When God Stopped…

As Jesus approached Jericho,

A blind beggar was sitting beside the road.

When he heard the noise of a crowd going past,

He asked what was happening.

They told him that Jesus the Nazarene was going by.

So he began shouting,

“Jesus, Son of David,

Have mercy on me!”

“Be quiet!”

The people in front yelled at him.

But he only shouted louder,

“Son of David, have mercy on me!”

When Jesus heard him,

He Stopped

And ordered that the man be brought to him.

As the man came near, Jesus asked him,

“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord,” he said, “I want to see!”

And Jesus said,

“All right, receive your sight!

Your faith has healed you.”

Instantly the man could see,

And he followed Jesus, praising God.

And all who saw it praised God, too.

~Luke 18:35-43

I love the part where the blind man,

Didn’t give up…

But instead he cried louder…

“Son Of David, Have Mercy On Me!”

“Be Quiet!”,

Hissed the people,

But the blind man cried even louder..

And Jesus stopped.

God Stopped.

“Bring him to Me…”

And He healed the blind man.

OH, how that speaks to me.

OH, how I desire for God to say about me,

“Bring her to Me…”

To know,

To absolutely know

That God Himself wants to draw me to Him.

OH to be held with my head close to His Heart….

OH to know that my voice is heard,

And not drowned out by the crowd,

That mock me,

And tell me to HUSH!

You see,

God saw the sparrow

That just fell in the woods…

How much more does

He see you,

And hear you…

Keep crying out!

Louder if you have to,

Until God stops,

And says,

“Bring her to me…”

Read Full Post »

Alone…

“Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven.

And Elisha saw him no more…

~2 Kings 2:11-12

This story in the Bible about Elijah and Elisha,

Has always made me sad.

God said that He was going to take Elijah away,

And Elisha knew it as well.

Elijah was Elisha’s mentor,

He was his leader,

Elisha leaned on Elijah.

As they were walking towards the Jordan,

A company of men came up to Elisha and said;

“Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master

Away from you today?”

And Elisha replied,

“Yes, I know it,

So be quiet!”

It bothered him.

He knew he was going to have to go back alone…

He knew he was going to have to travel alone…

He knew that he was going to finish the race alone…

The one person he was depending on to be there by his side

Was leaving.

Elisha was going to have to recross the Jordan,

By himself.

Everywhere he had gone with his master before,

He now faced alone.

Alone.

God never intended Elijah to stay with Elisha.

Once upon a time Elijah mentored Elisha,

But then there came a time when Elisha,

Had to put into practice

What he had learned when he was being mentored.

And he had to do it alone.

It is the same for you and me.

There is a season of learning,

And a season of doing.

And the season of doing,

Must be tested alone.

This causes distress inside you…

This causes distress inside of me…

But it must be done.

We have to cross our Jordan’s alone.

God wants us to trust in Him alone.

God wants us to lean on Him alone.

God was with us when we took our first breath,

And He will be with us when we take our last.

Him Alone.

When all is said and done,

It will be Emmanuel,

It will be God With Us….

So we will not really truly,

Be Alone.

Read Full Post »

Whole-Hearted God

Jesus wasn’t half hearted.

Everything He did,

Every prayer He prayed,

Was from His Innermost Being.

It was from His Whole Heart.

I wish I could pray that way.

Even when I am in my prayer room,

And I am praying passionately…

Looking out of my window…

Up into the sky…

I see a bird fly by,

A rabbit dashes in the front yard,

And my eyes are distracted…

My mind flitters for the briefest moment,

And I get off track.

I try to stay undistracted,

I really do,

But I am not capable,

I am not Jesus.

Scripture tells us that He intercedes for us,

He prays for us.

His prayers are perfect,

His prayers are undivided,

And His Love causes His prayers

To be wholehearted.

