Sand through His Fingers

Do you remember playing in the sand as a kid - especially at the beach?  I spent many summers in the sand of the beaches of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  My grandparents lived only 30 minutes from Ocean City and Assateague.  One of my favorite activities was scooping up handfuls of sand, hoping to find a sand crab in my palm after the sand sifted away.  Recently the Lord gave me a vision that involved that very activity, only it was His rather large hand outstretched over the sand with me standing beneath it.  Before you think I am going weird on you, read on. 

Most of us have by now embraced the belief that God does not cause all things to happen, but rather often allows them to happen in our lives.  Imagine your life.  Imagine that the sand represents the myriad of things that are coming your way.  God has Romans 8:28 in mind: 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.  He is considering how each event, interaction or word spoken will benefit you in the plans He has for your life.  Selectively He allows some of the sand to sift through His fingers and "fall" on you.  Remember that sand is an abrasive substance.  Seashells continually rubbed by sand become smooth and lose their rough edges.  Similarly those "sandy" occurrences in your life are meant to soften those rough protrusions in your spirit.  After enough encounters with the sands of life, your image begins to alter and surprise, you can become more Christ-like.  But there is more.

Just like the sand crab I was trying to capture as a child, there are events, interactions and words in our life that God chooses to capture because they will not contribute to His plan for you.  After God gave me this vision, I began to vividly recall specific instances in my life when it was clear He hung onto a "sand crab".  I do not know about you, but there have been times in my life when I placed myself at the wrong place and at the wrong time.  The disaster that could have - no, let's say, should have - befallen me did not occur.  I escaped unscathed, relatively speaking.  Now in the wisdom of my later years, I can look back and say, "Good grief!  How stupid was that move!!!"  Yet by a clearly miraculous intervention, I was protected.  Folks, I did not even have a personal relationship with the Lord then.

All of this begins with the basic premise, the critical belief, that God loves us.  He loves us so much that:

• Luke 12:7 And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.
• Psalm 139:2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my every thought when far away.
• 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."
• John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 

Get the idea?  First and foremost we must believe the truth that He loves us.  Otherwise we will start listening to the lies of the great deceiver who would have us believe otherwise, who would have us believe that our Lord is intentionally harming us, that He is a control freak who simply likes to wield His power.  Sounds like a self description of the enemy, the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy.

Believing that God loves us more than we can imagine means that we must trust Him with our lives and our hearts.  We must trust that even while we cannot see the light in the midst of the storms, the Son is indeed shining behind the storm clouds.  The storm will pass and when it finally does, there will be sun, fresh air and sometimes even a surprise rainbow.  We have to trust that even when we feel as if He is not there, He is.  We have to trust that ultimately He works this out not only to our own benefit, but to that of the kingdom as well.  We also need to trust that earthly rewards are not the preeminent thought in His mind, rather eternal rewards are.

So let's go back to the sand and the hand.  Consider the weight with which God considers each moment of your life (reread the scriptures above if necessary).  Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you the sand crabs that God held onto and did not let travel through His fingers.  Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you how the "sand" that was allowed to fall upon you actually shaped your current image.  More importantly ask Him to reveal to you His heart for what you look like in His eyes and His desire for the "completed work".  Too many of us focus on the sand instead of the process.  Personally, I am so grateful for the process and I am also grateful for each grain of sand, as painful as many of them were.  I am excited about how far I have come in this refining process, but I am even more excited about the future and what He is going to yet accomplish with me.  My prayer is that you will embrace a new attitude for the events of your life and embrace the process anew.  Shalom!

Inadequacy

Oh the power of words in our lives!  Recently I have come to recognize that there is a deep root in my life that like ivy keeps springing up when I thought I had ripped it out.  Have you ever tried to get rid of English ivy in your yard?  It is a constant battle against the deep roots that resist death.  I vividly recall such a battle in my first home here in Atlanta.  My tiny backyard was literally covered - ground and fence - with this green stuff.  Thankfully it wasn't kudzu, but definitely a huge challenge.  I tore vine after vine off the fence, pulled them up from the ground, then went behind the fence to clear a barrier of about 2 feet.  However, if I did not continually monitor that space, the vines came creeping back. 

