Oh to Understand

I've been meditating on the verse below for the last 3 weeks. While I don't have complete understanding of it all yet I wanted to share with you what I am getting so far:

Isaiah 43:10

You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,

"and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor will there be one after me.

Beth Moore had us memorize this verse for our Breaking Free study and she emphasized the facts that our rights as daughters in this journey to freedom is to know and believe God. To have these attributes in our lives involves us learning to trust Him. Beth chose not to focus on the word understand but the Holy Spirit has had me stuck on the word "understand" for the last 3 weeks.

My fixation on the word understand began when during the same week I was memorizing that verse I watched a Love, Marriage and Stinking Thinking episode. Mark Gungor was focusing on communication between spouses and he said his ministry is not about "changing" people but about helping people understand how the other person thinks. Once a person has understanding of how the other person works and operates they can them approach them in ways that the other person can understand. In that episode, he was explaining the reasons why women think men never listen and he explained how a man's brain operates and he gave tips on how best to communicate to a man based on the way they receive information.

Mark Gungor gave the example of a man sitting on a train with his head down and his kids are jumping around, screaming and being wild. Everyone on the train car is getting irritated at the man, why doesn't he deal with his kids? Finally, someone confronts the man and says, "Would you please control your kids?" The man looks up and says, "Oh, I'm sorry. We have just left the hospital, my wife just died. I guess I was consumed with grief and didn't realize they were being disruptive." Suddenly, everyone on the train is full of compassion and they are helping the man with the kids. What changed about the situation? Nothing. The man was still despondent, the kids were still upset but the people understood why they were behaving the way they were and as a result they pitched in and helped the man.

So what does this have to do with God? According to Isaiah 43:10 God has offered us the gift of understanding Him. We all have situations in life and we would like to know the whys of why it is happening; I don't think we are guaranteed the answer to any whys. However, how many situations in life do we not understand the whys and as a result we blame the who? Over the last 3 weeks I am beginning to believe and trust that God has offered us the opportunity to understand the who without understanding the whys.

There may be situations in your life that are difficult. You cannot understand the whys of it happening and you may never get the answer here on earth. But I invite you to ask God to give you understanding of the who, who He is in the situation. Your situation may not change, but because you know where He is and who He is in it you can operate in a completely different way in the situation. You can also look back at previous situations you've been involved in and invite Him to give you understanding where He was and allow Him to break off the lies and false agreements you made because of the situation.

God loves you with an everlasting love, you are the apple of His eyes, He has invited you to walk in daily freedom with him, as his beloved child. Invite Him to give you understanding.

Who Nose Better?

My son is 5 1/2 years old and he is anxious to do many things by himself. This morning he wanted to toast his bagel all by himself in our toaster oven. He has been itching to do this for days. Today I thought we would work on it together. Our toaster oven has a glass door which gets hot and our counter is small and with James up on the small counter it is hard to get the bagel out safely. I let him put the bagel in, turn it on and was going to let him try to get it out (with my monitoring of course). However, I realized he was having trouble maneuvering the knife to get the bagel out so I had to take over. I said, "I'll stab the bagel with the knife, then you can pull it out." He did not like this idea and he immediately shut down. He didn't want to pull the bagel out anymore since he didn't stab the bagel himself. I gently picked him up and said, "Let's go look in the mirror."



I then proceeded to take him to the mirror where just by looking he was immediately reminded of the injury on his nose from Saturday.

On Saturday, he thought it was a good idea to go running, roll on an exercise ball and fall head first into a beanbag. I told him to stop because he was going to get hurt. Five minutes later though he went and did it again, and this time he did miss the beanbag and you can see the results of that on his nose.

So this morning I asked him, "Who knows (nose:) better?"

"When Mom tells you not to do something it isn't because she is trying to be mean or prevent you from doing something, but she is trying to protect you. There will be a day when you can do it all by yourself but right now you just need to trust me and believe that I am stopping you from doing something because it is best for you; even if you don't see it."

As a parent I'm starting to learn that I need to listen to the advice that I am teaching my kids because I often find that those lessons coordinate very well with what God is trying to teach me at the moment. Currently, the Lord and I are working on helping me to trusts Him better and not shutting down completely when I sense Him trying to help me out.

I know it probably sounds absurd but I realized last week during one of my Breaking Free individual study times that I had some areas where I was trusting myself more than I was trusting God. I have areas in my life where I don't understand God and what He is doing so like James, I choose to shut down and not even try anymore. I trust myself and my ability to do things more than I trust God. And God gently pulls me away and takes me to the past and points "Remember that time? You did it your way and you got hurt. Why don't you follow my lead and allow me to help you through this time?"

So I'm learning to trust again, to trust God's heart toward me is good and even though I don't understand why I can't have things my way that His ways are better than my ways. I would much rather trust Him and His infinite wisdom than trust myself and my finite and unwise ways.

He knows better!

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Through the Storm

The waves were crashing over me, the storm was getting more ferocious. I was barely able to stay above the water. The sky was getting darker and I looked up to the heavens and cried, "Where are you God?" But all I could see was a dark, empty, sky staring back at me. My heart felt abandoned and alone. Where is God? I tried once again to rise above the waves so I wouldn't drown.