When He was praying in the

Garden of Gethsemane,

As He pleaded with God,

His prayers were so intense,

That He sweat blood…

His thoughts were for you,

His thoughts were for me,

He yielded to The Fathers Will,

And went to the cross for us.

His Great Love causes

His Heart and His Prayers to be,

Fixed and Steady,

On you,

On me.

We can Trust Him

To hear our prayers,

Because He understands

Our frailties as we pray to Him.

As we talk to Him…

He steps in and becomes the strength we lack,

As we seek to speak with Him,

And tell Him our needs,

He steps alongside of us,

And whisks our burdens out of our hands,

Into His,

And makes them Perfect.

As only

The Whole-Hearted,

 Perfect Intercessor  can.

Read Full Post »

BE STILL…

When I read of Who God Is

I realize I do not KNOW

Who God Is.

When I read of how the

Seraphim and the Cherubim

Fall down before His Throne

Crying

“Holy, Holy, Holy”

I stop.

I shut my mouth.

I do not want to utter rash and hasty words….

For He is God in Heaven,

And I am only one of the billions of people,

That walk on earth.

I know that He sees me,

I know that He hears me,

I know that He cares for me,

Yet….

My soul quiets itself,

When I think of

HIM.

Those stars….

The heavens…

The vast universe…

“Hello God…

You tell me You hear me, You tell me You see me…

But when  I truly try to comprehend you,

I cannot.

You already see my last day,

You already hear my last breath,

What can I tell you?

What can I advise you?

What makes me think I can try to control my days…

My future…?

My future is in Your Hands Alone.

Please forgive me for trying to take over.

Please forgive me for trying to take control.

Even after I have sat at Your Feet

For ten thousand years,

I will still not grasp

Who You Are.

Except,

Except for the fact that

I am told that I can call You

Papa.

And that comforts my soul,

When I gaze into the massive starry night…

I can sleep tonight,

Knowing the Creator of the Universe,

Calls me His Child,

And is watching over me.

Amen.”

Read Full Post »

Who is God The Father…God the Papa……

It seems all I want to do lately is spend time alone with God.

I hear music and it makes me think of how He created music…

I see the blue, blue skies of Colorado,

And it makes me think of how He created them for me just this morning….

I sip my warm cup of coffee and smile…

Everything makes me think of Him.

Him.

God the Creator

God the Father…..

Once upon a time,

Not that long ago,

I used to ask who

God the Father was….

I knew Jesus.

I experienced the Holy Spirit,

But God the Father…

He seemed so distant…

So very, very far away…

He was the disapproving One,

The frowning One,

The disappointed-in-me One.

So, I stayed at a distance,

And spent time talking to Jesus.

Yes, they are Three-In-One,

But the only One I thought cared of the Triune,

Was Jesus.

Then one day, my heart heard Him called Papa.

Papa.

Heavenly Papa.

The name Heavenly Father still sounded aloof….

But Papa….

Papa is a name you run to,

Not run from.

My heart began to wonder about the Heavenly Papa…

My heart began to glance at Him….

My heart began to yearn for Him.

Wondering if this Heavenly Papa really did actually Love me…

And not frown on me…

And so quietly, every morning,

I began to dare to slip into my prayer room,

Gather my blanket over me,

Sip my cup of warm coffee,

And whisper…

“Papa, Heavenly Papa, Good Morning….I love you”

And I would feel His welcoming reply…

“I Love you too my precious daughter…..

I Love you too.”

Read Full Post »

Loneliness…

We were created for Relationship…

God is relational.

God said, “Let US create man in OUR own Image.”

God is the Father,

God is the Son,

God is the Holy Spirit.

God is Three-In-One.

God desired to have a relationship with us.

God walked in the garden with Adam.

God laughed with Adam,

God sang with Adam,

God and Adam were friends.

God created Adam with free will and free choice

So that Adam could freely laugh and sing and walk of his own choosing with God.

Adam had choices and decisions to make and one day he chose wrong.

