The Sherbet Life

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you”, says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

God’s plan for our life is good!  Like this bowl of rainbow sherbet, God wants us to have a vibrant life filled with so much and to know that His plan for us is for good and not to harm us!  But getting to the place where life looks like the beauty of this sherbet takes some time.  We don’t start out looking like this!  It’s a process and it takes time and its messy at times!

The ingredients for sherbet and a vibrant life is

Milk (1Peter 2:2 You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation)

Fruit (Galatians 5:22 The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.)

Sugar (Proverbs 24:14  In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it , you will have a bright future and your hopes will not be cut short)

The steps to making it: 

Combine  pure spiritual milk and fruit of the spirit (this may take some time as you have to wait for some of the fruit to ripe) Go ahead and process the  fruit you have bore in the process of life and wait to make another batch until those are ready. This is how it comes out in multiple colors. This may feel tedious and take awhile but necessary to  make it all happen.

Guidelines for fruits that ripen first.  Love, Joy, Peace are usually the first and  go well together.  Patience, Kindness, Goodness are second and they also blend well with one another and Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are usually the last of these to be harvested.

Process until smooth. (Takes a really long time sometimes)

Taste and add the sweetness (wisdom) you were gaining while processing the pure spiritual milk and fruit of the spirits. Process again until smooth. Taste and reflect.  Go back and ask for more wisdom for sweetness.  You always have to ask for more.

Go back and in another container combine the spiritual fruits that are  now ripe and mix in with more spiritual milk . And repeat this until all fruit has been harvested. Again this makes the vibrant colors using all the different fruits in different batches. 

Place the mixtures in an ice cream maker in our case “The Maker” that’s been right there through the whole process and continue according to the manufacturer's instructions (which is the Bible and where you got the recipe and your spiritual milk from)

 

And that’s how God can make something beautiful out of your life! Skip an ingredient or rush a process though and it doesn’t come out the way God wants it too.  It may still be good even if it’s not as solid as it should be (not enough time with The Maker). It might not be sweet enough (lacking wisdom).  It may have too much milk (knowledge) and not enough fruit ( love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control). It may be solid, but its gotten a little freezer burn  from not using it when you should.  

And if you try to wait to have all the fruits of the spirit at one time and make only one batch, it will just turn out ugly brown.  It may taste good (although I bet it will lack some sweetness due to a lack of wisdom) but it doesn’t look appealing to those unbelievers who have yet tried to make a life with God’s plan! Your lack of vibrancy keeps them from even bothering to try it!   By following this recipe,  unbelievers can look and see that you are making something beautiful and they want to find out more about it.   You have them intrigued on how different your life looks to theirs.

  You might be happy with what you got out of life but God had the recipe he had hoped you’d follow closer to make the best out of your life!    He is still happy with how you turned out but He knows you would have enjoyed His plan for you so much more! 

So if you don’t like the way your life has turned out so far, why not go back and try the recipe again.  If you are in the process of drinking in the word, waiting for fruit to bear,  and/or waiting for some wisdom in your life, don’t lose hope or be discouraged.  You are making your life something beautiful each day you embrace God’s word, bringing forth the fruit of the spirit, and growing each day with God and seeking His wisdom.  One day the Lord will say Matthew 25:23 “Well done my good and faithful servant.” and I think he might add, “Your life was just like the beautiful life I  had planned for you.”

The Path Part 2

 

  Isaiah 49:10 “. . .For the Lord in his mercy will lead them; he will lead them beside cool waters.”

 

On the first post “The Path”, the path was taking a blind turn.  It had been easy up to this point to trust God on my walk with Him but now as it was making a turn around a bend and I could not see what would lie ahead, my faith began to falter.  I could go on and trust in the God that had brought me through so much, I could stall out and reflect on how far I have come in my journey with God and quit all growth with Him, or I could retreat back where little was expected of me.

  As I let go of my insecurity, as I began to reflect on my hurts and pains, I knew I didn’t want to walk back through all of that and re-live it again!  I knew my time sitting here and not moving forward was also of no more use to me.  So as I took God’s hand and he helped me up, I did not feel weighed down by my past or my present.  I felt hope! This photo is exactly where the bend took me when I decided I was going to faithfully, hand in hand with God, make the blind corner.  It led me "beside the cool waters” on this awesome rainy Spring day!  The path before the turn was not nearly this vibrant and beautiful.  Maybe it was in God’s timing that I take the time to reflect on where we have been on “our” journey, maybe sitting on the path contemplating where I have been and where I needed to go was exactly what I needed to do!  To sit there and let the winter of my soul finish its course, letting go of some pain and hurt I have felt so far in my journey.  Ephesians 4:23 “…let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.”  Perhaps that is exactly what was needed so that my walk with Him would have the renewed vibrancy of Spring! 

