Job 25; Mark 13&14

I told Dan yesterday I just want to go back to being 'good people. Now I know we weren't then nor now 'good people' but I THOUGHT so...I didn't know then what I know now that God sent His son so I could know it, that we weren't..... But in the not knowing it seemed easier. Not going to whine here but really...OK maybe I am. This JOURNEY is hard. This JOURNEY has moments of intense loneliness for me. This JOURNEY is ........scary.....and yet I don't want to stop the process, the JOURNEY. I don't want to stop hearing God. I don't want to stop hearing 'it's not about me'......and yet sometimes I just do.....

We are doing Soul Care now by Larry Crabb and it's all about 'turning our chairs towards another.' .......it's easy for me to recognize someone turning their chair towards me but so hard for me to turn mine towards someone.. ..PRIDE?? Probably but .......no buts.....what if I did you know? I think that's why I blog....I can pour myself out and not see your faces ...the 'what the hell is she talking about?' face or hear someone else say...'you just don't make sense'...I 'see' and 'hear' that or PERCIEVE I see and hear that ALL THE TIME or my perception it is ALL THE TIME.....So I blog and 'say' I don't care what anyone thinks but I check my comment box all the time.......

God knows all this about me and I know He has a plan for me but sometimes......Ecc. 7:8 The end of a matter is better than its beginning and PATIENCE is better than PRIDE........patience......but sometimes I just get so sad and lonely and impatient......really sad and lonely and impatient........

Mark 13: 9 "You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit. 12 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 13 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. and then verses 14-25

Good Lord impatient for what? For YOU to release Your wrath and have people I love who don't know You.....Your plan...
I know I know YOU have a plan and the sooner I ADOPT yours the better off I am....
Why is that so hard?? It's that whole thinking I am GOD or A GOD thing isn't it? Me thinking I know ANYTHING let alone what it is YOU are doing in the world. Yesterday KNOWING I need to pray more and yet this morning I just start bitching and moaning and whining and being about ME......Who would want to listen to this over and over? Thank God that YOU don't mind...that You listen and guide me when I take the time and soften my heart to hear You....

The whole Garden of Gethsemane....Jesus knowing what was going to happen and begging his disciples to keep watch with him. They couldn't no matter how Jesus implored them.... 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."......
I pray 'Oh Father use me.' I pray Father I want them to see Jesus in me and then I just quit.......Jesus in me would be humble and loving....Jesus would be forgiving and giving and self sacrificing......I pray 'do it' and then promptly fall asleep or worse yet deliberately DENY all of it.....watch and pray...that's it...that's all he asks.....watch and pray.....
surrender ...SURRENDER... SURRENDER..... 40When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

And Peter....oh no not me Lord, Peter......I will DIE for you, Peter......and he can't stay awake and he denies him and in the end..... 72Immediately the rooster crowed the second time.[h] Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows twice[i] you will disown me three times." And he broke down and wept.....

And of course Jesus forgives him and even has this moment of incredible connection with him after the resurrection and Peter is STILL all about what about .......

I know what to do.......I just somedays don't WANT to do it....and yet just this time here in YOUR word guide and convicts me.......BUT I'm still sad....lonely....and impatient.....and I'm sorry for that......

I saw palm trees.....gorgeous palm trees.
I saw.....the HOLLYWOOD sign.....I was ECSTATIC
I saw.....Grauman's Chinese Theater and I saw John Travolta's hand and foot prints.....WOW...
I saw and walked the boardwalk of Hollywood Stars....it was surreal.
I saw Rodeo Drive and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (I think that was it's name from Pretty Woman?)....unfreakinbelievable!!
I saw Beverly Hills mansions.......Whoa....
I saw the OCEAN, the Pacific Ocean....I wanted to cry.
I saw Venice Beach. @Venice Beach I saw Osama BinLaden playing guitar on roller skates and a naked guy on roller blades ( I believe my daughter called it butt floss so maybe he wasn't naked), I saw Bridgitte Neilson and I swear I saw Ryan Carbera, I saw a guy get arrested, he was so high and out of it I'm not sure he knew what was going on....I was sad.
I saw a guy, a homeless guy(?) holding a sign that said.....MY WHOLE FAMILY WAS KILLED BY NINJAS NEED MONEY FOR KARATE LESSONS.....I was confused....
I saw Santa Monica Pier and rode the Ferris Wheel over the ocean AT NITE.....
I took Party Naps, one of them even on the beach right next to the butt floss guy. (We didn't see him there .....I swear!!)
I ate El Salvadorean food and at J Lo's restaraunt, I liked the divey little El Salvadorean restaraunt MUCH more!!
I worshipped at the Mayan w/probably 700-800 + 18-30 year olds. I cried at the sight of this sea of people, young people worshipping God. At one point I had to walk out to the parking lot to take our purses. I had this moment of ...'I'm in downtown LA, by myself at 10PM .....cool' when suddenly I heard this guy ask me for $$. I had 3 purses, I found mine and dug out what I had and gave him fruit and a blanket my daughter keeps in her car. She later told me never money, but whatever food I have to give them, she keeps extra food in her car for just this purpose.
I heard Erwin R. McManus speak TWICE and each time I was in tears thinking he was talking to me, seeing my heart and knowing my selfish struggles and I HEARD him say....It's not about me.....I'm not sure he said it but I HEARD it....
I saw my daughter and heard her heart, it is about seeking Him and His will, it is about learning to serve others, all others and I was GRATEFUL.

I wish I were a writer or a poet or a songwriter.
I wish I were a genius and could make you understand.

But I'm not so all I can tell you is......
God is IT.
He sent Christ for US.
He made you.
He is worth fighting.
He is worth knowing.
He is worth humbling ourselves to KNOW....really KNOW.....

BUT the knowing doesn't come without a fight....OK maybe that is too broad BUT IF what we hear about God were true and we just KNEW it without personalizing it would it be as REAL??

Heck yes it would BUT would it be real to us?? to YOU??

A seeking heart HE NEVER DENIES......
BUT it will be all about HIM.

A seeking heart HE NEVER DENIES...
BUT it won't be easy or smooth or without trials and troubles.
BUT like a ride on a whitewater raft or a roller coaster don't YOU want to do it again no matter how much you may scream in the middle of it?? And don't you want to tell others about it and get them to join you on the ride?!!!

A seeking heart HE NEVER DENIES....

That much I KNOW FOR SURE.....

I spent the w/e in Los Angelos and it was an incredible trip. The highlight was.....well it truly was just one highlight after another. My daughter is seeking Christ, seeking to serve Him, serving in a church that is all about Christ and serving others. Her life is becoming about Him and that is the coolest thing to watch. She is finding her worth in who she is in Him. She is finding out that focused on Him....He brings forth passions....no ...He brings your gifts in line with your passions so that a life spent in service to Him has EVERYTHING and our job is to focus on Him.....AND THAT IS A FULLTIME JOB!!!

The more my security is in Christ.
The more "on Christ the solid rock I stand".
The more I look at the why's of my insecurities....

