No Words

Please follow this link.  Help share God's love and let others see His light through you.

Focus on God

I remember when I started this year's entries I promised not to kick myself for not posting every day. I have still felt guilty when I skip a few days, but what I have noticed is regardless of whether or not I am writing my thoughts down, I am keeping my focus on God.  It is amazing actually how much more I think about Him and His presence in my life.  I have been conscious of how kind I am to others daily and whether or not I am doing unto others etc.  What it really has done is made me think of the other 325 days of the year that I am not focused on God.

I read something the other day about those gap years when the majority of us who grew up in the church drop out. Those years after your parents stop making you go- maybe high school but most certainly college years. Those years where you slack and just live without getting up on Sunday's to go to church. Then we return to the church and God as we age and get married and have children. I began to reflect back on my own gap years. Those 4 years I spent at UGA.  What if I had died then? I feel so guilty thinking about it now.  I have tried not to think about what a bad believer I was back then. Not only did I not go to church, pray, read the Bible, etc, I went out drinking and partying all of the time. I pushed God to the side so that I could have fun and live with "no regrets." Hmmm.

Today I am so glad that I lived long enough to come full circle. I realize that I am damaged and made mistakes, but I have clearly learned from them. I am still continuing to learn today. This Lenten season, I am learning a LOT.  I am learning that I can focus on God and still have a life.  As a working mother of two, I have often felt too busy to read the Bible, or do an independent motivational. But I am learning I not too busy for it. In fact, it has been easy for me to look for God in my daily life. I can see him when I am looking for random acts of kindness to perform: I see others doing acts of kindness while I am on the prowl.  I find articles on blogs and FB posts that remind me to focus on God. I listen to NPM sermons online when I have downtime. The History Channel is showing a wonderful series my husband and I have been watching on the Bible.  It goes to show that God is present in our lives every day. We just have to keep our eyes and hearts open. I am so glad that I have chosen to add on something during Lent the past two years. This blog. This focus.

The Best Prayer

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

A write-up from the Huffington Post.

The above prayer summarizes what is in my heart for Lent. I wish it were easy to put all of these to practice. But as I am human and fallible,  I will fail at these, but I will try again and again.  Hopefully, one day I will get most of them right.

Humility

Recall the last post I did on forgiveness, or lack thereof.  I found this on Webster's webpage under humility.   Humility: The quality or state of being humble.  Then this:

Funny how things tie in. Humility. Emphasized in the NPM's lesson (Part 3) I listened to today is the idea that great marriages are built on humility.

When I was first listening to this lesson, I had no idea what direction it was going to take. It was about marriage and the relationship between a man and wife.  It touched on the idea of mutual submission, the act of deferring to each other's happiness.  Andy Stanley said it is the MOST powerful relationship dynamic.  I can see that. It's so funny how things are obvious but you cannot see them without someone putting it right in front of your face.

Lately my husband and I have been working on each other's love language. Amazingly enough, it works.  I have been making up beds, vacuuming, and tidying things I would never have before because my husband's language is acts of service. Guess what. He feels loved.  This is remarkable to me because those things would do nothing for my love tank. At all.  (Ranking my LL, I scored the lowest on acts of service!) He has also been doing things for me in my language: love notes, massages, spending time.  It works.  But still there is something missing. I cannot quite feel close enough to him.  Enter today's sermon.

Like I said, I had no idea what would be the key to a successful marriage according to Andy, but it turns out to be praying out loud, together, on a regular basis.   The stats he spits out on divorce rates of couples that pray together were almost nothing.  Something like 1 in 10,000 couples. Any time I have thought about praying with my husband before, I shoved it out of my head.  SCARY! I don't pray aloud. Not even in my car alone with God. What if I say something stupid? How can I be that vulnerable in front of him?  Spiritual vulnerability is an expression of intimacy. Can we be willing to push through the discomfort and bear our soul in front of our partner to God? Praying out loud demonstrates a connection to God.  Mutually submit to God, and then each other.

WOW. Seems like if I can practice humility with my partner, then perhaps I can do it with others.  Mutual Submission. Humility. Forgiveness. Amen.

I Still Hate Him

Today's lesson for me comes from Part 2 from the Life Apps series by North Point Ministries, The Forgiveness Application. Scripture is from Romans 17: 17-21.

Romans 12:17-21

New International Version (NIV)

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[a] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[b]

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

How hard is this? I have one person I hate.  I mean, really hate.  I won't go into why, just that this hate is longstanding.  Nine years this summer, actually.  If I jump outside of my own box and look at the breaking point in my relationship with him, I see that I wasn't all right.  But I wasn't all wrong either.  However, I am not here to defend myself.  I want to let it go, but I haven't been able to.  What is it that keeps us from forgiving?

