God Goes Before Us

I wrote on my Instagram blog @Jesusdeevah today about how God's righteous right hand is on us. I explained that when a physical hand is needed to comfort us that God uses his children to do his work. We are his hands to serve others and we need to be attuned to his leading as we go through the day. There are people who need our compassion extended to them to show the love of God. I wasn't aware this morning that I would be that person who needed kindness.

My day started earlier than I wanted with someone who had an urgent request. As I tried to get this request accomplished I began to feel very overwhelmed. Multiple things were happening and my emotions got the best of me. However, God went before me and already had the blessings waiting! There was a lovey woman who saw the stress on my face and said, "It  looks like you need a hug." She gave me a tight, loving hug and her smile comforted me. Then, a clerk at the next stop saw that I had tears falling from my eyes and proceeded to empathize with me and gave me some tissues. I realized that God was saying to me that he had everything under control so I just started breathing steadily. The task still needed to be completed, after three attempts at other places that could not help I could have just gave up but God brought me a blessing. A young man came out from the back of the store and took an interest in the tech issue I was trying to accomplish. He quietly and patiently worked on the issue for longer than he should have but accomplished the task!

I gave God the time to work it all out for good rather than impatiently overreacting and quitting in discouragement. God goes before us and has our needs met if we just slow down and look for Him in our trouble. Learning and maturing in our faith is a beautiful thing. Practicing patience and trusting God with our issues brings us peace as it all works out. God does not bring us to it to not get us through it! The mind-set that we discipline ourselves to have as we trust in His promises is the key element. Think of some of the areas of your life where you're not experiencing God's peace and then search His Word for scriptures that counteract those doubts. Let His promises rule your mind rather than your emotions and you will come to find a new joy! It's a process but it's worth it!

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

Proverbs 16:9, "A mans heart makes his plans but the Lord directs his steps."

Colossians 1:11, "...Being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience..."

Colossians 3:12, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience..."

Proverbs 16:18, "Pride comes before the fall.

Deuteronomy 31:8, "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you, He will never leave you or forsake you..."

Invite God to go before you and prepare the way. In His timing He will work all things together for your good. (Romans 8:28)

When He Speaks

When God speaks a deep message to my heart I write on this blog where I can expand on the teaching. However, if you want to read a daily post check it out @jesusdeevah on Instagram.

Luke 11:3, "Give us this day our daily bread..."

Asphalt Fall

I posted my daily blog on Instagram @Jesusdeevah this morning and it read, "Because He bends down to listen I will pray as long as I have breath." Psalm 116:2. After posting it I began to get busy and then I recalled the scripture and went and sat down to talk to God. There's a saying regarding working out that states, "You're never sorry you worked out." Well, that saying is true about prayer! "You are never sorry you stopped to pray." I know one of the prerequisites of prayer is to confess and repent before entering into praise, thanksgiving and petition so I began telling Jesus the sins that were weighing me down. I confessed the actions and words that I knew were not pleasing to him and the resentments I was harboring.... Soon, I was recalling some of the hard times that I've had in my life and he began to minister to me. The Holy Spirit filled my mind with a vision of me flying down a hill on my bike with my hands up in the air and my head swung back as the breeze blew through my hair. Next thing I knew I was rocketing over the handle bars and landed on the hot asphalt as I skid to a stop. My hands and knees were pitted with bits of black asphalt mixed with blood. Next, a memory of my father came to mind. He was picking the pieces of rock and tar out of my flesh with tweezers after I literally had a similar accident in my youth. The procedure was tedious, laborious and painful but it had to be done. I soon realized that God was telling me that those painful times in my life were not Him punishing me but healing me.

Certainly many of the hard times in life are self imposed by bad decisions and rebellious acts. However, we find ourselves victims to a sinful and evil world on occasions. I blamed God for years for my health problems, emotional immaturity and distraught spirit. I thought he was the cause of all my suffering and because I blamed him rather than submitted to him, the wounds became infected. Of course I blamed him for that too. It took YEARS for him to methodically pick all those pieces of asphalt out of my heart and mind after I surrendered to him and allowed him access.

