WOW

Thankful for the blessings of WOW moments! Those times in our lives when You grant us a bit of Your vision in things. It is one thing to trust our days with You, to pray and to seek You out in all things, but how wonderful are the WOW moments! Those times we see Your hand so clearly in our circumstance. When we see our trust in Your will being woven into what seemed an overwhelming obstacle that You step in and move.

He has given me a new song to sing,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what He has done and be amazed.
    They will put their trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40:3

Oh the double blessing of praise! To thank You for the answered prayer and the how of the answer! Your merciful reminder that nothing catches You unaware. That the “hows” and the “whys” of our lives are already written out, planned for and fulfilled in the Love You have for us...

Your Wonderfully Omniscient Will.

Thank You for the blessing of WOW and may our hearts be open to the blessing of more WOWs in our everyday, as we look to see You in the details of every moment, the sweetness of every breath and the wonderful manifestations of trust in You…WOW

You, Lord, give perfect peace
    to those who keep their purpose firm
    and put their trust in You.

Isaiah 26:3

Intently

Just had to share this! Don’t know how many times I’ve heard this passage taught, but the other day it just jumped off the pages at me…I never tire of God bringing new things to the forefront!

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

Mark 10:27

The disciples had just asked Jesus…”who in the world can be saved?” and the verse above is His answer. BUT before the answer, I can just imagine the hush. In that breath before His answer, He looked at them intently ~ Jesus did. He didn’t need to look intensely at their clothes, or dirt on their feet --- He looked at them.

“Search my heart, O God” kinda look. Jesus always looks at the me that matters. He sees past the clothes we wear, the appearances we put up and the “dirt” in our life ~ He sees our heart…intently. And He reminds us “all things are possible” with Him. He makes all things new, He restores our lives to be lived out for His purpose. So, “who can be saved?”, we ask? Those who have allowed God full access to their heart and soul to be gazed upon intently by His Grace and changed for forever. Because as Jesus said, “with God, everything is possible.”

There is so much to growing in our relationship with God, too! Many think they are doing something wrong if life doesn’t go along smoothly, or somehow we have to be perfect…but in Isaiah it says…

You, Lord, give perfect peace
    to those who keep their purpose firm
    and put their trust in You.

Isaiah 26:3

One of the many things I have learned in the whole process of our labyrinth is that Peace is not circumstantial. It is not found in people, or places (the labyrinth), or in plans. So, where to look? Where to find Peace, actual Peace: Only within. Looking within, truly seeking after the Lord. We need to put Him in charge of it all.

Lord, search within my heart. YOU reveal the things that I have placed before Your will, the circumstances that I have somehow defined as “revealing You”, that really aren’t You at all. All of those things, activities and interactions that become idols to my behaviour ~ reveal them, remove them from any pedestal I have created within and bring Peace to overflow to others. Infuse my purpose with Yours. May we be Your hands and feet to serve and to love others as Christ and in that offering, may they come to experience Your perfect Peace.

Steps Outside

You should see the labyrinth now! The bamboo leaves cover the paths inches deep, like a big blanket! I, quite peacefully, do not feel any compulsion to go clean it all up, either. I see with different eyes now. God used that time of building and clearing out the space and I knew that then…but see it more clearly now. He spoke sweetly, with healing Grace into a fragile time and moved me forward, literally step by step. When I look at this blanket of bamboo all I see is His covering of every moment, His provision…His Path, amazingly peace-filled.

Scripture speaks of “seasons of life”, the places You take us, Lord and how You teach us new ways to experience Your presence in our earth-bound state. You have lifted my gaze, following the lines of the bamboo heavenward and reminded me, thru Your creation, of the beauties that are to be experienced thru You.

Blooms above the roof tops, the song of the Mourning Dove and the morning light that glistens on the dew.

I will forever have this labyrinth in my heart & mind (and I hope by the side of our home) In the lessons learned and the gifts of Grace, You reminded me of Truths, You restored and healed my broken heart. You, Lord have opened new paths to all of us, beyond the labyrinth, to serve and to live out Your Grace to others.

Life is a labyrinth, really…we just do not see the paths laid out so clearly. Yet, every moment is lovingly covered by Your blanket of Grace…constantly falling as the bamboo, to cover our life’s path with Yours.

God is wise and powerful!
    Praise Him forever and ever.
 He controls the times and the seasons;

He makes and unmakes kings;

it is He who gives wisdom and understanding.

He reveals things that are deep and secret;

He knows what is hidden in darkness,

and He Himself is surrounded by Light.
Daniel 2:20-22 GNT

Trusting...

It’s been a rocky summer, but God is good!!! In the midst of several hard situations, He has taken me to a couple of new prayer labyrinths and poured out His Peace and comfort in the process. Over and over again, He reminds me to trust Him in these days, and as always, to hand over the moments to Him and to always lift the people and situations up to Him in prayer…and over it all, Trust.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and He will show you the right way.

Proverbs 3:5 & 6

What does that look like in “real” life? We seem to jump to the end, where He is in charge of our “path”, our life, but look where it begins…Trust. What does trust look like in our day-to-day, how does it play out, especially when things seem tough to get thru? To me, one way to check my path against the Lord’s is to start with these questions of looking at my “trust”:

~   Am I trusting, or consistently questioning the Lord?

~  Are the steps of my day peace-filled?

~  Am I seeking God, or a momentary, personal perspective on things?

God does walk us thru some hard times. He does allow pain to be one of our teachers along with other experiences that we would not choose. Our response, our Guide thru these times is to go to the beginning and Trust. Trust God with it all. Look for Him in every moment of every experience and grow along the journey of the path HE has created…allowed to be.

Trust also means patience, which is always hard for me! I do love the Amplified Version of this verse on the fruits of the Spirit…

 But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22 & 23 ~ Amplified Version

Our path is carved out in life thru many things. We have the blessing of planting our path with our LOVE of the Lord ~ the JOY of serving others, His love poured out in our every choice, our words being ones of His PEACE poured out in the world, PATIENCE to wait on Him, the KINDNESS and GOODNESS of the Lord’s ways covering every thought and deed and FAITHFULNESS to trust in all things. Our GENTLENESS & SELF-CONTROL, our faith is anchored in Trust.

If you didn’t notice here, out of the nine fruits of the Spirit, only three are expanded on in this translation…and patience is a whole sentence itself! NOT the act of patience, but our behaviour while waiting. “…how we act while waiting” AND all the other fruits have tangible manifestations, but God led these translators to expand on our behaviour regarding patience with a whole sentence in a sentence! Think I need to trust Him on that, too!

When we are wavering, questioning, scared…all of which is normal…, we need to turn that into Trust. Because where we see a rocky path, full of boulders, God sees pebbles, a few leaves that we need to learn to sweep away because they obscure the path He has laid out…the path of Trust.

 

Trust is the key, the perspective changer. Trust is what allows us to see from God’s point of view. Trust brings Peace to what seems a broken, rocky path.