But Wait?

The morning was just beautiful! I took the prayer labyrinth guide with me today to walk the labyrinth and read those particular scriptures. Remember those bamboo shoot that started last week? Well….they have grown two feet!

And there are more! Made me chuckle when I saw one right in the middle of the path. I could see that there will be a way to move the walkway a bit and it will work out just fine, but you know me…I chuckled. Now, I certainly could get a chain saw and just take these out…that is an option. But, these will grow to tower over me, to shade our home, to shelter the birds. They only look like asparagus right now, but just wait a month or two and it will be amazing!  

God does this all the time with us! We’re just walking thru our lives and poof! something shoots up in front of us. It would help me when that happens, if I would just remember that God already has a way around it…PLUS, He put, or allowed it there!

Maybe it is a person, who doesn’t seem to be all that involved in our life right now, but wait…

or it is a job that you’re not sure of, but wait

or a move you really don’t want to make, but wait

or a fill in your own blank shoot here, but wait.

One reason to wait is just like these shoots. Last year they began to come up and I thought it was going to be a real problem. At full growth there would have been no squeezing thru the path…so I waited. I have no idea why, but they just died back. Now, they're just two little brown asparagus. And I had nothing to do with it…other than the waiting. 

Some of our obstacles in life are “waiting” opportunities. They are there to grow us in our trust that God really does have a plan. He will move the obstacle or move the path. And truly, the “moving the path” part, that’s just our perception of things. God knows what our path is, all we have to do is give Him one step at a time.

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Matthew 6:34 ~ The Message Version

Push Thru

Push Thru...

That seemed to be the message reflected in everything this morning. Life is made up of seasons, changes are God’s specialty for us and we all “know” that, but it can be difficult to daily live in that knowledge. We can tho’, choose to ignore a change God wants for us and be content to stay anchored in a season far longer than God intended. I mean imagine summer – vacations, warm days at the beach, bbq with friends…It’s all hot dogs and apple pie, right? But where would we be without the cool fall days to ease the scorch of summer and winter’s chill to slow our pace and ready creation for the bursting of life in spring? Summer is good, but is has its place.

As I started to the labyrinth today, I had to lift the big duranta branch to clear the path and push thru. When we know we’re at a cross road and the season is changing all God asks us to do is step with Him ~ from the familiar to our future. HE is fully aware of the walls put up by the familiar and so often they can be just as pretty as this duranta! That’s why it is so very important to seek, ask and pray when stepping.

I was reminded of this when I saw the summer growth of the giant timber bamboo. Big shoots are pushing thru the hard ground, right there next to the 40 foot giants. They don’t all make it, tho’. Not sure why, but they just stop pushing. For some perhaps, the growth came too close to winter’s chill, for others the proximity of the ones nearest left no room for growth.

For all of us, God’s chosen-His beloved children, there is a plan for our seasons. He has a purpose for us to “push thru”. For me, I take great comfort in knowing that I don’t need to know…as if I could know God’s whole/perfect plan for me, hello?!?!?

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:9-11 ~ The Message Version

Push thru 

~ one step of faith at a time 

~ one prayer at a time 

~ thru the familiar, to the fruitful

"...a life Jesus will be proud of."

Look in the Mirror

Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
    God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
    And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
    all the men and women who belittle you, God,
    infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
    see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
    Your enemies are my enemies!

 Psalm 139:17-22

As I read these words today, the last part struck me a little differently. When David is speaking of his own loathing of others who are godless, it isn’t some license of self-elevation. He mentions murders first ~ He is one. It is as if he is looking in the mirror, as we all should, to loath the enemy within our own souls that wars against God.

David knew that “search my heart, O God” needed to be a daily endeavor ~ to fight against the “godless arrogance” that lives within our own natural self. The existence of it is often times the most difficult to acknowledge to ourselves. But this passage does hold a key to our inner disclosure before God, “…let me rise in the morning and live always with You!”

It is not right to live in self-loathing, or to put others down in order to lift ourselves up…after all, ”we all fall short”! But it is in our seeking God that HE lifts us up from lowly to lofty.

Investigate my life, O God,
    find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
    get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
    then guide me on the road to eternal life.

Psalm 139:23 & 24 ~ The Message

Ya know, we have all kinds of books and “googling” stuff out there. Self help is its own industry! There certainly isn’t anything wrong with improving ourselves, but attempting it without God at the center cannot possibly go anywhere good. David puts the examining in God’s hands, not his own and here he shows us that he knows he has imperfections and he knows that he doesn’t know all of them, BUT he knows Who does! And as God’s children we all can depend on the Guide on the road to eternal life…here to heaven.

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.

II Timothy 3:16 & 17