BJ (Will) was able to work out the vehicle situation for us for when the girls come home, thereby buying us a few years before we have to purchase a new car. Which is a huge blessing. He ordered a back bench from a junk yard to put in place of our captain seats in the middle of the van and it now seats 8! A tight 8 but 8, fortunetly the kids are all thin.
Confession: Over the last few weeks I have been having moments of concern, actually moments bordering on the line of panic regarding bringing the girls home. The thought of 2 more children to care for, educate, feed etc. has been causing a little unrest in my mind lately, especially considering that these two girls will bring a whole host of special needs. I have tried not to give any credit to these fears, knowing that God will provide all; I have pushed them from my mind as quickly as possible but nevertheless they have been there on the edges of my mind. Today He brought me comfort to those fears, as He always does if we wait on Him.
Mark 12:44 "For they all threw in out of their abundance: but she, out of her deep poverty, has put in everything that she had - all she had on which to live."
Jesus was speaking about the widow that had thrown in "two copper mites" which was the sum of a half cent, she was surrounded by rich people throwing in large sums of money. As those around her gave far more money then she, she dropped in her meager offering and Jesus saw it all. vs 43 "... I tell you, this widow, poverty-stricken, has put in more than all those contributing to the treasury." Jesus saw all that she had given and He was moved by her generosity.
As I read this passage I thought, I have never given out of my deep poverty, as a matter of fact I have never even been close to living in deep poverty. I wondered and prayed if I would be able to give out of my deep poverty. But, then God reminded me that I am giving out of poverty in this adoption, I am giving out of a deep poverty of time, energy, capabilities and at times out of desire. I really have nothing to give these children, I am worn out most days and barely get by with the four children already living in my house. I know that in reality it is God who is caring for these children each day. He reminded me of the fears I have been facing lately and He also reminded me that He sees my deep poverty and He has all the bases covered, He has my back.
I continued to think and pray about this scripture in Mark and I thought it would be wonderful to hear the rest of this widow's story. In my selfish and very human reasoning I wanted a little more confirmation, I wanted to hear how Jesus hooked her up; you know; a nice home, a great retirement plan, a brand new vehicle in the driveway. Jesus had witnessed her willingness to give, surely He had removed her from her "deep poverty" and I wanted to hear all about that.
However, God showed me that I was missing the boat, seriously missing the boat. He showed me a picture of Jesus sitting across from the treasury watching humanity stream in and out; Jesus, my Jesus, your Jesus. He witnesses this poor widow and "He called His disciples to him" (vs 43) and He commends her for her sacrificial gift. It struck me that I was wondering about what blessings were brought into her life after this but she has already been given just a wonderful gift. The Son of the Living God saw her and was so moved by her that He called his disciples to Himself to teach about the true value of her gift. I don't need a commentary or even another verse in the Bible to know that she had been given far more then she could have dreamed of; she had touched the heart of Jesus. No house or retirement plan could ever hold even a fraction of the value of Jesus' love and approval. She had already proven she had a servant's heart and she wanted to show her love for her God in anyway that she could.
Jesus, left the temple after speaking of the widow, He would be crucified shortly there after. His last lesson in the temple was taught with this widow's humilty as its focal point. She gave everything she had and was given everything she could ever be in need of. John 4: 10 " and He would have given you living water."
I pray God always sets me straight when I miss the boat and that I may learn how to give out of my "deep poverty" also.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Question for the ages
Mark 8: 27 -29 "...He asked His disciples, who do people say that I am? and they answered Him, John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets. And He asked them, But who do you yourselves say that I am?..."
Jesus was building to something here, He already knew what people were saying about Him, He is the Son of the living God, He knew full well what was being said about Him. He was leading His disciples to the real question; and "who do YOU say that I am?" That is the same question He is asking you and I, who do you say I am? When it is all said and done and we stand before our God He will only be concerned with one person at that moment. What our parents, our friends, the religious leaders of the day, the politicians, our spouses etc said about Jesus Christ will not be included in that discussion. Whether we have been misled by someone we trusted will not excuse us on that day. Jesus is asking us, me and you, Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am in your life? Unfortunetly, this will not be a multiple choice test, there will be no makeup exams; there is the right answer and then all the other answers. Peter got it right, "... You are the Christ.." Don't even waste your time with what anyone else says, the only answer that will matter to your Lord and Savior is what you say He is. The question for the ages; the one question that every human being that has ever walked this earth must answer; who do you say Jesus is?
