My Lil' Loves

The Lord has been so gracious to me in allowing me to live close to my precious nephew and neice for a little while, after returning from the Philippines.
Children are such a joy to my heart. Any child can put a smile on my face, but none touch deep in my heart like Wyatt and Raney. I don't know if it's because they are blood, or because they are my brother's, or because they are the Lord's... either way they have my heart.
Their smiles, laughter and giggles, funny thoughts and sayings, facial expressions, head knocks, squeezer hugs, sleepy snuggle hugs, any hugs at that, asking for peanut jelly and butter, reading books with Wyatt and having him finish the last lines on each page, sliding Raney down the slide, listening to Wyatt sing, recite scripture, or answer questions about a Bible story he just heard 10 minutes ago... sitting in Wyatt's fort with him, the way Raney pops her thumb out of her mouth, crawling over Raney, watching their faces light up when I come over, the way Wyatt says "domp truck", the way Raney smiles at everything, her cute lil' outfits, and her eye brow scrunch and nose blow that could put anyone in stitches, Raney's bat wings, and Wyatt long lashes and curls... everything about those youngins bring me deep heart joy.
It will be difficult for me, them moving an hour away, but the Lord will give grace for each day. My heart will feel the loss of them not being within 5 minutes from me, but at least they will be just down the road about an hour. It will be hard to see how much they grow since I won't see them as often, yet it will make my time with them more focused, intentional, and purposeful. The Lord is good and faithful... I mean at least they are still in the state of Mississippi! :)
Sometimes I just know He orchestrates things just for me... spoiled? Naw! Just loved more than I could ever possibly deserve!!!

Known by God

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it -- the fact that HE KNOWS ME. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

This is monumentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort -- the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, no enervates -- in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way that I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see, and that he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself. There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely to mention them is enough to show how much it means to know not merely that we know God, but that he knows us.

- J.I. Packer, KNOWING GOD. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973, Text Americanized and completely retypeset in 1993, pp. 41-42.

Snowball Circumstances or Deep Seeded Sin?

Some bad days start with one silly mishap, pick up momentum, snowball, and turn into a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day! No matter how hard I tried to be in a good mood on Saturday nothing worked…
Do bad days come from the outside of us; do the situations that happen day to day put us in a bad mood? Or do bad days come from the inside out; do situations bring out of us what we try to keep hidden from ourselves, God and the rest of the world?
It all started with money (truly the root of all kinds of evil) when my bank account dipped into the red on Friday. This is not a normal occurrence therefore my mood dial raced from a high 10 to a stinkin’ 1 in 3.0 seconds because my money glared red on my computer screen with a big ol minus beside it. But hey, things happen right? So I just tried to sweep it under the rug and began trying to figure out what to do. I mean after all it was Friday, the beginning of the weekend, my favorite, and I wanted to be in a good mood to enjoy my weekend.
Then, the snowball effect took off as I tried, on my own strength, to fix my rotten heart mood... I woke up earlier than desired Saturday morning to a surprise phone call and needed to take care of some business. Shook that off and thought oh well, now I have time to get more done in the day. Next was the emergency trip to Canton, about 45 minutes away which required buying gas with money that I didn’t have (once again the root of all kinds of evil). I loaded my camera into the car and off I went. I was determined to get one good thing out of this trip that would settle me, put things back in order, and set my mood straight; a picture that I had wanted to take since moving to Carthage. So I stopped, bought gas and was headed down the road. As I reached the abandoned house, I pulled off the road to take the pictures and wallered right through some cakey mud left from the rain the day before. I shrugged thinking oh well, it can’t get much worse. Ha! I walked slowly to the perfect angle for the first shot, clicked the camera on…nothing! Oh the ugly words that bounced around in my mind as I visualized my camera battery still sitting on the charger in my house twenty minutes in the other direction. Forget it I thought, I am just going to the bank to fix this problem that started all this mayhem to begin with. As I drove away from the picture site mud flew up in chunks from my tires and my nerves stood on end with each clunk under the car. After a thirty minute drive I pulled into the bank drive thru to meet blank signs where I should have seen “open” lanes; it was closed. I knew then this wasn’t just a combination of bad situations that were forcing me into a bad mood. The bad mood was coming out of me.
My little world wasn’t working the way it was supposed too. I wasn’t getting things accomplished that were on my schedule and that I wanted to do. I realized I was running my world for a few days and I had God benched, on the pine, and obviously it wasn’t working out. It seemed as though everything inside me and all of my nature welled up to rebel against Him, to shake my fist in His face, only because things weren’t going my way. As the morning and all the snowball mishaps passed I saw again what I am truly made of. I saw the ugliness of my heart come spewing out once again because my little world wasn’t functioning the way I expected. Who did I think I was? Why did I think God needed to bow down to my every wish and desire like a magical genie? Why did I think He should work on my time table? What possessed me to get so upset over such small and trivial things? Me, it was all about me…
In the course of two days, only 48 hours I had reverted back to my Israelite, stiff necked, little imposter deity, rebellious and independent self. As I drove home I listened to Hillsong; turned one particular song up and the words pierced deep and the tears started streaming. The Lord was graciously smashing my little pedestal that I had set myself up on once again. On the inside I felt that stubborn wave of self rebellion slowly subside. He was refocusing my heart; He was breaking down the stubbornness and rebellion and kicking me off His throne. I knew then that all the situations that had “just happened” over the past couple days weren’t accidents or just bad mishaps to make me have a bad day; it was the Lord’s good pleasure to bring me back to himself.
It took all of that nonsense to bring me back to His reality that He is enough for me… not money which is His anyways, not photography and hobbies that I love so much, not friends that I find so much joy in, not family that I cling to, not my time and my schedule; but Him, being with Him, loving Him, being in His presence, living daily on His time, by His will, for His glory… He was bringing me back to Him.
Praise God that He puts up with my childish games of thinking that somehow I can dethrone Him and take control of my own life. Praise God that His love is so much deeper than my sin, which is unfathomably deep. Praise the Lord that He won’t let me go, He is faithful, He will never leave nor forsake me, and He has promised to carry me on to completion! Hallelujah what a Savior, Hallelujah what a friend!
What a joy I find when I completely surrender my all to Him! But what a shame the lengths that He goes to pry my fingers off of the life that He has freely given me…
Ugh, such sin before the face of a holy God! Praise the name of Jesus, my Savior, Redeemer, Mediator, Friend, Sacrifice, Life Giver and Lover of my soul. He truly is enough!