As he led me beside the cool waters, I felt His living water consuming my soul!  There was a light Spring rain coming all over me and making gentle beautiful ripples in the water.  I felt alive and my soul felt radiant with God’s love and his peace!

Proverbs 16:15 “When the king smiles, there is life; his favor refreshes like a spring rain.”

GIVE UP OR GIVE IN!

Think for a moment what you would do if someone saved your life from a fiery fire! Would you not feel compelled to thank this person and ask them what you could do for them for saving your life?

That is exactly what Jesus dying on the cross did for us! He saved us from a fiery eternal fire and once we acknowledge that He has saved us, we are made brand new and we are to give our lives to Him!

If you truly felt saved from the fire wouldn't you naturally want to follow Jesus's way!  But too many times, we are saved from the fiery fire and never follow through on giving our life completely over to Him!  We may never give him any part of our life and continue doing the same things in the same way (topic for a different day) or we may give God just "some" of our life and keep the rest for ourselves.

The challenge is surrendering your entire life to Him and because of our sinful nature choices are made each and everyday to what we surrender too.  Sometimes we wave the white "I surrender" flag in God's direction and sometimes that white flag waves in sin's direction.  Either way we are saying I can't do this!  If we wave the flag in God's direction, we are saying "God I give up my life to you, I can't do anything right without you." If we wave the flag in sin's direction we are saying "This is just too much temptation for me to handle, I'll give in to it just this once."  We either "Give UP or Give IN"  We either Give Up our life to God or we Give in to sin! 

Personally, I "give in"  a lot more than I should. My prayer this week is to "Give Up" more! Yes that even felt weird to type but it's true.   My challenge for myself this week is to make those decision points stick out and take the situation out of it and reduce it down to the basics of just asking myself  "Are you going to Give Up your life to God, or Give In to sin? Which way are you going to wave that white flag?"  

PS.And I was thinking, the next time you hear someone say, "I give up!" it might be a great time to share with them a christian perspective on "giving up" vs "giving in"!    

THE PATH (Part 1)

Psalm 32:8 The Lord says "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you."

Has you life ever been on a path illustrated by this picture? Have you willingly set out on a path and things were going great but up ahead you see the path is about to make a turn around the bend! Try as you might you can't see what lies around that corner without actually turning that corner! As I see it you could do 1 of 3 things. 1. You can stall out and take a seat right here on the path and think about how far you have come and contemplate the next move. 2. You can retreat and completely give up all the progress you made because fear is keeping you back. 3. You can faithfully take one step at a time with God and boldly make the corner.

A lot of times in my life I have done #1 which is Complacency. I want to over-analyze the situation and even think that I'll just wait it out and surely someone else will be coming up that path anytime now and I'll just see what happens to them. Ironically, no one has ever shown up on that path because it is only mine to walk (with God)! I like to look back at these times and prove to myself how far I have come and give myself a pat on the back but really I haven't finished the race and all I'm doing is slowing down my progress to a complete halt.

I have also spent equal time with #2. Retreating. I have no problem following God's path for my life until it looks uncertain, requires more faith than I really have, or just downright looks like its going to be difficult! So I have no problems trying to back step and go back to where little was required of me. Then I get to a point where I have really fallen all the way back to where I started from and then again begin the same journey. Each time getting to that place where I am uncertain of making that blind corner!

Unfortunately, I have spent less time in #3. Faithfulness. Where I trust God and know that this is the path he is directing me and taking each step with Him. Proverbs 20:24 The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way? Although less time is spent here, I do know enough to say that stepping out in faithfulness does hurt at some point. If it didn't then we wouldn't need God right? But I also have been faithful enough to know that walking through difficulties with God brings you to an incredible place that you would have never gotten too if you were just relying on yourself, or where too complacent or scared to just be faithful and know that God is directing your paths. Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. So if you know you are on God's path and you are insecure about going forward. Take courage! Mark 6:50 Jesus said "Don't be afraid. Take courage! I am here!"

PS. . .I took this pic on a walk recently and it was if Christ was speaking all of this to me when I looked at the picture for the first time! Maybe it will speak to some of you!

Patience Marker

Patience is one of those things I really don't have a good grasp on. My impatience often leads me down a down hill road headed straight for Temper Tantrum Tunnel and that's a place where I have complete tunnel vision focused on what is agitating me and on nothing else. It is there that my anger gets the best of me. I've been working hard on not taking that road and it seems in my normal day to day life I still take the wrong road more than I should. I often feel more defeated the more I try!