To anyone who read yesterdays' blog in its entirety; you are a brave soul and I am sorry for its length. Will (BJ) read it and described it as "wicked long," not exactly the adjective I was aspiring to so I will try to refrain from anymore novels.
Jesus was building to something here, He already knew what people were saying about Him, He is the Son of the living God, He knew full well what was being said about Him. He was leading His disciples to the real question; and "who do YOU say that I am?" That is the same question He is asking you and I, who do you say I am? When it is all said and done and we stand before our God He will only be concerned with one person at that moment. What our parents, our friends, the religious leaders of the day, the politicians, our spouses etc said about Jesus Christ will not be included in that discussion. Whether we have been misled by someone we trusted will not excuse us on that day. Jesus is asking us, me and you, Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am in your life? Unfortunetly, this will not be a multiple choice test, there will be no makeup exams; there is the right answer and then all the other answers. Peter got it right, "... You are the Christ.." Don't even waste your time with what anyone else says, the only answer that will matter to your Lord and Savior is what you say He is. The question for the ages; the one question that every human being that has ever walked this earth must answer; who do you say Jesus is?
To anyone who read yesterdays' blog in its entirety; you are a brave soul and I am sorry for its length. Will (BJ) read it and described it as "wicked long," not exactly the adjective I was aspiring to so I will try to refrain from anymore novels.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Mailed our dossier last week!
This was the blog that I started last week and then put it aside to write another one so I figured it was time I finished this one. I did get our dossier mailed off last week and our agency is reviewing it and we are still waiting on our immigration paperwork. We are praying it comes in next week.
5/3
I mailed our dossier paperwork this morning to our agency and I am very excited to have that portion done! Will and the guys prayed over the paperwork last night at our prayer meeting and then we prayed together last night and I know God is going before it to prepare the way. We are still waiting on our immigration letter of approval so please pray with us for a very quick turn around. We were fingerprinted last week in Charleston so that was the last step that immigration needed from us so I know it will be here soon. Then the dossier heads off to the powers that be so they can do whatever they need to do to bring the girls home.
Another update: we signed a 3 year lease with a Navy family that will be moving into the home that we own in Charleston. It is such a huge blessing to have that resolved and in the process we witnessed God's provision and attention to detail, it is amazing the way He orchestrates our lives. The family found our house on Craig's List and after a few emails she realized that our families had served together on the USS HM Jackson when we were stationed in WA. She recognized our last name b/c I had been her phone tree caller during deployments. Only God can connect people in His perfect timing. Who knew? God uses Craig's List!
On Sunday (two Sundays ago now) our pastor read James 4:8 - "Come to me and I will come to you..." which is a verse I have loved for sometime. However, in the last few days I have gone back and studied the verses preceding and following verse 8 and there is a wealth of knowledge and understanding that I know God wants to instill in our hearts and minds.
James 4: 7 -10 "Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you doubled minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up."
The verses that surround this beautiful verse, "draw near to God and He will draw near to you" are full of very clear guidelines and instructions for us on our journey to "come to God." James draws our attention to 5 different things that will bring us closer to our Savior. Please do not mistake me, I am not speaking about works that help us earn our place in a closer relationship with God but I am speaking about 5 choices, 5 attitudes that can either strengthen the bond or drive a wedge between us and God. God has promised us an intimate relationship with Him solely based on Jesus' death on the cross but as in all relationships, it is a two way street. We are the only thing that stands in our way when it comes to Jesus Christ, He already made His choice, there is no question about it, He is all in with you and with me. The question is are we all in with Him? Back to the 5 choices, James tells us we must make as we make this trek towards God.