The Cost: Death

Philippians 2: 1-11 ~
"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, and participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count other more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Most days this goal feels like a forever lifetime away. Will I ever resemble my Savior? It seems as though every day is a never ending saga all about me! When will I end?! I must follow His example... becoming obedient to the point of death.

"We want to die, but to die without any pain... we must give all or nothing when God asks it. If we have not the courage to give, at least let Him take." - A.B. Fenelon

Live in The Now

Tomorrow is vital to most people. To me... I bank on tomorrow, I bet everything that tomorrow will come. I live to live tomorrow. I live to make things right tomorrow. I make plans for tomorrow and even days, months, years on down the road. I think, I plan, I count on tomorrow coming.
...What if tomorrow never came?
...What if today was the last day of my life?
My heart is so rooted in this world that I can't see true reality. True reality is God reality, Kingdom reality, heaven reality, the next life reality.
...Why do I bank on tomorrow?
...Why do I pass time away day after day; waiting for the next day?
...Why do I not live for now?
...Why do I not make things right, now?
...Why do I not take every opportunity for the Lord, now?
...Why don't I deal with my indwelt sin now?
It's because I put my life and soul on the fact that I can do it tomorrow. I can make it right tomorrow, do it tomorrow, forgive tomorrow, say I'm sorry tomorrow, tell them I love them tomorrow, get my focus right tomorrow.
The condition of my soul, my relationship with the Most High God, eternal important things I keep pushing back until tomorrow, always tomorrow...when I am never promised to have another tomorrow. God never promises tomorrow; I could die tonight, right now, He could return, anything and everything could happen before tomorrow comes.
...Why put my life and my very soul in the hands of what may not even exist?
Now, now is all I have, now is the only time I have to confess sin, love those deep in my heart, share the Gospel of Christ, forgive and mend broken relationships, now, right now I need to get my focus right, stop waiting. Eventually I will spend my whole life living for tomorrow; then the last tomorrow will come and pass and it will all be too late. I'll be left wishing for more chances, another opportunity to go back and do it over again; but once again the tomorrows have passed by while I was waiting for the next.
...Why waste my life?
Whatever it is; do it now!