Bearing His Image....

I noticed some new lines on my face recently as I look slack-faced into the mirror. They're by my mouth and I'm certain weren't there a couple of years ago.  I've had my fair share of towards-middle-aged body angst in the past few years and I think I've come out the other side.  It's OK to look in the mirror and see this.  But still it's strange to see changes, to not quite recognize your own face.

I wondered why these particular lines and moved my face around a bit.  What I discovered surprised me!  They're not worry lines, frown lines, lines of discontent.  They're lines put there by lots and lots of SMILES.   

People tell me that I tend to smile a lot, but living inside my own skin the past ten years there were lots of days I sure didn't feel like it.  I feel a bit like I've compounded what was a relatively easy life until that point and had most of a lifetime of experiences since.  It's been exhausting at times.

So to look at my face and see smiles lines was a huge testimony to my own heart.  A testimony of the faithfulness of my Father and to HIS joy that just doesn't make sense--but is authentic all the same.

We all have those times where we feel like we're choking on dust, unable to breathe. Dust of trials, troubles, despair.  Days of feeling like we just can't take any more.  Days when we're tired of witnessing pain.  Days when we feel bloody and flayed.  Days when our own image surprises us because we look so normal, because it's just not a reflection at all of how we feel inside.  

I Corinthians 15:49 says, "Just as we have born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven."  

Hope!  The breath of heaven is coming.  Strength in our bones, joy in our hearts, no more decay. Come, Lord Jesus.  

"Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal......"

                                        ~David Crowder

One day we'll never breathe dust again.  Until then we still have a hope, a compass, a focus.  We can 'fix our eyes' on Him.  (Heb. 12:2)  In fact, that's the only security that will last!   

I saw one of those articles about how amazingly big the universe is yesterday.  Really blew my mind once again!  (The Universe is Scary) It's hard to imagine anything so gigantic while we are so absolutely insignificantly small.  And yet the Creator is unfathomably bigger still.  (Ahhh, breathe in a bit of that Heavenly air.)

"May this be our prayer, "I do not want to turn my eyes from you, O God.  There I want them to stay and not move no matter what happens to me, within and without."

                                        ~Saint Catherine of Genoa

Focused unwavering because, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you."  (Is. 26:3) "The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts." (Ps. 28:7) "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood." (Ps. 29:10) 

So we can bring Him our dusty hearts today just exactly as we are. We can be filled with His incomprehensible joy.  We can be blessed by His acceptance and embrace His peace even if we never understand it this side of Heaven.

We can began to 'bear His image' more and more now and live a life that is nothing short of a miracle.

Here's a song that will surely help us on the way today!!!  You'll want to heart this:  Come As You Are

The God of Glory, Our Friend

Not really an article but a reflection to be read slowly and thoughtfully considered:

Sometimes life seems like we're going from one battle to the next. Trials happen, hurt and sorrow happen. It's easy to be consumed with the present.

But vision only comes when we take a step back, when we focus less myopically on the trials of today. When we see the road already traveled and the victories along the way that bring encouragement.  And that helps us remember WHO He is.

"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." 

                                                         -I Col. 1:17

God brings order.  He is the glue, the One who brings rhythm, the conductor.  Before all, in all, through all.  He is.  He is the I AM.  He is the One who has already won not only the battle---but the war.  And this is what He says:

"The Lord will fight for you, and you only have to be silent (some translations 'be still')."

                                                                    -Exodus 14:14

"But, God,.....?"  "Be silent, my child.  Be silent and trust me.  Be still and know that I AM."

"Ahhh, right, God, I forgot that for a moment." Or a few days, a month, whatever.  "When my heart is faint (overwhelmed).  Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."  (Ps. 61:2)

He is our Father, our Victor, our Champion.  And amazingly He is our friend.

"No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." 

                                                                     -John 15:15

Friends with GOD.  

Selah.

Don't feel like He's there today?  Listen a bit more closely.  Shut out the noise, take time to contemplate and LISTEN.  

"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, declares the Lord..."

                                                                              -Jer. 29: 12-14

It's often not an instant fix, it's a process, but His Presence is worth it.  How much value do we place on that?

"But He will not reveal Himself openly and communicate His glories and bestow His treasures save on those who He knows greatly desire Him, for these are His true friends."

                                                                                                   -Teresa of Avila

Our side of the friendship: seeking Him. Showing Him that we want Him, need Him, care.  And ultimately blessing us far more in return.

The God of Glory, our friend.  

Pause and reflect.

A wee smile before you go!

The very best love song......

I have the most amazing sea view out my window.  And that's something pretty special for someone who grew up in the middle of the USA and remembers seeing the ocean for the first time at age 19.   People in New Zealand just can't believe that, but it's true!

