Monday, June 23, 2008

God-Ordained Moments

Isn’t it funny? ironic? interesting? how some of the most amazing God-moments take place at the same time that our plans fall all to pieces? We tend to get so wrapped up in making our little life plans and daily schedules, checking them twice, and getting them fulfilled no matter what—sometimes whether we have to be naughty or nice ;o].

Meanwhile, there is always God with His much higher plans and ways that usually tend to escape the understanding of our finite minds. We have a tendency to be so focused on the physical here and now that too easily we miss all signs of the spiritual realm and what’s taking place there. Our “near-sightedness” usually causes us to see those God-ordained moments as frustrating inconveniences to our plans and schedules instead of holy ground in the presence of an overwhelming God.

I’ll share a couple of examples from my own life in the past couple of days and hope that they may encourage someone else to see GOD and His hand, sovereignty, and majesty in the broken pieces of the plans they may have made for their life.

On Saturday, my daughter was at the horse ranch most of the day getting a horse lesson and volunteering her help as needed. She called me late in the afternoon and said she was ready to be picked up. My husband and I went to go pick her up having our own plans to immediately run some errands afterwards. When we arrived she begged to be able to stay just a tad longer and help do the afternoon feeding of the many horses. Over 30 minutes later my husband and I were still sitting in the car waiting for her; so he went into the barn to check on her progress. He came back out telling me that somehow they had lost a pair of small scissors that they were using to cut the twine off the hay IN the hay that they had fed the horses. It turns out that Madison had stuck the scissors in a flake of hay and somehow that flake of hay had made its way into one of the horse stalls. So the search for the small scissors in the hay stacks ensued.

There were four adults (including Michael and I) and two teen girls (including Madison) looking for these scissors. A lady was there that I had never met or seen before, and she chatted with me a little bit about the horses and the scissors being lost. As I looked into stalls hoping to catch of the glimpse of the scissors, I began to wonder who she was, if she was just someone there volunteering, and wondering about her in general. Then God spoke to me so gently and said, “She is a beautiful, precious child of mine”. Good enough for me; that was all that really mattered, wasn’t it? He was clearly telling me that. All that mattered was that I speak to her and think of her as a “beautiful, precious child” of His. The scissors were finally found after some time, but I think Madison was feeling so badly about the whole thing that she just kept sweeping the barn with a small broom. She was determined to leave the concrete floor spotless. Michael and I were more than ready to leave and get going onto our planned errands; one of which had already fallen apart because the place had closed by this hour. I started to help her sweep so that we could leave sooner. We had just finished and were about to leave when I noticed that the feeding was not completed (due to the delay in searching for the scissors) and the other teen girl was by herself trying to finish the feeding of all the horses. So I told Madison to go help her and that in the meantime I would sweep one more area that was still dirty. More time delay….

At this same time there was this conversation taking place between Madison’s horse teacher and the new lady. I was not listening to what they were saying, but it was obvious it was a deep conversation. Madison’s horse teacher eventually asked me to join in their conversation. It turned out that it was a conversation of spiritual and emotional encouragement for this lady volunteer, and Madison’s teacher asked me to offer encouragement and insight along with her. So this conversation continued with the three of us and later on the mother of the other teen girl showed up and also was asked by Madison’s teacher to join our talk. It was so obvious to me that through us God was telling this dear woman how much he loved her. The time was passing by and Madison and Michael were at this point waiting for me and feeling frustrated about the lateness of the hour. However, I knew that I couldn’t walk away until we had prayed together over this lady and dear child of God. Towards the end of the conversation God reminded me of what He had spoken to me about her earlier and He impressed me, urgently, that I must tell her. How could I have known that what God had so simply and gently spoken to me an hour before would be for that very moment?! As she stared at me unbelieving that God had told me what He had about her, and as she hugged me and I hugged her back so tight, I knew and understood this whole delay and messed-up-plans-afternoon was a GOD-ordained moment in time for this dear lady; for all us. I knew that Madison losing those scissors in the hay was not an accident, but an incident that God took and articulated to fulfill His perfect plans. It was all GOD-incidence. Yeah God!!! We did finally pray over her and each went on our way. She was grateful for the love that God had expressed through us, and I could see her face had lighted up so much with hope—hope in Him! Wow, God!!

Then this morning it happened again…

I had just began typing the first paragraph of this post (and had my plans of getting a lot typed before starting my day) when Michael came into the room to tell me that someone had egged the house and there was egg all over our porch, front window, and the stucco. …sigh…Can’t really concentrate on typing a spiritual story when there is egg drying harder and harder by the minute unto the outside of the house, and I have no idea how I’m getting it off. What a way to start the week, huh? I searched the internet for ideas and there were a couple of mentions of baking soda, vinegar, power washer, etc. I decided that the vinegar and baking soda sounded great because I recently discovered their combination is a stupendous (and cheap) fabric softener in the laundry. So why not try it on the egged porch area?

