Words to Live By

 

What if He meant "every" word He had ever spoken?

Actually, He only lived 33 short years, but volumes upon volumes have been written for centuries about the sounds He uttered while He walked on earth.

So, what if He did mean every word He ever spoke?

I pose the question to you because He posed the question to me. My response was silence. There was a knowing in my gut that not only did I know the answer...I should be living the answer.

Knowing the answer and living the answer look very different for me. I have purposed to see the two become one. It is a life long journey. Actually, it took my very plain life and has made it one of wild adventure. Life can't help but look different when you determine to believe you are who He says you are and you can do what He said you could do.

I have found the greatest challenge as a believer is not what I need to learn, but what I need to unlearn! How many times have I swept through scripture, reading what I believe, rather than believing what I read?!

How many times have my thoughts and actions revealed that I don't believe what I hold as truth in my heart?

I have been told that wisdom is when the heart and the mind come into agreement.

When they are in opposition there is dissonance. When there is dissonance in the song of my life, my life is out of harmony with all of creation and with my Creator. The journey is ever before me, but, I long and purpose to sing in harmony with Him. To Him who sings over me with dancing!

                                                          DEALING WITH LIES

The lie has been perpetuated for eons, actually since the beginning of time. You’ve heard it from the world, and sadly enough, even from the church to some extent. You know, the lie that says that God is a cruel task master, a fault finder and condemner. We have been made to believe that He is mad at us over our sin and His job is to make us pay! We are reminded that He sees all and He knows all and therefore we are stripped bare before Him. Everything we have ever done or even thought about doing is exposed to His ever accusing eye! There is no wonder that we have avoided Him like the plague.

Truth be known, we are already too aware of our own sin, even that which we have done in the dark and have hidden out of sight. No one needs a spotlight to help them see what their soul already convicts them of. We may not ever let it pass through our lips, but we “know” we are condemned and we are left hopeless in our inability to change. No matter how fast we run, no matter how far we go, our “not enough” is like a dark shadow we cannot shake. So in vain we try to run from Him, from the one who is all knowing – all seeing. We are certain that we could never survive His judgments.

Can I tell you a secret? He doesn’t want to hand you judgment, but rather His mercy. His heart is NOT to judge you, but to forgive you. In case you have never heard that before, let me say it again. His heart is NOT to judge you, but extend His mercy to you. It’s true that sin has to be paid for. That is why He sent Jesus. The price has already been paid! Jesus came and offered His perfect life in ransom for our wretched one. It makes no sense to the human mind, but then perfect love does not originate in the mind, but from His perfect heart.

Can I tell you another secret? He has the most loving heart of any you will ever know! It supersedes anything you have ever imagined. We’ve never known love like His before. He longs to exchange our filthy rags for His riches. He knew we would mess up and He made a way of escape. He.does.not.want.to.judge.you! He longs only to rescue you!

So don’t listen to the voice yelling at you to run from Him. Rather, listen to His voice which is beckoning you to run toward Him and you will be saved. The day I stopped running was the best day of my life! In His arms you will not find even a hint of condemnation or shame but a wild love for you and radical forgiveness. He’s waiting for you with His arms stretched wide. Won’t you run? I guarantee, it will be the best moment of your life! Run!
 

A Heart Transplanted

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (Prov. 4:23)

Scientist have discovered that our memories can actually be stored in our heart. You can talk to one who has had a heart transplant and they will testify. When they are given a new heart they will actually find themselves living out of a new sense of likes and dislikes. Their life long paradigms are forever changed. One such story was about a 47 year old man receiving a heart from a 17 year old black boy. Following his surgery he suddenly picked up an intense fondness for classical music. The boy whose heart had been donated was killed in a drive-by shooting, still clutching his violin case in his hands.

Of course, this truth is no surprise to our Creator. In Proverbs He urges us to guard our hearts, for it is the wellspring of our lives. The original Hebrew word for "wellspring" can be translated as "boundaries".  Above all priorities, the Lord tells us to guard our hearts, for it will set the boundaries of our life.