The sea gives me perspective.  It speaks of something ancient and timeless.  It reminds me of power greater than my own and that there are things much bigger than me.  It brings me peace.

But I think I just looked, really looked at the ocean the other day for the first time in a while.  There are fruit trees distracting me by blooming in my backyard.  Lovely, lacy things that attract my eyes.  I love the colors, the freshness, the life.  They make me smile.

Now the fruit trees aren't bad, but it's the sea that brings me peace.  And I've been forgetting from my second story window to stop just looking down but to look past and UP. God's been singing His particular love song the way that I best hear it the whole time, but I haven't been paying attention.  I've been distracted by the immediate and have forgotten to look at the timeless.

The Timeless One reminds us, 

"Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?  

He who brings out their host by number,

 calling them all by name, 

by the greatness of his might, 

and because he is strong in power no one is missing."

                                       Is. 40:25-26

He knows us by name.  'No one is missing.'

I wrote this verse down recently,

"I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me."
                                                 Song of Sol. 7:10

There He goes again singing us a love song.  The Song of Songs is a beautiful example of marital love but widely accepted also as an example of a song of love from our Creator to us.  So imagine, the God of the Universe's desire is for YOU!  He loves you.  He wants to fellowship with you. 

"His desire is for me."

The first time I got asked out by a boy I was far too young to date, but he called me at home and asked to meet at a roller skating rink.  Sound cute?  It wasn't at the time.  It was a boy that I had absolutely no interest in, and it made the immature me recoil (poor guy!).  I got off that phone as fast as I could!  I've matured a bit since then, but for the idea of someone's desire to be for us to be something more than passing flattery, it needs to be reciprocated on our side as well. 

For God's desire to be for us to matter much, He needs to be our 'beloved.'  The object of our affection, dear to our heart.  Then the doorway is opened for the most beautiful of all love songs to be sung by the One!  Otherwise the song is merely somewhat flattering.  Or worthless.

To hear His song better we must silence the other voices in our ears, voices that cry out, "Worthless!  Damaged!  Despicable!" or even, "I don't need Him.  I can do it myself."  All lies that block the purity of the song.

We need to do what it takes to stop and hear His love song today, silence the voices or the white noise that makes it hard to hear.  Tune our ears to hear the song.  It doesn't matter if we haven't done this well for a while.  Today, right now, we can start anew.  In THIS moment.  In THIS place.  We can experience His Presence and find His peace.  Breathe in, breathe out.

It's the love song that will never change, never grow old, never end.  When He says, "I would die for you," He already did.  

"I am my beloved's and his desire is for me."  Let the song play loud!

Ripples of faith.....

Peter saw a figure walking across the water and was afraid.  Yep, I think that would make my heart beat a wee bit faster, too!  When he realized it was Jesus, however, he became super-charged.  He asked Jesus that if it was really him for him to call him. "Come!" Jesus said.  (Matt. 14: 22-31) And Peter didn't hesitate.  He lept out of that boat.

Often when we see an amazing display of the power of God and are convinced that what's in front of us is part of what He's doing, it can be easy to leap.  Easy to say, "Yes!" and jump.  Brave and certainly displaying a God-honoring level of faith, but not as difficult as later.

What's hard is when we see the wind and the waves.  When we're out on the lake with nothing firm under our feet and at the mercy of the elements.  We thought that that first jump was the test of our faith, but it wasn't.  It's the walking after that shapes us.

I've lept before.  I jumped on a plan when I was 19 and headed to Asia by myself at His call.  I did it again at 25 with my three month old baby in my arms and moved to Fiji.  I did it at 38 when I boarded a plan back to the USA which was nearly 'foreign' to me by then.  And again at 41 moving to India with 4 kids in tow.  Each time took a measure of faith but it was the AFTER that changed and shaped me.  That taught me to truly trust when the rubber met the road.

When Peter saw the wind and waves and wavered, Jesus didn't condemn.  He didn't berate, didn't let Peter fall.  He 'immediately' reached out His hand and held Peter up.  And gently asked him why he'd doubted.  Something like, "Child, why did you worry?  Why did you doubt?  Did you forget that I am the One who told you to come?  Don't you trust me?  Do you doubt my power?  Do you doubt my care for you?"

Recently I jumped again.  My life-long love of jewelry as an art form crystallized with the realization that there are businesses providing employment for women at risk and for women trapped in the sex trade, and that representing them was underutilized in New Zealand.  I knew that doing something as part of promoting them was right up my alley.  I prayed.  Ideas flooded my head------and I lept off the boat.

You can find Holding Hope Collection on Facebook!