While I was hurrying to eat breakfast and feed the dogs so I could get out to clean, I was thinking how this was NOT what I had planned or wanted to do with my Monday morning—not at all. As feelings of great annoyance began to creep in, I also considered that if I looked for the God-moment in this morning I might just find it. I prepared all the necessary supplies and remembered to get my IPOD so I could listen to music while I worked; hoping that it would help me cope with the task at hand much better. I decided to listen to a Hillsong CD that I had not heard in quite some time. I had worn out all those songs a few years ago, playing the CD so often; plus, we had sung many of them at our old church and sometimes the memories of that time there are good and sometimes they are not so good. But today, God happened, again. As I scrubbed and scrubbed dried egg off of the porch area, the music brought me nearer to God. Before I knew it, I was worshipping Him passionately at the same time as I was scrubbing egg and getting baking soda and vinegar all over me. The breeze blew gently, the sky looked so beautiful in spite of the clouds here and there, and I sung to God and worshipped Him. My egg cleaning time turned into a time of utmost worship; of the kind that I haven’t had in quite a while. And believe it or not, I was filled with the utmost joy as I scrubbed and got all dirty. I was delighted to be out there scrubbing egg and having a special time worshipping the LORD! How funny is that?

But there is even more that I will go ahead and share…because for whatever His reasons are, today, God has granted that ordained moment (that I was waiting for) when I could sit here at the computer and type something of what I’ve learned as He teaches me. It is oh, so sweet when His peace that surpasses all understanding takes over in our lives. But it’s even sweeter when that peace also comes along with great understanding. It is so sweet when we can arrive at a moment in time where in regards to the past events or broken relationships that caused great anguish in our hearts we can now say, “Thank you, God, for that event or those things that occurred in my life, for without them I could not be who I am today. And I am beyond blessed and grateful to be here where you have me today.” I unmistakably saw this complete assurance in some things I said to a new friend recently: “I refuse to be bitter, resentful, angry, or hold it against them. They are completely forgiven; they were only tools of The Great Master in my life. I know that God blinded their eyes to the truth of my heart and that God hardened that person’s heart just like Pharaoh so that we could exit Egypt and be brought to the Promised Land of FREEDOM and deeper truth!” Today, I am truly thankful for the hard times experienced in the past because they have been instruments in God’s hands that He used to bring me to the present. NOTHING is wasted with God. Whatever the ugliest things in our lives may be—past, present, or future—they are all instruments used by The Great Master in His wondrous handiwork upon our lives. He makes ALL things beautiful in HIS perfect time.

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; a time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace…He has made everything beautiful in its time…

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)

Trusting implicitly in HIM and His timing…

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Spiritual Reality

I have wanted to post about various different things that have been on my mind or that I've learned as I walk daily with the Lord. However, things in our home and family life have been taking up all my energy and time. I can only wait until God creates an ordained moment of time when I can once again sit down, write some things, and be able to post.

I am currently reading an excellent book about real, live-action Christ-like love and community living. It is called The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I've mentioned Shane Claiborne before on a previous post and The Simple Way community that he began and is a part of. I will be writing a bit of a review based on my favorite quotes in the book sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, I was just reading a little snippet in a Watchman Nee book this morning, Spiritual Reality or Obsession, and something he said really stuck out of the pages:

"One thing which God's people should take note of is that every spiritual matter has its reality before God. If what we have touched is mere appearance and not reality, we shall find that it is of no spiritual value whatsoever. What, then, is spiritual reality? The reality of a spiritual thing is something spiritual, not material. Although spiritual reality is often expressed in words, those words, however many, are not the reality..." (pg. 5-6)

"Do you realize, brothers and sisters, that no one can ever perceive spiritual things with his eyes fixed on the material, that no one can ever think through to the spiritual with his brain? All spiritual matters have their realities. He who has touched reality questions no more." (pg. 8)

Trusting in YHWH...

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

One Day…ALL will GLORY! in His name


One day eyes that are blind will see you clearly
And one day all who deny will finally believe
One day hearts made of stone will break in pieces
And one day chains once unbroken will fall down at Your feet
So we wait for that one day; come quickly

We want to see your Glory
Every knee falls down before Thee
Every tongue offers you praise
With every hand raised
Singing Glory, to you and unto you only
We'll sing Glory to Your name

One day voices that lie will all be silent
One day all that's divided will be whole again
One day death will retreat and wave it's white flag
One day love will defeat the strongest enemy
So we wait for that one day; come quickly

We want to see your Glory
Every knee falls down before Thee
Every tongue offers you praise
With every hand raised
Singing Glory, to you and unto you only
We'll sing Glory to Your name

We know not the day or the hour
Or the moments in between
But we know the end of the story when we'll see

Your glory

Every knee falls down before Thee
Every tongue offers you praise
With every hand raised
Singing Glory, to you and unto you only

We'll sing Glory to Your name

(“Glory” by Selah and Nichole Nordeman)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Efw-7cFGSA)


Living am I, the Lord is saying, for to Me shall bow every knee,

and every tongue shall be acclaiming God!

(Romans 14:11)


All for HIS awesome and beautiful GLORY! AMEN! AMEN!! AMEN!!!