Realistically this is exactly how some of us are in our spiritual walks.  We believe that we have eradicated something from our lives only to discover that the root is still there and consequently new growth starts erupting when we least expect it.  We are currently walking through a powerful teaching at church authored by Mark and Patti Virkler titled Prayers that Heal the Heart.  I highly recommend this for everyone because most of us have yet to fully grasp and obtain the total freedom that Jesus promises us.  There are so many visuals for this scenario to depict our struggle.  In ministering to others, the Lord gave me two that I will share in case it will trigger recognition for some of you.

First picture a cage - like a jail cell if you will.  You are inside that cell holding your heart in your hands.  The bars are the various lies the enemy has used to keep you ensnared.   God beckons to you from outside the cell and tells you to come forward.  Your response, "I can't the cell is locked."  God's response, "No, it isn't.  Go to the door and push."  With trepidation, you move forward and gently push against the cell door.  With great surprise you realize it is moving.  Encouraged you push a little harder and it swings wide open.  Amazed you slowly walk out of the cell, heart still in your hands.  God says, "Come to me, my chosen one, and give me your heart, and by the way, slam that door shut.  You will not be walking back into that again."

Second picture a yard with a stake in the ground and a worn circle around it.  Picture a chain that appears to be attached to the stake and the other end attached to a collar around your neck.  The rut in the circle is deep because of the constant circling around the stake.  There is no grass inside the circle because of the constant dragging of the chain on the ground.  God calls to you to come away from the stake.  Your response, "I can't.  My collar is attached to the stake by this chain."  God's response, "No, it isn't.  Walk away, out of the ruts that you have been traveling all of your life."  You feel the weight of the chain attached to your collar.  Logically you believe that it will yank you back when you try to walk away.  You hesitate.  God speaks again, "Do you trust me?  Do you believe in me?  Do you not know that I love you?  What is holding you back?"  Good question.  What do you have to lose?  Very tentatively you begin to move, anticipating that yank on your neck and the accompanying jolt that will come through your body.  But the love of God is pulling you like a magnet.  So you take a step, then a second.  You climb out of the rut, almost in disbelief.  Just beyond the worn circle is soft, fresh green grass.  The dust and dirt are behind you and you resist the urge to look back.  The glory of God is so strong in front of you that its warmth draws you closer and closer.

Do either of these word pictures resonate with you?  Each of us most likely has some form of imprisonment created by the lies of the enemy.  Whatever it is, God has opened the door to freedom to give each of us the opportunity to walk in complete freedom if we will just seize it.  The challenge for many of us though is that we have begun to walk in freedom and then that master of deception begins his seductive weaving of lies to once again limit us.  John 8:32  "And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."  Freedom is rooted in truth.  Therefore the opposite is true: lies will hold us captive.

One of the roots with which I am dealing is a lie of inadequacy.  The roots are deep born out of generational curses and sins, ungodly soul ties, negative expectations, and more.  This is what I am learning through this study with Mark Virkler.  The powerful truth is that these sources of deception are now being uncovered and I am walking away from them.  How can I truly operate in the full power of Holy Spirit if I allow the enemy access to my soul?  I know that I have come a long way from the beginning point of this journey, but I am not finished yet.  Wisdom tells me that I must guard my heart.  Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.  Because I am a child of God, I am chosen, I am therefore a target of darkness to attempt to thwart all that God has for me.  However, I know and he knows that I know that he is defeated and all power through Holy Spirit through the authority given to me by Christ is mine to use for the achievement of God's purposes for his kingdom.  

I fully recognize that inadequacy is just one area of which I want to be totally free.  I am going to be very deliberate about moving through each area that Holy Spirit reveals to me.  I want my heart to be free of darkness.  All of the "rooms of my heart" will be open with light and fresh "air" (remember what Holy Spirit's Hebrew name means?  In the Tanakh, the word ruach generally means wind, breath, mind, spirit. In a living creature (nephesh chayah), the ruach is the breath, whether of animals (Gen 7:15; Psa 104:25, 29) or mankind (Isa 42:5; Ezek 37:5). God is the creator of ruach: "The ruach of God (from God) is in my nostrils" (Job 27:3)  From the website: www.hebrew4christians.com)

It is a beautiful spring day in Atlanta.  It has been all week long with mild temperatures.  I have opened the windows of our home and allowed wonderful fresh air to flow through the whole house day and night.  How wonderfully symbolic for what God wants to do in my life.  I encourage each of you to discover what rooms of your heart house have been locked and shut.  Fling them open now and enjoy the fullness of all that God has for you!