He chose to follow a deceiver instead of his Friend.

God came looking for Adam….

Adam hid.

It was the first time fear had entered into the heart of man

And man ran.

And God ran after man.

God did not turn away from his precious creation

God came calling out for his friend…

The friend that He Loved.

But sin had entered the heart of Adam

Adam felt it and hid.

Just like a child, he hid.

The only solution was for God Himself to pay for Adams sin choices.

He had to.

No one else could.

No created being was sinless.

Because of Adam, the seed of sin was planted inside the rest of humanity.

So God Himself stepped down from Heaven,

Came in the form of the most helpless creatures on earth,

A human baby.

God the Son, Jesus, allowed the whipping and the punishment,

Designed for man, to come to Him.

He had always been in perfect relationship with God the Father,

He never knew what it was like to be separated from God the Father.

When He died on the cross and the great exchange took over,

He cried out,

My God, My God,

Why have you forsaken me?

Jesus became sin for us,

So He felt the loneliness and abandonment that sin always produces,

Except that in His case,

It was not His sin

 It was ours….

For the first time ever God the Son experienced loneliness…

So that you and I could experience relationship.

God missed His walks with man,

God missed His talks with man

God wanted that relationship back,

So He pursued us as only a Great Lover could…

No more loneliness for you,

No more loneliness for me.

Thank you Jesus.

Thank You.

Read Full Post »

He Bends down and Listens…

I love the Lord because he hears my prayers and answers them.

 Because he bends down and listens,

~Psalm 116:1-2

If you saw God

With your own two eyes,

Pausing…..

Stopping…

Turning Around to face you,

And then Bending down to listen to you…..

Would that absolutely melt your heart?

Psalm 116 says this is

Exactly what God does.

He Bends Down to Listen.

He is listening to you….

You are not insignificant.

Each tear that slips down your cheek,

He catches…

He holds onto.

God speaks tenderly to us in the book of Jeremiah

And says….

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb…”

He knew us BEFORE

And still he created us.

He knew us….

He knew our sins..

He knew our backsliding,

He knew our rebellious heart,

And yet…..

And yet, He created us.

He gave us our laugh,

He gave us our sense of humor,

He gave us our minds,

And He gave us our mouth to talk to Him….

So that’s why He bends down to listen…..

Read Full Post »

Bitter ~ Sweet

And we know that God causes all things

To work together for good

To those who love God,

To those who are called according to His purpose.

~Romans 8:28

Value of one ounce of Gold ~$1,151.00

Value of one ounce of Silver ~$15.31

Value of Painful Lesson ~Priceless…

“God Never Wastes Our Pain”

~Joyce Meyer

Oh how I have wished that my life would be free of pain….

Oh how I have longed for a life of zero regret…..

If only I had shut my mouth instead of opening it…

Or opened my mouth when I held it tight…..

Sometimes I inwardly cringe when I think of my wounds.

Wounds caused by me…cause me to wince.

I hurt less at wounds that others have given me;

But the wounds I have given out…..

That’s a whole other story.

“And we know that God causes ALL things to work together for our good…”

Hopefully I have learned….

Hopefully I am not on repeat…

I pray that today I am one day wiser than I was yesterday,

And tomorrow I will be one day wiser than today.

I do know this.

If it hadn’t been for the pain in my life,

I would only be half of the person I am today.

I remember the days when I was pretty confident that I was Good.

Those were my younger years……..much younger years.

In my 20’s I knew Everything.

In my 30’s I knew it All.

In my 40’s I wondered if I knew Anything.

And now in my 50’s…

I simply know God.

It was in my 20’s and 30’s that I caused the most pain…

Then In my 40’s, my pain came crashing down around me.

When I woke up in my 50’s, standing in the midst of the rubble,

Was God.

He never left me.

