Tag: 30 days of praise

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Back to Bethel

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From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier 4 and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord. Genesis 13:3-4

I heard a great sermon the other day about Genesis 13.  I love how God lets us view people in the Bible with an almost cinematic touch.  We reach deep into their thoughts, their trials, their sins, their joys.  We can sit back and know they are about to fail or conquer.  But like any good director, God places seemingly insignificant artifacts and occurrences into the story that, in order to get the beautiful breadth of the story we need to look again and dig deeper.

That’s the advantage of being in a church which hosts a good teaching pastor.  They find the nuggets and carefully remove the outer layers, revealing the gems.

And so, I learned the other day about Bethel.  About coming home.  About retracing my steps to bring me back closer to God.  Two little sentences in the Bible showing me where to go when I feel lost.  When I have gone off track.  I praise God today for Bethel – for His welcoming home.

Many years ago, I wrote a short poem for my mother in law.  The gist of the poem was that like a bird finds its comfort in a beautiful birdhouse, so I find my home with her.  A lot of people feel that way around her.  She brings you in and gives you rest and comfort.  In Abram’s case, after he had made some disastrous decisions while in Egypt, he made the wise choice to go back to God’s house – Bethel.  It’s where he had built the first altar to honor God.

He didn’t just show up there, he entered back into communication with God.  And he was surely welcomed.  

Our human nature is to grow up and out of our parents’ homes.  To plunge into the world of adulthood, seemingly going it alone.  But for many who come from loving, healthy homes they know they can always come back for advice and aid.  

Our relationship with God is unique.  He wants us always tethered to Him.  He desires to be constantly asked about who to marry, where to work, how to handle difficult relationships.  He wants us to join His home gym, giving us strength to make it through trials and tribulations.  He longs to have us sit around His dinner table sharing our day – our joys and our pains.

And when we wander too far away, we need to remember to retrace our steps.  We need to follow our hearts back to Bethel.

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Busy or Fruitful?

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Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Matthew 7:20

For much of my life I sought busyness.  If I wasn’t “doing” then I was not worthy.  It didn’t matter what that doing was, I just needed to do something.  When I quit working to be a stay at home mom my greatest fear was to be seen as worthless.  A non-contributor.  And yes, I know I was doing the important work of raising a child.  But having grown up through the 70s and 80s, being a homemaker was not a goal any of my friends wished to attain.  

When my husband would come home from work and ask me, “What did you do today?” I took that as a judgment of my worth.  I felt the need to provide an hour by hour list of all the important things I had accomplished.  

Fast forward to 2020 – yes, the Great Lockdown.  I see that time as a sifting of sorts.  If you weren’t tied to a Zoom-based job you either embraced staying at home working on little projects around the house, completing endless puzzles, catching up on all those books you’d ignored, jumping in to Bible studies or you were going mad with boredom and itching to “do something important.”

What does this all have to do with praising God?  I realized the other day that I need to be thankful to Him that He never asks us to live a life of “busyness.”  I praise Him for instead expecting us to live a life that bears good fruit.  Quality over quantity.  He is not a task master.  He doesn’t have verses in the Bible about accounting for every hour of our day.  Yes, He doesn’t want us to be idle.  But that means not wasting our precious time doing things that don’t produce good fruits.

Time spent in mediation is not idle.  It helps me commune with Him.  Time spent in study brings me closer in line with what He wants of me.  Time spent in nature helps me appreciate and praise Him.  Time spent with my husband during a round of golf brings us closer together and strengthens our marriage.

But busyness distracts me.  It physically causes my heart to race thinking I need to accomplish something – anything.  It darkens my heart when I equate my doing with my worth.

Jesus came to change our hearts.  To remind us that our wrong intent is just as bad as our wrong doing.  And knowing that releases my heart and mind to live in a peaceful state. 

 

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The Closing Door

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The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

It’s a strange conflict we humans live out – we all know that everything will die but we live as though we will never die.  As though the ones we love will never perish.  As Christians, when we don’t acknowledge this full truth, we can trick ourselves into thinking we have time to finally obey God or to have that salvation talk with our son or daughter.