But now, although leaping is familiar territory to me, I've looked at the waves a few times.  I've sold jewelry as a job before LONG ago, but doubt my ability to do it now.  I wonder if I'll have wasted my precious, limited start up funds?  Can I really do this?  What if my ideas dry up?  What if I can't relay the passion for the project that I feel to others?

What if I'm a big, fat flop?

After Peter's fantastic leap of faith his mistake was that took his eyes off of Jesus.  He looked at the wind and the waves.  He must have thought, "WHAT in the world am I doing?  This isn't possible!  I can't do this!  I'm gonna drown!" Until that hand 'immediately' reached for him and held him tight.  Until that voice soothed away his fears and challenged him to trust.

And real faith kicked in.

It's not that Peter never doubted again, but he knew where his focus should be.  The only other real documented time of doubt was right before Jesus was crucified and Peter didn't know where to look. But Jesus himself called Peter 'the rock,' a firm foundation of faith that carried Peter through martyrdom later with a whole lot of steps of faith in between.

Sometimes when the waves roll and winds blow and we're doing our best to keep our eyes on the face of Christ, we need to remember that the journey of faith is still one step at a time.  Eyes on him, take a step.  And another.  And another.  And like ripples in a pond our faith grows, one step at a time.

I've been wearing a visual reminder myself lately.  It's a ring I got this week from someone who works in the Philippines focusing on education to prevent trafficking (I have one more if someone wants it!).  In the middle of my own, "I can't believe that I jumped off the boat!" time it reminds me of the ripple effect.  It's a visual of ripples from a pebble dropped and reminds me that small things become big things affecting and impacting beyond what we even know.

All we need to do is keep our eyes on Him and take that next little step before us, or drop our little pebble for Him and watch the ripples grow.  So simple, yet so challenging and life changing as well.

And it allows us, like Peter defying physics through the power of God, to be part of a miracle!

That elusive deep down trust......

An old man lay restless and awake in the dark, dreading the morning light.  But at the first peep of dawn, just light enough to see the trail, he arose and woke his son,"We're going to make a sacrifice."

The story of Abraham being asked to offer up his son Isaac never ceases to move me.  Abraham's immediate obedience, his willingness to put God first over something and someone he'd waited his whole life for.  It's a huge 'behind the scenes' story where there is so much left unsaid, but you can imagine.........! Every time I read it something new stands out.  This morning it was the words, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." (Gen. 22:8)  I read it several times.

I have always thought of this as a distraction for Isaac.  "Don't worry son, we'll pick up a lamb along the way," so Isaac didn't fret or figure out what was actually going on.  But what if it was spurred on by a deep understanding that God somehow WOULD provide, because of the promise He had already made; that Isaac would be the father of countless many?  That deep inside he just KNEW.

Abraham certainly didn't understand why, he didn't know how the day would turn out, but by that point in his life he had an unshakable faith in WHO God was, what He was capable of, and in the fact that even at the deepest point of testing, that God's provision can unquestionably be trusted.  Even if it looks like we're being asked to give up something that's been our lifelong dream.

Photo by Karen Eland

I'm far too often guilty of being among the group that says, "But God, you said (insert whatever)!" when something happens that I don't understand.  Whining at God to remind Him of what He's already promised, grasping at what I thought would happen, questioning His sovereignty and without even thinking about it, doubting His character.

Trials, triumphs, victory, despair: things that shape us and build the foundations of who we are.  And unfortunately you can't have the good without the difficult.

Psalm 11:3 says, "if the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Trials and things that we don't understand will come.  Our foundations will be rocked, they will need to resist erosion, they will be tested.  The same psalm goes on to say, "The Lord tests the righteous," and "The upright shall behold his face." (vs. 5,7)  Our foundation is Him. Nothing else will stand.  God, in His mercy, tests those foundations for our sake, so our foundations will be firm and ultimately we will be ready to 'behold' him face to face.

I want to get to the point where my FIRST response is trust.  Where I don't have to work through thoughts and emotions of, "But God?" but I doubt if I ever totally will.  And maybe that's part of the plan.  If we didn't have the doubt, then we wouldn't have the victory.  I very much think that despite the example of faith that we see in Abraham in this story, that he had a rough night beforehand.

But far better the continued struggle than this:

"You will indeed hear but never understand

and you will indeed see but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull,

and with their ears they can barely hear,

and their eyes have closed,

lest they should see with their eyes 

and hear with their ears

and understand with their heart

and turn, and I would heal them."  

                     (Matt. 13:15-17)

I hear God's anguish in the 'lest.'  If only, my child.  If only, I would heal you.  If only.

We will be tested, but it's for our benefit.  There will be trials, temptations, even deaths of our dreams; but if not we would never know that there is a 'ram', a provision, a way of escape, a future plan.  We would never truly see Him, hear Him, understand Him, know that the victory is really His, see His face and receive the healing.

