A Snake in the Hands of a Child

I was recently reading the story of the To Write Love on Her Arms organization on their website and came across this paragraph.

“She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.”

That last line caused me to begin to ponder something that I’ve always sub-concisely wondered, but it wasn’t something of deep concern. I wondered why God would care so much for us to bring all our problems to Him. Yes, He cares for us, but I mean think about it, why would it make Him even joyful of the fact of us bringing everything of ours to Him. The majority of what we have to offer is junk anyway, so why would He delight in us, as it says in 1 Peter 5:7, “casting all our cares upon Him”? I believe its a bit like this:

Imagine a little child running around with a deadly snake, not realizing the danger(or maybe he does realize it). The child can’t just put the snake down by himself, because even if he did know the danger, it will just turn back on him and strike him, and the young boy doesn’t have the power to destroy the snake on his own. Now the father of this boy sees him with the snake and fears for his son’s life. The wise father knows the boy can’t put it down on his own, so he requests for the child to give it to him. When the son submits the danger to his father, the father has the power and knowledge on how to destroy the snake, but more importantly in our story, it’s a great relief to the father for his beloved child to be out of danger.

That snake could be anything, from sin to anxiety to disbelief in the fact that we are forgiven and loved, but no matter what kind of burden it is, it’s dangerous because it gets between us and our Father. This is why it’s a beautiful things to our heavenly Father when we sacrifice our “snake” to Him. He’s simply relieved to be holding what endangered the lives of/relationships with His beloved children.

Another thing that came to mind is that when we hold on to that “snake” because we doubt in God’s forgiveness, we’re denying the power of the cross that will destroy it. The other day I was overwhelmed with this picture of how each time I sin and can’t bring it to Jesus for forgiveness, He’s standing right behind me, crying over me, just waiting with out-stretched arms, nailed to a cross because that’s where I put Him. Each time we doubt in His forgiveness, we’re placing Him back up there.

So I have been reassured that the Father delights when His children pour out their hearts.

 

“Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.’ ”

Antonyms in War

Bitterness is a sneaky thing. It starts small and gradually grows larger if it goes unattended. Often one might not notice until its a large cancer, but by then, its roots go so deep that its hard to remember, “Why should I get rid of this?”

Or maybe its how do I get rid of it?

There doesn’t seem to be a quick fix the bitterness. It’s something our flesh and pride wants to hold on to. Ephesians 4:31 clearly says, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.”

As I read this I thought, “God, how do I simply get rid of bitterness, or as the King James says, “put it away” from myself?”

I didn’t have to look very far for an answer to my question, God simply lead me on to the next verse.  Ephesians 4, verse 32, says, “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ as forgiven you.” As I read the beginning I kinda thought, “Hmm, sounds familiar.” Flip to 1 Corinthian 13, and BAM! Verse 4 begins with “love is patient and kind”. So I remembered a wise horse trainer once telling me that you can’t train a horse out of a bad habit, but you can replace the habit with a good one.

You do this because bad and good are opposites, they cannot co-exist. Light chases out darkness, evil must flee good, and faith overcomes fear. I’ve always found this interesting.

But getting back to 1 Cor. 13, I thought, “Ohhhhh, duh, love is the opposite.” Bitterness is to be resentful towards someone, so naturally, wouldn’t the opposite be to love that someone? Ummm, yeah pretty much. Pretty simple, but it rocked my little world.

It caused me to do something a little… abnormal. I found the person I held bitterness towards, and I stepped out in did something in love towards them.

Bitterness? Bye-bye.

It was a small, simple, and to me stupid, bitterness but love canceled it. To deal with larger bitterness can be tougher. The longer its been there, the harder it is to dig up and get rid of it, but the principle doesn’t change. It just takes prayer for God’s love(‘cause mine just won’t do), and a lot more faith.