Having recently completed a study on Revelation it’s become clearer to me how I am living that half-truth.  I have people in my life that I really want to be with in eternity.  People that I love and don’t want them to be prey to Babylon’s vices.  

I’m praising God today for time and for our continuance of living in the age of Grace.  I heard the evangelist Joyce Meyer say on a number of occasions that we don’t know when the events recorded in Revelation will take place but we are certainly one more day closer.  And once those events unfold the Age of Grace will become the Age of Judgment.

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.  Revelation 22:17

The study of Revelation was difficult to hear at times.  Until you get to the last couple of chapters.  Then you see the overwhelming beauty of the new Eden unfold.  And you can’t help but say “I want that.  I want that for myself and the ones I love!”  You certainly don’t want what takes place in the previous chapters!  Even in those chapters, fraught with despair and destruction however, God adds His Holy pauses.  He gives us more chances to turn to him.  He gives us more time, more grace.  More than what any of us deserve.

I’ve read that God will only prolong our trials until we finally “get it.”  Until we finally just trust Him and obey.  It’s like He really doesn’t want to pull the final trigger.  The door is ever so slowly closing while He beckons more of us in.  But it is closing to be sure.  

Until that door is closed and we are gathered up into the heavens, into the new Eden, I want to use this God-given time wisely.  I want to take advantage of this Age of Grace and help squeeze the people I love through that door.  

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Inside Jokes

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Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Proverb 21:9

You might be scratching your head with the verse today.  What does a marital fight have to do with praising God?  Well, the fight itself doesn’t.  But God’s view of it does.  The book of Proverbs has some pretty funny sayings that in their humor make a point.  

The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!” Proverb 22:13

Picture the lesson above.  The lazy person makes all kinds of crazy excuses for not taking care of business.  And God turns the lesson into a humorous extreme to which we can all relate.

Praise God that He has a sense of humor!  I think so often people view religion and God as a super serious path we are to embark.  And yes, our ultimate salvation is pretty serious.  But a dour, colorless, and humorless life is not the example of God.  How can it be when God created the penguin?

A few years ago, when I was deep in the work of obeying God, I got to experience His sense of humor.  He had called me to serve the homeless in our downtown through providing about 100 lunches each week.  The test He presented to me required my complete submission and trust.  Submission in that I would do whatever He asked.  And trust in that He would not only show me the way but also provide the resources.

And so began my communication with God through signs.  No, not “signs,” actual signage like billboards, grocery store signs, small and inconsequential street signs.  Each time I prayed for direction, I kid you not, within that day I would drive by a sign that told me exactly what to do.  I started looking forward to how He would talk to me and the strange places I might hear Him.  It became my daily, out loud guffaw as I would drive by a billboard and look up to say “sounds great!” It was our own set of inside jokes.

I certainly grasp the awesomeness and majesty of God.  It’s why I decided last year to do the first 30 Days of Praise.  But we need to remember all the faces God presents to us.  All the ways He loves to communicate with us.  And all the ways He wants us to enjoy His world.  And if you aren’t joining with God for a daily moment of laughter you are missing out.

God’s love for us allows us to laugh at ourselves because of our imperfections.  If we joined in on that laughter a bit more, we just might gather a few more to His Kingdom.

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A Cotton Seed World

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Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 17:20-21

My BSGs are embarking on a new study called, “He Speaks to Me,” by Priscilla Shirer.  What stood out to me in the first video we watched was her discussion about the Kingdom of God.  She shared with the audience about how in the Old Testament the Israelites prayed for the “coming” Kingdom of God.  It was something they hoped and yearned for throughout their years as a new and developing nation.  And right at the beginning of the New Testament we find John the Baptist proclaiming:

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” Matthew 3:2

With Jesus’ arrival, the Kingdom of God (or Heaven) became flesh and was brought to the Israelites.  And so many of them refused to grasp that their prayers were answered.  And when Jesus was resurrected, the Holy Spirit remained to cover us with the Kingdom.  