It just makes sense and what doesn't make sense I can TRUST God to make it make sense...because it's NOT ABOUT ME. And this morning THAT makes sense to me.

I am headed to Los Angelos. I have always wanted to go to California and see the things my daughter is taking me to see. I would have never gone if it weren't that she is out there....God is flippin amazing and the MORE I remember that ........Thank You God for......JUST THANK YOU....

Job 17; Acts 24-26

Overload....Overload and not ALL in a bad way....just Los Angelos and Christianity Explored and Hospitality and the Birthday Celebration and the holidays and and ......just alot and not sure where to step up and where to just wait and see and JUMP into serve.......so I feel an anticipation, and excited but a fear of overload??
I am nothing but a coward?? Or .....???? I don't know and while I don't want to run I am not especially sure where to turn or what to do???
Acts 26: 24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul's defense. "You are out of your mind, Paul!" he shouted. "Your great learning is driving you insane." 25"I am not insane, most excellent Festus," Paul replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. 26 The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do." 28Then Agrippa said to Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?" 29 Paul replied, "Short time or long—I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains."

I like better the Message translation: 24 That was too much for Festus. He interrupted with a shout: "Paul, you're crazy! You've read too many books, spent too much time staring off into space! Get a grip on yourself, get back in the real world!" 25 But Paul stood his ground. "With all respect, Festus, Your Honor, I'm not crazy. I'm both accurate and sane in what I'm saying. 26 The King knows what I'm talking about. I'm sure that nothing of what I've said sounds crazy to him. He's known all about it for a long time. You must realize that this wasn't done behind the scenes. 27 You believe the prophets, don't you, King Agrippa? Don't answer that--I know you believe." 28 But Agrippa did answer: "Keep this up much longer and you'll make a Christian out of me!" 29 Paul, still in chains, said, "That's what I'm praying for, whether now or later, and not only you but everyone listening today, to become like me--except, of course, for this prison jewelry!"

Just this week feeling perfectly crazy, having people look at me (my perception of course) like I am crazy....what I hear is FREAK ....my own Father several years ago pointblank looking at me and asking me if I wasn't sure that I might be insane...he used the word insane and at that time it hurt and the hurt is probably still there ....and then having people tell me I am hard to understand...hard to listen to....what is about me and what is about THEM???....

But Dan says 'keep my passion for Christ'...trust that God will work it out for His good.... he implores me to keep my passion and thus encourage him.......and to be honest IT is what I am praying for....for others to know Christ so deeply and be moved so passionately in whatever way HE gifted them to move and serve.
So if I am crazy....then let me be crazy for Christ......I do hate it though because one of my deepest felt needs is or was......nah....gotta stay focused on Christ......So I think this prayer is just for me today and maybe for you....Give me wisdom, O LORD, to discern the best way to use my time and my influence. Open my eyes to see the temptation the evil one puts in my path. Give me courage to boldly stand for you and sensitivity to know the best way to bless others according to their needs. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
And then this bit of hope from my Oswald Devotion this morning as well...I may be CRAZY but I think I will take CRAZY for CHRIST anyday...Thank you Father for my husband who always encouraging me....
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God the tendency is to say - What wonderfully astute wisdom they had! How perfectly they understood all God wanted! The astute mind behind is the Mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the Divine guidance of God through childlike people who were foolish enough to trust God's wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God.

Job 13&14; Acts 17&18

Today is Monday of the week I am going to LA and what do I feel ...EXCITED!!
Talking w/.........about her journey what do I feel....EXCITED
Going to have to talk to .... today about ...... I am feeling....fearful and insecure and in that /those feelings I hear...."insecurity is SELF righteousness" so I am going to just be praying and looking to YOU to break ME, prepare me to be about her, about Christ....and I could so use that in dealing ........well Father...not about ME.....about them and YOU.....
Considering others ALL others as better than yourself....
Why do I struggle against that so hard PRIDE..PRIDE and Self Righteousness....it's so ugly and deep Father, I am sure deeper than I even guess or imagine or operate at knowing .....I just pray to be soft and open and humble as You DO reveal it to me......knowing that YOU know my heart better than I do and in spite of it I am loved.....
Your Son died knowing ALL.....
Reading in Job and hearing his friends challenge him and while there is truth, much truth in what they say. They don't know that God said.... 8 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
We can't know another man's heart or God's. When we speak and offer advice it is only in what we know. So what do I do? Do I offer advice? Do I challenge?? Do I sympathize? Do I just listen?? Listen and PRAY....but ......what's wrong w/pointing them to God? Pointing them to Christ?? Am I just supposed to LISTEN w/ no agenda....can I listen and LISTEN TO YOU at the same time and trust THAT?? You've got a plan and I guess the sooner I adopt YOURS the better off we all are, me and those that I interact with .......

Acts 19: 32 The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there....How often NOW does that happen? People not knowing WHY they are there?? Especially in heated arguments....hmm and when we don't get heated it's not about us?? I guess like Roy's saying we don't have to defend the truth, in defensiveness is heat.......???

Acts 20: 19 I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews..... 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood..... 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.... 35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "
36When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37 They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.

So it's about softness and humility and tears. It's about Jesus and faith in Him. It's about knowing what you are supposed to do and in faith and humility stepping out and doing it. It's about LISTENING and praying for them . It's about .. 35In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "...Treating others all others as better than myself and knowing that He's told you what to do and I have to choose to do it.....

What a gift.....in my comments from this morning..... Thank YOU Barbara

Colossians 2 1I want you to realize that I continue to work as hard as I know how for you, and also for the Christians over at Laodicea. Not many of you have met me face-to-face, but that doesn't make any difference. Know that I'm on your side, right alongside you. You're not in this alone.
2 I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. 3 All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery! 4 I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret."
5 I'm a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I'm on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ.

From the Shadows to the Substance 6 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. 7 You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. 9 Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. 10 When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
11 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in--insiders-not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. 12 If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. 13 When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive--right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, 14 the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's Cross. 15 He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
16 So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. 17 All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
18 Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. 19 They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
20 So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? 21 "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" 22 Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? 23 Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.

Freedom.....being free......I am thinking about that this morning. Realizing how bound up I get by ME.

Bound up in jealousy and envy.
Bound up in loneliness.
Bound up in fear.
Bound up in greed and selfishness.

What would it take for me to be free? To feel free?

I have to come out from under ME. But who will take care of ME? Who will love ME? Where will I fit in? How will I survive in this freedom?

You promise that in my weakness YOU will get stronger.......How weak do I have to get?? How lonely do I have to be?
My life's goal was to BE comfortable to FIT in......and YOU are saying that is what has had me bound??

'Insecurity is SELF righteousness.'
'A bad attitude is arrogance.'

Both of these statements are jarring because I am insecure most of the time and in that 'insecurity' my 'bad attitude' is given birth.

INSECURITY..... 'how can I say that' ' how can I do that' 'he / she probably thinks.....' 'well they know how to do that better than me' (so many forms and faces)

BAD ATTITUDE.....noone knows what I do....or feel...or think....or want.....or am trying to do...or...(you could go on and on here)

Even writing it I can see the truth in it.....INSECURITY is all about me and them....not about Christ and saying and being and doing and trusting in Him.....and the BAD ATTITUDE is like a self fulfilling prophesy...it was all about ME anyway what can God do in that???

