Tag: mediation

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First Love

krisshetter 
But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always. 
Hosea 12:6

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a “doer.”  In the Bible, Martha is my spirit animal.  I can so easily picture myself cooking and cleaning all day, getting ready for Jesus to come for dinner.  Then while He is at my house I’m running around making sure the drinks are filled and people have enough to eat.  Cleaning up spills and getting a jump on doing the dishes.  All the while, slightly annoyed that others are sitting at His feet, enjoying His company while I slave away.  

There’s a lot of pride wrapped up in that thinking. And I’ve had to learn to accept my “doing” nature while learning two things: 1) accepting that other people are born to be the type to relax and soak up the moment and 2) learning how to balance being a doer and not missing out on those special moments.  Because Jesus admonishes us from His teachings in the gospels to His messages in Revelation to “return to our first love.”  Meaning, Him.

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 
Revelation 2:4

This was the message to the church in Ephesus.  They were doers.  They took James’ messages to heart.  They worked hard, served many and were also great at making sure false teachers didn’t enter their midst.  But they forgot to be in awe and wonder for the Lord.

How often, when we feel like we are moving away from our faith do we turn to “doing” more rather than taking up Mary’s approach – sitting in awe and wonder at His feet?

Wonders are things out of the common, unusual things, extraordinary things. Usually they are unexpected; we wonder at them partly because they are novel and surprising. They take us aback; they are things which we looked not for. When they come they astonish us, and put us both in a muse and in a maze. We look, and look, and look, and cannot believe our eyes; we hear, and hear, and scarce believe our ears. 

Charles Spurgeon

Sometimes I find myself listening to a story of wonder by a fellow Christian – a story where God has worked miraculously in their life – and I do a quick acknowledgement and move forward.  As though this moment where God touched their life was so humdrum ordinary!

In a commentary on the restoration of our first love – the awe and wonder of Jesus Christ – Warren Wiersbe challenges us to take these steps:

Remember what we have lost.

Think back to when we were so excited about our relationship with the Lord.  Remember when He has worked miraculously in our lives.  Recall when we cried during our singing at church while we lifted our hands up to Him!

Repent (Change) our minds.

Decide that we want that awe, wonder and love back!  It sounds obvious but if you haven’t done it yet, evaluate why.

Repeat your “1st Works.”

What are those?  It was when you were devoted to prayer, mediation, Bible reading, service in His name, and worship

Thankfully, the world and God need both Marthas and Marys.  When I get caught up in my “Martha-ness” I remember that Jesus had His own special relationship with Her.  It was Martha that ran out to meet Jesus after Lazarus had died.  She proclaimed to Him that she believed Him to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

For some people, life may be monotonous and meaningless; but it doesn’t have to be. For the Christian believer, life is an open door, not a closed circle; there are daily experiences of new blessings from the Lord.  

Warren Wiersbe

I want to always be in touch with my “First Love.”  I want to live with that sense of awe and wonder.  And when I feel it fading I need only to sit in quiet mediation and allow His Holy Spirit to rekindle the flame within me.

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Time Well Spent

krisshetter 
We do not want you to become lazy, but to 
imitate those who through faith and patience 
inherit what has been promised. 
Hebrews 6:12

If today’s verse sounds familiar, it should!  The King James’ version was our stepping off point for this new series – “That ye be not slothful…”  Remembering that the Greek word for slothful, nothros, means slow or sluggish, Paul urges us to grab hold of our inheritance and be diligent to the very end (Heb. 11-12).

What does this look like in our everyday lives?

I had an acquaintance tell me the other day that she would like her church group to start back in studying the Bible.  You see, with the chaos from the pandemic their family lives have been turned upside down.  Kids are constantly home and constantly needing help with getting the education our schools have neglected to provide.  And so studying the Word has fallen by the wayside.  They are waiting for a “better time” to reboot their studies.

Hours for the world!  Moments for Christ!  