Today I praise God for His continual presence in our world, in my life and yours.  The big word is “omnipresent.”  But I like to think of it more as though I move through and live in God’s presence.  He’s not “with me.”  I am more like the tiny seed that is buried in a fluff of freshly picked cotton.  I am in God’s kingdom, surrounded by Him.  

When I grasped this idea just a year or so ago it changed my perspective dramatically.  I don’t need to ask God to come help me or be near me.  I just need to slow down my brain and remember I am always in His presence.  We are all in His presence, whether we believe in Him or not.

It reminds me of the movie, The Matrix.  There are those in the movie whose brains and bodies are hooked up to a virtual reality machine.  They move about in a phony world without realizing its fake character.  And then there are the people who have disconnected from the computer and live almost in an alternate space – the real, tangible world.  When we disconnect from the world of the flesh and recognize that this is God’s world, His created space, and that we are in His midst, we start seeing life and how to live it from a new perspective.

The Kingdom, Jesus reiterated in our first verse is not a specific “thing” to be seen.  It’s because it is everything in God’s creation.  It is the grace God gifted us through Jesus.  It is His Holy workings in our lives via the Holy Spirit.  The kingdom is God and God is the kingdom.  Gnaw on that a bit!

When I’m struggling with an issue or feel pulled apart by the fleshly world, I now seek that “sweet spot.”  That quiet moment where I can feel nestled in His presence, like that little cotton seed.  I wrap it around me like a warm, soft blanket and thank God I can call him “home.”

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God Is Love

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Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I don’t think I’d be too off the mark in surmising that so much of human bad behavior stems from a need to be loved.  We seek fame and fortune to be noticed, to be loved.  We have affairs to feel needed and loved.  We engage in all sorts of sexual immorality in seeking love’s bliss.  We get petty and petulant because we feel slighted or unloved.  We gossip to draw others into our inner circle to feel important and adored.  When we feel lacking in being loved or even loving ourselves the doors open for the devil to whisper his sweet nothings to us.

It’s love we so desperately seek in so many wrong ways from the wrong sources.

Praise God that He first, created love.  How could He not?  The earth, sun, oceans, and garden were a thing of overwhelming beauty created for man to enjoy.  A gift like that can only be made out of love.  God is Himself love.  He gives Himself freely to us, even when we reject Him.  He waits patiently in this time of grace, for us to turn our eyes to Him.

There’s no magic formula or check to write for this true love.  Even when we are acting out in our most sinful ways, He gives us yet another opportunity to let Him love us.  Yes, let Him love us.  Too many of us push God away – possibly out of shame or guilt or a feeling of worthlessness.  I, myself, have stood harshly judging my reflection.  I have struggled accepting God’s love.  My past can sit like a demon shadow in front of me, pulling me into darkness.  But more often lately I’m looking at the face in the mirror asking God to help me love myself as much as I know He loves me.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

My greatest hope for my daughters is that they won’t take as long as I have to look in the mirror and know how well they are loved by God.  He will never leave them.  He won’t gossip about them or betray them.  He won’t judge them harshly.  He will love their fresh, young faces the same as He will love their old and wrinkly ones.

Love is an emotion that has drawn thousands of poets and scribes to try and describe.  It’s not a simple thing.  It seems bigger than all the other feelings we have at our human disposal.  It’s complicated and beautiful.  Just like God. 

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Mr. Fixit

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“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

Have you ever been in a difficult situation where you don’t want to be the one responsible for making the decision?  Somehow throughout my life when the hard discussions need to take place or the difficult decisions are required all eyes turn toward me.  

