The Master Planner

Psalm 32:8 "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you."

This journey called life is one full of many choices and decisions as we as Christians are attempting to discover God's SPECIFIC plan for our lives. I write about this often, that I know, but I guess I seem to never fully grasp the reality of a sovereign God. I tend to make figuring out God's will for my life so much more difficult then need be; although I wouldn't say it, I think I expect God to come out of the clouds and write with a giant marker in the sky. It is one thing for me to say with my mouth that I believe God is good and working and that it will all work out for His glory and my good but when the forks in the road come, the trials and the times when I am led to a place of making a choice/decision is when all the head knowledge is tough to translate to my heart. But thanks be to God who somehow strengthens and enables me to remember Truth and to trust even when everything within my flesh says no.

Something that I have had to remind myself of over and over again is that the Bible IS the general road map for our life, but as Ephesians 2:10 says there are SPECIFIC plans for each person and it is that area where things in my mind get tough. The questions pour in...What college do I go to? What major do I invest in? What ministry do I serve in? What job do I take? Who do I marry? Where am I supposed to live? and the list goes on. But do we realize that God has PREPLANNED your entire life? I LOVE THAT TRUTH! There is hope and encouragement in the fact that my decisions aren't contingent upon God's ultimate plan for my life.

I recently listened to a message from years ago by my Pastor Mike Fabarez about this very topic and how to really know God's plan for our life and was so encourage as we looked at the life of Abner and his disobedience in 2 Samuel 2:8-3:1

There were three general principles Pastor Mike reminded me of that I want to encourage with each of you in hopes that you will be so encouraged and reminded that OUR GOD IS IN CONTROL!

First, you can't fight God's plan so don't! My HS youth pastor used to always say, your arms are too short to box with God so why even try; how true is that?! How often do we do this, we are fighting God's will in the secret recesses of our heart. Be still my child He says, and obey and yet we so often don't. We want to do what we want or we think that we somehow have to help God out, but that is not what the Bible teaches. There are so many example sin Scripture where people supressed the leading of God in their life and yet what happened in the end? They ended up doing what God wanted because His will will be accomplished, no matter what. The question comes then, is God telling you to do a good work for Him but you are scared to? You don't understand how you can? Or you don't want to? Stop rattling off escuses and oey! It is hard to fight against the goads right? In 2 Samuel we see the story of Abner and how he tried to do things in his own way but what we soon find out that he finally obeys and God gives him victory...go read the story in 2 Samuel 2-3 and see how and why you can't fight God's plan for your life!

Next we need to avoid the shortcuts. This is a tough one for me especially because we live in a microwave society where we get what we want when we want it, we aren't used to waiting. But God doesn't work like the world does He?! And satan is right there ready to tell you take this shortcut to get God's plan for you, but shortcuts really are detours in disguise. Remember that!

And lastly, we need to think longterm. When God purposes something for your life He deosn't mean that have a problem making you wait for it. We hate that because again we want things when we want them, but don't you think that the God of the universe knows better than you or me? I think so, rather I KNOW SO! It will be worth the wait, the desires of your heart will be worth the wait. David was promised to be king and had to wait 21 years for that to come to pass. Don't think shortterm or you might get discouraged because God doesn't think shortterm, He things long term as He works His redemptive plan and your life to fit into that. God's plans for you are good but He doesn't give them to you overnight. And we need to be willing to wait so we become the people God wants us to be, God has a plan and we need to be faithful and trust His way!

All in all we need to trust God, we need to obey His leading in our life even when we don't understand and KNOW that He is will guide as Psalm 25:12 says, "Who is the man who fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way he should choose."

Truth vs Feelings

"Truth renews the mind. Indeed, the truth which would affect the heart, which moves the heart, which changes the heart, must first enter through the vestibule of the mind if it would enter the sanctuary of the heart. The intention of truth preached is to affect the emotions and the will and the heart and the whole of our humanity…and thus preaching must come first through the mind. It makes its appeal through the mind; it enters through the mind – but it doesn’t simply stop with the mind." -John Armstrong

I hate my flesh! I hate that I am encased in a body that naturally defaults to sin, thats every desire and motivation will always be antithetical to God in and of its own doing. BUT on the flip side I am SO thankful for the grace of God that came, saved me and put His Holy Spirit within me so that I would be able to not live in obedience to my flesh or as Romans 6:6 says, "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,that we should no longer be slaves to sin—" , my old self was crucified with Christ! But, the fact of the matter is that although my sin problem has been dealt with completely and judicially it hasn't been practically done away with; what I mean is that until the day I meet Jesus face to face, I will live in a fallen body that is poisned by sin and therefore it will be a constant struggle, a battle until the day I die.

