Living it Out

The Lord is speaking directly into my life this morning. I would go as far as to say that He is shouting it. It is pretty elementary, really. He is telling me, basically, 'Don't just read about the Christian life, but DO IT! Don't just talk the talk, WALK THE WALK!'

This morning He spoke it through my devotional: 'The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse....If you say you are sanctified, show it....your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in our most common everyday relationships. Our Lord, "...unless your righteousness exceeds the righteous ness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20).'

Am I living out God's Word practically? Is it coming out in the nitty grittiness of every day life? What comes out of me when I am squeezed--lemon or lemonade? Am I patient when my children push or try me? Do I speak out of anger or out of love? Such questions could go on and on and on and the answers wouldn't be adequate. ...Ugh...ugh...ouch...

Lord,
I groan in my the fullness of my humanity. I am sick in the pit of my stomach over my sin. My answers are inadequate but you Lord are more than adequate. I may fall and fail, but you never do. I rest in the fact that your love covers a multitude of sins. I rest in the fact that you cover me! That you pick me up and save me! Please, please, please--I beg you--sanctify me through and through.. I love you, sweet Jesus.

Repentance

I hurt somebody's feelings yesterday. Until I could resolve it, I spent two hours sick to my stomach and my thoughts going everywhere. The situation became huge in my head and I couldn't get it out of my mind until it got made right. It made me so sick to my stomach that I wanted to throw up. It was the worst feeling ever. I never want to go through that again. I am so thankful that it was resolved quickly; I couldn't have lived that way for very long!

This morning, my devotional hit me right between the eyes:
'Repentance does not cause a sense of sin--it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.' Oswald Chambers

Even though I am so unworthy, I am thankful to serve a God who is completely worthy. And I am thankful to have family and friends who love me even when I say or do something stupid. Mostly, I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for taking on my sins (and all of mankind's, for that matter) so that I never have to bear them.

Quotes this week that have got me thinking....

• "Under conviction of worldliness, many well meaning persons have simply transferred their huge egos from the world to the church. BEWARE OF SPIRITUAL AMBITION. We are most useful to God when poured free of self and full of Christ." --Beth Moore
• "The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If i wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord....in the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to thave the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus." "Blesses are the poor in Spirit..." Matthew 5:3 (prior quote--Oswald Chambers)
• "Must life be considered a failure for someone compelled to stand still, forced into inaction and required to watch the great, roaring tides of life from shore? No--victory is then to be won by standing still and quietly waiting. Yet this is a thousand times harder to do than in the past, when you rushed headlong into the busyness of life. It requires much more courage to stand and wait and still not lose heart or lose hope, to submit to the will of God, to give up opportunities for work and leave honors to others, and to be quiet, confident and rejoicing while the busy multitiude goes happily along their way. The greatest life is: "after you have done everything, to stand" " (Eph. 6:13) --J.R. Miller
• "I am learning that if I am having trouble submitting to my husband, it actually comes down to the fact that I am having trouble submitting to my Lord." --my friend, Kathy Franklin
• "For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved." --Richard E. Stearns version of Matthew 25:42-43

NOW

Are you like me and put things off? Do you ever think, "I'm going to write that person a note!" and then never do it? Way too often I am telling people, "I wrote a note to you in my head!" This might be a funny thing to say. Sadly, though, those words in my head never encouraged or helped anyone. They just sat there. Idle. Dead. Lost forever. Words that could have been used to speak life into someone else's life.

I can be the world's worst procrastinator. Oh, I hate this about myself! I let the present moment tasks keep me from doing little things for other people. The momentary obligations seem so large before me that those thoughts I have of 'making that phone call' or 'writing that note' all too often get swallowed up and forgotten about.

Lately, my time of bible study has been on this very point. Several times in the passed couple of weeks I have read a devotional or heard a sermon about not putting off tomorrow what you can do today. This morning was no exception. It was once again about this very point. I am pretty sure the Lord is trying to tell me something. I am reminded of the Nike slogan: Just Do It. That is what I hear the Lord saying to me: "Just do it. Do it NOW." The words I read this morning in 'Streams in the Desert' spoke so powerfully to me that I thought I'd share them with you:

What shall I do? I expect to pass through this world but once. Therefore any good work, kindness, or service I can render to any person or animal, let me do it now. Let me not neglcet or delay to do it, for I will not pass this way again. an Old Quaker saying

It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
That gives you the bitter heartache
At the setting of the sun;
The tender word unspoken,
The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of your brother's way,
The bit of heartfelt counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.

These little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind,
These chances to be angels,
Which even mortals find--

They came in nights of silence,
To take away the grief,
When hope is faint and feeble,
And a drought has stopped belief.

For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great,
To allow our slow compassion
That tarries until too late.
And it's not the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
That gives you the bitter heartache,
At the setting of the sun.

Adelaide Proctor

Give what you have for you never know--to someone else it may be better than you can even dare to think. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I'm back!

Well, our computer crashed. Our hard drive was corrupted (whatever that means) and it took two weeks to fix. But now we are back in business. Hurray! It's been difficult being cut off from the computer world. I can't believe how much of my life relies on it. I especially missed Google. I couldn't anwer life's toughest questions such as, 'why is my dog throwing up?' or 'is itchy skin a sign of menopause?' Once, a close friend of mine had computer problems and frustratingly exclaimed, "My friends are in there!" Well, I have now felt her pain. I've missed you people!

New Title????

I am wrestling around with a new title and pic for this blog. I don't know if I'll stick with this one...just messing around with it...trying to come up with the best fit in my limited time of doing so! I just feel like I need a change. If you have any ideas, let me know. I have realized that out of my running is birthed so much of my writing. So I want to connect the two on here....

Don't Waste Your Life

Wow. Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper is a challenging, inspiring, incredible read. It is so packed full of insights; reading it a second time through would be time well spent.

One thing that got my attention was the way we waste our life watching television. Here is an excerpt:

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up. You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching. TV still reigns as the great life-waster. The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. Neil Postman shows why:

What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk...Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in chich everything is accessible simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world's first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death. (taken from 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' by Neil Postman)

In regard to the saying that when someone is dying, they never say they wished they had spent more time at the office, John Piper said we should also had this:

'No one will ever want to say to the Lord of the universe five minutes after death, I spent every night playing games and watching clean TV with my family because I loved them so much. I think the Lord will say, "That did not make me look like a treasure in your town. You should have done something besides provide for yourself and your family. And TV, as you should have known, was not a good way to nurture your family or your own soul."

He also said, instead of asking the questions: what's wrong with it? What's wrong with this movie? Or this music? Or this game? Or these companions? Or this way of relaxing? Or this investment? Or this restaurant? Or shopping at this store? what's wrong with going to the cabin every weekend? Or having a cabin? What's wrong with decorating? What's wrong with buying clothes?......This kind of question will rarely yield a lifestyle that commends Christ as all-satisfying and makes people glad in God. It simply results in a list of don'ts. The better questions to ask about possible behaviors is: How will this help me treasure Christ more? How will it help me know that I do treasure Christ? How will it help me know Christ or desplay Christ? The Bible says, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) So the question is mainly positive, not negative. How can I portray God as glorious in this action? How can I enjoy making much of him in this behavior?

....is that convicting or what?