I didn’t really realize what was happening until I was in college.  It started when everywhere I went people assumed I worked there.  Random people would come up asking me where to find x, y or z.  It got so strange that one time I was in the college library with a friend and we were near the reference desk (not behind it).  I told her, “Just wait, it’ll happen.”  And it did.  I had multiple people pass over my friend and turn to me asking for assistance.  If I ignored their questioning looks, I would then get a throat clearing or, “excuse me!”  It got so odd that I usually just tried to answer their question as best I could.  And when I started working in my career, even as one of the youngest members of a team, I found myself being the “source” for solutions.

I remember telling my husband one time after a long day that I didn’t want to make any more decisions for a week.  I was exhausted from solving everyone else’s problems!  But of course, along came my children.  

Our children look to us to answer every question, solve every problem.  Even as teenagers, when they act like we are the most inane people alive, they still seem to rely on us for getting them out of trouble.  Don’t we all though, want someone to be able to turn to for solutions to life’s messes?  So many of us work hard at trying, like a toddler, to “do it ourselves!”  But in reality, off-loading those burdens would be a welcome relief!

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Today I praise God for having solutions that I can never imagine on my own.  And I thank Him for almost begging me to place my burdens at His feet so He can show me a better way to live.  We don’t have to “go it alone” or fix it all ourselves.  When we trust in Him and are patient (ugh!) He will show us something new. 

I had a conversation with someone about a month ago about creative solutions.  I told him he needed to seek counseling – if not directly from God then from a trained human counselor.  He was struggling to find solutions for his struggling marriage.  But he said, “I know what needs to be fixed but she doesn’t want to listen.”  My response? We can only know the solutions our flesh-led brains have devised.  Someone outside us, like God, can see things from a bigger perspective.  A path we may never have dreamed of could be waiting for us, if we just ask.  If we just lay it at His feet.

Praise God that He is the one I now turn to for advice, problem solving, and Mr. Fixit.  It truly is exciting to see how His solutions are magnificently incalculable.

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His Mysterious Ways

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“Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”” John 13:7

In about ten weeks I’ll be a first time grandma.  And even though I’ve personally experienced the miracle of childbirth twice, I still find the whole thing a mystery.  When I look at an obviously pregnant woman it still fascinates me that there’s a living, breathing being inside that stomach.  It all seems so alien-like.  

And that’s what my praise focuses on today – the amazing mysteries of God.  As we humans have moved along our timeline, “science” has become its own religion.  We must “follow the science” and accept that “science” explains everything.  I can see why Jesus, in particular, loved children and child-like acceptance of God.  Because children keep asking the “whys.”  We can say we understand that a woman gets pregnant because a man’s sperm meets a woman’s egg.  But can we really explain why a woman releases an egg on such a regular basis? Why one group within a species only has eggs and the other has sperm?  And how a sperm knows the path to the egg and that it should break through the barrier to enter it?  And once it does, we know a process begins whereby DNA strands begin multiplying over and over creating that beautiful little baby.  But why?  

We humans certainly love to fool ourselves into thinking we have a lot of control over what and how things happen on this planet.  We think we can control the climate.  Yet, the world’s climate has been changing back and forth since before humans were in abundance. Droughts, torrential rain, tornados, hurricanes, blizzards — none of these can be made or controlled by man. Of course, if we remove God from the equation then we think we can get to the root “cause” and fix or change everything.

The other day while I was out for a walk, I just started thanking and praising God for this amazingly biodiverse and mysterious world He plopped us to live in.  For the air that is just right from me to breathe freely.  For the food that literally just grows on trees.  For the process of rain and fresh water.  For the mystery of making a baby inside our bodies – how everything gets rearranged just right to accommodate the child, how we still don’t know why our body says, “it’s time to be born.”

I know there’s a lot of smart people out there that can sound more “sciencey” than me when talking about how things work on this planet.  When I get into those conversations and keep asking, “but why?” or “but how?” the answers always find their end.  Science will never be able to answer the final “why?”  As a Christian I know I can say, “because God.”

