With all of My Heart…

From Matt Redman’s book “The Unquenchable Worshipper – Coming Back to the Heart of Worship” (published by Regal Books Copywrite @2001 Matt Redman)

This afternoon I played Matt Redman’s song “Undignified.” It is a captivating song that gets right to the heart of King David, you know, the king who danced with all his might when he brought the the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem.

Have you ever been so overjoyed that you hooted and hollered and expressed your joy at something without looking around to see who was looking? I know I have! David was so exuberant with his worship that he became unrestricted just to dance with “all his might.” It was a public display that showed a heart that was passionate about his God.

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However, can we imagine the embarrassment that welled up in David’s wife Michal, so much that their relationship would never the same. For she came to despise David for his unruly public display of worship.

In the book Matt says:

“One of the Hebrew words for praise, hallal, means to be clamorously foolish or mad before the Lord. (That’s where we get our word “hallelujah.”) In a “reasons to be passionate” competition, the church of God should come an easy first; yet too often we find ourselves lagging way behind in this area. Isn’t it time we saw a bit more holy mayhem in our worship?”

I am in agreement with Matt’s opinion that we don’t give all the honor and praise that is due our King. We can rant and rave at sporting events and our kids games, but turn around and remain solemn before our glorious King? Heaven’s no! Let me be a fool for Christ’s sake and let my praise simply magnify my adoration for all He is and all He has done! 

KD Worship

Maybe your heart bubbles up and down when you worship the king, an expression that comes simply from your love for Him. I can only say that I hope so! I dare not judge one’s heart toward the Lord, but how exciting it would be for God to see our hearts filled with joy just to be standing in His presence and expressing our commitment and love for Him! Get engaged and give Him all you’ve got!

Lord, my heart’s desire is to give you everything in my expression of worshiping you for who You are and praising You for all you’ve done and will continue to do. Let my praise be a delight to Your ears. I will be undignified for you Lord, as I worship You with all my might!

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Wearing Blinders

13cdc-dscf2193The young girl asked, “What are those things by the horses eyes?  How can he see?”  The owner of the beautiful Percheron pair said “They are blinders and they keep the horse from being spooked or surprised (especially when pulling a sled full of people.)”  Which is just what we were getting ready to enjoy!

These are 1,600 pound horses that could do a lot of damage if they were spooked not to mention that one step on a someone and wow, I think you would break!  We had a delightful ride and my, that pair pulled a sled with 8 adults and 10 kids ranging in size and age.We had a marvelous time and we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful winter day.  By the end of our hour long ride it began to snow and although beautiful, it was somewhat heavy and wet, it all timed out beautifully!

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Snowflake Divider

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As I pondered the thought of blinders I realized that in essence we all should be wearing spiritual blinders.  When I think of how easily we can be pulled this way or that in our thinking, (by the the wiles of the enemy of our soul) I think yes, that is just want he wants to do with us. He spooks us into old behavior, getting us off our target, causing us to sin and be filled with regret and if that isn’t enough he gets us to feel guilty. He is so sneaky!

Favorite verses in Philippians 3 remind us to keep our eyes on the prize so that we will attain the goal in sight. That’s how we don’t become distracted and pulled away from that goal!

The Message Paraphrase puts it this way:

Friends, don’t get me wrong:  By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

Phil 3.13-14

If we do likewise, then we really can’t use excuses when we get pulled away and tempted to walk contrary to our Christ life.  God has certainly given us everything we need to literally be armed and dangerous.  I like that thought! We just need to read and lean into Ephesians 6 and remind ourselves of the armor God gives us to use, applying the armor daily just like the horseman.  He dresses his horses to protect them and others!

So, do you have your blinders on today?

Father, I can’t make excuses when I fall, you have fully equip me to stand the wiles of the enemy who would love nothing other than to trip me and then watch me fall. And, he would get double for his effort if I caused someone else to fall.  So guard my heart Lord, may I be armed and watchful and a trustworthy example keeping  my gaze upon the end result of an eternity with You!

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I Need Help!

I Need Help!

This is a funny request because I am asking for your input!

When we build into the lives of those we connect with, it is like sitting them down and giving them a really good and nourishing meal. A meal that not just satisfies but also helps them grow and be healthy.

That’s what speaking words of life to one another is all about, right?

Well here’s the deal, I am looking for suggestions consisting of one or two words to use as a category for a section in my blog that will be used for you mommas to build into your kids lives. I would say ages 4-9. There will be the Word and then an activity for your kid(s) to do to help them understand the Word being implanted in their heart. I am so excited to do this!