First: "submit yourselves to God" or be subject to God. The first thing James tells us is to be subject to God, to be under the authority of God. I love these types of descriptions b/c after being raised by a Navy man and now being married to a Navy man, authority and being subject to someone else are things I understand. We live our lives under the authority of the Navy; regardless of what is going on in this house when the Navy says it is time to go, he goes and the children and I understand and respect that. To be subject to God is easy to understand, but not even the slightest bit easy to put into practice sometimes. My desires, my feelings, my thoughts, my plans come in 2nd place to His plans, regardless of whether or not I happen to like His plans. In every area of our lives we are to be subject to God; we line our thoughts, our time, our resources, our relationships, our ministries, our careers with God, and as we do this we are taking huge leaps and bounds towards Him and He will never disappoint us, He is leaping and bounding towards us.
Second: "resist the devil." This is not something that can be accomplished passively, the word resistance implies action. Resist - to withstand; fend off. to oppose ACTIVELY; fight against. Satan will not flee you if you are not actively engaged in spiritual warfare were you battle him with the spiritual armor you have been given (Ephesians 6:13-18.) Come on you all, this is war and we are on the winning side but we need to pick up our weapons and fight this fight in our own lives and then take this fight to the streets to help those who have not learned how to fight yet. But make no mistake, you must resist him in your own life first and then you can spread God's freedom to the world around you.
Third: "cleanse your hands and purify your hearts" Man, I seem to have to do this everyday, sometimes every hour! It is amazing the filth my hands can get into and how quickly my heart divides itself between the world and God. Everyday, all day, cleanse and purify through the blood of Jesus Christ. Our loyalty is wavering and weak, we need God to purify and strengthen us. The spirit is willing but the flesh is so weak which means if you spend to much time, or anytime for that matter listening to your flesh then you have some cleansing and purifying to do. It is all through the blood of Jesus and it is quite simple, the only thing that stops us is our unwillingness to choose God over and over again. It is our choice, we must ask for this cleansing and then we will have to ask again tomorrow and then the day after and so on until we go home and live in perfection with our Maker.
Fourth: "be afflicted, mourn, and weep" Why? because we grieve the heart of God with our sin. I grieve the heart of God with the garbage I allow in my life. Have you ever really wounded someone who loved you dearly, who was completely devoted to you? I have, I have hurt people I love and people who love me. I have seen the pain in their eyes that I have caused, I can still see the pain in their eyes. It is so much worse with God because He was/is blameless and He is the best friend I have ever had. And I have trampled on that devotion, love and holiness more times then I would care to admit. We need to take the time to face Him, to look into His eyes and see the pain we have caused and weep over our selfishness and insolence. We have wounded the heart of the Creator of the universe and nothing is more deserving of mourning then that. We should not take our sins lightly, we need to stop and allow ourselves to feel just an ounce of the pain He feels and then we would walk away from sin, actually if we really understood what we have done then we would sprint away from sin.
Fifth: "humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord" First of all, you need to be "in the sight of the Lord" and I have a feeling that "in the sight of the Lord" does not include a 3 minute prayer on your way out the door in the morning, or the 4 1/2 verses we read right before we fell asleep last night. "In the sight of the Lord" conjures up images of time spent alone, devoted to God. It takes a little awhile to shrug off the cares of our lives and to cleanse and purify ourselves and to really focus our eyes on our God. And honestly once we have done that the humbling part comes relatively easy because our God is so good and so everything that we are not, that we immediately recognize our need to be flat on our face before God (spiritually and literally.)
All 5 require active participation on our part, it is not unlike any other relationship, it requires us to be present, to put in time and effort. The wonderful part of this story is that we are promised, we are guaranteed that in this relationship we will never be let down. We will never come near to Him to find out that He is emotionally unavailable or that He is preoccupied with His new BFF (best friends forever - that's for you mom b/c I know you had no idea what a BFF was) or that He is having a bad day too and He just can't deal with your baggage right now. No, this time we can take it to the bank that He will draw near to us EVERY TIME! So, why do we put so much time into every other relationship except this one, I think it is b/c we don't really get it, we don't really understand who He is. But, I have a sneaking suspicion that we are starting to get it, I can feel it in my soul, my spirit, we are drawing nearer to Him like we have never drawn near before and He is so excited (can't you feel His excitement?) He is amazingly patient, He is waiting.