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God’s Guardrails

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For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. Deuteronomy 30:16

I grew up not wanting to have children.  In my isolated world I experienced a parenting style that used harsh, physical, anger-fueled discipline.  I didn’t know there was any other way and knew it wasn’t what I wanted impose on any children.  So often as we become our own people, cleaved from our parents, we take the elements of parenting we don’t like and try to do the exact opposite.  However, I also acknowledged as a new adult that the harsh discipline kept me from a lot of dangerous behavior.  So where was the balance?

If you take a brief walk through the history of parenting you’ll see a modern conflict similar to the one I was having.  The harsh disciplinary view of old was met face on with Dr. Spock and his more “loosey goosey” style.  But as the Spock kids became the radical children of the 60s and 70s parents searched for a middle ground.  One psychologist, Dr. James Dobson took up the challenge.  He brought parents back into the position of authority but done with love.

Discipline isn’t, by definition, a bad thing. Studies have shown that the most effective way to foster healthy relationships with children and give them the ability to learn and utilize self-control is through positive discipline. 

Lauren Steele, Fatherly.com

We humans need fatherly guardrails.  It’s a proven fact since the beginning of time.  We need to remember that when Moses came down the mountain with the 10 commandments they were NEW rules.  New guardrails of how to worship God, how to treat other people, how to be respectful within our families, and how to protect ourselves from well, ourselves.  

The Old Testament has a shadow story woven throughout.  Yes, we follow the woeful Israelites through trials, tribulations and successes.  But put in context God is constantly showing them how to live differently than all the other nations around them.  Nations that He created as well but saw how they overwhelmingly desired to live outside His guardrails – rampant sexual exploits, child sacrifice and more.  He was testing them all, just like today.  Free self-reign or accepting governance by God.

I praise God today for His guardrails.  For the 10 Commandments He gave us to live within.  Because just like our children we prove over and over that without them we can get ourselves into a lot of trouble.  Without His guidance, His narrow path, we wander off into parts unknown, get lost, live in fear and despair, and ruin not just our lives but the ones we love.

When I met my husband and told him why I didn’t want children he assured me we’d figure it out.  He wouldn’t let my past keep me from a full future.  Thankfully as we took the journey, we met God along the way.  I may have pushed up against those guardrails a few times but He always calls me back to the center of the road.  

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Bucket Of Joy

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You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. Psalm 4:7

Have you ever ridden on a carousel where the operator, at some point, drops down a metal arm toward the riders and a brass ring drops toward its end?  The riders on the outside stretch and strive to grasp that brass ring.  The prize?  A free ride to the one person who can attain that ring.  I think that’s how I was looking at joy for many years.  Not only from a grasping and striving point of view but from a scarcity mindset.  There’s only one ring and lots of riders.  You have to be on one of the outside animals to even have a chance.  And once the ring is taken by a rider, your chance is gone.  I searched in earnest many years for joy.  How to attain it and how to hold on to it.  And what I discovered is that joy, freely given in abundance by God, is right in front of me for the taking.  

Praise God that His joy, unlike the joy the world offers, comes freely and is never ending.  It is available to all.  In the carousel world, as we spin around and around, we can choose the outer seat or even one of the animals constantly moving up and down, never finding rest.  But how about instead we pick one of the colorful, stable sleds?  And sitting there on the bench as we take our seat is a replenishing bucket full of shiny joy rings.  Not just one free ride but endless opportunities for laughter and cooling breezes hitting our face as we go round and round.

God’s joy is available to everyone, not just the chosen few.  It’s there for the taking when we sit nestled in the promises and gifts of His Holy Word.  We pick up a ring from the bucket each time and hand it to the operator saying, “let’s ride!”  All the while we watch the outer edge riders stretching for the measly gifts of the world.

The thing about riding a carousel is we carefully pick which animal or sleigh to ride when we jump up to the main stage.  We are drawn to the exciting and the colorful, to the chance to grasp the ring.  Isn’t that like the world?  The bells and whistles of the flesh pull us to stretch for even more?  To search for a bigger and better brass ring?  But God says, “Come and rest and I will fill your bucket overflowing with joy.”  All we need to do is choose Him.