One thing in particular I hate about my flesh is feelings. Now don't get me wrong, emotions are a good God-given thing, it feels great to experience happiness or excitement, hope and anticipation but what I am talking about is the emotions that derail me from trusting and affirming what is true and right, those feelings that creep in in tough times or circumstances that bring doubt, confusion, worry, anger...and the list goes on; the feelings that come from the sinful flesh and are allied with the enemy. The quote at the beginning of this blog by Armstrong I think hits the hammer on the head of the nail, emotion or feelings are fine when they are IN RESPONSE to Truth, not the other way around.

I guess what I am trying to get at is the fact that we as humans, especially girls for some reason, tend to base our decisions and reactions to circumstances upon the emotions or feelings we have at the moment as opposed to what we know to be True and right. Philippians 4:8 is one of my life verses because it in short reminds me to daily "THINK TRUTH", and as Corinthians reminds us, anything that isn't needs to be taken captive to the obedience of Christ. This goes against everything the world is telling us to do, as all things that are God honoring usually do, it is telling us to live by what we know to be True even when our feelings and emotions tell us to repsond, react or feel otherwise. But how on earth do we do that? How do we as Christians, encased in a body prone to sinful thoughts and feelings THINK TRUTH?? I have found three things that are practically helpful in this battle that will last until we meet our Jesus face to face.

- BE IN THE WORD DAILY
If we are not in the Word daily we are not going to be mediating and fixated on the promises of it throughout the day, lets be honest, the days that we fail to be in the Word are the days that we tend to live by our feelings more than by His Truth. Psalm 119 is a great chapter in Scripture that reminds us that the law must be "mediated on day and night" and is what will "perserve your life". If we are in the Word daily, especially in the morning, we will start our day with FACT and not feelings and it will set the course for our mind and heart to pursue HIS way rather than our emotions.

-MEMORIZE HIS WORD
There are going to be times when we forget, or choose to forget God's promises and what is True and right and the emotions will flood in and we will want to think about things that arent "true": it is in these moments that those scriptures that we have placed in our heart will enable us to think upon what is True and FACT as opposed to feeling, as Psalm 119:11 says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. "

-TAKE EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE
2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Although the context is not specifically about your "feelings" the idea and principle remains the same, that we need to be taking anything that comes into our minds and measuring it up to the Word of Truth to see if it is God-honoring, True and edifying and if not what do we do? DEMOLISH IT!

My encouragement to each of you, and to myself, is that we would seek to live by what is fact, which is the Word of God (the Truth that we live by) and not by what our feelings tell us, which are often stemming from the sinful flesh which we are indwelled by. And what is the result? Well as Psalm 119:1 says, we will be blessed (happy) "Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD"

Grace...Oh SO Amazing

Recently I have been going through a refining period of my life, a practical time of sanctification, and continual circumstances that test and reaffirm my trust and dependence upon the Lord; it has been during these times that my precious salvation has become more and more real and more and more precious to me. During my times with the Lord for the past few weeks "Amazing Grace" has been on repeat and the more I listen to it the more I amazed I truly am at the grace the Lord has given me. When I look around at the world we live in I am humbled continually by the realization that it is by grace that I have been saved, it was HIM who opened my eyes to the Truth, it was HIM who made me alive in Christ through His death and resurrection and dead to sin, and it is HIM who makes me more like Jesus day by day.

I can't thank my Jesus enough for the work that He has begun in my heart and in my life, and through it all, the good and the bad, I have seen His steady hand working and have been so encouraged by His provision, grace, strength, comfort, joy and peace. When I think about the suffering and hardship that I have endured, I am reminded of James 4:14, "For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanishes away" and the reality that we are here on this earth for but a moment...in the grand scheme of things, of eternity, this life is but a speck; when you have that perspective, everything changes! You begin to realize that the temporary things of this life aren't worth your time and your cravings and longings become more eternally focused. But again, all of these things are coming by His grace...His amazing grace.

The last verse of Chris Tomlin's version of amazing grace encourages me the most because it is the hope of what is to come, the glory that has yet to be revealed, and the promise that we have been longing for day after day...

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine

May our hearts forever be focused on His grace...for it is nothing short of AMAZING!