And trust, like Abraham, that no matter how things may look at the moment, that God will provide.

The myth of hiding.......

I had oral surgery this week.  There are far worse things to endure, for sure, but this surprised me in the extent it's after effects.  Can you say, 'Chipmunk?'  Bruising and lots of pain killers.  There was a bone graft involved so that's apparently where the worst of it was from.

But on the upside, the infected abscess that's apparently been there since a root canal in India 3 1/2 years ago is gone, nada, shesh, finished.  I'm looking forward to seeing how that feels!

It's a painful experience to endure but wonderful in the aftermath when sin is cut out of our lives as well.

I've been reading Genesis this week.  It's such a book of mystery with many unexplained things that I'm going to chat to God about one day.  Something that hit me this week was noticing that when people lived 600-900 years that they didn't have kids until they were at least 80.  I wonder if that means that they actually matured more slowly?  Does that mean the teen years lasted for 50?  I digress (painkillers talking?)...........!

When Adam and Eve sinned this is what they did, they, "....hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God." (Gen. 3:8)  They hid from the One that gave them life and breath.  They hid in shame.

We still do today.  We may not go out and commit murder, but sometimes we eat of the fruit of a little white lie.  Sometimes we munch on a little worry and anxiety, let the juice of discontent and disappointment dribble down our chin, take another bite of unforgiveness and before we know it bitterness fills our stomachs.

And then, at least for a time, we can try to close ourselves off from God.

                       

Why do we still hide when the way has been paved by Jesus?  God through His Word sings us an eternal song of love.  His forgiveness is sure, He mercies never end.  He's constantly reaching out to restore.  We're the ones that try to hide.  

But:

"Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me, 

and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,"

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you."

                                                             Ps. 139: 7-12

Even when we feel like our bed is in Hell itself, He's there.  When things seem the very blackest night, He is the Light.  

Last year during a particularly dark time in my life something strange kept happening that's never happened before or since. For a period of a couple of weeks at random times I keep smelling the most delicious smell.  The closest thing I can compare it to was something even better than the Frangipani flower. One time I smelled it floating through the house, one time in the parking garage under my supermarket, one time sitting on a beach.  And with the few minutes that the smell lasted came an intense sense of His presence and peace.  A gift and a reminder.

Why on earth would we ever want to leave His presence? 

"But as for me, I will look to the Lord;

I will wait for the God of my salvation;

my God will hear me."

                                                       Micah 7:7

We can cry out!  We don't need to hide.  He will hear.  Sometimes we may hide because we don't want to hear what He has to say.  But NOTHING is worth the lack of His presence.

I'm currently reading an ESV Bible for the first time and loving it, but written just inside the cover I wrote this verse that I love in the NLT.

"My heart has heard you say,

'Come and talk with me.'

And my heart responds, 'Lord, 

I am coming.'"

                                                    Ps. 27:8

Why would we ever hide today?  He's calling.

Let's come.

________________________

I've been working on a project that I'm really excited about!  If you're on Facebook you can see it here:  Holding Hope Collection  Website to come soon.

I've been longing for something I can do to still be involved 'over there' in Asia and the developing world while living in New Zealand. I've loved jewelry since I worked for an artisan jeweler in the USA before Hannah was born, and I also deeply love woman in poverty and at risk.  Holding Hope Collection allows two of my passions to work together by gathering jewelry from social enterprises assisting women and promoting it in New Zealand.  

The first shipment arrives tomorrow!

________________________

*I was honored to write for a couple of weeks for a blog designed to encourage the FS staff in India that's running currently.  The first post is HERE*

Breath of life.....

"For the Spirit of God has made me, 

and the breath of the Almighty gives me life."

                                  Job 33:4

Breathe in, breathe out.  Life.  Given by the Almighty. All around us, flowing through us.  In our bloodstream, in our lungs.

Feel like you're drowning today?  Breathe Him in.

Full of anxiety and stress?  Breathe it out so that only His air remains.

Questioning your worth? Breathe Him in and find identity.

Overwhelmed by pain around you? Breathe out His life-giving air into the world.

Feel empty and tired?  Breathe Him in.

Feel inadequate?  Remember that HIS breath,not your own ability, is the Source of life.

Breathe in that Life and find strength.

Breathe in and out and find peace.

Be joyful because His life is in YOU.

Every breath we take.....Him.

Let His breath like air fill all the cracks and crevices.*

"For the Lord is the Spirit,

and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

                                      2 Cor. 3:17

Spring is coming to NZ!  All photos on my phone just down the road from our house this week.

*I didn't blog last week and short this week because I've been working on a couple of weeks of this: FS Daily Prayer Blog  

Mine published starting on the 15th.