunami but I don't think it came close.
Anyway, all I know is that third world countries will still need our help in the middle of this and after this and I hated to hear someone say that she'd never give again. Yes, I believe we should give to our fellow Americans - over and over again we should give. But please, I'm begging, let's not forget to give to those that would look at our poverty level and think they had struck it rich.
Thanks,
Joy
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