Shhhh!

If you have been around me, you have heard my heart around this, but I felt the need to type it out.

Psalm 23:5 has been my favorite verse for sometime and it continues to be my go to when talking to anyone about the importance of spending quiet time with Jesus.

It simply says that He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies; He anoints my head with oil; my cup overflows.

So here is my thought! 

He builds YOU at table.  It is for you.  It has your name on it.  Now place it somewhere in your house that you will see on a daily basis.  Why?  Because what I want you to know is that Jesus is always sitting at that table ready to spend time with you.  And my favorite part:  if you want to make the enemy ticked, then sit down with Jesus and let Him do the two things He promises to do in this verse:

1.  To anoint you.  Simply put, He uniquely reminds you that you are His.  Regardless of how you feel, when you sit with Him, He gets to tell you that you mean everything to Him.  I don't know about you but I could use that truth everyday!  Because the world is going to tell you lies.  The enemy is going to tell you lies.  If we aren't careful and we don't allow Jesus to speak truth into us, then we will leave ourselves open to believing the lies.  That works for no one!  Sit with Him and let Him anoint you.  Let Him tell you the truth.

2.  To fill your cup to overflowing.  This life requires a lot.  And if you are a disciple of Jesus, it can wipe you out.  When we catch the heartbeat of God and see that it is better to give than receive, we will spend our days giving our very best to those around us and especially to the Lord.  Well, if you do that, you will come up empty.  Thus, the best way to fill your cup is to sit before the One who specializes in filling cups...even to the point of overflowing.  And He likes doing it. 

But His greatest desire is that we just be with Him.  He'll take care of all that, but He just wants you.  He wants you to stop and be quiet and realize He is God...and nothing in this world will anoint you LIKE HE DOES and nothing in this world will fill your cup AT ALL.  Only He.  So let's discipline ourselves to stop for a few moments and be quiet before Him and allow Him to do what He desires to do...TAKE CARE OF US.  And this whole time, in the presence of our enemies (whatever those might be in your life right now)  And over time, even though the enemies don't disappear, they just won't intimidate you like they used too...you will only be consumed on Him.  And that my friends make the rest of Psalm 23 beautiful!!!

So, now that you have read this, go sit at the table with your name on it and enjoy the One who wants to enjoy you.

Grace

I love how you can learn beautiful grace from your kids.  So allow me to tell you a story of grace:

My two daughters Anna and Addie love to drive a golf cart and were taking turns doing so yesterday.  My son Jojo has an imagination out of this world and can get easily angered at things and so he is playing a game/not happy while girls are driving golf cart.  Well, at one point, he decided to pick up a rock and throw it in the direction of the golf cart, not taking into account the motion of two objects.  Sadly, the rock found its location in the center of Addie's forehead.  Thankfully no blood, but was on the verge of bad, but just a big ole gooseegg and soon a nasty looking bruise.  By the way, one of the toughest kids on the planet, she didn't cry but was upset.  So of course, I kick in to high gear of going after Jojo, who is running in the opposite direction of my voice...haha.  So I catch up with him and I swear, my kids would rather me spank them and send them on their way instead of having a conversation with me.  For about 7 minutes I wanted him to understand the foolishness of this moment.  I asked questions...he gave me answers.  He was already humiliated because he didn't intend for it to go down this way in the first place and now he has to look me into the eyes and have conversation about this humiliation.  I want him to have wisdom for his life.  Now, i am not a big fan of apologizing right away, but asked him to find a time when his heart was ready to say his sorrys and ask for forgiveness.  That was it.  Let's all move on and enjoy the day.  Later on i caught up with Addie who was already back to playing.  This is the conversation and this is GRACE!

Me:  "Addie, how's your head?"
Addie:  "it's good, don't touch it!"
Me:  "Did Jojo apologize yet?"
Addie:  "yes, he apologized twice!"
Me:  "was it sincere?"
Addie:  "yes it was."  (inside I am smiling)
Me:  "Are you good?"
Addie: "yes...can I ask you something?  Is it a lie if people ask me what happen, i just tell them i was in a golf cart driving and a rock flew and hit me in the forehead?"
Me:  "i think it is fine, why?"
Addie:  "i don't want anyone to think badly of Jojo"  (at this moment I want to run and weep) IS THAT NOT GRACE?

Grace is a beautiful gift, but it needs to be embraced fully and it needs to be shared always for us to appreciate it as a gift!!!

Thank you Addie for teaching me grace in the midst of your pain.  Thank you Jesus for teachable moments about Your Grace!

Doors!!!

I am going to be honest, but I can't stand the saying, "where one door closes another door opens."  Uggh.  Someone said that to me yesterday in a conversation and out of nowhere I said this, "but what do you do when you thought the door you just left was the "right" door?  I mean it felt good, had a lot of connections to it, and was fun?  And not only that, but I keep trying to go back and pry it open or kick it open."  I think the truth is we all do one way or another.  I mean, look at the Israelites, given the promise of land flowing with milk and honey, and they wanted to go back to slavery...what is that?  We just want to go back to the good ole days.  What is it about open doors?  Well, the truth of it is we aren't in control and we have no clue what is ahead of us if we walk through that door.  At least, the previous door we had control over and in same ways, it was a good door.  Now, I get it, some of us are glad that door is shut and in fact, it is chained shut never to open again.  But the open door, what will it be like?  I don't know! 