But lately there have been some circumstances out of my normal day to day activities. Circumstances and situations that normally would get the best of me. But they didn't! I was able to stay composed, patient, and calm! It completely surprised me! In my prayer time God showed me that it was the very things that were so difficult for me to handle where I felt I was losing the battle where my patience actually grew! It was in the times that I tried, and tried, and tried to not lose my temper where all I was doing was prolonging the inevitable tantrum, that my patience made the most strides! It was not in my two recent victories where I gained patience! It was in those moments when I strained to tame my tongue, when my blood pressure was rising, when I refrained from having to be right, when I tried so hard to not give in but in the end lost. . . that's where patience was gained. Moving that patience marker back a little further each time has let me gain some easier victories (Thanks be to God) but ones I never won in the past!

There were times when I felt my impatience and anger for a particular person was justified because I was right and she clearly was in the wrong. Circumstances with her that very few people could be calm through but I pressed on when others walked away. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 says "Be patient with everyone". It doesn't say "be patient with everyone except those that really get under your skin". I knew what God was asking me to do but I did not know at the time that it would have such a profound impact on how I handle so many other issues in my life.

Moving the patience marker back is tough! Gaining patience is like moving a huge boulder up a hill. It's hard to do and can't be done alone. If you try on your own, you will give up because it can't be done. But with The One's(God)help, the push is still extremely difficult, you want to quit but God won't let you, you feel defeated but you aren't, and through all that is so hard for you to do, you gain ground ever so slowly.

Today after much pushing, my patience marker is set back just ever so slightly. Looking at where that marker needs to be and where it is doesn't look all that encouraging! But just having moved that marker a foot back from where it was and seeing some changes made in this area is very encouraging!

If you struggle with your patience and you really want to change this just be prepared for many opportunties that will try your patience and will challenge you to push your patience marker back. And don't forget, you can't do it without God! It's a tough fight but one that you can gain ground on! And don't forget when you do win battles give God the victories!

Pride

I haven't written in awhile but plan on starting back up. This is a story I wanted to share that happend just recently.

There I was at my kids group swimming lessons. Sitting at the top of the bleachers with my Bible study on my lap and looking up scriptures on my smart phone, really oblivious to how noisy it is in the indoor pool facility. My study was on pride. As I looked up scripture and read the author’s narrative, I knew I had a lot of pride in my life. Pride is anything we hold on to ourself and don’t glorify God for the blessing he’s given us.

As swimming lessons were finishing up, so was my prayer. The author suggested getting on your knees to say this prayer but since I was in a public place I of course opted to sit in the bleachers and prayed earnestly to God to show me the pride I have in myself and teach me some humility! I admitted areas where I could see the pride and asked God to show me any areas that were hidden from my own viewpoint. I got up and made my way down to the bleachers, when I slipped on the wet tile around the pool and landed down on my knees just inches from falling into the deep end of the pool! As I looked up I said “Oh Thank you Sweet Jesus for not ordering a second baptism for me today”. Many people came to help me up and I knew right away that my prayer for humility had been answered in this “humiliating” way!

Pride for me is so hard to get! Bowing down to God in a public place would make me feel like I was trying to show others “look at me, I’m such a great Christian” and be a prideful act but God showed me if you don’t bow down before him, he can bring you to His knees more forceful and powerful than you can imagine! Proverbs 16:18 “Pride leads to destruction, a haughty spirit comes before a stumble.”

Lessons in pride hurt. I still feel the sting of busting my knee and elbow and the soreness all over my body but what a great reminder each time I wince to praise God and to openly profess on my sore knees the pride I have in me.

Obedience

Jeremiah 7:23 "Obey me and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you that it may go well with you."

Obedience to God's commands can sometimes make you look like a fool to people of the world. I think that's why so many prudent people struggle so much with obedience to God. It's often crazy, radical things that logical people just wouldn't do that God asks you to do.

For me, it's to voluntarily take a severance package in this economy. Some people would do that in a heartbeat because they don't like to work but for me. . . I'm out of my comfort zone and it doesn't seem the logical thing to do. I have somewhat reluctantly accepted that I have a calling to teach. I don't know why I am so stubborn. Others have seen it for a long time, but I have been somewhat slower to it but now I see it and I am embracing it. So I'm leaving my career, I do not have a teaching job, I don't even quite have a license to teach yet but I will take this walk in obedience. I have no idea where we will end up or if I'll even get a teaching job this time around but I just have to have faith that I'm moving in the direction God is wanting me to move in.

I see this summer off with my family as a blessing. We need some time to be together and have less stress in our day to day lives. I will daily have to remind myself to not get anxious about the tomorrow's ahead. A lot of the time our answers do not come until the last possible minute so I might as well enjoy each day and do what I can each day but to not let worry take root in me!