Charles Spurgeon

But if we are to be honest if it weren’t the pandemic, for many Christian believers there would be something else keeping them from regularly attending church, going (prepared) to Bible Study, sitting quietly studying His Word.  For my family it once was youth sports.  We abandoned church for softball tournaments.  We saw it as a season that would eventually change and God probably didn’t really mind.

Had I truly valued what God wants for me I would have realized that during that season I especially needed His Word.  It’s when our lives seem most chaotic that we need to grasp hold of God.  He is our center, our Rock, our plumb line.  He puts the swirling world and all its stresses into perspective.

The world has the best of our time and our prayer closets the leftover fragments.

Charles Spurgeon

So, when Paul reminds us to not be lazy or slothful or sluggish with our obedience to Jesus he especially means during difficult times.  To not turn to the flesh for solutions and comfort.  He chastises us to finish strong by keeping close to God.

I’ve invited many friends and acquaintances to participate in Bible study.  And every time I hear multiple people say they are too busy with “life.”  Work, family, hobbies, other obligations take precedence.  I get it.  I’ve been there many, many times.  But when I look back to those times I do so with a measure of regret.  Because those times are gone forever.  Times when I could’ve really used the Word of God to comfort me and to reignite my faith.  There are so many instances where I needed God’s wisdom to make better choices – both for myself and my family.

We do not forget to eat.  We do not forget to be diligent in business.  We do not forget to go to our beds to rest.  But we often forget to wrestle with God in prayer and to spend long periods in consecrated fellowship with our Father and our God.

Charles Spurgeon

Our days are numbered here on earth.  Christ sacrificed Himself to a horrible death so that we may have a close relationship with God and the gift of salvation. When our ledger is opened at the end will it show that we have made God the primary focus of our time or will He be a footnote?

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The Quiet Mind

krisshetter 
The Lord will fight for you; you 
need only to be still. 
Exodus 14:14

I am not a “still” person.  If something feels lacking in me, I do a personal inventory and then come up with a plan to fix it.  But I finally realized that my relationship with God needed to be approached differently.  I sat on the edge of my bed one day years ago and cried out to God like the unbelieving Israelites: “Where are you?  I’ve done a lot of stuff to make you happy but you just aren’t here for me!”

Me, me, me, me.  What “I have done for God.”  The Israelites were constantly complaining to Moses about having sacrificed leaving their homes in Egypt only to find themselves without food or water.  They romanticized their old lives – one which they were prisoners to pharaoh.  And in the verse today they found themselves at the edge of the sea with no obvious way to cross.  From behind, pharaoh’s men were approaching to kill them all.  And the complaining began.

Moses reminds us to be still.  To stop fretting and complaining about our situation.  To stop whirling our minds around worldly solutions.  To stop grasping at fixing things ourselves and working so hard on our sanctification path.  Be still.

That day I complained so loudly to the Lord and He spoke even louder back to me.  “What have you really done?” He asked me.  In my frenzied, “doer” world I thought that I needed to take the bull by the horns and join more Bible studies, volunteer more at church, wear my cross around my neck more often.  But what He was telling me was to stop and pray.  To stop and just believe.  To stop and listen to Him.

The Lord will fight for you and me.  We need to stop and listen to what He actually wants us to do.  For the Israelites it was to pray and then, in faith, step into the water.  For me it was to set aside my “to do” list and dive deep into His Word every day.

The Lord has fought for me.  And when I listen, He tells me when to break camp and when to settle in.  Make stillness a priority today.  Let the world’s problems swirl around the outside while you sit with Him.  He’s got this.  