This is where I have been lately in my own life, but there is one promise that keeps coming up within my heart...God is on the other side of that door.  God is always ahead of us.  This is so true for my life and if you take a second to reflect, you will find it to be the truth for you as well.  And He always has the best intentions for us in mind.  Friends, it only gets better and I am believing that more than ever and one of the reasons why I know it gets better is because of eternity with Him.  Now, it may be rough here on earth, but the way things function on earth are not the way things are in eternity.  I long for home more than ever but instead of shutting down and waiting, what a joy it is for me that I can experience the sweet intimacy of Jesus NOW.  What a joy it is to be able to drink Jesus in until my cup is overflowing and then offering another a chance to drink of His sweet love.  Here's the secret, if we make our lives truly about Jesus at all times, then the open door is more of Him.  Each new open door is more of Jesus.  I was convicted yesterday of how I am distrusting the Lord by longing to go back to the previous doors and not move through the new door.  Open it, whatever it may be and look hard and you will see Jesus...He is always ahead of us!!!

Jesus or Heaven?

I was simply thinking today preparing for my sermon this Sunday; are we more excited about Jesus or about Heaven?  Because the answer to that question determines how we function here on earth and one of the answers may not look as pretty as we think.

So think about it?  When you talk about eternity, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?  Is it the Presence of Jesus or the promises that are offered to us?  Is it the glory and the full-on beauty of Jesus or the promises of no more death, no more sorrow, no more pain, streets of gold, to be united with all the love ones?  Please, out of love and grace, stay with me on this.  Because it is a journey that I have wrestled with and walked through and honestly, still walking through this.  But if we are consumed with the promises of what Jesus offers in heaven, then life here on earth tends to be a little bit more about us than others, maybe even more about us than Jesus!  Think about it.  I can't wait to get to heaven because I don't have to deal with (fill in the blank).  Or I can't wait to get to heaven to see (fill in the blank).  I humorously like to say, if we go to "heaven" and Jesus isn't there that is "hell" and if we go to "hell" and Jesus is there, then it is "heaven".  But I also like that because it reminds me that heaven is not specifically a place as much as it is a Person.  Wherever Jesus is, that is Heaven.  So all that to say, I am working on getting to the place of desiring more of Jesus each day even if pain, sorrow, and death is a part of the story.  Interestingly, it says that Jesus came to give us life abundantly and think about His life...it was full of pain, sorrow, and death.  But it was also full of love, grace, joy, and beauty.  Should I expect any less here on earth?  But what is this life on earth about?  Us?  Jesus? 

And if Jesus is what I am consumed with about eternity, then think how that is played out while we are here on earth.  If Jesus is our desire, then we begin to live for Him and others here on this earth.  If we are consumed with Jesus, then we will want to know Him and His desires and guess what those desires are?  Him and others!  Two greatest commandments...Love God and Love others.  With Jesus in our vision, we begin to live out "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but with humility consider others better than yourselves."  That was Paul who faithfully served with joy for the sake of others knowing Jesus.

Here is the point.  Be consumed with Jesus because the promises follow Him wherever He goes anyways.  Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and what?  Everything else happens as it should, even in eternity.  If we are more consumed about the promises of Jesus, we might actually miss Jesus altogether and that could not end well for us here on earth.  Today is a new day, what are we choosing to be consumed with?

Are You Thirsty?

So Jesus comes along in John 4 and starts a conversation with a samaritan woman, which was a no-no in those days, except that the Holy Spirit led Him to go there...He HAD to go!!!

So He begins this conversation with the woman to get to something I really hadn't caught before.  He wanted to talk about the living water that He offers to all mankind, but either she didn't get where Jesus was going or she wasn't going to take the bait, but then Jesus pulled a Master punch by asking her to go get her husband.  Well, here we go.  She is going to get blasted from Jesus like everyone else in the community does to her, although Jesus has a different angle here.  She stutters and finally confesses that the man she is with is not her husband.  Busted.  Death.  Except, that is not where Jesus is going with her.  In fact, I could sense silence sitting in this place and she is ready for the religious leaders to come around the corner any moment, but nothing.  And not even Jesus Himself, who just exposed her is even making a move.  She responds by changing the subject and Jesus just walks right with her...haha, He isn't leaving until her eyes are opened to who He is.  She eventually states something about the Messiah (where did she learn that concept and understanding?) to which Jesus joyfully screamed out, "I am He."  Here's the deal:

He entered into her story to lovingly escort her into His story...His story of grace and love and more importantly, that He is the Living Water, and all who drink never get thirsty again.  Isn't that beautiful?  And He does the same with you and me.  He wants to enter into your story, to get you to journey into His Story and let me tell you friends, His story is much better.  What a beautiful scene we have here, a broken, down-hearted woman who is seeking water and she would go anywhere to find it and then one day the Living Water shows up to her and part of me wonders that it showed up because she was actually looking for it.  Are you seeking the Lord?  Are you thirsty for something?  When we are thirsty, we will drink anything to quench it.  I think she is at this point, but didn't know what to do.  So Jesus entered and took care of it with her...and do you know what happened next?

She drank so much and her cup was running over that she ran back to her home town and told everyone about her encounter with the Living Water and how her thirst was quench and other people found Living Water that day because of her testimony.  Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good today?  Well, do so right now.  And once you have found Jesus, remember that there are people around you who are thirsty and broken.  And instead of being arms length from them, embrace that they are truly looking for what this samaritan woman was looking for and you can be a part of helping them find Living Water.  I love John 4...spend some time drinking in that chapter today.