Isaiah 43 - 45; 1 Peter 4

Where did the wrestling go????
Seems as though more and more... ….I ..
No I still wrestle but don’t so publicly expose such foolishness…figure what’s the point it’s the same thing over and over…You trying to teach me something and my resistance to being taught…..

Praising You has been an amazing experience…one that brings me back to WORSHIP…..I wonder often about the strife in the world, the amazing amount of suffering. I wonder often about illnesses and death…..I wonder often about all sorts of stuff that I can DO nothing about so then I figure why wonder…..perhaps the T-Rex of tyranny inside me is being…is dying…..or…….

1 Peter 4: 1-2 Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.

Some days that is exactly what it feels like......

Isaiah 40 - 42; 1 Peter 3

What a weekend!! Time on the bike ..... the overwhelmingness of family and wedding preparations.... but the time on the bike seemed to balance everything out for me/us…..not sure if that is good or bad …???...

Praising You for weekends and weather changes (cooler) and family and Dara being home safely from LA for the wedding ….. The wedding is coming up this weekend…..
Praising You for time off to prepare and afterwards to recover….
Praising You for church family who is serving us so wholeheartedly and humbly and humbling us…..so chaos rules this week and in the chaos I can come to YOU….so maybe it doesn’t rule??.....But what does.....?? Perhaps still and always it will be the desire for another persons approval....and yet more and more that seems to be lessening...making me think more about everything .....???

What rules your life????

Isaiah 40: 12 Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands, or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger,Who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets, weighed each mountain and hill?

Isaiah 40:25 Look at the night skies: Who do you think made all this? Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name—so magnificent! so powerful!— and never overlooks a single one?

Isaiah 40: 31 But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don't get tired, they walk and don't lag behind.

Isaiah 42: 5-9 God's Message,

the God who created the cosmos, stretched out the skies,

laid out the earth and all that grows from it,

Who breathes life into earth's people,

makes them alive with his own life:

"I am God. I have called you to live right and well.

I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe.

I have set you among my people to bind them to me,

and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations,

To make a start at bringing people into the open, into light:

opening blind eyes,

releasing prisoners from dungeons,

emptying the dark prisons.
I am God. That's my name.

I don't franchise my glory,

don't endorse the no-god idols.

Take note: The earlier predictions of judgment have been fulfilled.

I'm announcing the new salvation work.

Before it bursts on the scene, I'm telling you all about it."

1Peter 3: 13-18 If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you're still better off. Don't give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.

2 Kings 18-19; 2 Chronicles 32; James 5

Praising you for 2 wheel transportation….the MOTORCYCLE….what an amazing way to travel…nothing but wind noise in my head and I can pray and Praise you for opportunities to get away with my husband…2 hours on the road.. no conversation save our individual ones with YOU…..Praising You for an evening of Prayer…..
Praying for the President....
Praying for the incredible tensions and turmoil all over the world....Romans 8:26 very appropriate here!
Praying for Bruce…….
Praying for Barbara….
Praying for Larry…..
Praying for Brainhell…..
Praying for Emma Grace and her Mommy…

I could go on and on…the people, the blogs I have come across have touched me deeply and in my prayers I see faces I couldn’t possibly know…Romans 8:26 prayers come in so very handy on the back of the bike….

Praying for understanding and wisdom for myself….the world seems kinda crazy right now…..and if I focus in and on that craziness I get lost and hopeless and yet cannot operate with my head in the sand either……so praying for some kind of understanding and a wisdom when and if I become engaged about it…...would much rather just operate where I am comfortable and yet in talking to Shea this morning, convicted of…..why in the hell I would think I am supposed to be comfortable???

In reading in 2 Kings …sieges lasting 3 years…..sacrifices and standards……we live in different times, under the NEW covenant ….. we are called to live differently….to live ……differently….and yet Old Testament words encourage….2 Chronicle 32: 6-8 Hezekiah rallied the people, saying, "Be strong! Take courage! Don't be intimidated by the king of Assyria and his troops—there are more on our side than on their side. He only has a bunch of mere men; we have our God to help us and fight for us!" Morale surged. Hezekiah's words put steel in their spines.

You're the same God........

James 5: 7-8 Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master's Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.
9 Friends, don't complain about each other. A far greater complaint could be lodged against you, you know. The Judge is standing just around the corner.
10-11 Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honoring God. What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You've heard, of course, of Job's staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That's because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.
19-20 My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God's truth, don't write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.