Jeff Henderson says in order to forgive we have to follow and know 4 things:

1. Embrace God's forgiveness in you. He actually says we are heir's of the Most High.

2. Forgiven people forgive.

3. Let God avenge you.

4. Overcome evil with good.

If I had to sit down and analyze these, right off the bat I would say #1 is the hardest for me.  I have never felt worthy. Not worthy of forgiveness, nor worthy of love.  Because I know my deepest thoughts, I alone know how cruel I can be.  I am an heir of God's? The only way I can accept this at all is to look at my own children and how much I love them. I would forgive them for anything. I know I would. As I am sitting her typing I am thinking of terrible things they could do- like one kill the other, and still I would love the killer.  I know that is an extreme example, but my point is that I cannot find anything.  I would forgive them, and continue to love them because they are my children.  I suppose that is how God feels about us: they are my children.  

Do you know anyone who you think models forgiveness and love? I know some people and I want to be like them. I wonder what their secret is and what they are really like with their closest family and friends. What does their inner voice say to them?  

#2 is also hard because I feel like forgiving sometimes makes you look like you are admitting you were wrong and the other person was right.  (Recall my words above & how I had to tell you in that that I wasn't all wrong.) Pride commeth before the fall.  

Perhaps we can start backwards. Perhaps if I start with #4, then the others will follow. That is my plan.  To overcome good with evil. I might not be able to start out with my hated enemy, but I can start with the guy who cuts me off in traffic. Or the cashier who doesn't speak.  My plan is to pray that I can start to do more good in my everyday life--again, small things with great love--and that it leads me to forgiveness...and if I am lucky, a dissolution of pride.  

Public or Private?

I have a list drafted in my Lentspiration blog library of random acts of kindness I am doing during Lent.  I am keeping track to hold myself accountable, but I am not sure it is something I should publish.  I don't want recognition or praise for these acts, just to inspire others to be kind. Originally I thought I would post these at the end of Lent as a means of closure for this season, but now I am not so sure. Should they be between me and God? Hopefully I will do the right thing.

Speaking of the right thing, I watched another sermon from North Point Ministries today on the application of God's word. From this message I got: (1) Doing makes all of the difference, and (2) In application is liberty, even if you don't experience it immediately.

Doing makes the difference. Check out the love mob on Momastery today.  It's funny, rule #2 of this Flash Mob is the point "Small things with great love." Ironically, I found the image below Pinterest this morning & put it on my unpublished Acts of Kindness page. I just figured out the coincidence while typing this entry.  Coincidence or God? Doing makes the difference.

Being Restless

Sooooo, I finally broke down crying and confessed to my husband that the December service I attended at my home church in 2012 fulfilled me more spiritually than the entire year of sermons we heard at our home church.  I know, I know. I am sad about it. I love my church and there are wonderful people there. I get so much from it in many ways, but spiritually I am hungry.

What do I do with this? My husband is loyal to a fault, as am I.  We aren't going anywhere. We have relationships with these people. We learn from their actions how to be more Christlike through works. The Presbyterians are the most service oriented religion I have ever seen.  My problem is that their sermons pretty much explain biblical text. They recap the stories with some interpretation along the way.  For me, I need a challenge. I need someone to read the word of God and say, here, this is how you take it out into the world. Can you do that? Here are ways to try.

A few weeks ago the pastor of the Presbyterian Student Center on campus came to speak at our church. Now that was a lesson. His sermon was entitled, "The Edge of Glory."  He spoke on being pushed to the edge and how to push things to the edge.  He spoke on integration at the university and how the PSC was one of the first places to welcome african americans.  They pushed to the edge because they knew it was the right thing to do, regardless of the backlash they may have received from the masses. He asked what we do to push things in our own lives.  It made me think and try to figure out how to make it applicable for me. Yay! Something to take home!

After the talk I had with my husband yesterday, a friend of mine posted a link on FB to North Point Ministries sermon that morning  (a mega church I am afraid of because, well, it's a mega church). But I watched the link and it was an amazing lesson on encouragement vs criticism. It was based on Proverbs 11:25 :When you replenish others you will be replenished..." This is a huge insight from Solomon.  The challenge for us to take home: be mindful of how many words of encouragement you use in a conversation, when you start to criticize, stop yourself. Change the 1:6 ratio of encouragement to criticism in the average conversation.  A message I can take home and practice!

Then this morning, I read a link on Momastery about an old man and an onion. It is a wonderful story and I encourage you to take a moment to read it.  The lesson, sometimes being nice to people doesn't come back to you at that moment, but you know you did something kind. "You show you are a letter from Christ." (NPM) From Glennon, "People who believe badly still need love."

Application can make all of the difference. And that is what I need. I need to find a way to take the word of God with me and use it.  My decision for now is to keep attending my church and couple it on Sunday's with lessons from NMP.  Why should I rely on others to feed me spiritually. I need to find a way to do it myself. The solution isn't necessarily changing churches, because I could spend years finding a place that was perfect for me and still find things to complain about it. So how about I take pieces from all I know to be good?  Pieces from my church, from blogs, from online sermons and patch-work it together for my faith journey.  How about I make up my own hod-podge lessons and challenges each week? Challenge excepted. Let's do this.