Month: June 2011

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In-Action = Action


Have you ever thought about your actions?  Sure you do.  You tell your children, employees … discuss it in Sunday School – “Your actions speak louder than your words”.

What about your “IN”actions? When you do nothing … nothing at all.  Life is inaction or action.  You arrive with a blank slate … lights, camera, action.  When you are sitting there doing nothing … the ‘camera’ (life) is still rolling.

When you come to a scene change (a fork in the road if you will), you make choices.  As Christians we pray about our choices.  Sometimes we have many choices for one road … many doors.  We pray that God closes all but the right door. What if there are no doors, no forks in the road?  You’re standing still, waiting on Him and His timing to open a door …show you the forks in the road … (as opposed to throwing up your hands and saying ‘woe is me’).  When you’ve done all you can and are waiting on Him, this is not ‘inaction’ … this IS action.

Inaction is when you sit back and say, “God you’re going to have to do it all”, and you do nothing.  Action is when you acknowledge you are at a dead-end or in a room with no doors, so you pray, you read His word and you wait on Him.  This is ACTION at its most intense, its most suspenseful, …tension packed if you will.  Trusting in the unknown next step because you know the final chapter is already written and you’ve won because you are linked with Him that won 2,000+ years ago (which in eternity time zone is probably like 2 minutes).

Take your blank slate today and as life rolls make sure that any “IN”action is action.  Apathy towards life is ungodly.   There is no room for despair, discouragement and gloom.

1 Thessalonians 2:12

James 1:2

1 Peter 4:19

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Bless Your Pea-Pickin’ Heart


Bless Your Heart (otherwise know in the South as “you poor stupid thang”).   Now in the South when we say that, it can mean a myriad of things. If one is trying to be sarcastic … they’re telling you that you are being stupid.  If one is replying to your circumstances … they’re probably still telling you you’re being stupid.  Basically they are telling you to focus … you’re blessed and you don’t know it!  You are concentrating on circumstances.  Of course telling someone to focus on the good in their life  will cause them to call you a Pollyanna … but, that is okay, there are worse things to be called.

Are you blessed and don’t know it?  More likely you are blessed and you are too busy focusing on the ‘wrongs’ to see all that is RIGHT in you life.  COUNT your blessings, LITERALLY … out loud if you have to …WRITE them down … name them ONE BY ONE  <~ click (George Beverly Shaw is 102 and still counting his blessings).

Play “I Spy God” with your family.  It is fun and rewarding … and you cannot play it without realizing all God has done for you.  It will make you focus on what counts in life.  “Spy” God in creation, in circumstances … everywhere.  Make yourself SEE how involved He really is in your life.   Every day you are blessed but you are so busy you seldom see the blessings.  You take ‘good days’ for granted and forget to thank Him for all He’s doing.  Yet, the minute something goes wrong … “Where was God?” …. “Why God?”   Did you ask Him where He was on your good day?  Did you ask Him ‘why?’ on your good days?

Count your blessings … one by one … spy God in all that He has done.  “I spy God …

….in my daughters and their families

… in my grandchildren’s laughter and smiles

… in my husband’s smile even though he cannot find a job (he’s counting his blessings)

… in the music He has given me

… in His word that He reveals His truths to me

… in the butterfly that flitted by

… the blue sky

… the close parking space I asked for

… the crystal blue ocean

You are blessed … do you choose to believe and recognize your blessings?

1 Thessalonians 5:18“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”(NASB)

Above all, thank Him for your salvation, for if you are “Soul Safe” … saved … have eternal life in Heaven with Him, you are truly blessed, regardless of circumstances here on earth.

2 Corinthians 9:15 “Thank God for this gift too wonderful for words!”

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You a Talker or a Walker?


More and more I have people around me ‘talking’.

Talking or Walking?

Many are what I refer to as ‘surface thinkers’, looking for answers.  “Do you have a book on….?” Or, did such and such (their fav author) write on ….?”  Sometimes one person will start talking to another in the store about theology or a translation and others near by jump in …. everyone’s “talking” .  I wish they could stand back and see themselves as the world sees them and hear the comments I hear.