So right now I have several suggestions but would love more to choose from! Will you help me find the just right wording? Looking for something catchy, fun and hits the mark!

Here is what I have thus far:Proverbs 22-6

Building Blocks

Little Nuggets

  • Treasure Building
  • Truth Nuggets
  • Nuggets of Truth
  • Building Treasure
  • Milk & Cookies
  • Building Character(s)
  • Proverbs 22:6

Or if you particularly like one of the above and it caught your attention please let me know!

Oh, and thanks for your help! Who knows if your suggestion won’t be used!

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Failure, It Just Stinks!

Do you know your love language? I learned a few years back that my primary love language is Words of Affirmation. I almost think this doesn’t qualify as gift! You see, I am a “Words of Affirmation” girl, and it is so hard on me when I screw up. If you bless me with a compliment, I can go for miles and miles. Point out my failures and I am devastated and obsess with the situation for days. I can’t quit thinking of my flub and frankly it sucks!

Line BreakWhen needed, I am a fill-in worship leader (in my church.) I love to lead worship although it is a bit trickier for one who didn’t grow up with traditional worship and hymns to lead for the traditional service. For two weeks in a row a friend and I helped cover the traditional worship service and for some crazy reason it just didn’t go well for me.

The second week was worse than the first because I didn’t know a couple of older songs very well, argh…I really messed up! Bless the hearts of the congregation as they sang those familiar songs without missing a beat! I even forgot the call to worship which starts us out. This was just crazy and I really felt like I made a fool of myself.

Because I only sort of read music and sing by ear, if I know a song I’m fine but for one not so well known it can really get tricky when there are four verses and I have to try to follow the music and read words.

It drives me crazy how I react once I blow it. I feel just like a freak in front of perfect people and I become devastated! You know there won’t be any words of affirmation to greet you as you exit. As a matter of fact, people will tend to avoid you or if they do brave talking to you it is going to be about the weather, ha! Weather is such a safe place to navigate.

I wish that was all! But to make matters worse was my performance based other half who couldn’t wait to ask why I messed up and not just on one but two songs. I wanted to scream and cry all at once! And I didn’t reply very humbly when he asked what the other worship leader had to say. So my retort was far from grace-filled when I said that she is so filled with love and grace that she would have just given me a big hug and said that she has been there. That shut him up in a hurry!

Yes, I have thought about this for way too long. And yes, once again I am admitting to my tendency to be a people pleaser. I know there is a healthy balance between doing your best and pleasing people to satisfy your affirmation craving! But I have to remind myself that I am not perfect and that I will make mistakes.

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As a worship leader, my responsibility is to lead the congregation into worship. If I hold myself to performing then I am defeating the purpose and losing focus of my audience of One. He alone is who I want to please, first and foremost. He knows my heart and the intent.

In Darlene Zschech’s book, Extavagant Worship, she points out:

“The disciples whom Jesus chose to have around Him were an imperfect bunch of people to spread the Gospel to the ends of the Earth.”

Somehow this makes me feel a bit better about messing up!

So I am at it again this week and like they say about falling off of a horse, you have to get right back up there and try again. I have reckoned with my heart and I have dealt with my shame and frustration (which doesn’t really do a person any good anyway!) I know Who I love and Who loves me so I will trust that this Sunday’s worship will go much better than the last time.

Psalm 103-8

Maybe you have had to contend with your failures, how did you dealt with your mistake?

Is there something that you do or tell yourself after messing up or miss the mark somewhere?

And finally, how do you think God feels about you when you mess up? Did His love for you drop a notch because you didn’t hit the right notes?

I know my Father’s love and if His mercies are new every day then we need to exercise grace to ourselves and others who may fail now and again.

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.”  Psalm 103:8

For this truth I am so grateful!

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Oh Momma…You Set the Temperature

Psalm 37-3,4Have you ever wanted to be influential? Guess what, you really are! You set the thermometer in your home from hot to cold or pleasantly in between. As your morning, begins you have the opportunity to influence your ‘family’s’ day!

I love mornings that begin with peace. I am a morning person—I don’t fight to get up and get moving–but we all have bad days! Days when you get up and stub your toe on the leg of the bed while headed to the bathroom! And hit a pool of cat vomit on the rug just outside that place you were  heading, ARGH, try to recompose yourself now! (You may have even let some choice words slip out of your mouth during navigation to get the dampened paper towels! Don’t you just hate mornings like that?