Now what????

I know I know SURRENDER.......

Job 5; Psalm 108; Acts 10-11

Do you know there are people who don't know what we know? People who don't know the LOVE of God and Jesus. People who don't know because people like me don't tell them or have told them.. but not in a way they can hear.
People like me feel responsible to SAVE them, but not to LOVE them.
People like me want to love them but don't know how, or are too stubborn to learn how, or too scared to allow Jesus THAT much control and power.
Did you know all this???
Cool and scary in the same breath because if I KNOW something I am going to make sure you KNOW that I know and yet this just makes me ........I don't know...see there I go again?!! Praise YOU that YOU DO KNOW and you even know me and all my urgency and stubborness and being scared and great is your love...Psalm 108: 3 I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. 4 For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Acts 8: 34Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 36You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
39"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, 40but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
44While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46For they heard them speaking in tongues[b] and praising God.

And there it is....I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE and how cheeky of me to think I am ....You are God and I am not...I am called to 'not judge' .... I am called to speak but it is YOU all YOU......Thank you Father and though I am scared and urgently nervous....I am following and listening......

Job 3-4;Acts 8-9

More and more it hits me.....I HAVE to focus on YOU....I have to focus on Christ and trust YOUR PLAN.....I have to want to HEAR from YOU....

If I don't focus on Christ I try to answer and advise and fix and remedy and persuade and influence and ........Focused on YOU I am helpless and surrendered and soft and teachable and guidable and leadable, listening and dependent.

There is nothing in my life that is earth shattering but around me...there is so much and perhaps.....I don't know....I don't know anything anymore so I focus on You......Acts 9:31 '....it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.'....something that sounds so simple and is soooooo hard......


'worry about nothing and PRAY about everything.' only focused on YOU can I remember that.

Nehemiah 11&12; Psalm 1; Acts 3

Urgency in me always leads to frustration and frustration paves the way or is born maybe of PRIDE and as we all know PRIDE comes before the fall......In Psalm 1 this morning this verse really struck me.....

1:2-3 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Like a tree......solid and unyielding

Like a tree.....a tree doesn't move???

Like a tree.....a tree's whole life is dependent upon the seasons

But his delight is in the law of the LORD and on his law he meditates day and night.....

These are the verses I gathered from around my computer this morning.......

2 Cor. 12:9 and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness.

Ecc. 7:8 The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

Hebrews 12:14-15 Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you'll never get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure no one gets left out of God's generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time.

Proverbs 19: 20-21 Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.

Lamentations 3:21-26 But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: GOD's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with GOD (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left. GOD proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from GOD.

So that's what I'm going to marinate in today. That's the words that I want to really penetrate this crusty, stubborn, prideful heart of mine.

Getting To.....

I got this quote from someone's blog ..."It's not got to, it's get to ~ and that makes all the difference in the world, for once you're free from the 'got to's', you invariably do more than before."
It's that whole EARNER to HEIR piece/PEACE
It's mostly the 'get to' part that got me this morning. Reading in Nehemiah 10 and how the people kept messing up and repenting. How God forgives and then they go and set up this set of rules to follow and it becomes about have to Nehemiah 10:29 ....contrast that to Acts and I see the 'get to' ....they got to share everything and got to pray together and 2 :47 And the Lord added to their number daily.....

A community of people that 'gets to' read the bible for guidance, a community of people that 'gets to' get up at 5:30 am on Thursday mornings and come together and read and journal together, we get to do this because we 'get to' be Small Group leaders. A community of people that 'gets to' come to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, none of us having to.....A community of people where their children are growing up seeing their parents 'get to' have a personal relationship w/Christ through His word, seeing their parents 'get to' serve, where they 'get to' see life change......
What if you know....what if we lived in 'getting to'......following Christ so deeply, being loved and loving Him so much......

Seeking Verses

35,000 people dead in Pakistan
This young man in Lesa's case load murdered

These two issues are just rumbling around in my head and heart this morning....Add to that my failings as a Small Group leader, as any kind of a servant and I want to just......

No I don't want to run ........So I need to just breathe and remember that YOU are in charge and that THAT knowledge has to be enough for me, that it's all been DONE and YOU desire us to SEEK YOU.....As I looked at these verses this morning, the words relief or solutions or answers, they just aren't there. SEEK HIM and He takes care of everything else....Nothing for me to do but concentrate my energies on seeking Him......

1Chronicles 22:19 Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the sacred articles belonging to God into the temple that will be built for the Name of the Lord ."
2 Chronicles 12:14 He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord .
Psalm 10:4 These wicked people are too proud to seek God. They seem to think that God is dead.
Psalm 14:2 The LORD looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if there is even one with real understanding, one who seeks for God.
Psalm 22:26 The poor will eat and be satisfied. All who seek the LORD will praise him. Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.
Psalm 27:4 The one thing I ask of the LORD-- the thing I seek most-- is to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, delighting in the LORD's perfections and meditating in his Temple.
Psalm 69:32 The humble will see their God at work and be glad. Let all who seek God's help live in joy.
Proverbs 3:6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.
Isaiah 26:9 All night long I search for you; earnestly I seek for God. For only when you come to judge the earth will people turn from wickedness and do what is right.
Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.

Jeremiah 29:12In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. 14I will be found by you," says the LORD. "I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and bring you home again to your own land."

Lamentations 3:25 The LORD is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him.
Ezekiel 33:31 So they come pretending to be sincere and sit before you listening. But they have no intention of doing what I tell them. They express love with their mouths, but their hearts seek only after money.
Hosea 10:12 I said, `Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of my love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.'
Matthew 7:8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.
John 6:27 But you shouldn't be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I, the Son of Man, can give you. For God the Father has sent me for that very purpose."
Acts 17:27 "His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him--though he is not far from any one of us.
Romans 2:7 He will give eternal life to those who persist in doing what is good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers.
Romans 2:29 No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not a cutting of the body but a change of heart produced by God's Spirit. Whoever has that kind of change seeks praise from God, not from people.
Hebrews 11:6 So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him

How quickly I become discouraged making crap about me....I have to motive in seeking YOU , knowing YOU and FOLLOWING YOU.
This urgency that comes up in me every once in awhile, what is it born of? An unholy or perhaps a Holy discontent?? It depends on what I do with it, this urgency is just me and my emotions getting out of control or?? I don't know but what I do know keeps me going....a seeking heart....