He simply stood right beside me thru the storm…

Yes, I have learned from my pain,

But had I never actually made the mistakes and went thru the pain,

I would still be as arrogant as I was in my 20’s…

And in my 30’s…

You see,  God Used My Pain to teach me a Priceless Lesson.

The lesson I learned was that I Needed Him….

If I had not fallen I would never know that I needed help.

I was raised to be Good.

I did all the right things.

One day God said, “Let me show her what is Really inside her heart…”

And when the dust had settled…

And all the anger and bitterness had spewed out.

I said, “Oh”

“I didn’t know that was inside me…”

God did.

He knew all along and Loved me enough to reveal it to me.

Even though I wince when I think of it,

And I wince when I think of all the pain I caused….

I value my Painful Lesson,

Priceless.

Read Full Post »

Searching….

“Perhaps there are those who are able to go about their lives…

Unfettered by such concerns…

But for those like us…

Our fate is to face the world as orphans,…

Chasing through long years…

The shadows of vanished parents.”

‘When We Were Orphans’

by

~ Kazuo Ishiguro,

At some point in our life, we all feel like orphans.

We all want to Really Truly Know that God the Father loves us,

Yet we doubt that it is possible.

Our search for anything begins with our search for God.

There is nothing more sad then a child thats been abandoned…

Left to fend for himself, all alone…

The rest of his life he will go searching and wandering about…

Trying to find his identity…

Wondering if he was ever loved…

But that is how we all are internally without fully comprehending,

Our Heavenly Father’s Love for us.

Why is the Great Lie so intense,

That it shouts that others are Loved by God….

But we are not.

We’ve been abandoned…

We are all alone.

I truly believe that all of our pushing our way past the crowds..

Climbing our ladders to success…

Fighting our way to the top…

Is simply the little child within us searching…

For the Affirmation of God the Father’s Love.

Once we can completely believe the Truth of His Love,

Then and only then…

We can stop the search…

And We Can Rest.

Read Full Post »

Insults that Heal…

Father Jonathan Morris had this happen to him yesterday in NYC:

“Walking down Broadway and 22nd St just now, I ran into gay marriage parade.

Two men walked by and spat on me…

Oh well… I deserve worse.”

Here is another story I read about the same thing happening to Mother Teresa:

One day Mother Teresa went to a local bakery

to ask for bread for the starving children in the orphanage.

The baker, outraged at people begging for bread from him,

spat in her face and refused.

Mother Teresa calmly took out her handkerchief,

wiped the spit from her face and said to the baker,

“Okay, that was for me.

Now what about the bread for the orphans?”

The baker, shamed by her response,

gave her the bread she wanted.

I was having a rough morning this morning….

I woke up mad.

Mad about a situation that has my entire life been a trigger for me.

I tend to think that most triggers in people’s lives have to do with their inside more than their outside.

Anything that insults who they are on the inside, vs. merely the outside.

Being slapped in the face, and being spit upon hurts the flesh it’s true, but what it really brings out is the character that broods on the inside.

The Reaction is the True Person.

When you take a grape and apply pressure to the outside, what spills out is the inside.

What was spilling out of me this morning was not sweet grape juice, but instead was indignation at how I felt I was treated.

I was mad at the person who spit on me.

I had to go into my prayer room, and get right with God.

Over and over God says, ‘You will be forgiven to the EXTENT of your forgiveness’

I cannot expect God to forgive me my sins against Him (and EVERY sin is a sin against Him…)

And not forgive those who have sinned against me.

I am not saying that they have NOT sinned against me, of course they have…

What I am saying is their sin is no greater than mine, and to the extent I forgive them, God will forgive me.

I can honestly say that if two people had literally spit upon me this morning, I would not have simply wiped it off, but I would have been angry……

But now…

Two hours later……

After having my quiet time asking forgiveness from the Lord….

I have been shown that my heart is just as ugly as any others….

And that God allows the fiery trials in my life to not burn me up..

But instead, to purify me, and make me more like Him…

And less like me…

Read Full Post »