Most of my suffering was caused by bad habits and decisions that I made but I never took personal responsibility. It was much more convenient to blame God. My stubbornness kept me wounded and angry and it wasn't until I began to read my bible, pray, go to church and have fellowship that I finally surrendered to him and let him begin to clean my wounds. The process has been long and hard but as he does his work on me I see a woman emerging that I love. I'm not the emotional, immature girl that I used to be. I have the scars from all the hard work that he had to do on me but those scars are my badges. No more open wounds that harbor infection, hyper-sensitivity or anger.

My dog had surgery yesterday and the doctor told me how stubborn and reactive he was. All I could think about was how I was the same way toward God. As I was sitting with my dog today I was gently petting the side of his face where he was sore and after a minute or so he just leaned his face into the cup of my hand and surrendered his pain to my comfort. That is what God is waiting for us to do. His desire is that we would stop reacting to our pain and just yield to his comfort, love and healing.

I want to encourage you today to give yourself up to the Great Healer. We all have bits of asphalt embedded in us from life's falls. Shards of unforgiveness, anger, self-pity, rage, pain from loss, victimization ..... and those infections must be healed before we can see clearly and love purely. It will take time for the cleaning and healing process but it is so worth it! God does not want to leave you wounded but he wants and needs your cooperation to do the procedure properly. The only way we can have a successful outcome is to surrender to him and trust him that he knows what is best. I've learned that his love for us is so great that even though he can't make us surrender because of our free will, he will find ways to get us to slow down. Humans have a way of avoiding stillness so God will let us wear ourselves out emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually until we collapse at his feet. I will tell you from experience that you will save yourself a lot of pain if you just trust him and place your pain in the cup of his hand so he can comfort and heal you.



Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

Who stood up for me against the wicked? Who took my side against evil doers? If the Lord hadn't been there for me I never would have made it. The minute I said, "I'm slipping, I'm falling!" Your love oh Lord, took hold and held me fast. When I was upset and beside myself, you calmed me down and cheered me up. Psalm 94:16-19

And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, forgiveness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep me from deliberate sins and don't let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you. Oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:12-14

Bubble Wrap

Spring is approaching and along with that event comes the ritual of spring cleaning. Over the long and cold winter we tend to acquire piles of things that get thrown into the basement or garage. I'm not a pack-rat but I do have a lot of materials that I save to do projects and I'm still in the process of organizing my home after a cross country move. There are pieces of memorabilia from my past along with items of value and gifts from loved ones. There just is not enough room to have everything displayed so some of it must be stowed away. I can't help but notice my process as I secure my belongings. The items that are replaceable get rolled up in paper and stacked quickly in a regular box yet the belongings that are more unique and priceless to me are carefully bubble wrapped and gently placed into a sturdier box. What we treasure is handled with much more care.

Often as I go through this process I am reminded that my heart also needs an inventory. As we go through our busy lives we tend to let many unnecessary and unhealthy things accumulate in our hearts. Maybe we have replaced some of our precious time with God with too much mindless t.v. or our diets have allowed food to replace health, honesty and repair of our body and souls. I know that the winter catapults me into hibernation rather than going out and serving others. Bad habits and mindlessness become my companions as I sloth through my days.

Spring is a time of hope, repair, openness and change! There is nothing like that first warm day when the birds are singing, the air is fresh and all of nature seems alive to get us out of our funk. I was telling my grand-daughter and sister-in-law the other day (using the Internet and the storage cloud as examples), that we need to organize all that stuff in our lives that is floating aimlessly around in our minds. All of it seems so fragmented just hovering in our thoughts and confusing us everyday, causing us to feel overwhelmed as to where to start. Just pull one thing at a time down onto your desktop and deal with just that. One thing at a time. My saying is, "It's better to do something small than nothing at all." One task that is dealt with each week is 52 things addressed and taken care of each year.

Some of the things up in our "cloud" can be resolved, some thrown out and some can be swaddled in bubble wrap and stored for another day. Take those things which are precious and valuable to your heart and protect them. All the other things are just tasks and garbage that either need to be addressed or deleted. Our hearts, souls and bodies are valuable to God so they need to be treated with respect. Take some time this Spring to not only busy yourself with cleaning your home... but to pull away in some quiet moments to let God clean out your spiritual house. Nothing feels better than freedom! Freedom from all the unnecessary "things" that clutter our lives.