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Life-Giving Peace

krisshetter 
Do not be anxious about 
anything, but in every situation, 
by prayer and petition, with 
thanksgiving, present your 
requests to God.
Philippians 4:6

I rest my worries in constant prayer

LORD, I confess that I can cite Philippians 4:6 quite easily but it is the actual doing that I struggle with.  In fact, when I get very distressed, I forget about you and turn inward to try and solve my problems.  Or I call friends and family to lay all my worries upon.  Too often it seems you are my last gasp when all else fails.  Thank you for giving us your Son to remind us that you are the only source we need to turn to in times of trouble.  With His guiding words I will place you front and center of my difficult situations.  Through constant prayer and communion with You I will find everlasting peace.  I lift this up in Jesus’ name.  Amen

My ever-positive husband used to call me his “woulda, coulda, shoulda” wife.  It confounded him how often I could worry about something I just did or said, something I was about to do, or something I needed to say or do.  Peace can be as elusive to me as the Loch Ness monster is to photographers.  

I can even carry over all this worry to purchases I made or need to make.  My kids know quite well the meaning of “buyer’s remorse” because I would buy a blouse, bring it home, and then fret over whether or not I should’ve bought it.  At times, I’d have buyer’s remorse before I even left the store.

Nowadays my frets and anxieties rest in bigger issues such as the state of our country or my children’s future.  And yet, there’s little to nothing I can do about any of it.

Can any one of you by worrying 
add a single hour to your life?
Matthew 6:27

This verse hits home for me.  I’ve spent a lot of precious God-given hours worrying – about things I did and didn’t have control over.  On the outside, I appear to be a decisive person.  But on the inside I worry about hurting people’s feelings, whether or not I “did the right thing,” am I being a good enough friend/wife/mother.  And on and on.  

But I’m done.  In human years I’d say on average I have about 148,920 days left in my life, if all goes well.  Of course, I could be called to God tomorrow.  And worrying won’t add any more time.  In fact, worrying will take away some of that time.  I’ve got a lot left to do here on this planet – weddings, births, travel, great meals to eat, and kisses I still want from my husband.  I don’t want to waste another day keeping my worries from God’s capable hands.  

I tried this plan out the other day.  I said a small conversational prayer to God: “God, I don’t want to think about this for one more minute!  Please take it off my mind and off my desire to even want to think about it.”  About an hour later I suddenly realized I had forgotten all about that particular concern.  I didn’t feel that familiar lurch of my emotion to grab it back.

Friend, the gift of peace is right up at the top of precious God gifts.  I want more of it and less heart wrenching, mind scrambling worry.  With putting God front and center of each and every situation I know the scales will be tipped toward peace.

If you want this too, add the prayer to your daily prayer list and watch and see how God works in your life!

bible study, Christian, Christian Church, christian encouragement, Uncategorized

Patience, Grasshopper

krisshetter

I’ve told my friends that looking back over my life so far, I really have only one regret.  It’s that I wish I had a closer relationship with Jesus when I was the parent of young kids.  My husband and I attended church fairly regularly.  But I was wrapped up in childrearing worries and stresses and didn’t know how to turn all that over to God.   I could’ve enjoyed many more hours of sleep had I not been such a “woulda, coulda, shoulda” person.  I found myself, during a very long season of self-doubt about my parenting skills, constantly praying for patience.  Literally praying every single night for about two years for patience.  You see, I was so afraid of turning into my mother – screaming at my kids and losing control – that I thought patience was the answer.  One Sunday, our pastor’s sermon was about praying.  He said, “If you keep praying about the same problem over and over and over maybe it’s time to start praying for something different.”   He had a knack for speaking on issues near and dear to me.   So that night I stopped praying for patience and instead prayed for ways to help me deal with difficult situations.

As I’ve grown closer to Jesus, He has taught me a lot of lessons.  He’s still teaching me.  And step-by-step He has moved me closer to my original plea for patience.  You see, I wasn’t ready to learn the hard stuff yet.  He just wanted me to start turning to Him when I was in need, when I was broken.  Patience may be a virtue but it is a heck of a hard thing to have and use regularly.  