5/3
I mailed our dossier paperwork this morning to our agency and I am very excited to have that portion done! Will and the guys prayed over the paperwork last night at our prayer meeting and then we prayed together last night and I know God is going before it to prepare the way. We are still waiting on our immigration letter of approval so please pray with us for a very quick turn around. We were fingerprinted last week in Charleston so that was the last step that immigration needed from us so I know it will be here soon. Then the dossier heads off to the powers that be so they can do whatever they need to do to bring the girls home.
Another update: we signed a 3 year lease with a Navy family that will be moving into the home that we own in Charleston. It is such a huge blessing to have that resolved and in the process we witnessed God's provision and attention to detail, it is amazing the way He orchestrates our lives. The family found our house on Craig's List and after a few emails she realized that our families had served together on the USS HM Jackson when we were stationed in WA. She recognized our last name b/c I had been her phone tree caller during deployments. Only God can connect people in His perfect timing. Who knew? God uses Craig's List!
On Sunday (two Sundays ago now) our pastor read James 4:8 - "Come to me and I will come to you..." which is a verse I have loved for sometime. However, in the last few days I have gone back and studied the verses preceding and following verse 8 and there is a wealth of knowledge and understanding that I know God wants to instill in our hearts and minds.
James 4: 7 -10 "Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you doubled minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up."
The verses that surround this beautiful verse, "draw near to God and He will draw near to you" are full of very clear guidelines and instructions for us on our journey to "come to God." James draws our attention to 5 different things that will bring us closer to our Savior. Please do not mistake me, I am not speaking about works that help us earn our place in a closer relationship with God but I am speaking about 5 choices, 5 attitudes that can either strengthen the bond or drive a wedge between us and God. God has promised us an intimate relationship with Him solely based on Jesus' death on the cross but as in all relationships, it is a two way street. We are the only thing that stands in our way when it comes to Jesus Christ, He already made His choice, there is no question about it, He is all in with you and with me. The question is are we all in with Him? Back to the 5 choices, James tells us we must make as we make this trek towards God.
First: "submit yourselves to God" or be subject to God. The first thing James tells us is to be subject to God, to be under the authority of God. I love these types of descriptions b/c after being raised by a Navy man and now being married to a Navy man, authority and being subject to someone else are things I understand. We live our lives under the authority of the Navy; regardless of what is going on in this house when the Navy says it is time to go, he goes and the children and I understand and respect that. To be subject to God is easy to understand, but not even the slightest bit easy to put into practice sometimes. My desires, my feelings, my thoughts, my plans come in 2nd place to His plans, regardless of whether or not I happen to like His plans. In every area of our lives we are to be subject to God; we line our thoughts, our time, our resources, our relationships, our ministries, our careers with God, and as we do this we are taking huge leaps and bounds towards Him and He will never disappoint us, He is leaping and bounding towards us.
Second: "resist the devil." This is not something that can be accomplished passively, the word resistance implies action. Resist - to withstand; fend off. to oppose ACTIVELY; fight against. Satan will not flee you if you are not actively engaged in spiritual warfare were you battle him with the spiritual armor you have been given (Ephesians 6:13-18.) Come on you all, this is war and we are on the winning side but we need to pick up our weapons and fight this fight in our own lives and then take this fight to the streets to help those who have not learned how to fight yet. But make no mistake, you must resist him in your own life first and then you can spread God's freedom to the world around you.
Third: "cleanse your hands and purify your hearts" Man, I seem to have to do this everyday, sometimes every hour! It is amazing the filth my hands can get into and how quickly my heart divides itself between the world and God. Everyday, all day, cleanse and purify through the blood of Jesus Christ. Our loyalty is wavering and weak, we need God to purify and strengthen us. The spirit is willing but the flesh is so weak which means if you spend to much time, or anytime for that matter listening to your flesh then you have some cleansing and purifying to do. It is all through the blood of Jesus and it is quite simple, the only thing that stops us is our unwillingness to choose God over and over again. It is our choice, we must ask for this cleansing and then we will have to ask again tomorrow and then the day after and so on until we go home and live in perfection with our Maker.
