The Soft Breeze of a Change of Seasons

September 26, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Swung the door open on Sunday, expecting normal late summer Texas weather, only to be shocked by a cool breeze. Fall arrived right on time. I ran back inside telling everyone to plan to spend the day outside. Our week of fall was here and you don’t want to waste it.

I have the same sense that a new season is blowing into my life.

My two oldest children have left the nest and only the youngest chickadee remains. College tours and the stress of waiting to receive acceptance letters is still ahead of us, but I feel the breeze of a change in seasons.

My friends talk about retirement, financial plans and how they want to spend their after work years. And a breeze ruffles my hair reminding me a change of seasons is coming.

Ecclesiastes 3
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²    a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³    a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶    a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷    a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸    a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. (NIV)

A question arises from this thought. What purpose will my empty nest years serve. This new season follows years of secular work in business and lay work in churches; years of babies, children and teens, and years of mistakes and sound decisions.

I traveled with my Lord through a season of needing forgiveness and a season of His teaching me to forgive myself. What a wild season. It followed a season of pain that I brought on myself. He didn’t just heal me. The Lord took me on an exciting trip where He taught me he acts in our world today. He taught me to listen to his voice. (I slip away at times, but I have never ever again doubted He is out there and cares about my day to day). God taught me walking with Him can be fun.

We traveled together through a season when He gave me an advance education regarding letting go of fear. He showed me that fear highlights an area where I have not given something over to God. That summer every where I went and everything I read dealt with one topic. I didn’t seek out this education. He chose it for me. We worked through how fear results from idols in our lives. Peace comes when we trust God even accepting the loss of what we love. I had to learn to daily give what matter most to me over to God. I actually would awake in the morning and place everything important on the altar before God as a symbolic way to remind myself it belonged to God. Man is it hard to not take things back off that altar.

Now, I get hints of a new journey God wants me to take with Him. Just as with Fear, God keeps prodding me with the idea of Charity (Christian Love) and Mercy. My intuition tells me this journey is preparing me for the new season of life gently blowing into my life over the next few years.

Well, I am ready. I don’t want to waste this season as I have wasted some seasons in the past.

Patrick was willing to suffer anything for God

March 22, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

But it is tedious to describe in detail all my labours one by one. I will tell briefly how our most holy God frequently delivered me, from slavery, and from the twelve trials with which my soul was threatened, from man traps as well, and from things I am not able to put into words.

I would not cause offense to readers, but I have God as witness who knew all things even before they happened, that, though I was a poor ignorant waif, still he gave me abundant warnings through divine prophecy.  Whence came to me this wisdom which was not my own, I who neither knew the number of days nor had knowledge of God?

Whence came the so great and so healthful gift of knowing or rather loving God, though I should lose homeland and family.  And many gifts were offered to me with weeping and tears, and I offended them, and also went against the wishes of a good number of my elders; but guided by God, I neither agreed with them nor deferred to them, not by my own grace but by God who is victorious in me and withstands them all, so that I might come to the Irish people to preach the Gospel and endure insults from unbelievers; that I might hear scandal of my travels, and endure many persecutions to the extent of prison; and so that I might give up my free birthright for the advantage of others, and if I should be worthy, I am ready [to relinquish] even my life without hesitation; and most willingly for His name.

And I choose to devote it to him even unto death, if God grant it to me.  I am greatly God’s debtor, because he granted me so much grace, that through me many people would be reborn in God, and soon after confirmed, and that clergy would be ordained everywhere for them, the masses lately come to belief, whom the Lord drew from the ends of the earth, just as he once promised through his prophets:

“To you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Our fathers have inherited naught but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit [Jeremiah 16:19].” And again: “I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the uttermost ends of the earth [Acts 13:47].”

28 Day Love Challenge · Christian. · February · Love · Valentines

Day 9: Why Can’t I Be God

February 11, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Love does not envy.

God created man and women. He prepared the perfect home for them. They spent their days in a garden filled with life. Lush grasses carpeted the ground. Canopies of trees spread above providing a shelter from the sun. Sweet fruit, berries and grains grew every where to feed the two.

In the evening, God came into the garden and walked with the couple. He spent time with them. They walked with God in a close relationship.

This is what our lives are suppose to be like. Jesus gave two commands. He said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. When we abide in His love we are suddenly capable of keeping the second commandment to love others as ourself; to love as Christ loved us.

The serpent entered the garden. i won’t go into my whole study of the serpent, but I will mention that the word that is interpreted serpent comes from a root word which is whisper like the snake charmers. This serpent, our accuser, Satan seeks out Eve and tells her half truths and lies.

But look at Eve for a moment.

Genesis 3:3 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which theLord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

²And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

³But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

⁴And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁵For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

⁶And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

⁷And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

⁸And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

Please be patient with me while I paraphrase the conversation.

God says do not eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or you will die. You can have everything else. After debating back and forth between Eve and Satan about just what God said, Satan tells her that God is keeping something great from her. God just doesn’t want Eve to be all knowing like God. God doesn’t want Eve to have everything.

So Eve looks at the fruit. It looks good to eat and Eve wants to know everything just like God.

And there we have it. The cause of the first sin is envy.

That evening, God comes into the garden to walk with Adam and Eve. They run and hide from HIm. The close relationship has been broken. God finds them, cloths them and then sets them out of the garden. The envy of desiring what belongs to God, the envy of not being satisfied and content with who God made them resulted in sin. The sin broke the relationship.