The young girl in her booty shorts, expensive designer top and purse … bare middle with ‘button ring’ dangling wants a book on finding a godly man.   The young mother asks for a parenting book for her younger sister who is expecting her first child,  while her own three children are running unattended in the store destroying merchandise.  The middle age guy who reeks of smoke, impatiently demands attention and wants help to select a Bible for his graduating high school son whom he fears is going down the wrong path … he utters an expletive over the price of a leather-bound.  One of my favorites was the grandmother who was in buying VBS materials because she was ‘in charge once again this year’.  She had two grandchildren with her she could not control and in a few weeks she would be in charge of 50?

God gave us His manual, His Word, the Holy Bible.   Everything that I write and all the books, Bible Studies and resources are tools He provides through His children to help.  Sometimes I just want to scream, “have you read the Manual first?”  Daily, if you read His word then your talk will become your walk.  If you are going to talk the talk, read the Manual first:

Isaiah 55:11(NASB)
“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
 

The world, your children, other Christians (weaker and stronger) see your walk which can negate your talk.  If you are not seeing the results you want in your job, your children, your friends … maybe your walk is not in alignment with your talk.  Go back to the Manual, searching out other tools is fine but, not if they replace the manual.  Take a serious look at yourself (maybe even in the mirror), what do others see … hear?   What is the reality of your talk?  If you dare, ask a close Christian friend, a spouse, a parent … does your walk match your talk?

Psalm 19:14(NASB)
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
 
Philippians 4:8(ESV)
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
 
Matthew 9:16(KJV)                                                                                                                                                                            “No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.”
 
Ephesians 4:22-24(HCSB)
“you took off your former way of life, the old man that is corrupted by deceitful desires; 23 you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; 24 you put on the new man, the one created according to God’s [likeness] in righteousness and purity of the truth.”

 

If your walk is not matching your talk, then you are holding   the ‘old man’.

Walker or Talker?

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R U A Fixer-Upper?


“I CAN’T FIX IT” … ever feel frustrated with your life … your family … your job?  Do you feel helpless to help? I hate that feeling.  I like to make things better.

Face it: You Can't Fix It

R. U. A Fixer-upper?  Do you try to solve all your own problems?  (Fix your children’s lives to make them smooth?)  Of course we are to be helpful, doing unto others as we would have them do unto us; loving and caring.  But, sometimes you can’t ‘fix it’, and you were not meant to fix people’s lives.

I admit that I have often said to the Lord in my prayer time, “Lord, if you’d let me I could” or “Lord, you know if this happened then …”.  I like to fix it.  Right now, if I could, I would give my husband his dream job, we would have all the money we need come in to fix our financial woes, I would save our house from the bank … I would fly to my daughter to help take care of my sick granddaughter.  Yet, as ‘noble’ as all those plans are, they are not God’s plan.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
What if we truly believed God’s word?  What if we fully understood that our soul is safe … that He is taking care of it and that our HOPE and FUTURE are in Him? Yes, sometimes we will not prosper and we will fall in harms way … but, that’s here … on earth.  And sometimes we will prosper and have everything going our way here on earth.  But God’s plan is that we all find His son and live with Him in prosperity in the future … in Heaven.  This life on earth is preparing us for that time.
So many times when we try to ‘fix’ things we break them … we make them worse.  God gives discernment to you through His Holy Spirit… if we would only listen.
God does not teach or guide you through doubt.  He gives HOPE.  HOPE is an action verb.  You stand before choices and ask God to guide you.  If you have doubts about a choice, you wait.  You make choices that He shows you.  When you read His word and pray each day, you are in tune with Him and the Holy Spirit.  As odd as it sounds, you have peace over even making a hard decision.
Why do we try to repair our broken lives when we not only know the best “fixer-upper”, but He is also the creator of what needs fixing?

Yield Your ALL to Him and He Will Direct Your Path