Nehemiah 3-4; Luke 23

Learning to dance, to follow. That's what it feels like and when I wondered how to start this morning that's the visual I kept coming back to. Do you know that I used to LOVE the June Taylor Dancers on the Jackie Gleason Show, the numbers they would do , the finish, always something stunningly visual.
I would dance for days afterwards or at least immediately following the program and when I say dance well I'd never had a lesson.. so you can visualize juvenile leaping and toe pointing and arm flailing, the clarity of THAT vision in retrospect is funny. I was full of myself and while I had never had a dance lesson in my life, fancied myself a choreographer just like JUNE TAYLOR. I would create routines in my head out of thin air with steps and leaps I would never be able to show or teach someone because I couldn't do them, I could just SEE THEM.
I think I am that way in alot of my life, visions of grandeur and no way or ability to make them happen. The daydreams of someone discontent I suppose and yet now at this stage of my life there is contentment and I guess NOW frustration because while the dreams were unreachable they did soothe me, thus why we daydream.
Now I get so frustrated with visions and ideas and no way to implement them. Not big choreographed numbers, no, now I daydream about being able to share Christ with people in such a way as to bring them into this journey with me so maybe IT IS YOU CHOREOGRAPHING everything and I am learning to dance finally or at least be in a BIG NUMBER.
Writing is another thing that frustrates me, wanting to write and be understood.....that's it I think I just want to write in such a way as to be understood.
Luke 23: 26 As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30Then " 'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" '[d] 31For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"

Why does this scene grab me so much this morning?
These people only days before had welcomed Jesus w/palm fronds before him, they had sought him out for answers and miracles and then they just turn on Him?? His own people......the religious leaders inciting the people to turn on Jesus.. they do and then they're sorry and Jesus KNOWS all the time. He knows our hearts, their hearts......He patiently waits for us to be completely and totally dependent on Him....patient because the alternative HE knows is so much worse. Life without Him, without God...He wants us to have all the time we need to learn how to live for Him because those without will suffer ........will suffer without HOPE...so He gives us all the time we need, He waits for us to come to Him dependent and broken....He waits for us to come to Him willing to follow to let Him lead....in the dance of life, the big choreographed numbers to be one of HIS dancers willing to take the steps He lays out, willing to FOLLOW......He KNEW....HE KNOWS.....I want to follow Jesus, I really do.....

Ezra 7-8; Luke 20

I may not.....
I DON'T know what I thought I knew but what I do KNOW lets me live with the NOT KNOWING......God is good all the time and Jesus...well Jesus.....I will follow Him.


That's the thought I woke up with this morning, not sure what it means but it was very clear.

This whole wanting to tend my 'vineyard' and identifying it as my body, I feel an overwhelming desire to RUN and yet I see the halter (me and my metaphors). And then reading Richards dissertation this morning....this I will take away from it....Matthew 11:28-30. “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.”

So now it's about following through, following You.

Why ....What if.... How come....

I waste alot of time with God asking these sorts of questions....not that He doesn't want us to ask questions.....it's just WHY keep asking them if you know the answers you know........

I don't know what it looks like to LIVE SOLD OUT FOR JESUS......what I can do is daily, moment by moment, be in the moment and KNOW that He is with me and desires most of all me to follow.

2 Corinthians : 9 and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness.

Esther 3-8; Luke 18

Tonite is WORSHIP/New Community....having not that natural tendency towards corporate worship I pray Father for a soft heart today....soft and yielding....aware of all that YOU have blessed me with so I come humbly and joyful to the service. Will I ever have a natrual bent towards corporate worship and why don't I naturally??? My thought life can be alternately comforting in You and so dark and SELF driven as to keep me away from people and YOU...what is that about??? I want that NEW HEART You promised....I want a mind focused and dependent on You no matter what.....can I ask YOU for that?? Is it MY judgementalism, leanings towards the Elder Brother that makes me this way??
Ps 139: Ps 139 : 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Is what I struggle with ALL humility and PRIDE?? To proud to bend to the will of another and yet praying daily to yield to Your will....why won't I see what ....put my head, heart, and neck where You are leading me to?

Today Mordecai and Esther......Haman and King Xerxes......the widow and the beggar....is there a connection, is there supposed to be?

Mordecai, yesterday I was angry with his objectifying, subjecting Esther to being in the King's harem . And today reading Mordecai tell Esther .. Esther 4: 13 he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"...did he use her to save his skin or did God use them both...well that's easy to answer God used them both for His glory.... the end of the story......Haman being hung on the very gallows he built to hang Mordecai and all the jews being on the other end of the 'feeding chain'.....permitted to destroy any and all who attempted to destroy them. All because of Esther and her place in the the palace......used by her Uncle and yet exactly where she is supposed to be....

The widow pure S?? Relentlessly asking the judge .....Luke 18: 4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "
6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" Why do I automatically tag her an S??? Because in my mind the D would have MADE it happen and she was willing to humble herself to repeatedly ask??? ....
The beggar, disdained by the Disciples and cured by Christ....Luke 18: 39Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"
40Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, 41"What do you want me to do for you?" "Lord, I want to see," he replied.
42Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you." 43Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.
So my problem is???
And then this small sentence in a publication I rec'd this morning... The next few contacts made with them were a mixture of being gently told of my need for Jesus in my life and my hatefully replying and attacking the person writing to me. They too forgave and persisted seeing past my anger to my deepest need: the love of the Savior.
Quit seeing my Sness as a detriment...see it as how God made me and BE who You made me to be.....sold out for Jesus....bankrupt as a beggar....persistent and tenacious as the widow....a user like Mordecai and as willing to be used as Esther for YOU to be glorified......

Esther 1-2; Psalm 150; Luke 17

How can I talk to someone else and see they get 'stuck' in their own thoughts and yet seemingly ignore it in myself?? How can I so desperately want to be loved where I am at and fail to do it for others??

Just a couple of thots rolling around in my head and heart this morning and I come now to being in YOUR word and pray for a soft and teachable heart....Ps 139 : 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 150 : 6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.

Praise you for my childrens journeys. Praise you for Shoal Creek leading me to a relationship w/Christ that fuels my life. Praise you for the Holy Spirit that guides and convicts me if I slow down enough to listen and follow to place my head, neck and heart firmly where You lead. Praise You for my job and the people / women I work with. Praise You for my husband and our marriage founded now in our relationship w/Christ. Praise You for living in a country of such freedoms and yet responsiblities. Praise You for the seasons, because if it were up to me it would always be summer and YOU in Your wisdom created seasons of birth and living and growth and even dying and waiting. Praise You for my grandchildren. Praise You for churches and denominations and communities of people seeking and growing in You. Praise You for leaders in churches and government and education who shoulder the responsibility of decision making. Praise You for individual hearts and minds to lead and follow at YOUR creation. Praise You for life being a journey and Your word a map for us to follow. Just PRAISE YOU FATHER for EVERYTHING....

Luke 17: 33Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.....The halter whatever it is(see yesterday from a freakin year ago).....see it....put my head and neck and heart into it and leave it there.......The freedom is in the purpose, the serviceAnd then this song just sprang to mind......I want my heart to be wide open Father.....help me in my stubborn disbelief and rebellion......

I am so tired of compromising
I am so tired of lukewarm living
So here I am with arms wide open
Lord here I am, my heart wide open
CHORUS:
Set me on fire
Set me on fire
Set me on fire
Set me on fire

Take this heart of mine
Place your love inside
I want to go against the grain
I want to go against the grain

This weekend going through the Good $en$e workshop and all my worrying and bitching and moaning leading up to the experience reminded me of the Horse Whisper I saw last fall and all my take aways from it. How Good $en$e was yet another halter being held out for me to CHOOSE to put my head and heart into...and all of it NOT to break me but to FREE me into YOUR purposes for my life....anyway as per usual it makes sense to me and maybe someone out there it will as well....God is good all the time IT'S me who forgets that.....