Fully Dependent

This week has been one of the toughest both physically and emotionally as well as one of the most peaceful and blessed. Let me explain...Being sick the past few days has enabled me to do a lot of praying, meditating, thinking and well realizing; what have I realized, yet again...the fact of how dependent upon my God I truly am for EVERYTHING. As simple and maybe foolish it may sound, I have realized that a lesson even in my moment of weakness being sick is the fact that it is by His grace that I even can have the strength to get up in the morning. It's funny to me that I forget these simple truths so often and take so many of the simple blessings in life for granted, that I have to be thrown on my back or have a moment of suffering in order to realize my utter dependency upon my Jesus. As much as I hate being in a place of weakness, sickness, trial or suffering, I have come to realize that it is in these moments in my life that I find true joy because I can experience the love of Jesus in a more acute way than in any other time in my life.

During the past week there have been a few verses that have pulled me through:

1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

and

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect[a] the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

and

Isaiah 26:3 " You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you."

All three of these promise very different things, but all three of these show the character of my God; a God who is all-powerful, a God who is faithful, a God who has planned out each moment of my life, a God who is working in the midst of ALL things, a God who is making me, His daughter more like His Son, and a God who provides a joy and a peace to me as HE enables me to trust Him. Oh the precious blood of Jesus that has enabled me to experience this fellowship with the God of the universe. It is so amazing to me that the God of the universe desires to have a relationship with me, that He would enable me to daily trust Him, and that He would choose to allow me to suffer for His sake in order to make me more like Christ. You may be thinking I am talking crazy at this point, but for those of you who have been through tough times, the fire, through suffering and pain, you relate because you know that it is in the valleys in which you experience God's love in a fresh new way.

My favorite song in all of history is a hymn written by Horatio Spafford. Horatio wrote the hymn shortly after his only son and four daughters died and all of his fortune had been ripped from his hands in a moment. In what the world looked at at as the lowest point in Horatio's life, a time of terrible suffering and pain, tragedy really, Horation saw as a triumph and a time of refining because the strength of His Father in Heaven. Before I leave you with some of the precious words penned by Horatio, remember you are FULLY DEPENDENT; may you be encouraged that wherever you are, in trial and suffering or in triumph and joy, to run to your Jesus and find joy in His salvation, find strength in His power and find peace in His perfection. May we sing as the great hymn writer did, Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say, it is well with my soul!

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."

Strength in Surrender

I remember clearly the moment that I surrendered my life to the Lord; I remember the tears I shed and the feeling of a burden being lifted from my back that I would no longer have to bear. Matthew 11:30 says, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I remember thinking why me? and marveling at the amazing grace that had been freely given, and in that moment all seemed so right. Since then, my life has been full of many trials and triumphs that have built upon that foundational moment in my life. What I have learned time and time again is that there is no more precious and comforting place then at the foot of the cross, clinging to my Jesus and depending fully on Him.

Surrender, it is a powerful word and brings many visuals to mind. The actual definition of the word is to give up, an acceptance of despair, to give up after defeat. The Biblical definition of the word is to give into the hands of another, into the power of another; to deliver to one to take care of and manage; to give itself up. I love the idea and the picture of surrender presented all throughout Scripture because along with it comes full dependence on the one you are surrendering to, Jesus Christ. Throughout our lives as Christians we are called to surrender situations, relationships/people, trials, sins, etc. to the Lord allowing Him to bear the burden, the load that we can't carry on our own.

Recently I have been face to face with this very thing as I have had to surrender some serious things to the Lord in full dependence and reliance upon Him and His perfection. Despite the promise I have in who He is and the promise that He will work all things together for good (Romans 8:28-29), my sinful human flesh desires to control situations and to want to know all the answers or to make people SEE the Truth for what it is; but the truth is "I" can't! I must rely on Him to do the work, I am simply the sower and He is the grower!

There is such a peace that is found at the foot of the cross in complete surrender as you lay your burdens down. Isaiah 26:3 has been a constant reality for me, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." I am so blessed to have a Father in heaven who wants to bear my burdens, who wants me to surrender all to Him, to as the Biblical definition says, "manage and take care of me". I have found that in surrender there is strength, a power that you can't explain, a joy that can't be hidden. I am so amazed at who HE is and what He has done and am hopeful of all He has yet to do.

My prayer for you is that you too will find hope and comfort and strength in surrender at the precious feet of the One who saved you, who loves you, who comforts and protects you, and who will take care of you forever more!