MUCH to pray about…and ALL I want to do is RUN…..

Be still and know that YOU are God. Psalm 46:10

but Praising you for brief..... 2 wheel escapes!

2 Chronicles 29 - 31; James 4

In the quiet yesterday, in the 'being still'...I wasn’t so much listening as trying to again just ‘detach’ and protect myself. Funny thing is it’s not as easy as it used to be, the detaching…..OH I can still do it, but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ as good as it used to. So praising YOU for the journey yet again. The presence of Jesus becoming so real.

Man, as Francis Schaeffer has put it, is a glorious ruin, a stately castle, intricately and masterfully constructed by the hand of an Artisan who designed His work with no thought of expense or practicality. A proper concern for God’s own glory and majesty was His only guiding force in creating a person. The castle, however, was given a life of it’s own, capable of rearranging itself. When man (speaking of both men and women) took it on himself to be as God, he ruined everything. Crumbling walls, rotten wood, and overgrown gardens: the decay became so extensive that only one with the eyes of a craftsman could see the structural beauty that remained underneath the overgrown foliage and overthrown walls. Nevertheless, it has glory in its form and composition. Man is an amalgamation of dignity and depravity, a glorious ruin.

That comes from a book that we are doing right now …a book by Dan Allender…..The whole struggle of our lives rests in us TRUSTING that…That we were created by an amazing ARTISAN, an architecht.... a God of such detail and that .....
That God had a plan, a design........So praising YOU for YOUR PLAN and YOUR grace when we continue to screw it up, wanting what we want so desperately.

James 4: 1-2 Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don't have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn't yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it. 2-3 You wouldn't think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you'd be asking for what you have no right to. You're spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
4-6 You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. (tearing at and down HIS DESIGN) And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that "he's a fiercely jealous lover." And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you'll find. It's common knowledge that "God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble."
7-10 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he'll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it's the only way you'll get on your feet.

It’s just what we were talking about this morning……and I praise YOU for people to talk about it with…….

2 Kings 17; 2 Chronicles 28; Psalm 46; James 3

Psalm 46:10

"Step out of the traffic! Take a long,

loving look at me, your High God,

above politics, above everything."

Emotionally a wreck this morning and yet in the wreckage I praise YOU for the journey…for the Holy Spirit…for the Word..
Praise You for it’s being a journey….
Praise You for companions on the journey….
Praising YOU for Jesus….
Praising YOU for YOUR GRACE….new every morning, just waiting for us to be drenched in it…..so reposting from early this spring...

"Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow;
you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall. " Annie Dillard

I read this quote and I am just struck with a vision of a waterfall and me in it...smack dab in the middle of it with my cup extended trying to fill it and of course you can't. The force of the water is so overwhelming, the force of Your Grace the same.Trying to take just a cup of grace, just a cup of water from the falls ...and being drenched in the trying. There is no taking a little grace, in the trying your hand is drenched, your wrist, your arm, your body, your hair and face and neck...the power of the falls is overwhelming.

The power of Your Grace....staggering.

I am drenched but the cup is empty, nothing to take away. Nothing to take away, I have to stay smack dab in the middle of the fall, in the middle of your GRACE. Maybe if I do and become so drenched w/love and grace....I won't be able to stop giving it to others???

So as I am feeling SAD today step into the falls...BE DRENCHED...

So as I am feeling DOWN tomorrow step into the falls...BE DRENCHED...

So as I am feeling angry or joyous or jealous or content the next or the next day...step into the falls...

BE DRENCHED....

God the Gardener

James 1: 19-21 Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

I have this 'weed' in my life that like a dandelion left unpulled, roots and all can turn the landscape of my life from HIS green to yellow. The desire for PURPOSE. Pretty enough on it's own, unnoxious and yet left to seed becomes the driving force of my life. Not Christ.......MY PURPOSE......looking to DO something of value. When He says following Him....following Christ is my purpose.....But how to rid yourself of something that is soooo prolific? What is the weed of your life?

I am praising YOU for being the gardener....for lovingly landscaping our lives to YOUR PURPOSE.....

Isaiah 19-21 and Hebrews 11

Hebrews 11: 1-2 The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
3 By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.