Fourth: "be afflicted, mourn, and weep" Why? because we grieve the heart of God with our sin. I grieve the heart of God with the garbage I allow in my life. Have you ever really wounded someone who loved you dearly, who was completely devoted to you? I have, I have hurt people I love and people who love me. I have seen the pain in their eyes that I have caused, I can still see the pain in their eyes. It is so much worse with God because He was/is blameless and He is the best friend I have ever had. And I have trampled on that devotion, love and holiness more times then I would care to admit. We need to take the time to face Him, to look into His eyes and see the pain we have caused and weep over our selfishness and insolence. We have wounded the heart of the Creator of the universe and nothing is more deserving of mourning then that. We should not take our sins lightly, we need to stop and allow ourselves to feel just an ounce of the pain He feels and then we would walk away from sin, actually if we really understood what we have done then we would sprint away from sin.
Fifth: "humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord" First of all, you need to be "in the sight of the Lord" and I have a feeling that "in the sight of the Lord" does not include a 3 minute prayer on your way out the door in the morning, or the 4 1/2 verses we read right before we fell asleep last night. "In the sight of the Lord" conjures up images of time spent alone, devoted to God. It takes a little awhile to shrug off the cares of our lives and to cleanse and purify ourselves and to really focus our eyes on our God. And honestly once we have done that the humbling part comes relatively easy because our God is so good and so everything that we are not, that we immediately recognize our need to be flat on our face before God (spiritually and literally.)
All 5 require active participation on our part, it is not unlike any other relationship, it requires us to be present, to put in time and effort. The wonderful part of this story is that we are promised, we are guaranteed that in this relationship we will never be let down. We will never come near to Him to find out that He is emotionally unavailable or that He is preoccupied with His new BFF (best friends forever - that's for you mom b/c I know you had no idea what a BFF was) or that He is having a bad day too and He just can't deal with your baggage right now. No, this time we can take it to the bank that He will draw near to us EVERY TIME! So, why do we put so much time into every other relationship except this one, I think it is b/c we don't really get it, we don't really understand who He is. But, I have a sneaking suspicion that we are starting to get it, I can feel it in my soul, my spirit, we are drawing nearer to Him like we have never drawn near before and He is so excited (can't you feel His excitement?) He is amazingly patient, He is waiting.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Something God wants us to hear
I have an unfinished post that has several updates but I decided to put that one on hold to share with you something that I know God wants us to understand. I will post the updates in a few days.
Will (BJ) and I are on the last day of a fast and there are 3 things we have been focused on during this fast; the adoption, our friend who has come under considerable attack from the enemy and on a personal note we have been praying for an improvement in our diets (aka sugar!) This morning I was praying during my run (it is always a God thing when I complete a run during a fast b/c they are slow, painful and at times treacherous!) and I was asking God to empower us to break this fast tomorrow in a Godly manner and to strength us both to overcome our love affair with sugar. This seems like a relatively simple matter and as I prayed I was not expecting God to knock me over with the depth and knowledge that He hit me with this morning, but thank God He always exceeds my expectations. God brought me this:
Isaiah 61:3
"...to give them beauty for ashes
...joy for mourning
...praise for their burden..."