He began in the pen with this pretty little horse warily eyeing him. She had been minimally handled, having been wormed and branded, so very little human contact and what was was negative..... She and Bob Toomer hence forth re: as HW were in this ramshackle flimsy pen a bunch of metal gates wired together for this purpose and surrounded by bleachers so on top of HW in the center she had the distraction of maybe 3-6 hundred people watching.........
He began by equating her horse life before this time in the pen, to ours...time spent in our own pursuits, satisfying ourselves thinking that was ALL we had to satisfy or worry about..how we protect ourselves in that pursuit...He begins running the horse in a circle, just a light canter around the pen ....our life in circles with God at the center whether we know it or not....she runs and he starts telling us what he is looking for...looking for her to begin to 'humble' herself...She would stop and drop her head and walk and occasionally lick her lips, ultimate submission for a horse....so he approached her...very small steps and slow......if she moved she would have to run again until she assumed the humility pose......
He waited and approached her, not right up to her, maybe 3-5 feet....and then it became about her turning towards, choosing him.....and if she wouldn't, it was run again, not hard, not punishing, just useless running. Kind of like us...without God our lives just useless running.....He did this for about 90 minutes and finally she turned to him and was rewarded with stroking and calming words.......You could tell she loved it, craved it......
By this time HW was fatigued and needed a helper, in comes King a cow horse and very good at what he does but what HW needed was a horse to respond EXACTLY as he asked, to follow his lead...he had gotten to the point with the horse that this 3 ft. was very important to maintain and increase the closeness SLOWLY, at her choosing....Well King being a big eager horse could only approach with big fast jerky movements...HW couldn't use King and had to get another horse...
THIS is where the visual became quite personal .....how I saw myself as King...fully saddled and broke and eager to be of help...but moving bigger and faster or sooner and closer than God wants me to........eager but maybe not as obedient or as good a listener as I am supposed to be.
So in the ring comes Leviticus...Levi for short, another cattle horse but seemed to respond more in line with what HW wanted.......closer and closer, each time having the horse choose to allow it, to turn towards him......
It was INCREDIBLE when that horse which had never been lovingly touched, CHOSE to put her head inside the halter....it was amazing....She chose to allow it and the HW never forced her just presented opportunities for her to choose to KNOW her purpose as a saddle horse.....
I hope this makes sense because it deeply impacted me and I wanted to share some of the experience with you.....I loved the imagery...choosing to find our purpose....choosing to allow God into our lives, allowing Him to show us our purpose.

Heartlight Devo for Today

HAD to pass this on:

October 3, 2005

VERSE:
Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. ....Psalm 34:3
http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=Psalm+34:3
THOUGHT:
Isn't it good that we can sing alone and know God loves our song! Isn't it even better that we can join others in songs of praise and lose ourselves in wonder, love, and praise! Let's spend today finding other believers and praising God together. All around the world, hundreds of thousands strong, let's reach out to other believers and ask them to join us in glorifying the Lord!
PRAYER:
Almighty and merciful God, please be pleased with my praise and my attempts to join others in bringing you glory. Forgive me for sins, slips, and slights. Empower me to be a living witness to your magnificent grace. In Jesus' name. Amen

Zechariah 7-9; Luke 13

I'm wore out you know.....been wrestling with You for too long and last nite watching E wrestling w/her Daddy, I just AGAIN saw the futility of a child wrestling w/her Daddy. ....Him so lovingly allowing her to jump on him and as soon as she started to lose she paniced.......and wanted to stop and he would just lovingly back away. She's young and I'm older.....but like a child I think I wrestle w/You. You never pin me down ......but I'm tired and just want to crawl up in Your lap and then I know what to do....... and I'm gonna do it.....
This weekend attacking Good Sense....fearful and yet I can so hear You say 'it's time'...time for us to give this piece of life to You....I can read about the Israelites and laugh or 'judge' that it took them 40 years to figure out how to follow You out of the desert.... Well I can see that Dan and I have been stumbling through the financial desert for 28 years and I don't want to do it another 12 so we BOTH know this is the time for us to really look at where we are so we can plan where and what to do next....plan and follow where YOU lead.
Before we didn't have a plan, scrambling always scrambling...scrambling so much that following just wasn't an option. So all this to say I have a better understanding of the Israelites now.....and the goodness of God in taking care of them and US as we've scrambled and wrestled and fallen and failed .....what a God you know??
Zech 7: 8 And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: 9 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'
11 "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.
13 " 'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the LORD Almighty. 14 'I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.' "

I don't want my wrestling with you to be misinterpreted...I hear you alright and I want to do what You say, You desire and I don't want to harden my heart against it any longer........I know this is OT but THIS IS THE SAME GOD right?? My faith in Christ doesn't make it so I don't have to listen to YOU.....my faith in Christ allows me to hear YOU and that is a huge blessing.
This one .....makes me anxious for those who don't know you.....makes me anxious...
Luke 13 22Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"
He said to them, 24"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'
26"Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'
27"But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!'
28"There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."
......the anxiousness.....Live focused on YOU and YOU WILL TAKE CARE OF IT...be ready when You say and get to the business of FOLLOWING!!!!

God speaks you know and I can wrestle and complain about it but I want to hear...I don't want to have my heart become calloused and my ears and eyes to close up.....I want to hear, I SAY that over and over and then when I do........I want to push a 'pause' button and say...ooh I'll come back to that, catch it later. But there's the problem isn't it, my stubborn and rebellious nature. God is speaking and I better start listening.......


September 28, 2005
Oswald Chambers

THE "GO" OF UNCONDITIONAL IDENTIFICATION
One thing thou lackest: . . come, take up the cross, and follow Me. Mark 10:21

The rich young ruler had the master passion to he perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself - a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute "go" of abandonment to Jesus.
"Then Jesus beholding him loved him." The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are "soft" with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your
nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"One thing thou lackest . . ." The only "good thing" from Jesus Christ's point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.
"Sell whatsoever thou hast . ." I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save by soul (only one thing saves a man - absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) - but in order to follow Jesus. "Come, and follow Me." And the road is the way He went.

Didja catch the date.....today and all my whining about SURRENDER....I hear you Father.....I hear you......
And see I believe this.....btw from today as well... If we get our information from the biblical material there is no oubt that the Christian life is dancing, leaping, daring life. ~ Eugene Peterson
So you might ask...what the heck is the problem????

Haggai 1-2; Psalm 129; Luke 10

I want to say God just leave me alone and yet I don't.......want Him to leave me alone that is.....talking to Dara last nite she challenged me, as she is prone to do, to 'not miss'....to not be a coward....well she didn't exactly say....but that's what I heard......and then I come to work and read all this 'stuff' that challenges me.....Dan has already read for the day and what he has gotten makes me know that I am going to be challenged......so it's challenging being me right now and maybe the point is it's always been and I just haven't faced it.....
Haggai 1: 5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
Luke 10: 1After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
Luke 10: 16"He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."
Luke 10: 38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."