All of Hebrews 11….the race laid out for us…a life of FAITH......the finish line and Abba Father standing there ready to swing us into his arms saying ‘Well done’……like children….we must believe like children……kinda lagging today but still running…..

Isaiah 15-18; Hebrews 10

Praising You for Jesus and in Him those companions on the journey that grow and challenge us.
Praising You for the Cross…..for the tremendous sacrifice made by Jesus for us, miserable, selfish, ego-centered creatures…..loved by the God of the UNIVERSE……
This morning in the midst of tears of repentance and seeing how quickly I become about me……feeling the having been chosen……feeling the incredible discomfort of knowing that this life is not about me……oh still wanting it and being forgiven yet again for THAT…..I can’t explain this morning….I can only THANK YOU for it. Exposure over and over to authenticity (a ruthless authenticity that I don’t always understand)…combined with a seeking heart….combined with the Word……there are no limits to what YOU can do in us…….I can only thank you for fellow travelers, fellow competitors in this RACE YOU laid out before us…. for GRACE……..for mulligans…. the inevitable do over….You are amazing God!!
Praising YOU over and over and over…..Praising YOU in the storm…….Praising YOU…….

Isaiah 16: 4-5"When this is all over," Judah answers,
"the tyrant toppled,The killing at an end,
all signs of these cruelties long gone,
A new government of love will be established
in the venerable David tradition.
A Ruler you can depend upon
will head this government,
A Ruler passionate for justice,
a Ruler quick to set things right."

Until then…….we are to love….like little children we are to depend on Him without seeing Him….we are to focus completely on this amazing God of LOVE…in the midst of suffering and loneliness somehow come to Him and allow Him to be all that we need…
HEY didn’t say it was easy but if we don’t what happens to the lost lambs of HIS?? I think I need love but I have it….I just don’t let it ever be enough and for that I am sorry Father……

Isaiah 17: 7-8 Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel. They'll lose interest in all the stuff they've made—altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, handmade religion—however impressive it is.

All of Isaiah hard to read…..I am not a doomsayer…not an endtimes fanatic ……..and yet how can I ignore ……??...so instead of going down that rabbit hole and ‘worrying’ I am going to praise YOU today for fellow travelers…..fellow runners in the race …….instead of worrying about the lost I am going to focus on what YOU already did….focus on what YOU call me to do….pray to like NIKE says somehow DO IT and if I don’t ....and instead of jealously envying them their speed, their place in the race….see my race and RUN….press on and RUN….like a child eyeing the finish line...eager to jump into their Father's arms....THE FATHER who has been cheering them on.....

Hebrews 11-18 Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this:
This new plan I'm making with Israel
isn't going to be written on paper,
isn't going to be chiseled in stone;
This time "I'm writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts."
He concludes, I'll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.
Once sins are taken care of for good, there's no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.
Don't Throw It All Away
19-21 So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into "the Holy Place." Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The "curtain" into God's presence is his body.
22-25 So let's do it—full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out. Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.
26-31 If we give up and turn our backs on all we've learned, all we've been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ's sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God's Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he'll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: "Vengeance is mine, and I won't overlook a thing" and "God will judge his people." Nobody's getting by with anything, believe me.
32-39 Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn't touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.
It won't be long now, he's on the way;
he'll show up most any minute.
But anyone who is right with me thrives on loyal trust;
if he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy.
But we're not quitters who lose out. Oh, no!
We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.

Come on kids.......let's RUN!! And if you see someone ahead of you or beside you or behind you who has fallen....help him or her up.....because tomorrow I may need your help......

Isaiah 11-14 ; Hebrews 9

Praising You for breakfast….breakfast w/a friend. Exploring them and allowing ourselves to be explored…revealed . More of the conversations deep and wide.
Praising You for companions on the journey, who when you are revealed choose to stay with you. Choose to enter into the chaos with you without trying to fix or figure you out….just enter it at your side, trusting that He has a plan and all you need to do is rest in that.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just live in the forgiveness and love You provide. Wouldn’t it be nice to be so firm in your faith that you never stepped out of it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be full of faith all the time…..BUT if we did perhaps we would miss the coming back, perhaps we would miss the humility that failure brings…perhaps we would miss the closeness that comes in humility……we would miss the forgiveness in that humble regret.…when I read Isaiah 13:9 Like a hunted white-tailed deer, like lost sheep with no shepherd, People will huddle with a few of their own kind, run off to some makeshift shelter…..I don’t want someone to be that hunted deer, that lost sheep……without hope…..motivated and driven by total and complete panic and hopelessness……so that I come away from You humbles me and gives me eyes to see others lost….others paniced….
While it would be nice and probably more Godly of me to live there in the forgiveness and love…….I am sorry that I don’t / haven’t / can’t…….and just pray to humbly come back trusting always trusting that WHAT YOU want for me is better than whatever I might want or think I need……In the coming back is so much LOVE... Abba Father never wants us away from Him, but allows us the freedom to do so and always forgives us in the coming back….

