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.....

What YOU Focus on You Become (my mantra)
MY JOY . . . YOUR JOY (Oswalds Title Utmost Devo for today 8/31)
That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. John 15:11

What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. "I delight to do Thy will." Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?

The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God's work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had. The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances. The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke God's word. Before we know where we are, we are caught up in the shows of things. All that God has done for us is the mere threshold; He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim Who Jesus is.

Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a centre for Jesus Christ to pour living water through. Stop being self-conscious, stop being a sanctified prig, and live the life hid with Christ. The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.

Oswald so deep and yet so real..an Emergent before there was emergent? into Spiritual Formation......Why do I insist on overwriting, overthinking something/everything ...or is it the urge within all of us born of the Spirit to find ways to communicate how gloriously real the gospel of Christ is, the journey is, how REAL God is and can be in a persons life.....once begun YOU can't stop because the Spirit in YOU drives you now and that is confusing and confirming and real and unreal and exciting and scary and risky and did I say confusing...but only confusing when I am about ME and worrying about ME and thinking about ME and....unfortunately that is quite a bit of the time and maybe just maybe becoming less or ...oh who am I kidding I still think about ME and make things about ME but I am realizing more and more how that breaks Your heart and that seems to be driving me more and more to repentance......
And then THIS quote from Oswald via John Fishers PDL devo this morning..... Oswald Chambers has said that we don’t truly own our faith unless we have struggled over it in some form. Belief is not pure acceptance. God desires interaction and He revels in our working through the process of believing Him. He wrestled with Jacob and even let him win.

I do love wrestling with You Father and yet like a child with her Daddy I know I am overpowered and yet YOU never overpower me or maybe more like a child... I didn't know and the older I get the more I come to appreciate how YOU didn't and don't overpower me......a child won't wrestle with a stranger.......They only fully abandon themselves to the joy of it with their Daddy......hmmmmm

Check out my new Grandson......

'Significant' number of deaths in New Orleans
Katrina kills at least 55 in Mississippi
Gunman kills 4 near church, then self

That's just 3 of the headlines from this morning....there is tragedy in this world, there is chaos and just lostness.....and those of us NOT LOST are called to live in the being found.....live in the LOVE of God....

Wow, does that sound ?? And yet maybe that's why I can't make a point I make it too much about and worry too much about what it sounds like??

Just in a conversation with a gal, we spoke about God about Jesus being enough and YES I believe that and that is a comfort to me but IF I live contemplatively without interacting with people I'm not sure I will grow and that is pure CRAP Father.....because interacting with people is wayyyy too painful and risky and then I hear RISK EVERYTHING and I'm not sure I can....
So what if I don't GROW...well without growth something is stagnant and dead isn't it???....and I don't want to be stagnant....

So what's all this rambling about???
RISK EVERYTHING......

Maybe there's somekind of a connection I am supposed to see if I wasn't so stubborn......

Jeremiah 50-51; 3 John

Jeremiah 51: 45 "Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the fierce anger of the LORD.

Is that, is the 'her' the WORLD now?? I mean isn't that our commission to be living lives authentic and real in YOU, NOT of the world so we can express model to people the importance of it. It's NOT the prosperity gospel.. because being a Christian, living a , attempting to live a fully devoted life is so hard and yet the alternative forever and in eternity running away from or seperated from God...it's just unthinkable.....

NOW I know this.... but before I just didn't know.....how many people surround us that 'don't know?'

Jeremiah 33-34; Psalm 74; 1 John 5

This prayer is the first thing I see this AM ... Father, forgive me for taking obedience to your will so lightly. Sometimes your way seems restrictive and hard. However, dear Father, deep in my heart I do genuinely believe that your will is a blessing and not a hindrance. Use me to help others find joy in obeying you, too. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Breakfast w/Lynne this morning being able to confess to her my confusion, not that she helped but it felt good to confess it to begin to see it for what it is....a struggle.....and I need to believe that YOUR will is a blessing and I DO.....So.......

Jeremiah 33: 19 God saying 'go ahead you make day and nite and IF you can do that then MY WILL will not be done'.....

God's will, God's time....my place is to OBEY......and the thing is like the prayer says I KNOW deep in my heart, I believe it IS a blessing........so quit struggling