  

Lucky Charms

No, I am not talking about the cereal.  I am thinking about those things in our lives in which we place a belief that their presence makes a difference in the outcomes of circumstances.  When you were little, did you ever have a  rabbit's foot on a key chain because someone had said it was lucky?  How about hunting in the grass for a four leaf clover?  What about famous sports players who declare that they have to wear the same shirt or the same color to insure their win?  Examples abound all around us.  As true believers we know that these become false idols in our lives, even if trivial ones.  Then again, can you use the word "trivial" in the same sentence as fasle idols?

Recently I was studying 1 Samuel and reliving the battle of the Israelites against the Philistines.  The battle was not going well (chapter 4).  An unidentified individual came up with the bright idea to get the Ark of the Covenant and bring it into the center of the battle. From verse 3, "Let's bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh.  If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies."  Did you catch the subtle shift of emphasis there?  Notice they say "it" not Yahweh or the Lord.  Their faith was in the physical Ark not in the Lord whom the Ark represented.  If you are familiar with the story, then you know that their plans failed - miserably.  The Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines and God began to wreck havoc on the Philistines.  Fascinating story and worth the re-read.

What is the message for us?  Far too often we put our faith in ritual or in the manifestations of the Lord and His love for us instead of in Him alone.  The shift in our own lives is so subtle that just like the verse quoted above, we can miss it.  God's adamant commands about idol worship are clear and unequivocal.  There are to be no other gods before us.  He is the only one that deserves our allegiance, our love, our attention, our faith.  Yet too easily we succumb to lowering our eyes onto other gods and allow them presence in our lives.  This particular sin is as old as man.  Think about Adam and Eve's initial sin, or even go back further and think about the fall of Lucifer.  He was putting faith in his own abilities to compete with God Almighty.  He made himself equal to God able to do whatever the Creator could do.  He used a piece of fruit to lure the original first couple away from God.  Perhaps the first idol worship - this fruit would give what we desired.

Let's take this down to a very miniscule level.  Have you ever gotten into a routine with devotional time with the Lord, a daily routine?  Then in the midst of the chaos that sometimes descends on us, you miss a day, or two or three and then are convicted with guilt.  What is the source of the guilt?  Is is fear that because you have failed to maintain this commitment that God will descend on you with discipline as He did with the Israelites for abusing the Ark of the Covenant?  Or is it more appropriately sadness that you have allowed life to interfere with your passionate pursuit of intimacy with the Lord and setting aside time for Him to speak into your life?  There is a significant difference between these two reactions to the same circumstance.  One is born out of creating an idol out of our routines and the second is born out of agape love for Yahweh that takes second place to no one or no thing.  

Superstition is a tool of the enemy, a weapon of the dark side to distract us.  However it is usually accompanied by idol worship of some form.  Do you know anyone that reads horoscopes?  Is this not putting credence in knowledge that is not God delivered?  Divination is spoken of frequently throughout scripture - Old and New Testament.  Tarot cards, mediums, Ouija boards and the like are all forms of this and they are a form of idol worship because more credence is given to them to tell the future than developing an intimate communion with the only source of life, our Creator, our Lord, our Abba.  However most of you already know this and have turned from any such activity long ago.  Therefore my question for all of us is this: What could be a distracting idol in our lives?

As I ponder this question for myself, I am evaluating those things that pre-occupy my mind.  A very wise person once said to me, what you think about the most is the Lord of your life. There are unquestionably aspects of my life that trouble me and cause me to stop and dwell on them.  However, I am blessed because Holy Spirit quickly asks me a simple question, "Do you trust God to handle this or not?"  My answer is an absolute yes!  So then Holy Spirit asks, "Then why are you dwelling on it?  Release it to His tender care and mercy and trust that He will do the best thing in this situation."  By the way, God's best thing may not be Janice's idea of the best thing.  But Abba has the big picture and I can only see my corner of it.  So I had better trust the master artist; trust Him, keep my faith centered in Him and not let anything else interfere with a laser beam signal from God's heart to mine.  Sweep away those false idols, burn them at their source, clear the way for God to move freely without my interference.  Yes, it is time for spiritual spring cleaning and to make way for an incredible sowing and reaping.  Will you join me? 

