And I could just be bi-polar....

It is amazing how fickle our moods are. Yesterday morning (on my way to work) I felt happier than I ever have. I felt so free and loved and full of joy. For the first time in my life I was brave enough to believe God is pleased with all of me. Not that I am perfect, but that He loves me and is pleased with me anyway.

By yesterday afternoon, I felt just normal (and that was after a really cool lunch and conversation with a new friend. I LOVE making new friends but it usually stresses me out because of all the stupid things I say and I am not sure if they will see through all that and not think I am an idiot. And I was surprised I wasn't all stressed out, maybe I am growing?).

And this morning I woke up a total grouch.

I just took a loooonnnngggggg bath though and now I feel normal, which I guess means content and slightly happy. I am grateful that is my normal now and not the complete grouch, which used to be my normal. But all that to show how fickle I am. I am so glad God isn't moody.

I hope all ya'll (is that how you spell it?) have a lovely weekend.

Enjoy the highs, right? :)

A God of Passion

I just finished reading Mathew 23. Man, Jesus chewed the religious leaders up and spit them out! For what, exactly? Pretending that they were better than they really were? Being self-righteous? Probably verse 4 is a huge part of it; "They crush people with impossible religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden." It made me even more certain that a child-like faith is the best kind. The Pharisees lived their whole lives trying to serve God the way they thought was right. But they were wrong and Jesus called them "children of hell." Scary! They served the right God, they just forgot to love Him. And His people.

I don't read the gospels often enough. I am not sure why. I read them a lot when I was little and didn't like Jesus very much. Now I read them and I am touched by His mercy and compassion but still a little shocked at how He doesn't soften the truth. I hope this is the beginning of me loving to read the gospels, they way I love to read the epistles.

What is your favorite thing Jesus did/said while he was on earth?

Enjoyment...

There is sunshine streaming through my extremely dirty windows. If I don't look at the windows and just see the golden rays bouncing of the somewhat clean floor (that Jason cleaned) it makes me very happy. I adore sunshine!

I have realized lately that I am sorta afraid to delight in the gifts God has given me as much as I could. I am still afraid that if something makes me too happy, it will get taken away. God reminded me lately that He wants me to find pleasure in the life He has given me. As long as I don't want pleasure more than I want Him.

I hope all of you are enjoying some small pleasure today. Because, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." The big gifts and the small gifts. Anything that makes our heart smile, is from Him.

Us thanking Him and praising Him for all that He gives us must give Him more joy than us looking sideways at His gifts, trying to decide if it is ok to enjoy them or not, right?

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 1Tim 6:17

We are commanded not to worry.

I put this on a igoogle sticky note for my husband this morning. I love these verses. Thought I would share:

Phil 4:6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

God's Power

2 Tim 3:5 having a form of godliness but denying its power.

This verse hit me like a ton of bricks early on in my walk with Christ because I knew I was lacking in God's power. Later, I realized part of the reason why I didn't experience God's power, in these verses:

James 4:1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

I wanted power to fight my own sin, but not as much to please God as to feel godly. So I could be confident and comfortable about who I was. For my own pleasure. God is slowly making me comfortable and confident, but only because of what He has done for me. I am still as helpless as I ever was, on my own.

This morning I read these verses:

Eph 3:14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Experiencing Christ's love is where our fullness of life and power comes from!!! What a beautiful, perfect idea. As we grow in love for Him and recognize His love for us, which humbles us and makes us more like Him, we increase in power.

Ginormous quote for the day

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God-though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain. Yet the call is not only to prostration and awe; it is to a reflection of the Divine life, a creaturely participation in the Divine attributes which is far beyond our present desires. We are bidden to 'put on Christ', to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want.

George Macdonald, in a passage I cannot now find, represents God as saying to men, 'you must be strong with my strength and blessed with my blessedness, for I have no other to give you.' That is the conclusion of the whole matter. God gives what He has, not what He has not: He give the happiness that there is, not the happiness that is not. To be God-to be like God and to share His goodness in creaturely response-to be miserable-these are the only three alternatives. If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows-the only food that any possible universe ever can grow-then we must starve eternally.

CS Lewis in The Problem of Pain

Prayer...

What is it, really?

Me talking?

God talking?

Both.

Longings revealed...

Mine or His?

Both.

A blending of spirits.

Mine and His.

How amazing,

He wants that more than I do.

To be part of me.

May we hold nothing back from Him.

The Mind of Christ

I finished reading "The Mind of Christ" by TW Hunt. I really, really liked it. He was very clear about the difference between letting our carnal mind control us and learning to let Christ's mind control us. He had little tests and exercises in there we could do to see where our mind is right now. I love little tests and exercises. :) If you like to read, I highly recommend it. He said Jesus was omniscient when He was on earth though and I don't agree with that. I don't think He was omnipresent either. :) He went through the crucifixion and ascension and what the Kingdom of God is, exactly, and that was worth reading.

1 Cor 2:15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. 16 For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

I am guessing that "having the mind of Christ" comes from being "controlled by the Spirit" which is one of my greatest goals in life.

Gal 5:25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

HELP US, LORD! It would be so fun to live controlled by You and not our flesh!

Overcoming Evil

So, I was thinking about where Jesus said we are supposed to "overcome evil with good" and that we are "more than conquerors through Him" and I was wondering if the way we conquer through Him and the way we overcome evil is simply by loving. Not the warm fuzzy love, but the gritty, "I will not quit believing in you and trusting in God's plan for your life" kind of love. He overcame evil with love, right? I am starting to think love is far more powerful than we give it credit for...

Either I have outgrown musicals...

Or Mama Mia was just really, really bad. The only thing I liked, other than Greece, was my husband muttering, "This is just painful." from his corner of the living room, where he was trying to distract himself with the computer.

If you liked it, sorry. I just thought if I blogged about it and made someone laugh, it may have not been a complete waste of time. :)

Happy February!