Jesus, our savior, mends that broken relationship. He is one with God and invites us to be one with Him. He mends the breach. But we must accept that what is God’s is God’s. We are not all knowing and all powerful. We must accept that at times we will not understand. What seems good to us maybe really bad for us. Either God is Lord of our lives or we are Lord of our lives.

When we allow God to be God and do not try to replace Him with ourselves, we can once again walk with him in the cool of the evening.

When we are one with Christ, we can start to love others by allowing him to love through us.

28 Day Love Challenge · February · Love · Valentines

Day 1 –To Love or Not to Love

February 2, 2013 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Jesus when asked what the most important commandment was said.

Matthew 22:37 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

And Jesus said if you love him than

^{John 15: 12}My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷This is my command: Love each other.

And John tells us in his first letter

1 John 4:⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This 28 Day Challenge is for Christians, those who have accepted the sacrifice of Christ and have asked Him to be Lord of their lives. We love God because He first loved us and what He asks from us is that we love others as he loved us.

Journal

Are you a Christian? Have you asked Christ for forgiveness of your sins and to be Lord of your life? If not you can do so now. It is not complicated, but you have to be sincere. Christianity is about faith or trust. You trust that Christ’s sacrifice removes your sin, you trust that Christ loves you and that He will guide you through the Holy Spirit.
Write a statement of commitment that for the next 28 days you will be open to God filling you with His love for others.

Activity

Keep a small notebook with you during the next 28 days. As you interact with people who you know are Christians, do you see examples of Christian love? Make a quick note of what you see.

Also note moments when you could have shown Christ’s love but didn’t.

Thanksgiving

Make known his deeds

November 12, 2012 purposeunderheavenLeave a comment

Let’s venture back to the difference between counting your blessings and thanksgiving. Counting blessings entails two activities. The first thinking about what you are happy about. What people, things, places and activities you are glad exist in your life? You focus on what pleases you. You focus on what makes your life happy.

Thanksgiving changes the focus to what God has done in your life. Look towards those time in your heart of heart when you know God brought blessings into your life. Yesterday, we redirected what we are meditating upon from general blessing to those times we know God acted directly in our lives.

Today it goes from inside to outside. David says we are to share with others what we know God has done for us.

Okay, back to our Leper.

Luke 17:15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.

So we have our healed leper running down the road praising God and shouting for everyone to hear what God has done for him. Not one person passing by would not have know what Jesus had done. But notice something else. The 10 Lepers know to cry out to Jesus for help. They know he can heal them. How would they know this if someone hadn’t been talking about what Jesus had done?

How often do you tell someone about what Jesus has done in your life. Not share the gospel with them. Not tell them to come to church. Not tell them the stories in the bible. Do you tell them what He has done in your life?

I don’t. God acts in my life. He accomplishes mighty works and I know they are from God. But I seldom if ever share these big and small miracles with people. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like the right time. At other times, I don’t believe people will believe me. I know the truth, but I am sure it sounds wild to others. Most of the time, it just never crosses my mind to tell my stories.

God demonstrates His power in our lives through life saving giant miracles (and I have had those in my life) but just as often, He simply places a kiss on our cheek. These are small moments when God acts and you know it was Him. A God kiss touches your heart, answers a real need and lets you know he cares about you in the little things.

Since today is about making his deeds known. I will tell you about the most recent God Kiss.

A few months back I had a period of total ditziness. In about a three month period, I lost two separate credit cards. I sent to have the first one replaced, but my monthly payments were on the second card. I just did not want to have to redo all those accounts. Not a life or death situation. I watched the account no one was charging on it.

Now doing everything that is wrong, I spent about a week going back to every place I had used the card around the time it disappeared. Nothing. Then I prayed to God to get me out of this jam.

As a last ditch effort. I returned to the place where I thought I had lost the card. I had called this place immediately after I realized it was gone. But they had not found it.

Pulling up at the little store-filling station combination, I locked my car door and went inside. The people in the store searched everywhere but it was no where to be found. I accepted it was time to give up and do what adults do. I needed to report it lost and change all the auto pay accounts.

I unlocked the car door and settled into my seat. My heart sunk. I just didn’t want to have to face this problem right now. Not a big issue. Nothing of even great consequence would happen if I didn’t find the card. It just frustrated me.

Then God gave me a kiss on the cheek. I went to buckle the seatbelt. You know that step you take every time you drive. Now a week after I lost it, my credit card set across the latch of my seatbelt. I could not latch the belt without removing it.

I knew God did it. I knew God gave me a ‘here is something to make your day better’ miracle.

But I don’t tell people because I assume they won’t believe me. They will argue that someone had my card. They kept it but did not use it. I some how forgot to lock my car even though I thought I had. This person heard me ask about the card. They still had it on them, but did not want to just say it was in a drawer or back behind the counter or anything like that. But they snuck to my car. They chanced someone seeing them open my car door. They then slipped the credit card on the seat belt latch so I would find it..

If all that happened, and I find this scenario is a stretch, or if God just made it appear, it was a God kiss that brighten my day and my week I praised God all day for his helping me. But I sure didn’t share His deed until now.

Exercise

Tell someone about something personal God has done in your life. Or write about it on one of the social media pages.

Play list

I Love To Tell The Story Barbara Mandrell Precious Memories

I was going to put “I’m So Happy and Here’s the Reason Why” , but it is hard to find versions of this one.