Praising You for Jesus….Hebrews 9: 11-15 But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven's "tent"—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.

Yes...praising You for Jesus...

Isaiah 8-10 and Hebrews 8

Praising You for my parents…..
Praising You for my family…..
Praising You for Your wisdom in placing us in families to grow and change us.

Isaiah 8 The Holy can be either a Hiding Place or a Boulder blocking your way…
Isaiah 9 He'll take over the running of the world.His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness.His ruling authority will grow, and there'll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.
Isaiah 10 Does an ax take over from the one who swings it? Does a saw act more important than the sawyer?As if a shovel did its shoveling by using a ditch digger! As if a hammer used the carpenter to pound nails

So much in Isaiah this morning …..

Aslan on the move….
A Holy Spirit movement…..
People discouraged and down, feeling challenged and hopeless….distracted??

And us- as believers, followers of Christ simply and completely YOUR tools and all you ask is our availability…We can do nothing without YOUR power driving it, holding it, holding and guiding US and YOU ARE..…No limit to the wholeness, the freedom IF we believe that. What if we as believers believed THIS, believed it and came out of our own way of thinking into thinking YOURS…..You only ask us to be available....???

Hebrews 8 This time I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I'll be their God, they'll be my people. They won't go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They'll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great. They'll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.

The U- TURN though- no matter where we are- how old- how firmly we think we know…..the U TURN…the acknowledgement of being LOST of needing directions…HELP….and our always and only pointing them to the cross….

Our, as followers of Christ…His tools….waiting in the curve of the u-turn just outside the gate pointing them…encouraging them…loving them to Christ, to the cross…

Aslan on the move....
Aslan on the move….
A Holy Spirit movement…..
People discouraged and down, feeling challenged and hopeless….

Not on our own……not without His voice guiding us.....'LOVE them'.....

Available and listening….

Available and listening to and for YOUR voice…

Loving them to Jesus…
Being so loved and forgiven ourselves…
Our hearts soft and broken….
And yet healed….

And in the healing we have heard and in the hearing we listen and in the listening we obey….

What if ???
Psalm 46:10 Be still and know You are God……

Question Monday

Praising You…….this morning for weekends even though they are not the weekends you think you NEED. We had the best time babysitting the Grandkids and almost missed the blessing by being selfish, luckily I have forgiving kids who trusted us in spite of initial reactions. Now it was a busier than normal weekend, filled with chasing after a 10 month old boy who every time he was chased gave us the biggest most loving grin. Filled with conversations with a 3.5 year old girl who just made us feel so loved, so special. She loved the time with her Gigi and PaPa….for the blessing of these kids in my life I am praising YOU.
Praising You for conversations deep and wide.
Praising You for conversations deep and wide with hearts soft and seeking.
Praising You for in the deep and wide there is growth and challenges.
Praising You for the gentle rain that is falling this morning.
Praising You for mulligans / do overs.
Praising You for fellow bloggers. (Please join me in praying for each other....sense a discouragment and want us to in the praise lift each other up .....)
Praising You for jobs….yes a job where you can blog.
Praising You for messages or sermons that you are still thinking about on Monday mornings.