So now what? Did I totally blow my morning? How do I go about to regroup my thoughts and move forward? Here is where if you continue blindly into the next phase of the day (breakfast for the fam?) you must make a decision!

  1. Continue without realigning your attitude and heart—won’t that help to brighten the day!
  2. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is just the beginning to an interesting day. Or…
  3. On your way to do whatever is next, take a few minutes to refocus with prayer and praise.

If you continue on (without dealing with the frustration that just happened,) you risk a morning with discouragement or even regret that can be passed on to your household members, be they little people or big people. And what if one of them didn’t wake up all joy-filled? Hmmm, that might heighten the tension just a bit!

Maybe you are on a mission to get to the next phase of the morning and get the breakfast started, so you just breathe in and proceed. Well you may do fine or you might fall prey to another interesting incident in the next stretch, burn the cereal you are cooking, while helping that little one dress a couple of buttons pop off (yikes, then what, you don’t have time to sew them on and the laundry is piled high!

Well, try this…how about a minute or two to where you look away from your stuff and look to the Father. Remind yourself that He is part of your day from the get go! Purposefully redirected your thoughts to the only place where peace can be your covering for the day. Does this mean that something else won’t happen? Of course not! Life happens and our responsibility is to respond in a way that will prohibit our attitude from remaining skewed (or like I say rotten!)

A beautiful place to go to get your mind off of your circumstances and on to the Father would be: Psalm 8:3-4 from the Message Paraphrase…

“I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?”

Get your mind fixed on truth…God loves you and that is why He is mindful of you and your good or rotten morning. Praise His name for loving you and let Him know you are sorry for your stinky thinking. By praising Him your difficulties will greatly diminish in size so that you will be able to take a deep breath and brave greeting the next leg of your daily journey!

Look, I do it all the time! Often enough that I know the difference that a few moments of God-talk can make in my home, with my family and me!

Remember you are covered and God has a plan for your day! So continue on…you have set your thermometer to a pleasant 70 degrees and that should make the day get off to a lovely start!

If you need more encouragement you can visit Arabah Joy and #GraceandTruth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Sj6TmSG4w

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In a Perfect World…

Why are relationships so difficult? Why do I do things that irritate people? Why are there people who totally annoy me? Sometimes I just want to go where I won’t ever have to deal with people and all of their stuff!!! Well…wait a minute…I wonder how many people say those things and think of me? Plain and simple, relationships are hard stuff.

Imagesbyozzie As I was pondering what lessons God has wanted me to learn in this season, and immediately remembered that He is teaching me what “love one another” is all about.  You see…when we refuse to abide by this mandate, then we give the enemy a foothold. This will develop into a stronghold and it gets harder and harder to deal with the situation and do the right thing. Laying aside ourselves to take up the concerns of others!

Just look what this passage in Colossians says from the Message paraphrase: “When you love someone you just want to spend time with them and that’s good because that is how relationship is cultivated.”

That just might be the easy part unless you have kids and schedules or work full-time.  Making the effort with those commitments can get a bit sticky! However if we need to hang in there even when things get weird. Oh my do I know that that’s like and when it happens, I just want to escape and try not to deal with it. But that’s not the way to do it. That’s when I need to expend some effort to mend the hole created by an unkind word or a misunderstanding. I sure don’t want to take up an offense!

Colossians 3:12-14  So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Put on love, in other words it should be the first item on when you awaken and the last off before bedtime. And if you have a spouse then I guess you need it 24/7!

It is a big, and sometimes consuming job–all this relationship stuff! But you see, I have been given the mind of Christ. That means that I must gradually begin to adapt to Christ’s nature in me, as I journey through the tough stuff. Even though I have bad days, don’t I get a break here? Probably not if I am going to attain my goal. (Man, some days it can be a tough row to hoe!) And if you struggle with unconditional love like I do it can be even more difficult. But I am learning and it helps to take a look backward to see all that God has forgiven in me. This new garment of love takes a concerted effort to put and keep on, daily.

What can you do when relationships get sticky?

How difficult is it to wrangle your pride and admit that you may have had a role in an uncomfortable situation?

Father, it feels like I have so far to go on this journey, but I will continue to allow You to work out those uncomfortable traits in me even if it hurts and is uncomfortable. I will trust You as You continue to work all things together for my good and Your glory, in Jesus; name!

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Embracing 2015!

Yup, it’s a new year and we are now securely in 2015. If you weren’t ready, well,I guess too late! If you weren’t prepared it is kind of after the fact I guess. Pretty sure I’m not the only one who has blindly entered into a new year or season unprepared. But  this year I have been ready, filled with excitement to know just what the Lord has in store for the next 12 months.