Boundaries are like fences. With them we decide what we will allow in and what we will keep out.

Do you remember the first time you felt your heart breaking? When tears flowed and they burned the cheeks with their sting. We were too young to understand what it meant to guard our hearts. But, we weren't too young to decide not to let it happen to us again. They say most of our life paradigms are created before we have our fifth birthday. By age five most of our fence post have already been set and sky high barbed-wire has been set into place.

Sometimes we never make it outside of those small defined boundaries. Sometimes we never allow anything or anyone from the outside to ever make it in to us on the inside.

So much of my defeat as a believer has been due to my fences. I have shut out the impossible to be possible. I come to the promises of God and realize that I want with everything in me to receive them for myself. But even when I believe with my spirit...the fences of my heart keep them from my reach.

Since as early as I can remember, I have always wrestled for value. Not for others, but my own. It has always been easiest to believe others are more important than myself.  I have read the Word. I have memorized the Word. I have also known that my deeply entrenched heart beliefs are in opposition to the very Word in which I treasure.

I began to cry out to the Lord. Repeatedly I asked Him, "how do I change my heart to believe what my spirit knows?" I could never have expected the journey we would take! It wasn't within my paradigm. It was nowhere to be found within my fence-line.

He would not command us to love Him with all of our "heart, soul, mind and strength" if it were not possible . When Jesus walked the earth the first words of His ministry began with "repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand."  If it is at hand...that means it is within reach. This means the power, the truth and the resources of the Kingdom are within reach...but we will have to reach...reach beyond some of the fence post we have erected...beyond what heart boundaries we have been dealt.

He is expanding my fence-lines.  Memories trapped deeply in my heart are being replaced with His. The terrain of my life is simply changing before my eyes. It is becoming more and more like heaven everyday. There is a melody that plays, always quiet, always unseen...it is like a "coming home" where I am forever compelled and drawn to follow. If you quieten your soul...you too will hear it's melody. Above all else...follow it...and you too, will find wide open spaces with skies filled with blue. You will find Kingdom resources just within reach! But, you will have to reach!

You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. (Ps. 38:1)

The Fragrance of Desire

The words slipped off his tongue and went straight to the heart. My heart. Words like I had never heard...so full of grace and mercy they took my breath away. I always sat closer to him than most. Up front and center I seek bread. How many hours had I heard how hard grace was? How many times had I interpreted His words to mean I needed to work harder? But today was different. It was as if the portal of heaven had opened and a piece of peace had floated down deep in my heart when the pastor said "if you have been wrestling with a certain sin and fail to always win...He knows your heart. He does not judge your failure. He sees the desire of your heart to overcome."

Doesn't just hearing those words bring an invitation of warmth and peace to your soul? Weary with wrestling. Hopeless for hope. Lacking...needy. The truth is I would normally squirm with the idea of Him looking into my heart to make a judgement. It smells putrid at times with it's missed intentions and failed attempts to conquer that which seems to conquer me. It's dark in there. It's left wanting.

But, if we're talking about it's desire...that's another story. That's when the music takes a turn towards the light and we could dance our way into glory. It's a spring day and the world is flooded with roses, peonies and daffodils. Desire is fragrance...it is holy.

But as usual, words full of grace always seem "too easy...too good to be true". I think it's because we find ourselves buried under the old testament instead of adorned with the beauty of the new. At first glance grace seems light, but with deeper examination one sees it is much more costly than law. He makes it clear in the gospels that He is now concerned with the intentions of our heart.  In the old, a man was guilty of murder only if his victim fell to his death. In the new, he is guilty of murder if he has anger towards him in his heart.