So for a question today………how is YOUR heart today, what is He trying to teach you? Matthew 11:28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Hosea 10-12; Psalm 73; Hebrews 4

Praising You for my girlfriends….Margarita Nite last nite and just sitting at a sidewalk table catching up with each other.
Praising You for summer evenings to sit at sidewalk tables….breezes and fireflies and stars.
Praising You for Your Word….reading it this morning brought me such JOY and yes.. comfort….You know us….You know each of us individually….You have laid out the RACE for each person!
Hosea 10: Sow righteousness, reap love.It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with God, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest.
Sow righteousness…..to me that means point people to Him…..He’s the only answer. Lived my whole life trying to FIX PEOPLE….manipulating them into doing what I deemed would help, was right.…..and here… ‘sow righteousness’… righteousness is in Christ right and a seeking heart He never denies…so .... the pressures off (like YOU put the pressure on us anyway..duh)
Just simply and completely point them to Christ…to a personal journey…….
’dig in with God’…..YOU sent Christ…..YOU sent the answer….…dig in with You and point to YOUR Son….

ahh simplicity…(see tongue planted firmly in cheek)... you see I still want to fix and help and manipulate so the simplicity is lost in my method of operation……
but …..(dang there it is again, the proverbial BUT)…….dig in with God…with God…..WITH GOD……

sow righteousness (point people to Christ) God will handle the rest….see…. Joy and COMFORT…


Hosea 11: 10-12 "The people will end up following God. I will roar like a lion—Oh, how I'll roar! My frightened children will come running from the west.Like frightened birds they'll come from Egypt, from Assyria like scared doves.I'll move them back into their homes." God's Word!

WE will won’t we…end up following God…..I take these verses and pick and choose, is that OK?
I am no theology master….no biblical scholar…..but they speak to me and I hear…I listen……
CS Lewis listened, to write a childrens book, the Chronicles of Narnia and use the lion character……to reach so many children with the gospel before they even know there is a gospel…talk about sowing righteousness!!

Hosea 12: 6 What are you waiting for? Return to your God! Commit yourself in love, in justice!Wait for your God, and don't give up on him—ever!
The U-turn…humbly turning back…no matter how far you ‘think’ you are.
And then the whole of Psalm 73!!
1-5 No doubt about it! God is good—
good to good people,
good to the good-hearted. (those with seeking hearts)
But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness. I was looking the other way, looking up to the people (affirmation and approval) At the top, envying the wicked who have it made, (no God to be obedient to….wicked = lost…..lost = separated from God….those who won’t make the u-turn, that won’t say Your will be done so YOU allow them their will..another CS Lewis insight/quote) Who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world. 6-10 Pretentious with arrogance, they wear the latest fashions in violence, Pampered and overfed, decked out in silk bows of silliness. They jeer, using words to kill; they bully their way with words. They're full of hot air, loudmouths disturbing the peace.
11-14 What's going on here? Is God out to lunch? Nobody's tending the store. The wicked get by with everything; they have it made, piling up riches. I've been stupid to play by the rules; what has it gotten me? A long run of bad luck, that's what— a slap in the face every time I walk out the door. 15-20 If I'd have given in and talked like this, I would have betrayed your dear children. Still, when I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache . . . (management to mystery) Until I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I saw the whole picture: (eyes to see) The slippery road you've put them on, with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.
(sow righteousness- point them to Christ…love them to Jesus…..HOW??) In the blink of an eye, disaster! A blind curve in the dark, and—nightmare! We wake up and rub our eyes....Nothing. There's nothing to them. And there never was. 21-24 When I was beleaguered and bitter, totally consumed by envy, I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox in your very presence. I'm still in your presence, but you've taken my hand. ( made the u-turn) You wisely and tenderly lead me, and then you bless me.
25-28 You're all I want in heaven! You're all I want on earth! (the point of the journey is to want what God wants MORE than anything) When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, God is rock-firm and faithful. Look! Those who left you are falling apart! Deserters, (declaring their will over YOURS) they'll never be heard from again. But I'm in the very presence of God— oh, how refreshing it is! (sow righteousness reap LOVE) I've made Lord God my home. God, I'm telling the world what you do! (sow righteousness reap LOVE)

Hebrews 4: Today, please listen, don't turn a deaf ear . . .
U-TURN……no matter where you are …humbly make that U-TURN
Hebrews 4: 14-16 Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let's not let it slip through our fingers. We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let's walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.


Now I’m freaked and tearful…worrrying about LOST people....putting the pressure on myself……where did I lose the JOY and COMFORT…….back to Hosea 10: It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with God,

the ready earth.....You are in CHARGE not me……
Your Holy Spirit is still here, will be here…You prepare the soil, the hearts….all we do is sow righteousness/Point to Christ…….love in Christ……u-turn…….Wow Praising You for Your word…….