I don’t know about you but I don’t do resolutions any more. That is because I think that they seem to be made only to be broken. That in turn only heaps on guilt and shame and really, what good is that? Last year I was given words to ponder and live out and this year is no different. In finding out that this life road journey I am on is not about me but Him…things become a bit less whimsical and a lot more purposeful!

My Servant 15From Humility last year (and some pretty tough lessons in the learning.) To “Servant” this year and yikes, this might be an interesting journey for me. The words that come with this are found in:

Matthew 16:24; Luke 10:37 and John 21:15-17

The last reference is certainly a call to reach out and serve others so that they might know Jesus saves. Jesus calling to Simon Peter with a repeat of three questions followed by an admonition…

”…do you love me?…Feed my lambs.”

“…do you love me?…tend my sheep.”

“Do you love me?…Feed my sheep.”

If Jesus gave Peter this task, then that must mean that we are also capable, because we are His followers. So as I ponder and pray to get a full understanding of this I can only think that this is a continued fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1,2 where the promised Messiah would be anointed to bring good news to the poor; bind up the broken hearted; proclaim liberty to captives; open the prison to those who are bound; and comfort those who mourn.

You know what, in and of myself I think wow, this is not for me. But I am humbly asking God to show me how to make this a reality in my life for those ‘round about me! And seriously friend, it isn’t just for me but for all of us who say we belong to Him. This is the life calling of a bond-servant.

If you haven’t received a word or verse for 2015 you might begin to ask God to show you just what He has in mind. I think that this year is going to be a most exciting year with the possibility that Jesus might just return. If nothing else let’s live like He is coming tomorrow. It will make the difference in your tomorrow!

Ask God to show you more of Him.

Ask Him to show you where and how you can make a difference.

And then ask Him for the grace to begin the journey He has called you to walk.

For most of us it isn’t about great and mighty things. For a few of you it just may be. Don’t lose heart but seek His and I think you will be surprised at where He will take you!

Lord, I give you all of who I am so that I can do what You are calling me to do. Let me trust Your plan and purpose to bring the light into the darkness. In Your mighty Name Jesus!

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Oh, Those Emotional Meltdowns!

2 Corinth 10-5It was a day wrapped in disappointment!  I am most thankful that I don’t have many days like that. But not today…this was a dreary, gloomy (sensing winter’s approach) day of emotional let downs. Two of my friends recently lost their loved ones and my heart was heavy for them at their loss of mom and a sister.  Then to top it off, an opportunity came to bless some gals that went south and for whatever reasons it just could not happen. Well my emotions were already tender and I responded with an inward look instead of upward.  I began to play around in the pity pool for a time getting splashed with more and more disappointed as my ‘woe is me’ thinking–that untruth that swirls in the head–began to flooding into my mind.  Wow, I was really beginning to drown myself in self-proclaimed despair.  I am this and I am not that…!  Suddenly I didn’t think I had a friend in the world and I even began to doubt my abilities as one thought streamed right into the next. Only God knows where this cesspool of thinking could have taken me!

Then, I received a revelation!  Just maybe God was protecting me, doing exactly what Paul says in Romans 8:28

“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.”  

I began to look at various scenarios that could happen if things went as I desired for them to go. Instead, I decided to–by faith–believe that these disappointments were not intended to discourage me but to protect and prevent dire things from happening?  Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of that powerful word from 2 Corinthians 10:5 that ends with

“taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ…” 

This certainly changed my entire outlook!

Line BreakYou see, God has empowered us, He has given us tools to help when we get all wrapped up in our own “stinkin’ thinkin” (remember that term?)

Although sometimes difficult, our part is to acknowledge the enemy's lies and then counteract them with God's truth about who we really are! Share on X

I really believe that we can all get in a funk like this at sometime or another in our ‘everyday’ living, but the key is admitting where we have landed. When our thinking is is incorrect according to God’s standard–what He says about His children–then I need to be willing to do something about it!  Start by applying 2 Corinthians 10:5

“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God,” then finish by…“taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

Yes, it can take a concerted effort but it is always better than staying in the pit which spells out destructive thoughts. Oh how the enemy of our soul likes to rob our joy!

Father, thank You for Your Holy Spirit that teaches us in the way in which we should go. Continue to give me listening ears to hear His voice and then a willingness to respond correctly when I am headed in a direction that spells out CALAMITY.  My heart wants to please You and I ask for grace when I walk contrary to Your excellent way!

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