Matthew 6:19-21, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in Heaven where moth and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

2 Corinthians 4:18, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Philippians 4:7, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

God bubble wraps our hearts and minds with His peace because they are precious to Him.

The Donut Hole

Picture yourself being a beautiful cake with luxurious frosting and colored sprinkles all over the top! You feel whole and fantastic! The cake represents your soul with its warm, soft and pillowy texture. It's the safe place in the center of your life. The place from where "Who you are" grows! The frosting is what holds you together, similar to our control habits that we exercise in keeping our life from falling apart. The sprinkles are our relationships, activities, and rituals. The steady constants that our daily life revolves around. A pretty little cake that is all put together nicely and suits our lifestyle just fine.

Then, some circumstance comes along and blows a hole right through your center and turns you into a donut in a blink of an eye.  A gaping hole that empties your soul, leaves you out of control and scatters all that you knew to be normal spread out before you in collateral damage!

Have you watched the news lately? The world is falling apart bit by bit and it leaves us feeling shocked and fearful. However, when those blasts hit us close to our own lives it is quite different. It's then personal and the pain is inescapable. I often watch on television these interviews with students or parents...who have just lost a precious friend or child and I immediately say, "I cannot imagine." I secretly thank God that my prayers right then are for someone else and not for me and my family. How do they bear it? How are they even standing? The empathy I feel for them is even too much for my mind and heart to comprehend.

In this day and age we are so exhausted from trying to hold everything together. We whisper prayers like "Oh God, please keep calamity from our door!", weakening our spiritual life with worry as we live defensively and offensively. Our physical beings are drained from trying to protect our children from harm. If they leave our sight for a second we panic and scurry to find them. Mentally we are frazzled due to the demanding pressures of surviving and emotionally we are barraged with other peoples grief not to mention our own. All the while we are trying to present our selves as perfect little cupcakes.

The donut hole exists in all of us and no one can escape the trials of life. It's what we fill that hole with that counts. Jesus says, "In this world you will have tribulation. But, take heart! I have overcome the world."  For every sorrow, claim a joy! For every complaint, counteract it with gratitude!... Don't let the world fill your soul but let the hope and love of Christ dwell there. Be honest and humble with others as you let them see you without all the frosting. Your vulnerability can be a healing force for someone else. Take your shattered dreams and brokenness to the ONE who redeems! We don't have to live with a damaged soul. Jesus gives us a choice, whether we choose our own way or His, we always have a choice of how we will react to pain and loss.

My granddaughter and I made a cake for a party but we were running late and didn't let it cool all the way. When we went to turn it out of the pan it fell apart! We had a choice right then of how to react. We rolled handfuls into little balls and put frosting on them. We made donut holes. It's a simple metaphor but it can serve us in all our calamities. Jesus can make a message out of any mess if we let Him.

Matthew 11:28, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest..."

Job 8:21, "He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy!"

Always There

After I put my thoughts and inspiration from the Holy Spirit down in yesterdays post, I then began to pray. Tears of gratitude rolled down my cheeks for how merciful, loving and gracious God is toward me even though I don't deserve it. His unconditional and boundless love is so overwhelming to me that sometimes I just sit there inside of it speechless. Eventually, all I want is for Him to pour that same love over others who are hurting. I visualize Him carrying someone over rough terrain or through stormy waters and that realization comforts me. I know that He is ministering to them just as He is to me in that very moment. That's what prayer is.

I prayed for three specific things yesterday and within an hour of praying, two of the situations had calmed down dramatically. The Lord had put it on those people's hearts to call me and I got to see for myself that God had comforted them and rearranged their thoughts to ones of hope rather than sorrow. God saw how troubled I was about those dear souls and rushed in with His love to answer those prayers. The third prayer was answered this afternoon as I again received a call letting me know that the person was doing much better. My anxiety and fears were assuaged by God's kindness and thoughtfulness. I will never stop claiming that my favorite scripture is James 4:8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." Whatever your trouble is, I assure you from personal experience that God is full of love and mercy and is waiting for you to draw near to Him.