Hosea 6-9 ; Hebrews 3

Praising You for songwriters and authors who stir us out of our apathy. Who have struggled through the very things that hold us stagnate, tempting us to live in the BUT....
It’s YOU who drives the creative process and You who inspires true words or notes of WORSHIP!
Praising You for YOUR LOVE, a love that ruins us for paler experiences, a love without defining bounds. Praising You that once we see our…….and turn to YOU, there You are. Praising You that IF we embrace all that we are you never allow us to stay there.

So I Go Now by Jeff Jacobson
Our very legacy:
You see, our characters have intertwined for a season, a chapter if you will. Here and now, in our towns and our day, treading waters of uncertainty or contemplating this soil we tread, we find ourselves joined as one, if only to reveal a common thread; an awakening of sorts. Whether we are floating peacefully or sinking in roughshod rapids, whether we are limping in the shadows or walking firmly with the wind to our back and the sun on our face, we are together amidst this very story we call life.
So perhaps it must be said that while we engage in this story, we must remind ourselves that collectively, we are not the Author. There are no feeble offerings that we can even muster with this pen to craft a story such as HE writes. But we are His characters, so it bears repeating that we are no mere label. We have been summoned as the indefinable followers of the One who turned this world upside down. We are the ever-transformed and the energized; we are the empowered examples of grace who cannot be contained nor condensed nor reduced to a script of our own design.
And in and out of this setting that’s been given us through His amazing and stunning handiwork, we’ve realized that the lights are up and we’re on. So we’ve imagined and invited a Rider, who by all modern standards has upset the apple cart—our very historical thoughts of him; for this following of him may be grittier than we thought, the message simpler than we anticipated. Just when we thought we had this all figured out, well—there he is.

Again and again and again.

Oh there’s more much more……buy the book, be touched by it and allow it to go deep into your heart, your psyche. Challenging you and driving you deeper and deeper to the one who can change you. Because we become apathetic or discouraged and in that apathy and discouragement we can choose to run or to press on……we are to Press On…….we are to turn over and over back to the one who chose us. If we don’t want to live in the BUT we must be willing to make that U-turn on the journey that always and forever takes us back to Him. So here I am this morning and maybe you are too…..wondering how I got again so far off track…… IF I stay off track instead of turning back, humbly turning back…I will miss the race He laid out for me…I will miss the mountain He may have planned for me to scale…I will miss the incredible journey He planned.

Hebrew 3: Today, please listen; don't turn a deaf ear as in the bitter uprising. 15-19 For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren't they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt? And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn't it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness? And when he swore that they'd never get where they were going, wasn't he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear? They never got there because they never listened, never believed.

CS Lewis: We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. "

Praising You this morning for the word, for lonnnng weekends, for authors who write word pictures that inspire.

It’s the 5th of July…..
I am reading Hosea……..
I am reading So I Go Now and Jeff talks about the 4th and ‘getting it’…..

This morning I get it BUT…….

I don’t want to live in the BUT…..

Hosea 4: ……. stubborn as a mule. How can God lead him like a lamb to open pasture?
Like a lamb being led. …..
Like a lamb being led.......trusting the Shepherd…….

Childlike……..how to live in THAT. Trying last nite to give Emma a 4th to remember BUT she went into a ‘melt down’ wanting what she wanted, not trusting her Momma and Daddy in what they were trying to give her……

I AM EMMA……You are my Momma and Daddy, YOU know what I NEED BUT I childishly try to convince you....
I am a sheep in need of a shepherd BUT like a stubborn mule I refuse to follow, to be led….

I don’t want to live in the BUT…..

So I am going to shower….I am going to dress for WORK….I am going to try to ‘be still and KNOW THAT YOU ARE GOD…….and maybe……perhaps……. that is all that I need to do for now……Praising YOU for Jesus.......

Praised YOU this morning for birds, I must have heard a dozen different varieties this morning singing….tonite the bugs…we live in a constant serenade….