I then heard my name. I thought I was imagining. There it was again in a gentle voice, quieter than the storm but more powerful. He said, "Don't be afraid. I 'm right beside you, I will walk with you." So I took His strong hand and felt His embrace. The storm raged on but now we walked through the storm safely together, for He was right beside me.

The journey of life is hard, filled with bumps in the road, raging storms and more. I can look up at the sky, cry and feel abandoned by God, or I can stop, listen and see that you are standing right beside me, desiring to walk through this with me.

You say, "Look into my eyes and follow me. You are precious in my sight. You are mine. I gather my people close to my heart, won't you come?"

Whatever the journey He has promised to walk with us through it. That is the guarantee. We all have different journeys but there are two things all journeys can have in common:
1. We can walk these journeys with Him by our side
2. Our final destination is the same: being reunited again in His heart.

Based on Isaiah 43: 1-7.

Your Spiritual Wardrobe

Paper doll and outfits of Mercea by Grandma Vicky

Do you remember Put Your Clothes On! ? In that post, I talked about the importance of dressing in your Ephesians 6 armour on a daily basis. But my 4 year old is teaching me that people can be very particular about their clothes; and for sure they want a variety to choose from.

Mercea is a true girls' girl. She knows what she wants to wear and she picks her own clothes out (this started at age 2) and puts them on. God knows us, especially us girls, and He has provided us a wardrobe full of outfits that we can wear in the Spirit realm. So I thought I would open up our spiritual closet for us so on a daily basis you can look in and see which clothes you want to wear on a particular day:

Outfit 1: Isaiah 61:3
A garment of praise, instead of a spirit of despair.

Outfit 2: Isaiah 61:10
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Outfit 3: I Peter 5:5
Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

Outfit 4: Colossians 3:12
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Outfit 5: Galatians 3:26
Cloth(ed) yourselves with Christ.

Outfit 6: Luke 24:49
Cloth(ed) with power from on high.

Outfit 7: Isaiah 52:1
Clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor.

Outfit 8: Psalm 30:11
You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.

Outfit 9: Ephesians 6:14-17
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Outfit 10: Ephesians 4:22-25
Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.

Outfit 11: Colossians 3:14
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We all face different events everyday and God knows it. He has provided everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). My challenge to you is to print out the list of these 11 outfits and hang the list on your closet door. For the next week, when you get dressed choose which "Spiritual outfit" that you will get dressed in as you dress in your physical clothes. Let us see what a difference it can make when we intentionally dress in the clothes provided by Our Father.

PS You can copy and right click on the list of outfits. Then transfer it into a word document and print it out. Or, if you're technically challenged you can e-mail me at forhisgloryalone@ymail.com and I can e-mail the list to you.

God above all other gods

I have always been disturbed by the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar (Genesis 22). As a child, this story made no sense to me at all;I always wondered if God would ask me to do a sinful thing to prove my love to Him and how do you say no to God and how were you to know if it really was God asking and not satan? As I got older I learned and understood that this story represented what God actually did for us, in sacrificing His own Son on our behalf. Frankly, though, this story still didn't sit well in my mind, especially as a mother. It always bothered me. What was Sarah thinking at home? If that was my husband, and that was his god, I wouldn't want anything to do with that god. I finally had to get to the point where I'd just focus on what it represented and tried not to go there with all my other thoughts and questions.

Well, I love God and He tends to get through to my thick brain, more often than not lately (thank you). During my Breaking Free study Thursday night, we were studying the kings of Israel and some of these kings did some pretty horrific things, including sacrificing their children on altars. One of the women in my group made a comment, "Well that was pretty common in those times, it wasn't an unusual practice." She kind of sluffed it off as no big deal. But it bothered me. "What do you mean, it wasn't a big deal?"

Three days later, ding, dong I finally answered the door!

Back in Abraham's time, guess what the other "gods" were asking of their followers? They were asking for child sacrifice. Unfortunately, in that culture and time that is exactly what was common, culturally accepted practice. Abraham was before there was a Bible, and God had called Him to leave His people and go to a new land. Abraham may have been the only person on earth at that time God was intentionally revealing Himself too. And do you know what God did? He asked Abraham to do exactly what the other "gods" were asking, "to sacrifice your child to prove your love to me." However, when Abraham got to that point, God stepped in and He DIFFERENTIATED Himself from ALL other gods!

Psalm 95:3

For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.

He stepped in and He showed Himself as Jehovah Jireh, a Provider. Unlike the other gods, He does not require His people to murder their children, to satisfy Him. He is not like all other gods, He is above ALL gods and in fact He will provide the way to prove His love for us. This was the missing link for me, the step that I needed to have to understand and appreciate this whole story. Before, I thought Sarah would have had a grudge against Abraham her whole life, but now I think when Abraham got home, Sarah was very excited and she did want to know more about this God who was different than all other gods and would provide a better way than the sacrifice of their child.

And God continues to differentiate Himself from all other gods. He is the only God, who loves us so much that He would give up everything, suffer, die and rise again with joy to have us as His inheritance.

Do you know who He is? Do you know who you are in Him?