Prayer is how we get close to God in an intimate way. There are bold  prayers where we intercede for someone who is beaten down and fight a spiritual battle in the name of Christ for them. There are prayers that are silent as our heads lay upon a pillow speechless and we just let God minister to us. There are prayers of rejoicing as well as prayers of surrender. Prayers where we pour out our souls and ones where we just listen. As I testified earlier, God is faithful when we cry out to Him. He wants nothing more than for His children to come to Him and just spend time with Him. If your heart is troubled then I encourage you to simply be still and say a prayer.

If I had only one prayer it would be that every person could know just how much God loves them and that they would believe it.

It Is My Prayer

Habakkuk 3:17-19  Even though the fig trees are all destroyed, and there is neither blossom left or fruit, and though the olive crops all fail, and the fields lie barren; even if the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will be happy in the God of my salvation. The Lord is my Strength and He will give me the speed of a deer and bring me safely over the mountains!

How I love that scripture! It reminds me of a Psalm, the way it lays out all the true hardships YET, ends with joy being expressed to God for His salvation and strength! These words ring true even in today's circumstances and can be a great encouragement for us to remember that life will be a hard climb but God will get us safely over the mountains!

Having a belief in God is like standing on a high rock when the flood waters come. We have chosen wisely and are grateful for His protection. However, I find that our mind-set in times of trouble can be our truest joy or our unfortunate demise. Anyone can instinctively grab their family or simply run with a basic self-preservation mind-set to a place of safety. Then, with a sigh of relief, thank God. It is the unshakable faith however, of a mature believer who dwells in thoughts of God's goodness and has joy throughout the journey. The trip they take through hard times is sprinkled with words of hope, kindness to others, tough stands of faith, tears of gratitude, words of encouragement, wise decisions, patience and times of prayer.  Rather than plowing through life avoiding a deeper connection with the Savior the mature believer has learned through his "relationship" with Jesus to follow Him and trust Him throughout the journey.

I seriously spent most of my life with zero patience. I went from annoyed to freak out in seconds! My emotions ruled me! Yet, as I grew in my relationship with God over the years I went from a child who felt like everything was out of control to a woman who knew God had complete control. I've come to realize lately though that as long as "I" can keep most things under control that my faith seems pretty stable. As I re-read Habakkuk's prayer/song I can clearly see my worst fear and that is to have everything around me falling apart! There are some major situations going on in our lives right now but unlike Habakkuk, we have groceries. When I look out from our circumstance I see a house that is up on repairs, cars that just had oil changes, yards and gutters that are cleaned up....However, Habakkuk only saw despair as he gazed out. Barns empty, failed crops, barren fields and not even a blossom of hope on the fig tree! Habakkuk declares, "YET, I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as the deer, and able to tread upon heights." I WANT THAT KIND OF FAITH!

Or do I??? Faith is a muscle and it only grows stronger with use. We DO NOT grow outside the presence of pain and who wants that! I'll take a full barn and bountiful crops any day. But, there is something to be said for hard times. It is in those times that I ran to Jesus and found out not only how precious I am to Him but how precious He is to me. In my pain is where my most tender moments with Christ have taken place. The deeper the pain, the deeper His love touched me. He has wiped tears from my eyes, held me still when I couldn't stop shaking and sat with me when I was so alone. Most importantly though, He understood me when no one else could. I don't know why such ugly things happen on this earth except for the fact that it is a sinful world right now. I do know however that I NEVER want to go through anything without my Lord Jesus. I don't blame Him for pain, I blame Satan because it is sin that destroys. One day very soon the hammer of justice will come down on evil and there will be no more sorrow or tears. Until that day I am clinging to my Savior and all I can do is pray that we all will learn to praise Him in times of trouble rather than blame Him. That, dear ones is my prayer.

Footnote:
I have started back at the gym recently and anyone who works out knows that there are no results without commitment and follow-through. It is the same with our spiritual growth as we read our bibles, have fellowship with other believers, get empowered in our prayer time and seek God in stillness. As we do the hard work of drawing near to God through these acts of faith we will see the growth and strength in our attitude and behaviors. Then, the work of God becomes fruitful as others see Christ in us and we can share the good news.

Right now

He is with you right now. You are safe in His arms of love and He understands you. Breath calmly and read the Psalms. He will get you though this. Sorrow may endure for a night but Joy comes in the morning. Shalom