paul's prayer...

we read this during worship practice last night and i thought it was pretty cool...

"I ask the Father...to give you his Spirit. The Spirit will make you wise and let you understand what it means to know God. My prayer is that light will flood your hearts and that you will understand the hope that was given to you when God called you. Then you will discover the glorious blessings that will be yours together with all God's people. I want you to know about the great and mighty power that God has for his followers...."

~Ephesians 1:17-19

it helped remind me that we are called to do something for God, his calling doesn't changed even if the avenue does. we just need to let the light flood our hearts and remember the hope we have in him, and his blessings will be discovered...

we have truly been blessed. we have some great friends and a wonderful pastor, our family is (mostly) healthy and happy, and all of our needs are provided for. we are truly blessed and need to remember the hope we have in Christ, it's far above anything any person or thing on earth can give us. i think we overlook our blessings much of the time, and definitely take them for granted.

blessings abound, just look around you and you can see them everywhere if you try...may the light flood your heart and help you remember your hope and discover his blessings too...

a time for every matter under heaven...

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break 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 away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 (NRSV)

again, a passage i've heard/read many times throughout my life, but usually stopping at the end of the "a time for" section. reading "the rest of the story" is kind of cool. i love the part that says "I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil."

it just shows me (again) how important it is to love what you do and to enjoy life. for the most part, i have always loved whatever i have been involved in, from my "job" of working with children in an educational setting, to being involved in youth ministry, being involved in worship teams/choirs, and being married to a minister. life always has its ups and downs, but you should definitely enjoy what you're doing, and enjoy life in general...it's what God wants for us! it's always nice to be reminded of things that we tend to "forget" sometimes...and i've been reminded of so many things lately, i'm just in awe of how much i have "forgotten" and how much i have taken for granted.

i guess there's also a time to learn too...

threatening?

i read my devo today, and i "knew" this but it always helps to be reminded. being in ministry, and even more specifically youth ministry, yeah i'd think that's a threat to the enemy... if we weren't doing something right, life would be peachy and we wouldn't keep coming upon difficulties...or at least much more peachy than it is and many less difficulties than we've faced. reading this helps to put things into perspective and in retrospect, God is doing great things, even if i can't see them all of the time. being involved in ministry...it's a dangerous thing to the stronghold of the enemy, and he'll try to stop us if he can...so who do we let win? i'm not going anywhere, a calling is a calling, and the specific area of a calling may change, but being called by God to be in ministry, or be a minister's wife, or whatever it is...it's still there, God doesn't walk away from us or what he's called us to do...to build his kingdom... if you're dealing with uncertainty in where you belong in ministry...just stay involved and the doors will open. but don't walk away, because if you do, the enemy will win...for now anyway...

Are You a Threat?
by Os Hillman


"One day the evil spirit answered them, 'Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?'" - Acts 19:15
Are you a threat to the kingdom of darkness? If satan and his demons had a board meeting and your name came before the board, what would they say? Would they say that you are one of their most feared enemies and they needed to keep many demons harassing and opposing you? Or would they say, "Gentlemen, this person poses no threat to our activities. Leave him alone. He needs no help from us." There are millions of church-going believers sitting in pews Sunday after Sunday who pose little threat to the kingdom of darkness.

If we truly believe that we war against rulers and principalities that cannot be seen, then we must realize that their mandate is to hinder any believer who is seeking to walk in the fullness of God. However, "greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 Jn. 4:4b KJV).

If you are seeking to fully follow the Lord, you can expect harassment from the enemy. God permits temptation because it drives us deeper into the soil of God. These times reveal God's power to keep us and walk us through the temptations. Our message becomes fruitful when it is born out of obedience and suffering for His name. Do not consider it strange if you find yourself fighting major battles the more obedient you become to the Master. God desires each of us to become a feared enemy of hell in order to affect satan's domain. When you begin to feel harassed, chances are you are beginning to affect the kingdom of darkness, and satan doesn't like this. So, how many demons do you think are assigned to you?

hard to get...

so if you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know that i think in song, or at least strongly relate to songs on a regular basis.

sometimes when we don't have a clue as to what God is doing, and can't understand what his purposes are, we want to give up, be neutral or become numb. living the christian life isn't easy, and if you think it is...just wait! today's sermon was about rest, and how we need rest, and sometimes when we can't get the rest we need, at least we have hope that we will find rest when this life is over... but it's still hard to understand God's ways many times.

so this song keeps coming to mind because life is such a roller coaster of ups and downs, valleys and mountaintop experiences, and it's hard to understand sometimes...