So why would it surprise me to find that He would look to the intentions of my heart when He looks at the dragon I am trying to slay? Why is it so much easier to imagine that He would judge us more harshly for our lack of overcoming, than to judge us generously for our desire to want to overcome? Without grace we live upside down. We forget that He overcame for us. The desire that pulsates from our heart to "get it right-for righteous sake" is from Him, and to Him it becomes a sweet, sweet fragrance. I hear the birds singing and the breeze dancing all the way to glory! He alone satisfies the desires of my heart!

 

                 

 

Eyes Wide Open

 

 

I come empty handed. Not by accident. It's taken years. But, they are empty.

 

You told me "if I would give You what was in them, You would give me what was in Yours".

 

I'm child-like enough to believe. So I have come again to remind You that they hold nothing...but the hope of Your word.

 

I read the words of another and she shares from a heart of fullness. Details that I would desire to right about in my own story...here and now...but i wait. In the unseen, they are seen. They are like laughter to the child. Like a sunrise to the dying. To me they are faith.

 

So I stand in the emptiness and wait for the fullness.

 

But, I don't stand in silence. My heart sings with wild melody as one who waits with eyes wide open.

 

 

Mountain Experience

Who would imagine the first trip to see the mountains would forever frame my world? I was a Texas "flat-lander". The closest thing to a mountain that I had ever seen was a west Texas hill. It wasn't a mountain, even though it felt like one as I frantically outran a wild hog chasing me into my friends cabin. I was eighteen...and very grateful I had ran track.

Nothing had prepared me for the experience I would have on top of the Sante Fe Ski Resort a couple of years later. I was the only female who made the trip with Clay, my boyfriend, and a group of college guys. I wasn't the only first-timer. But, Clay decided he would be my personal instructor. He saw no need in wasting time on the bunny-slope.

The view was absolutely overwhelming! I was breathless as I tried to get on the chair-lift and take in all of the landscape. I had longed to see this view my whole life. I was so distracted with the beauty I failed to notice that my personal instructor was not taking me to a slope for beginners. Not even an intermediate slope. It might as well have been a triple black! I was in over my head. Yes, I made it down, forty-five minutes later! The first thing to touch that slope was my nose, as I tumbled recklessly out of the lift. On the three day trip I never improved my lift exiting skills. And of course, each time I appeared to do some type of preschool gymnastic maneuver...my handsome instructor came saddling up next to me and heroically put my ski's back onto my embarrassed little ski boots. In order to make it down the mountain I had to do quite the zig-zag approach, in order not to gain more speed than those little ski's could handle. It wasn't Olympic quality...but it worked. Sort of.

It was our last morning there and we only had time for one run before leaving. We were half way up the mountain when we realized a blizzard was moving in. Visibility began to diminish and the bitter cold began to bite. I began to panic as I realized how long it would take me to make the run. Knowing I would not be able to exit the lift without a fall I began to faintly breathe. As if on cue I made my normal exit falling abruptly with both ski's flying out from under me. It was at that moment I heard the loudest clap of thunder imaginable. It was as if it had swallowed me whole. I was frantically calling to Clay who was ten feet in front of me ,to come help me put my ski's on when I realized the lift had stopped just above my head with people stranded on it. Even though I was panicking he refused to come back up towards me and help. I struggled with the ski's as well as why he refused to come to my rescue. But, there wasn't time to argue. I managed to get both ski's on as Clay told me to follow him closely. The slope we had taken was a rather narrow one with nothing but a drop off on one side. Half way down the run we would have to follow a narrow bridge that connected to another mountain which would lead us safely down. If we failed to connect with the bridge we didn't have a clue if the trail would continue. With visibility low, Clay knew I would be safest if I followed his lead.

It couldn't have been more than a couple-hundred feet when visibility became almost impossible. I couldn't see even 10 feet in front of me. Somehow I had lost sight of him. I began to yell but the heaviness of the snow was deafening. I was alone. I was all alone! No matter how loud I yelled only my voice could I hear. I knew no one would be coming from behind me because the lift had stopped in mid-air. How would I know how far to cut over before plummeting over the side of the mountain? How would I ever manage to see the connecting bridge that would lead me to the lodge at the half-way point?