So I read and write down the verses that touch me and just when I think I 'know' what it is You are trying to teach me I come to that last story and that is when the tears come.....only one thing is needed. .....sitting at the feet of Christ and listening to what is said.....following Christ....surrendering it all to Christ.....
$$, go to Good Sense this weekend and learn what it is to truly live for Christ in another piece of my life...(surrender all really means all doesn't it?) , really look at the patterns, Give careful thought to your ways....the dance we've done for 25+ years re: our finances......
It's not about what I say or who I say it to...... Luke 10: 16"He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." .....God is God and I'm not, I can only follow Christ and in loving Him...Luke 10: 27He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' " I will....it will.....someday I will ........I pray so because this journey to LOVE You is worth taking.......the point of the journey is to want what God wants more than anything.....I want to love without self protecting....and maybe I am learning, will learn......
Again probably makes sense only to me and why do I lay it out here, because maybe someone is struggling like me......or maybe they 'want' to......

Ezra 4; Psalm 113 & 127 ; Luke 9

Ezra 4: 5 They bribed agents to work against them and to frustrate their aims.

Psalm 113: 1 Praise the LORD. Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.

Luke 9: 23Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."

As my husband and I were reading and journaling this morning we began to speak about Ezra 4:4 and the referencing the frustrations or 'distractions' in our own lives. How quickly we can forget who's the Boss... The word 'distraction' has been big to me the last couple of days, recognizing how easily and quickly I am distracted.....the things I allow to come between me and my 'purpose', following Christ....
We talked about the builders and how they would have to have had the plans close by, readily available and be referring to them in the building...in my husbands line of work that information is called 'dope' and I was struck that we have the 'dope' / plans / information to proceed...at our fingertips all the time we just fail to look at it. IF I don't MAKE the time to get up and hear from God, check my 'dope' I am more than usual doing / falling back on doing what I may 'think' needs to be done, more readily distracted.....

This struggle to 'surrender'/ "deny myself"........is legitimate and yet maybe just more 'distractions' keeping me from it?? Or seriously the hardest thing we'll ever do....I think a combination of the two......It is the hardest but once you have come to know the person of Christ through the 'dope' it's all you WANT to do and the distractions keep you from remembering that piece / peace.

This probably makes sense only to me and yet the desire to figure out how my life has fundamentally changed, to know where I'm AT so I can know where I'm going.....it all just seems vitally important right now. The distractions of the physical world are many, the distractions in my personal world are the same and yet the JOB, the PURPOSE, the HARVEST......I don't know I just know that God is LARGE and IN CHARGE and the more I LIVE IN THAT.........

heck the MORE I WILL STRUGGLE.....But what a glorious struggle you know.....

Daniel 11-12; Luke 6

Surrender to THIS??!!!!
Love for Enemies
27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Judging Others
37"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
39He also told them this parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.
41"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Lord teach me how to pray........

Daniel 9-10; Psalm 123; Luke 5

So much.....that's what I want to scream...YES scream "so much so much so much" and yet if it were to stop I would be sad, I would be restless. This call to surrender 'feels' so all encompassing, so vital and important, so conversely scary and exciting.

I don't know, I just know that God is calling me to 'something' and if I don't follow, don't 'answer', don't 'surrender' I will feel........empty.......

Daniel 10: 15 While he was saying this to me, I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless.

Psalm 123: 1 I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven.
2 As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy.

Luke 5: 8When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
Luke 5: 12While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.[c] When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

First, I see the reverence of and for God.
Do I possess that?
You have to know where you're at to know where you're going?.....

I came to Christ with a view of God that was ambivalent, I had to go look up the word and YES it applies.... 2 a : continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite) b : uncertainty as to which approach to follow.....I don't think I knew as the word came to mind just how applicable it was, is. But have I ever been AFRAID of God?? Is reverence FEAR??
See this is where I just get lost....and yet the PULL to be closer to YOU is so incredibly strong.......maybe I am to become 'speechless'......maybe I am feeling the YOKE of slavery of serving You and while it is ....
Matthew 11:28-30 28"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
....it is a YOKE there are in the NIV version alone 60 references to a YOKE in the old and NEW testament.......for someone who wants what she wants all the time a YOKE denotes some kind of slavery and yet the life I have lived without being in Christ has been the worst kind of bondage....I know I know it doesn't make any kind of sense but to me it is starting to.....so there it is, the mush that is my brain and my heart.....the ying and yang of wanting to follow so much and seeing yourself as stubbornly unwilling......but YOU have to know where you are AT before you can know where you are GOING and I want to follow Jesus...I do, I really do....

This morning reading in Daniel re: his vision of the 'end times' and then in Luke where Jesus is tempted.

Struck by my ability to get sidetracked.....focused so much on what I can't do instead of focusing on Christ and surrendering my will to want to DO something. Struck by the futility of the times we are living in, so much terror and tragedy in the Gulf States focused on how I wish I could DO something.......sidetracked.... and so much thinking 'I know' .....sidetracked ....in me worrying about family and friends NOT SAVED (what makes me think I know hearts??).... that I miss what and where God may want me to be or doing. How can I risk anything when I am so worried about everything.......and I hear worry about nothing and pray about everything....so I need to PRAY alot more and LISTEN alot more.....

Nothing profound here, nothing I don't discover daily.......and yet this SURRENDER feels different..........maybe that's the point you know.......that there is nothing I CAN DO and facing how badly I want to be GOD and DO SOMETHING and then realizing....how really sinful that is....did I just say " I want to be God?"
Again nothing profound just more of the same old same old.... I think of the movie Bruce Almighty, he wanted to be God and look what happened to him??
I love Christ with my whole heart and soul and yet 'maybe' I am still just wanting to BE God??? I am reading the 139th Psalm in the mornings and finding such solace there...verses 4 &5 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me and then verses 23 & 24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting......
So YOU know this about me and what me to LOOK AT IT and see it for what it is and focus on Christ and surrender ALL to YOU.....
You gotta know where you are at before you can know where you are going.....I am at the beginning......will always come back to the beginning.....and then I go to my inbox and THIS is what I open......


September 21, 2005
MISSIONARY PREDESTINATIONS
And now, saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be His servant. Isaiah 49:5

The first thing that happens after we have realized our election to God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our prejudices and our parochial notions and our patriotisms; we are turned into servants of God's own purpose. The whole human race was created to glorify God
and enjoy Him for ever. Sin has switched the human race on to an other tack, but it has not altered God's purpose in the tiniest degree; and when we are born again we are brought into the
realization of God's great purpose for the human race, viz., I am created for God, He made me. This realization of the election of God is the most joyful realization on earth, and we have to learn to rely on the tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do with us is to "force through the channels of a single heart" the interests of the whole world. The love of God, the very nature of God, is introduced into us, and the nature of Almighty God is focused in John 3:16 - "God so loved the world. . ." We have to maintain our soul open to the fact of God's creative purpose, and not muddle it with our own intentions. If we do, God
will have to crush our intentions on one side however much it may hurt. The purpose for which the missionary is created is that he may be God's servant, one in whom God is glorified. When once we realize that through the salvation of Jesus Christ we are made perfectly fit for God, we shall understand why Jesus Christ is so ruthless in His demands. He demands absolute rectitude from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God. Beware lest you forget God's purpose for your life.