"hard to get" by rich mullins...i've blogged it before, but found this "video" that's really an audio of him singing it... because God is sometimes "just plain hard to get"...

i just can't help myself...

i don't necessarily want this to be a public listing of the devotions i'm reading, but they're so good i can't help but share them! i'm posting yesterday's first so you can see the progression of the devos, then today's. i just love how God has a way of giving you what you need when it's most relevant to your life! he's pretty awesome like that...and in so many other ways we don't give him credit for most of the time too.

Becoming Aware of God
Os Hillman

..."Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it." - Genesis 28:16

Jacob was forced to flee his family after receiving the blessing of God from his father, Isaac. He ran as a result of his broken relationship with his brother, Esau, who threatened to kill him. He was alone after leaving his family and was sleeping in the wilderness area at Bethel. It is here that Jacob encountered God personally for the very first time. He had a dream in which Heaven was opened up to him. The Lord spoke to him there and gave him a promise to give him the very land on which he was lying.

This encounter with God made him realize that God was in this place, even though he had not been aware of it. God had to remove Jacob from all that was of comfort to him in order to reveal Himself to Jacob. What began as a crisis that forced him to be removed from his family and friends led to an encounter with the living God and a fresh vision of God's purposes for his life.

How often we go about our daily routine and fail to recognize that God is in the place where we are. God had to bring Jacob to a place of separation from his old life and remove all his worldly possessions. He was alone with God at Bethel; nothing else could distract him from an encounter that would change his life.

God often must do radical things in the life of the servant in whom He has special plans: separation from family, removal of physical and emotional resources, an encounter with God. These are often the hallmarks of ownership by God that build a vision into a life.

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God's Preparation for Moving Out
by Os Hillman

In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys. - Genesis 30:43

Jacob left his homeland after suffering a broken relationship with Esau for stealing the family blessing. He went to work for his uncle Laban where he stayed for 20 years. It came time for him to leave, but he had no physical assets to show for those years under Laban. Laban had taken advantage of his nephew in every way. (In some ways, Jacob was reaping the seed he had sown his entire life as a manipulator and controller.) Nevertheless, God's hand was on Jacob, and He had plans to prosper him. However, Jacob had one problem - he had no resources of his own. For Jacob to launch out on his own, he would need resources. In those days, resources often meant large flocks of animals. God gave Jacob a dream that resulted in a strategy for creating wealth by multiplying his sheep. Even though Laban sought to thwart Jacob's efforts, God overcame the evil in Laban to allow Jacob to prosper.

There are many important lessons for us in this story. First, when God decides it is time to move you into a larger place of His calling, He has the ability to provide the resources you need to support the call. God gave Jacob a dream that resulted in a strategy never used before to build wealth. It was totally from God's hand. It was creative and new. God called Jacob to move out after he had demonstrated his faithfulness in 20 years of serving Laban. He learned to live under authority and served Laban faithfully, even though he knew he was being taken advantage of.

God will do the same for you and me. However, a word of caution: Be sure the strategy is born from above, and not from self-effort. The difficulty for most of us workplace believers is to learn the difference between the strategies born of God versus the strategy of self-effort.

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sometimes things have to be turned upside down to make you look at the bigger picture and see what God really wants for you to do... it's happened to us in the past, and we're currently praying about what his will is for us in ministry now too. sometimes you get too comfortable in the way things are, so you don't look to see what else God might want you to do for him. but then, once you're going in the right direction, he will give you a vision and prosper you in a way that will allow you to carry out his plan too. change has been in the works for awhile, so it's not a big surprise to see God step in and stir things up a bit. (and jacob, after almost 20 years of doing one thing, and no physical assets...so uncanny...like i said, it's funny how God brings you insight that's relevant and relates...) we're kind of in between those two places right now i guess...working on the vision, so we can see what the plan is.

i was reading an article yesterday about holding onto what's comfortable or what you know so tightly that you can't let go and let God guide you into the next thing that he wants for you. i could totally relate. i love the area of ministry we've been involved in for years, but sometimes you have to just let go and free fall for a bit to let God take control of where your next thing is going to be. guess i'm in a free fall right now...and it's kind of fun, just gliding along and seeing where it will lead. letting go is the hard part, but once you do it's an awesome experience to just let God have control and take you wherever he may lead...

try it, it's not so bad at all....