Jennie, give me your ashes and I will bring you My beauty. It took me a second, I am often slow with God, but He was kind enough to explain. What has my addiction to sugar brought me? Nothing but ashes, ashes of my body as I have willingly taken in substances that bring harm to this temple He has blessed me with. Nothing but ashes, ashes of body and mind as I have substituted a substance for God's best in my life. Let's be honest ALL of our ungodly addictions bring us nothing but ashes, as we cater to our addictions of food, nicotine, alcohol, drugs, pornography, materialism, and the list goes on and on, we are piling ashes into our bodies, minds, souls and spirits and those ashes bring us mourning and heavy burdens. Look at your life, are you stockpiling ashes? Ashes as we burn up our bodies as we pollute them with things God never intended for us to consume, ashes of our burned up talents and skills that are being wasted b/c we are to burdened and broken by our addictions, ashes of our relationships that have been damaged and splintered by the toxic things we choice to bring into our lives, ashes from the ministries we never poured ourselves into, ashes from the squandered financial resources that He has given us that we wasted on our own lustful desires, are they there? Can you feel them? Are they a heavy burden that saddens and weakens you? They do me. God is saying to us all " your ashes for my BEAUTY!" Beauty as I bring healing to your body, a wholeness to your mind, restoration to your relationships, blessings to your finances! All we have to do is lay the ashes caused by our addictions down at His feet and walk away from them.
Beauty for ashes...Joy for mourning...praise for our burdens... I am in! That is a deal I want to make and I know God wants you to make the same trade. We all are struggling with something or somethings and I promise you these things of the world are bringing us nothing but ashes. Every moment, every second that you are hit with that temptation cry out to God and remind Him of His promises to us, beauty for ashes, God, we want your beauty for our ashes.
What has this world brought us? Ashes that has soiled and dirtied our bodies, minds, and souls, but not anymore. When we lay it down it is replaced by His beauty. May God strengthen us as we exchange our ashes for His beauty, our mourning for His joy and our burdens for His praise.
Will (BJ) and I are on the last day of a fast and there are 3 things we have been focused on during this fast; the adoption, our friend who has come under considerable attack from the enemy and on a personal note we have been praying for an improvement in our diets (aka sugar!) This morning I was praying during my run (it is always a God thing when I complete a run during a fast b/c they are slow, painful and at times treacherous!) and I was asking God to empower us to break this fast tomorrow in a Godly manner and to strength us both to overcome our love affair with sugar. This seems like a relatively simple matter and as I prayed I was not expecting God to knock me over with the depth and knowledge that He hit me with this morning, but thank God He always exceeds my expectations. God brought me this:
Isaiah 61:3
"...to give them beauty for ashes
...joy for mourning
...praise for their burden..."
Jennie, give me your ashes and I will bring you My beauty. It took me a second, I am often slow with God, but He was kind enough to explain. What has my addiction to sugar brought me? Nothing but ashes, ashes of my body as I have willingly taken in substances that bring harm to this temple He has blessed me with. Nothing but ashes, ashes of body and mind as I have substituted a substance for God's best in my life. Let's be honest ALL of our ungodly addictions bring us nothing but ashes, as we cater to our addictions of food, nicotine, alcohol, drugs, pornography, materialism, and the list goes on and on, we are piling ashes into our bodies, minds, souls and spirits and those ashes bring us mourning and heavy burdens. Look at your life, are you stockpiling ashes? Ashes as we burn up our bodies as we pollute them with things God never intended for us to consume, ashes of our burned up talents and skills that are being wasted b/c we are to burdened and broken by our addictions, ashes of our relationships that have been damaged and splintered by the toxic things we choice to bring into our lives, ashes from the ministries we never poured ourselves into, ashes from the squandered financial resources that He has given us that we wasted on our own lustful desires, are they there? Can you feel them? Are they a heavy burden that saddens and weakens you? They do me. God is saying to us all " your ashes for my BEAUTY!" Beauty as I bring healing to your body, a wholeness to your mind, restoration to your relationships, blessings to your finances! All we have to do is lay the ashes caused by our addictions down at His feet and walk away from them.
Beauty for ashes...Joy for mourning...praise for our burdens... I am in! That is a deal I want to make and I know God wants you to make the same trade. We all are struggling with something or somethings and I promise you these things of the world are bringing us nothing but ashes. Every moment, every second that you are hit with that temptation cry out to God and remind Him of His promises to us, beauty for ashes, God, we want your beauty for our ashes.
What has this world brought us? Ashes that has soiled and dirtied our bodies, minds, and souls, but not anymore. When we lay it down it is replaced by His beauty. May God strengthen us as we exchange our ashes for His beauty, our mourning for His joy and our burdens for His praise.
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