All to Jesus I surrender

All to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him,

In his presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all;

All to thee, my blessed Savior,I surrender all.
All to Jesus I surrender,

Humbly at His feet I bow,Worldly pleasures all forsaken,

Take me Jesus, take me now.
I surrender all, I surrender all;

All to thee, my blessed Savior,I surrender all.

Wow those are some lyrics aren't they?? Written over 100 years ago. A daily struggle and yet one I feel really called to today especially......or finally or.... I don't know anymore......I am fearfully surrendering it all (smoking-weight loss and $$$$).........choosing in this moment to live surrendering All.......help me moment to moment to remember YOU are God and I'm not.....

I surrender all but what I WANT is a friend who will explore me....who won't be scared by the BLACK HOLE that is me....who won't run away and throw me away.....I want to be LOVED........Ah hell who am I kidding, I got that....YOU are the most amazing God and I know that YOU know all this without me saying it and THAT should be enough, it sometimes is enough......But today I am feeling even more wretched and worthless than usual or maybe it is the first time I have felt truly worthless??? And in that worthlessness I sense YOU right here....loving me and pulling me deeper and deeper into feeling all that I am feeling....not to get stuck but to be pulled towards freedom.......wierd huh??? What a weak link huh?? Always and forever the weakest link.......and that just sucks....and yet what keeps me right here with YOU......that weakness.......You are a funny funny God you know....I don't mean that with any disrespect and yet maybe that too is a problem...approaching You with reverence and fear.......maybe I need even more of that?? Ooooooh boy......Thank You Father for the journey.....

"Put legs to it" ....."put some work into explaining what it is that HAS changed"......"your faith can seem shallow"......challenges given to me over the weekend..which brings me here to the computer, a blank page....trying to put into words the changes that You have brought into my life.... It doesn't come...all I see are disjointed and yet connected phrases and quotes and moments....I need someone to make sense of THE most amazing process it can't be left to someone who doesn't make sense???....and yet there doesn't seem to be anyone else...so can YOU work in me to do it????

But all this is too much so I will blog....spent the week with my daughter and Grandchildren... what a blessing the time was . I love spending time talking and listening, see how I put the talking first what if I learned really learned to LISTEN more than talk??

I am so blessed you know.....and the blessings are all from and of HIM...Why can I not clearly express that?? I think I can to YOU.... but my focus becomes expressing it to other people rather than just to You.....

The desire has been in me for a long time to write but the giftedness is not there....The desire has been in me for a long time to have a purpose......I get so sidetracked... couldn't even find the word...but sidetracked is the problem for me...

So where I am is at the beginning...learning yearning to learn what it means to DIE TO SELF .......

"God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am. Because of this I don't need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept my ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness." Brennan Manning

Lamentations 1-2; Obadiah 1; Revelation 14

It's a beautiful day, you can sense summer ebbing away. For some that is the best time, cooler weather and the promise of Fall but it never has been for me.....I love the pace of summer, I love spring with the promise of summer but SUMMER to me is the best season. Everything fully alive......warm and sunny days.....everything fully alive.....hmmmmmmm
I don't know and maybe nothing but maybe I live my life too much in the summer or the promise of it? The promise of being fully alive....
I don't know and nothing coming of it right now so I just pray to read Your word with a soft and teachable heart, open and seeking Your will.....

Lamentations 2: 11 My eyes fail from weeping,

I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground

because my people are destroyed,

because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,

"Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city,

as their lives ebb away in their mothers' arms.

Cannot help but think of the Gulf Coast as I read these words....to think of what they have suffered, what they are still going to have to endure....homelessness and fear of 'what next'.....we live ... I LIVE in such oblivion and probably they did to, thinking it won't / can't happen to me well it has, it is. And I sit here in suburbia at a computer crying tears of sympathy, not doing anything or not doing ENOUGH... because whatever I do can't help...how many of us are doing that?

So I pray and look at a summer of being fully alive and PRAY to become more and more intuned to YOUR will and to become a listening heart to the pain of others....all others.....So just keep praying...

Lamentations 2: 18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord.

O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears flow like a river

day and night; give yourself no relief, your eyes no rest.
19 Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin;

pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children,

who faint from hunger at the head of every street.

All of us without something to DO... Pray for those who are down there, who are going down there, give to the organizations that are providing the relief and ...PRAY....And even more in

Obadiah 1: 12 You should not look down on your brother

in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah

in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble.

All the pontificating and criticizing has to stop... DO something , organize something, support the organizers and the organizations and...... or shut up and PRAY, especially us as believers...set a tone of prayerful dependence.....Listen to Him only and PRAY for all of us believers to unite in prayer for the sufferers and the rescuers cry out to God for them.....It's not our place to predict or condemn ONLY our God knows the hearts of those who have been touched by this tragedy...BUT we can pray HIS WILL in all this, through all of US BE DONE....
What if we did??? All of us believers in God united in PRAYER...
LORD TEACH US HOW TO PRAY........
And then this verse in Revelation 14: 15Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." ....
I am no bible scholar nor prophecy proponent ....I am simply wanting a Heart that beats for Him and wanting everyone to know the wonder of Christ.....so I'm just going to pray....

Jeremiah 42-44; Psalm 48; Revelation 13

Talking to my friend and my daughter yesterday and this morning...love those moments when the words are NOT mine....when the wisdom is not within my realm but the words come and the wisdom is there....how quickly I can look at it and go Wow...when can I say that again and yet if I get out of the way I will because it's NOT me it IS YOU....
We were talking about 'relationships' and answered prayer and how in the case of the 2 entertwining we go towards the answered prayer and forget You, that it was YOU and...

see this is where I get in trouble if and it was....IF it was truly a Spirit moment WHY am I trying to analyze and explain it???? That's making it about me isn't it? CRAP.....So just THANK YOU Father for those moments yesterday, for the way You are ....just THANKS and Praise to You for....just everything......THANKS

Faith is NOT the belief that God will do what you want. FAITH is the belief that God will do what is right....Max Lucado....holding onto that as Dara takes off to drive cross country alone....praying Your protection and YOUR will and praying that they are one and the same......praying she stay focused on YOU and not get distracted by all that will be distracting......praying selfish prayers?? LORD TEACH ME HOW TO PRAY.....

Pam and her recovery...please Father God......LORD TEACH ME HOW TO PRAY.....

Jeremiah 42: 13 "However, if you say, 'We will not stay in this land,' and so disobey the LORD your God, 14 and if you say, 'No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the trumpet or be hungry for bread,' 15 then hear the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, 16 then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die.