I just heard a wise women say today, weeks after I first learned this lesson, that love is a weapon. Gooooooooood way to put it! It is a deadly weapon, destroying all its opposites(have I said opposites enough?).

This lesson begun with bitterness, lead into love, and, to me, can be summed up with 1 Peter 4:8, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

God’s love sent His Son to die, covering our sins, now our love covers other’s sins, and I’m learning, also covers our sins in the process. If that’s what love does, looks like I need more of it in my life.

Heel Clicks And Circles

Today, we had quite a JV service if I do say so myself. God started working in praise and worship and kept on until way after. I was still dancing in Wal-Mart… 

But during the end service I got this idea. In a way it relates to the circle I mentioned in my last post. The circle of God’s love and holiness. So I’m not sure what to call this thing but here it is;

The holier You are, the dirtier I am.

The dirtier I am, the deeper I recognize Your grace.

The deeper Your grace, the the greater Your love.

The greater Your love, the more I want to return it.

The more I want to return it, the purer I yearn to become.

The purer I yearn to become, the harder it is for me to accomplish.

The harder it is to accomplish, the more in need You.

The more I need You the more I spend time with You.

The more I spend time with You, the more I am satisfied, fulfilled, guided and once again, I see how holy You are.

And that, to me, is the circle of life they do not teach in science class.

The Delicate Balance

I have so many thoughts running through my head right now, I’m not sure how to start.

I’ve been thinking about having a balance of the fear of the Lord and the love of the Lord. But mostly about the fear of the Lord. It’s been on my heart  mostly during my church’s JV service. I look around during worship, as we sing a song about God’s holiness, and I have to wonder if some understand what they’re singing. Do we truly understand the words we’re lifting, or do we just pay lip service like my pastor would say? ‘Cause your worship life explodes when you gain a healthy fear of the Lord.

The fear of God baffled me for a very long time. See, when I begun my personal relationship with God, it was based on His love. His love overwhelmed me, captivated me, and completely delighted me. It was, and is, what satisfies me. The God I knew was the God of love. But I didn’t get the fear of the Lord. I couldn’t seem to grasp it.

I remember in the beginning of this year, things just kept coming up that talked about the fear of God and it challenge me to understand it. I kept praying that God would teach me about the fear of Him.

Finally one night I ended up reading Isaiah 6:1-8 for some reason. I’d read it before, and I’d always liked the scripture. Just didn’t understand it. Or at least, not as deeply as I did that night. Suddenly I got a glimpse of how holy God is, how unclean I am, and why I should fear Him. As I wrote in my journal, once you get a little look at why you should fear Him, all you want to do is worship and fear Him. And I’ll quote this straight from my journal,

“When you finally grasp the true beauty and awe of the only pure and holy One, the effect is life changing. When you truly grasp how unworthy we are, it opens doors to a deeper walk with God. It breaks and humbles you to such a desperation to get all of God you can, because without Him we are nothing.

The understanding of this also leads to a deeper feeling for the unsaved and lost. Its all a big circle.”

Another part of that circle is taking all I’d learned about God’s love, and all I knew now about fearing God, and tying them together. God is love, and God is holy. If I wasn’t amazed enough with just knowing God loved me, now I realized how dirty I was, and knew He still loved me. Then I was really amazed. As holy as He is, He still loves us. Such a beautiful circle. Love, fear. Fear, love.

I like the way the senior pastor of my church put it. He used the illustration of one of the water plane things(I don’t know what they’re really called.). I think they have pontoon things they land with? Something like that. But my Pastor explain that if the pontoons didn’t touch down at the same time- if they weren’t balanced with one another- the plane could go out of control(or something dangerous like that.). He said he viewed those two pontoons as the fear and love for God, its important we have the right balance of both.

Fear of the Lord. Love of the Lord. I wish I could pack it into a boxes and give it to people.