Praised YOU this morning for authors and pastors who write and speak of and to what we feel. Who put legs to ideas we have only begun to think about. Hearing Roy this morning I feel a prick of ‘getting it’ but decide for the moment it’s safer doing it the way I have been....to do it the way he suggests is just too much…I can the day before ‘think’ I know it’s about living on the edge but to stay on the edge is just too scary…
Reading Jeff’s book I see what he writes….but do I get off my seat or just think MORE about it….??....it’s just thinking, and I get frustrated with not seeing what I am supposed to DO….Living on the Edge….not going to the edge and thinking about it but LIVING ON THE EDGE……

Praising YOU for my niece…here doing an internship within my church…..going to lunch with her….listening to her seeking heart…..getting the chance to speak to her of the love that is changing, has changed, is changing my heart, my life, my family….that has to potential to change anyone who seeks HIM ……it’s real and powerful and messy and scary.... to think what we may be believing or what we have believed isn’t enough or perhaps isn’t right or ……..she asked ‘ do we always live in chaos and if we do then do we have JOY?’…….

Jude 20-21 But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God's love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!
22-23 Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith. Go after those who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin. The sin itself stinks to high heaven.
24-25 And now to him who can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating—to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, and now, and to the end of all time. Yes.

At the center of God’s love…….

You are not a God of confusion but I ‘think’ when we go to the center of YOUR love rather than what we want or think we need THERE IS CHAOS…that is the edge…….

My son is getting married this month!!
I am praising YOU for my son...an amazing young man. From the day he was born. He with the cutest eyes and the most sparkling of personalities. The sweetest demeanor.....yes I am a proud Mom.
I am praising you for Allison, an amazing answer to this mothers prayer of and for a godly wife for Jared.
I pray for their marriage, a marriage of dependence on YOU!

In reading Isaiah this morning in the Message translation, the intro by Eugene Peterson says:
The more hours we spend pondering the words of Isaia, the more the word 'holy' changes in our understanding. If 'holy' was ever a pious, pastel tinted word in our vocabularies, the Isaiah preaching quickly turns it into something blazing....(blazing!!??) Holiness is the most attractive quality of the most intense experience we ever get of sheer life.
....authentic .....first hand living (on the edge of eternity, unsafe and yet protected)
Holiness is a furnace that transforms the men and women who enter it.

It's :

Holy Holy Holy (sitting in a service)

versus

Aerosmiths~Living on the Edge...........

You are a God of passion and power...purpose.

You are a God of passion???? I can live full out- balls to the wall for you...IT WILL BE SCARY and it will hurt...but as much as it may hurt...it hurt more to live passionless and stagnate.....

Isaiah 2

He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made.

That sentence...live the way we're made.....

Made to worship~ but stuff of the world has blurred that and worship changes to.....

Made to serve?? But grow up thinking it's about being served...

Made to love ...but in the blurring we think it's more about BEING loved??

He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we are made..

We are made to worship and serve and love and we twist it into needing to be worshiped and served and love....never ever getting enough because we are made to give????? I do need to ponder that! Made to give and not to get??!! Ponder that so I can learn to live the way I was made.....??

Titus 3
He Put Our Lives Together 1-2 Remind the people to respect the government and be law-abiding, always ready to lend a helping hand. No insults, no fights. God's people should be bighearted and courteous.
3-8 It wasn't so long ago that we ourselves were stupid and stubborn, dupes of sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, hated and hating back. But when God, our kind and loving Savior God, stepped in, he saved us from all that. It was all his doing; we had nothing to do with it. He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit. Our Savior Jesus poured out new life so generously. God's gift has restored our relationship with him and given us back our lives. And there's more life to come—an eternity of life! You can count on this.
8-11 I want you to put your foot down. Take a firm stand on these matters so that those who have put their trust in God will concentrate on the essentials that are good for everyone. Stay away from mindless, pointless quarreling over genealogies and fine print in the law code. That gets you nowhere. Warn a quarrelsome person once or twice, but then be done with him. It's obvious that such a person is out of line, rebellious against God. By persisting in divisiveness he cuts himself off.
12-13 As soon as I send either Artemas or Tychicus to you, come immediately and meet me in Nicopolis. I've decided to spend the winter there. Give Zenas the lawyer and Apollos a hearty send-off. Take good care of them.
14 Our people have to learn to be diligent in their work so that all necessities are met (especially among the needy) and they don't end up with nothing to show for their lives.
15 All here want to be remembered to you. Say hello to our friends in the faith. Grace to all of you.

Holy Holy Holy .....YES

But what I hear is

Living on the edge......Living on the edge....