So we don't have a clue of what's SAFE.....Safe is what?? An illusion?? Safe makes us lazy?? Safe is???? God says to do something and we 'think' something else is better...safer.....They tell God they will obey whatever he tells them to do through Jeremiah but God knows how quickly we 'think' we know best.....
Again what's SAFE?? Does God promise anywhere we will be 'safe'?? Or does He just promise us we will be PROTECTED????
And then in Jeremiah 43: 2 Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, "You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'You must not go to Egypt to settle there.' 3 But Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to hand us over to the Babylonians, [c] so they may kill us or carry us into exile to Babylon." 4 So Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers and all the people disobeyed the LORD's command to stay in the land of Judah.

And then you read Revelations and what 'it' will look like, the power that it will appear to hold......Only focused on Christ will we be able to KNOW we are protected...not safe, never safe...but always ALWAYS PROTECTED......

A boatload of emotions this morning....and hey YOU gave them to me!! But how do I live a Christ centered life and NOT be driven by them?? Plain and simple......focus on Christ not on the emotions, on myself...oooooh yeah that's simple!!??? Don't get me wrong I know it is the right thing, I know and yet I don't or it's not my first response....yet.....but all these revelations are taking me to a time and a place where maybe 'someday' I will........deep breath and pray:

Father God I am so grateful and falling deeply in love with YOUR Son
I pray to live in that love and become a light
I pray to focus on Him and become just salty enough to draw others into the journey
I pray for all of us, Christ followers in this period to REVIVE
to GROW in YOUR LOVE
I pray for people to rub up against this LOVE and become THIRSTY
I pray as they do that we point them, we walk with them to the place of getting that thirst quenched and that THEY in turn draw more into the journey. That place of getting quenched, I pray YOU show us for each person where and how, that we would not try to give them any set pattern but the freedom to KNOW YOU.
Is that right??
To know You is through Your son and Your word....right? What does it look like Father....I pray we are so in tuned to YOU and Your love that YOU SHOW US.......
Is that right?
I can love them where they are at but I want to bring them into YOUR love and without Your Spirit guiding me I don't think I can.....so let YOUR SPIRIT fall on us Father, on all of us seeking YOU and YOUR will, fill us with YOUR SPIRIT and in the REVIVAL.....YOUR WILL BE DONE.....
Is that right??Lord teach me how to pray.....

Ezekiel 29-32; Revelation 11

Hey you know what skip mine and read this.....

Confusion reigns, the kind of confusion that keeps me deeply in the word and humble and hopefully teachable.....at least that's my dream.
My Grandaughter sang a song for me this weekend, she sings it all the time and the lyrics have just resonated with me....it's a kids song about David and it is so cute the way she sings it :

Davey Davey ...show me the way to go.
Davey Davey ...so Lord that you will know.

ah ooo, ah ooo
I want a heart that beats for YOU...

I'm sure it loses something in the translation here but when she sings it she yells this part.....I want a heart that beats for YOU!!
In my confusion I hear that lyric.....THAT'S what I want a heart that beats for YOU.....

And then I read Eze. and Rev. and ...... my heart better beat for You....this is not to be an easy life, my being a rule breaker and a heart breaker is NOT ok...it is what it is but it is NOT OK.....for me.....not my place to worry or judge others but for me...not about me but for me to know...it's confusing and it's not.....

10 X....10 times in 97 verses ... 'Then they'll realize that I am GOD.'....pretty hard headed aren't we...The God of the universe.....creator of Heaven and Earth wants us to know Him.....repeats Himself over and over.....

Sunday reading in Eze. 30"I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn't have to destroy it. I couldn't find anyone. Not one. 31So I'll empty out my wrath on them, burn them to a crisp with my hot anger, serve them with the consequences of all they've done. Decree of GOD, the Master."....

Standing in the gap, praying for a heart that beats for YOU so others can come to know the amazing Grace that YOU provide through Your Son Jesus.....not about 'doing' about living in the what's been DONE....

I WANT A HEART THAT BEATS FOR YOU!!!

Ezekiel 17-19; Revelation 7

I wake up in the middle of the nite and pray for those in NOLA suffering and specifically for Fish and Crys who are away and yet the suffering of the unknown ....so I pray and listen for what and where God wants me to go in this..I continue to hear 'RISK EVERYTHING' and praise God I hear it and yet not sure what or where or when.....so I PRAY.....

*I pray specific and bold prayers for those of us who know Christ to live in that knowing so we are rays of HOPE to those here, rolling around in fear of Gas prices and availablity and other $$ worries that apply to them . I pray we live so in love and being loved that we beam with THAT love and confidence without being overbearing so they can know that same hope is there for them. I pray we live this way now and for the rest of all time, a revival of sorts where we realize exactly what it is we have and our purpose to love people where they are at and trust God and RISK EVERYTHING to have others KNOW it...

*I pray for those in NOLA and here Father I have to trust the Holy Spirit...I pray YOUR WILL BE DONE and yet I cannot help but pray for comfort for those living in such conditions and yet why would I believe comfort is not YOUR will and that is the point isn't it, the point of praying in the Spirit that YOUR will be done and it is not mine to know or predict but to TRUST..

*I pray wisdom for our government especially our President, wisdom and perseverance and thick skin, a focus so firmly on YOU and YOUR will, him surrounded by Godly and wise counsel. I pray obedience for us as believers to not criticize him but to PRAY BOLD LOUD INSISTENT PRAYERS FOR HIM in his leadership no matter personal opinion. HE NEEDS OUR PRAYERS.....

It's a strange time you know the blogsphere allows to us to put our opinions out there and yet THIS is the time where we should be as Christians ignoring denominational lines and be of one mind praying and the only thing we can pray for unitedly is God's WILL, in faith God's WILL and us ready to follow it and be obedient in a myriad of ways....and if we have faith and faith here is that God will do what is right... ...as Christians shouldn't we know our influence?

Eze. 18: 25 "Yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? 26 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. 27 But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. 28 Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust? "
30 "Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!
It's just always about turning to YOU....just.....how hard would it be in the midst of Katrina and yet that's .....that's what it seems.....I just pray for more and more people to turn to YOU and away from blame and violence......I just pray.....Curious Servant wrote to me the other day... Right. The all powerful creator simply stands at the door and waits for us. He can do anything, yet insists on us doing the choosing. Simply astounding.

Ezekiel 15-16; Psalm 70; Revelation 6

Just between YOU and me....Father
Just between You and me......
Not for me to teach or preach
Just between You and me.....

Just feels like a song is in there somewhere......the journey to a personal relationship with the God of the universe through Jesus Christ. A coming to know what a heartbreaker I am, let alone a rule breaker.

'And yet' ......'but' .....'what about' .........all of those self protective, all about ME , sinful stop gaps keep me from being free, totally and completely free to RISK EVERYTHING.......

Eze. 16: 63 Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign LORD.' "

And the song I Can Only Imagine comes to mind....

I KNOW I am going to heaven so LIVE LIKE THAT.......

what a crock you know all my stop gaps....and in Romans 2: 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.....

So I break your heart yes and yes and yes but it is SIN big old ugly ass SIN and I better realize that...... All these verses convicting me of being always about ME and I have to learn how to live ABOUT YOU.....