The Spirit of Giving

Giving is not as simple as it seems on the surface.  Most of us understand the concept of taking something in your possession and handing it to another.  This includes gifts, resources, time, talents, etc.  First we identify a need and then decide that we can meet that need.  Whether this is buying a gift to celebrate an occasion, or assessing what we have to provide for someone or a cause.  Recently I realized that often times our giving is complicated by our own expectations of how the recipient is going to utilize our gift.  Sadly comments are frequently heard that stipulate how a gift should be appreciated and utilized.  Is it truly a gift then?  

If I have pre-determined expectations of what someone should do with my gift, then I have attached invisible strings to it. In my mind, it is as if I am saying, if you will do such and such with my gift, then I will give you this gift.  And if they fail to appropriately utilize my gift, then I can fall into criticism of their choices and values.  It goes downhill from there.  Becoming acutely observant of their choices, voices begin to play out in my head: "Well that was not what I intended them to do with my gift."  This is especially true in situations where money is involved.  Sadly I have witnessed too many times when money changed hands and hearts were changed.  Have you ever heard someone comment to you, "Well when I gave so and so the money they should have used it for......" with great indignation. 

Ironically, the reason for my writing this blog had nothing to do with a negative experience on my part with giving a gift.  Rather I began thinking about the gift(s) that the Lord gives to us and what we do with His gift(s).  Without question, our God has great desires for what we will do with His gifts especially the gift of Jesus Himself.  God knew what the vast majority of the population of the world - past, present and future - was going to do with His gift.  We have only to look around our current world to shudder at the incredible rejection of this extraordinary gift of love.  However, this knowledge did not stop Him from giving us this gift.  Did it?

Agape Love means unconditional, without motivation, without expectation of return.  Not only does our Lord love us this way, but His heart is that we will love one another with the same love.  In talking with different couples in our marriage ministry, we have discussed the difference between the emotion love (a noun) and the action love (a verb).  Love as a verb is behaving in love, acting in love, giving and receiving in love.  There are no strings of expectation.  There is no manipulation.  It is a freely given gift of ourselves and our heart.  It is proactive.  The emotion of love is a feeling that is precipitated by someone's actions or words to us.  It is reactive.

Please do not misunderstand and misinterpret that I am condoning being abused or neglected by people with whom you are in a love relationship.  We must be cognizant of placing our heart in harm's way.  Withdrawing from harm is not a bad thing.  However turning that withdrawal into hate and anger against the harmer is a bad thing.  Studying how Jesus operated when He walked this earth provides an excellent example of walking in truth and love without condoning evil.  We all have choices to make in our relationships.  Hurt is inevitable; it is what we do with that hurt that separates us from others.  

Reactive versus proactive action is a key to walking in freedom and shalom.  I have a choice to make about 2 aspects of giving.  First I can choose to give the gift (my love, my time, my talents, my resources) with an agape heart and hope that this gift will somehow make a positive difference.  Second I can choose how I will act no matter what the recipient does with my gift.  There are so many factors about which we know nothing when it comes to the recipient.  Timing, life circumstances, previous patterns of behavior, etc.  If we want to control what happens with our gift then not only has it not been freely given, but we are trying to control the impact our gift has.  Are we releasing this gift to the hands of God for Him to use it as He sees appropriate for that individual's life?  Are we trusting Him to accomplish His plan (and not ours)? 

As I continue to grow in His love with the ongoing counsel of Holy Spirit I continue to recognize my shortcomings.  What I hear come out of my mouth (which remember is the wellspring of my heart - Proverbs 4:23) sometimes makes me shudder the same as if I had drunk a big gulp of vinegar.  Good grief!  Did I really say that?  Fortunately Holy Spirit is usually very quick to convict me that I must have an issue with my wellspring.  Some pollution has snuck in there without my filtering it out.  This recent revelation is a good check for me.  Proactive love and giving versus reactive is a great place to start my wellspring cleaning.  Perhaps there are a few of you out there who need a little wellspring cleaning too.  I pray that this message has been helpful in a bit of introspection.  Let's all walk in the freedom that the Lord has for us through living in agape love.