Be it unto me

What do we have in common with Mary?

She was a young girl, born of a Jewish family. She grew up in traditions passed down for generations. She grew, she learned she played as a child, she grew into womanhood enough to become engaged.

And then, in the span of a few minutes, a life changing event occurred.

This young girl who had found favor in the eyes of the Lord, had become ridiculed, shamed and cast out. Her life turned upside down, everything she’d ever know was gone.

Yet she had a new life inside of her and that knowledge kept her going.

I can imagine the trip to Bethlehem. I can imagine that she would play out events in her life that had led to this terrifying trek across the dessert.

And I can imagine that mostly what kept her going was this thought…… “I just want to hold my baby and see his face”

And when she did….

Oh ….when she did see Jesus face, I’m certain that all of the snares and ridicule and uncertainty fear and doubt vanished the moment she laid eyes on Him.

We also, are lives interrupted, by the power of the Lord and His will in our lives.

Some of us have led very different lives before now.

Some of us have been ridiculed… shamed… cast out.. called names and had our lives turned upside down when we said “yes” to the Lord’s will in our lives.

And like that young girl over 2000 years ago, it’s that new life inside of us that keeps us going.

It’s the singular thought…”I just want to see His face and have Him hold me in His arms” .. that keeps us going.

And I know as surely as I stand here today that when we see His face, all of life’s snares and uncertainty and doubt and fear will vanish and will never return.

Her hope was and is our hope.

To be used of God and to see the face of Jesus.

May we all have the desire to say, “Be it unto me”.

Today

This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

This is the day…

This day….

Today.

Today, there will be some who are born and some who will face eternity.

There will be battles, natural and spiritual.

Today someone will break free from an addiction and someone will succumb to an addiction.

Today someone will get married and someone else’s marriage will end.

Today someone will be saved and someone will fall away.

Today will be the happiest day in someone’s life and the saddest day in someone else’s life.

Today, like everyday belongs to the Lord. He’s in charge of it. He’s got it all in control. Nothing is going to take the Lord by surprise today. If we can trust Him, today and every day, we really can rejoice in knowing that He’s going to work every event out for our good.

Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Ark building

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Genesis 6:8

Building an ark of praise

To listen and obey the Word of God, is in itself a form of praise.

The Lord spoke and Noah listened.

It took Noah 100 years to build the ark.

100 years of Praise, every day, without fail.. despite ridicule; with a determination that would land this man of faith into the Holy, God breathed Scriptures of the Bible.

We see the cartoon images of Noah and his family and the animals on nursery and Sunday school walls.

And it’s a great reminder of that terrible and mighty day that showed the sovereignty of God. His judgment and His mercy.

To listen and read and love and live the Word of the Lord is our modern day version of ark building.

It is daily praise to read His word. To spend time building a relationship with the our heavenly Father.

A few times a week we gather in a building with other ark builders and we call it church.

We sing our songs of worship and we listen to the anointed Word from the pastor and we take our rest in the Lord.

It’s our quiet time.

It’s another form of praise other than the physical day by day building of our ark.

What did the ark do?

It saved his family.

It kept them safe from the flood.

It kept the animals alive; a promise and a future.

There is a flood coming in the future of the likes we have never seen before.

An uncertain economy, drugs and immorality abound, the grey areas are getting wider and we see the ominous clouds of an contrary wind coming our way. Everything we’ve ever known is going to be lost in a tidal wave of change.

And we continue to build our ark of praise.

Our ark of praise  will do for us what Noah’s ark did for him.

It will save our families, it will save us, it will save our future and we can ride out the storm and go where the Lord leads us.

Romans 12:18 

 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 

One of the problems with having family members who are addicts is the incredible overwhelming desire to help them past this time in their lives and onto recovery.

So much as been written and said on the matter.

Everything from, “they have to want to change” to “ you can’t help them” and everything in between.

It has even been explained this way:

If an animal is in a trapped in a vice, he is in so much pain that he will lash out at the one who is trying to help him out of the trap.

Experience says.. this is truth.

So we teeter between our Christian and ethical duty to help this person and being verbally and sometimes physically lashed out at.

And so the addict has a cycle and so does the family member.

I remembered this Scripture, “if it be possible, as much as it lieth in you.. as much as it lieth in you.. those words just kept going around in my mind. If it were up to me I would see my siblings every day. I would interact with them, I would tell them how much I miss them, how much I love them, how much it tears me up to see them live in this fog and I would be that constant for them in every way that I could.

But it doesn’t all lie with me.. they are part of the equation too.

And we circle back to the wounded animal in the trap and the anger that is directed toward us.

So we step back, leaving them in pain, but know we cannot reach them.

Not yet anyway.

There are words spoken, actions taken from my siblings that if anyone else would have done or said those things to me, I would have avoided them. They would not be a part of my everyday life. And we think because it’s family, it’s an excuse to stay in the line of fire.

It’s not.

The Lord gives me strength to try again when it is time and they might welcome another attempt to help them from the snare they are in.

But the Lord also gives me His word that says.. if it’s possible, live peaceably with all men.. but if it cannot be, in this moment of time, it’s ok to walk away for awhile.

What you learn in the Light

Deuteronomy 4:9
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

Don’t forget in the darkness what you learned in the light.

How many of us can find our way from our bedrooms to the bathroom at midnight? with no lights on?

It would be a safe guess to say that every one of us can manage this feat.

How can we do this?

How do we maneuver in the dark and not hit anything or hurt ourselves?

It's because during the day we learned where everything is and we know that we've changed nothing.

We don’t forget in the darkness what we've learned in the light.

Spiritually speaking the light is knowledge, truth, safety, peace, joy, strength, fortitude&  reasonable. It is good and pure and we like it in the light.

Darkness is doubt and fear and uncertainty and loss and unanswered questions. It is everything contrary to what we know in the light.

"Stumbling around in the dark" is not possible when you know what's there.

Even in the dark, we can still walk.

God is the same yesterday today and forever.

He does not change.

Nothing’s changed in the Light so we can find our way through the darkness.

The same God that helped Moses lead millions is the same God who will help lead your family.

The same Spirit the disciples had is still the same one that’s available to you and I today.

A calender moment

Every one of us has experienced a “Calendar moment”.

While driving my car came up over a hill and standing there waiting for me to see was… a calendar moment.

Those pictures that are special enough, timely enough, minus the effects that are so easy to make in this computer age, to make it on a scenic calendar.

100% pure gift from the Lord.

The mist covering the trees was perfect.

The sunlight was perfect.

The fall colors on the trees; perfect.

It was a snapshot moment in time.

It couldn’t be seen 30 seconds before and then 30 seconds later, it was gone.

The calendar moment was gone because I was in a different place, the light was different, the mist had fallen a bit more.

But in that moment of time, I could appreciate the beauty my eyes beheld and how much the Lord loves us to provide this kind of scene. He didn’t have to.

And He didn’t have to let us understand what we were seeing.

That moment gave and continues to give me hope for the situations in my life that are less than perfect right now.

If we don’t see the glory of the Lord in that moment, if we don’t see His perfect plan coming together in a moment of time that steals our very breath and humbles us to the magnificent orchestration of the Lord God Almighty; know this.. we are either coming up on it very shortly or we are too close to it so we can’t see it right now. But we will.

When the Lord pulls us along, and we turn our thoughts to what He has brought us through. When we catch a glimpse in retrospect, we have just had a “calendar moment”.

And then we learn,

We learn to look for them, people and situations from far off and can catch a glimpse of the beauty of it all.

Grandma Gigi says...