Lessons From the Itsy-Bitsy Spider

Earlier tonight a friend and I were sitting on my front porch, singing and playing guitar. We were practicing a little worship to do on an up coming missions trip. In the beginning we weren’t being very productive, not really sure why. Finally we got into a groove and had a sweet little jam session sittin’ there.

Then dowwwwwwwwn came the spider. He was hanging from the porch roof, dangling dangerously close. We moved out of his way and left him alone since he wasn’t trying to eat us. After awhile we realized he was building a web as we played our music. (I think we inspired him.)

My friend and I paused a moment to admire his work. He was was swinging back and forth, shooting web left and right. “What if that’s his way of worshipping God?” My friend questioned.

Well, what if? It’s hard work but if that’s all the little guy can do, all he can give, and he did it for the Lord, how beautiful is that? But that’s not completely what I’m getting at.

Fast forwarding to sometime later, once my friend had left, I was texting her. (I do admit I like texting ;) Comes in handy.) I was was saying how I felt better than when we’d first started, yet I wasn’t even sure what we accomplished. I was sure we did something, I just couldn’t see what right now.

Then I thought of the web.

Maybe our work tonight, our work in general, for the Lord whether physically, spiritually or anything, is a little like that web. Each little thing we do is weaving a thread. But its almost an invisible web, very hard to see. It takes time and hard work to make a web.

Sometimes its hard and discouraging  because we can’t see what we’re weaving. But have you ever noticed you need the right lighting to see a web? It seems the best time is sunrise. In the light of the morning sun, spider webs are so beautiful.

Its interesting, I almost wrote a blog about how God and the sun relate, I never finished it, but part of it was how the sunrise is faith, as God is faithful. He also has perfect timing. The sunrise is never late, never early, but its always faithful.

In just the right time, God is faithful to rise and shine His glorious light on our web. All the hard work we’ve done that hasn’t been seen. By us or by others. And in the morning sun it glistens and stands out. All the hard work of a spider is finally showcased in the light of the Creator.

Reminds me of  where in Matthew 6 Jesus’ teaches to give, pray, and basically do things in private and your heavenly Father will reward you. We can’t always see the thread we spin, and others don’t need to, because the God can see them. And He will cause the sun to rise on them in the right time if need be. For some things, you might have to wait for heaven, for other things, just wait for tomorrow.

Two Important Words

Many times during Jesus’ time on earth he used a certain two words. He still whispers them to us today.

Follow me.

Those two words are such a great call, such an honor.

Matthew 4:19 - "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

What an honor to be called by Jesus, to be fishers of men. But these words were also said with great cost.

Mark 8:34 - "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Follow me. Two powerful words, really. “Leave everything and follow me,” was Christ’s basic call. The call of Christianity. To be Christ followers. Follow is a verb meaning to come after in sequence.

So you get the idea of following Christ now, right? Now this is my main thought here – If you are following Christ you don’t have to see where you’re going.

That amazed me the other day! It relieved me. I mean, think about it. Do you get it? If your following Christ, spiritually walking behind Him, that means He’s in front of you. He goes before you. You don’t have to see where your going because He’s the one in front of you, He’s forging the way.

All you and I have to do is keep Him in our line of vision. See, I also realized that when your following someone, the closer you are the better. When you leave space, things can pass in front of you. So we have to keep ourselves close.

So in the times you can’t see in front of you, remember we are followers of Christ. Concern yourself with simply staying close, and just following His lead. You don’t have to see, you have to trust.

The Vine and His Branches

I’ve been wanting to do something for the blog for awhile.  Particularly write but I’m just not doing that right now.  But still, I really wanted to do something.  So tonight I got a little inspiration to do something I haven’t in awhile- an image.  So I just threw this together real quick.  Nothing special, I just saw the colors somewhere and wanted to make something, then the verse popped in my head.  Maybe I’ll write something on it, who knows?

Anyhow, figured I’d throw it on a post, soooo… enjoy?

And just so ya know, you can click the image to view it full size.

(I might have out done myself with the green…)