I had lived a life of fear. I knew how fast a pulse could race. How it could sound so loud in my ears in the middle of a dark night. But, I had never thought that this might really be the last moments of my life. To say I was scared would have been a lie. I was so past the point of being scared. I was sure I would never make it out alive. Even if I could keep from falling off of the edge of the mountain would I ever be able to find my way to the bridge. I knew Jesus. I had been saved eight months before the trip. I had heard how He was real. I had read the children's bible when I was young. David and Goliath on a bulletin board of felt. I had prayed but was never certain that I was heard.  But there wasn't time to pray...my eyelashes were freezing and icicles were hanging from my eye brows. Fingers and face were beginning to numb and I knew I had to be close to the bridge. Out of the depths of my soul I frantically cried out "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus". Three words hurled from fear, not faith. Three words that forever changed my world. It was as if the heavens had opened wide and I was in the portal. He flipped a switch somewhere deep within me. It went from full throttle fear to a peace that surpassed understanding. I was still all alone looking for a bridge to life and I found the most unexplainable, the most perfect peace I had ever felt. Everything within me quited like a crying baby nestled to it's mothers breast. I was safe. I was secure. I looked to my right and there was the white laden bridge. I made it to the lodge as if it had been a walk in the park with total peace enveloping me.

Clay explained that lightning had struck the ski lift cable right above my head. He was fearful if he had walked up to help me with my ski's I would have accidentally stepped on the electrical cable which was only a couple inches from touching my boot. He knew if he had told me how close it was I would have turned to look and possibly have been electrocuted in the process. If he had rescued me I would never have known the depths of peace that only Jesus can give. I would have lived short of the miraculous. How many times have I pleaded for flesh to rescue me when Jesus stood in the silence waiting for me to cry to Him?

I no longer saw Jesus as a felt figure on a Sunday School bulletin board. No one could have given me such an immediate sense of peace when adrenaline was pouring from my pores. No one could have ever found the switch in me to push, let alone have had the ability to push it on top of that frozen mountain. He had heard my cry. Not Davids...not Noah's...but mine. He was there. We were all alone, just the two of us. He rescued me with His peace. He gave this flat-lander a mountain top experience she will never forget. Since that day I have never doubted  that He is real. He is alive! He hears my cry! He knows "my" voice! I have been recklessly saved! I have been recklessly loved!

Treasure For The Taking

There is a stirring within me. I have felt it before. It's a new beginning for me. Reminds me of how You hoovered over the chaos in Genesis, the beginning of beginnings. Your Spirit overshadowed that which was unseen, that which appeared to be random disorder and You brought into vision that which could only have been imagined! You are about to do it again. In me. I can always feel Your presence right before You bring order to my disorder. Right before You pull all of the random pieces together to show me what Masterpiece You have been working on. I'm never disappointed.

What order would come from filtering every detail of my days through the Cross and the Resurrection? They are either the filter or their not. There is no in between. How much of life have I limped along as if the Cross was my end. Ticket to Glory in hand...but lame for today? Forgiven and loved...but powerless to rise up with mat in tow. With the earthquake of Calvary rocks were split into...but with the violence of the tomb emptying, the enormous boulder was hurled aside. Linens nice and tidy were all that was found when dust settled! The linens were a picture of an old Hebrew custom which meant 'I will return once again'.

When You return will you find any faithful? It was You that posed the question. I ask myself the same. Will You find me faithful? Will I live as if the Resurrection was truly the grand finale and not the Cross? Will I wear an empty tomb on a chain around the neck instead of a couple of timbers? Will I refuse to allow thoughts or circumstances to dictate my reality? Or will I believe the love letters that You left behind for me? Those written in Your blood with urgency as the verb tense.

Your promises are for the taking. The price already paid. The fullness of the treasures You purchased...awaits me...and for those who believe! Will you find me faithful?