You, too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”

James 5:8

I first needed to learn what standing firm, standing safely in God’s arms even meant.  I didn’t have the wisdom needed to grasp the joy in hearing that the Lord is coming near.  I heard on a Joyce Meyer’s podcast this morning that God gives us a lot of leeway and grace when we first become Christians.  But once we hear the Word and gain His wisdom, expectations change.  We are expected to act as His children, not as children of this world.  Think about that.  Every time we attend church, do a Bible study, listen to a Christian podcast, see a Christian post on social media we are hearing His Word.  We are learning the nature and expectations of God.  And He expects us to live as He prescribes.

A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is the one’s glory to overlook offense.

Proverbs 19:11

Wisdom that we glean from God yields patience.  And when we are patient, that glorifies what we have learned from God.  We cannot be steeped in the nature of God without also knowing and acting in patience.  Why? Because patience means love.  It means grace.  It means forgiveness.  Thank God He is patient with us.  I never feel God rushes me to learn a lesson.  In fact, my lesson in patience has taken about 26 years.

I looked up on-line “how to be patient.”  I came across a website that focuses on self -improvement.  Here’s their reasons why we should learn patience.

  1. We make better decisions by assessing situations rather than going in emotional and blind.
  2. We have less stress by understanding some things take longer than others.
  3. Our relationships are improved because we are more flexible and understanding.

Doesn’t that all sound like something God would want from us?  Being wise, giving our stress up to God, and loving and being grace-filled toward others.

They then described a 6-step process for learning patience:

  1. Understand and counteract triggers
  2. Increase your self-confidence
  3. Put on your “positive glasses”
  4. Change your attitude – “why are you in such a hurry?”
  5. Visualize worst case scenarios
  6. Release tension and stress through eating right, exercise, enjoying activities

Now imaging trying to do all that without God.  Here’s my Christian re-do of these six steps:

  • Pray for God to reveal the areas where you struggle with patience (sometimes we pretend we aren’t being impatient and justify our actions) 

John 16:24, “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”

  • Recognize that God loves you.  Accept He wants the very best for you.  

John 16:27, “No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” 

  • Remember that joy can be found in trials.  And most of all that God has delivered for you in the past.  He is faithful. 

2 Thes 3:3, “But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.”

  • Rejoice each and every day, if not every hour, for all the great things in your life.  

Prov 17:22, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

  • To be honest, visualizing worst case scenarios has been helpful to me.  If I’m waiting in a long line at Costco and start getting impatient I think, “Well, what have I got to be impatient for anyways?” or “Well, if I’m late because of this line I can call ahead and let them know.”  

Matt 6:27, “Can anyone of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

  • Yes, eat right, exercise, enjoy new and old activities.  And pray.  And pray.  And pray.  Give up all those thoughts, those worries, those fears, those negative emotions to God.  Cry out to Jesus and ask Him to remove whatever negative thought you have right then. 

1 Samuel 2:1, “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high.  My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.”

When we get closer to God – become fluent in His character – that is when He can work His ways in us.  And God is always patient with us.  My friend and I were having lunch today and she said she is starting to have more moments in her difficult life where she looks up and gives a little smile – recognizing those growth moments God has put in front of her.  As for me, I described for her my process of writing and how I study the topic, pray, and then start writing.  I rarely stop writing one of these posts until I am done.  The words just come out of me onto the computer.  My whole body is focused on getting these words down.  I told her how weird it was that I was interrupted multiple times while writing this post.  And as I drove home from lunch, I was listening to a praise song and it hit me.  Patience.  The topic of this post.  And I had just been tested.  I was not annoyed about the interruptions.  I felt blessed hearing from a few friends.  And normally I would’ve been distracted during lunch, thinking about what else I needed to write.  I would’ve failed my friend who I need to support during this time in her life.

I called my friend from my car and said, “I just got it!  Patience!  I was tested!”  And she said, “I realized that while you were telling me.  And I’m glad it finally came to you.”  Maybe this whole actually studying God’s Word really does work.  Time to look up and smile.