God is For Me

8You have taken account of my wanderings;Put my tears in Your bottle.Are they not in Your book?9Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;This I know, that God is for me.10In God, whose word I praise,In the Lord, whose word I praise,11In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.What can man do to me?12Your vows are binding upon me, O God;I will render thank offerings to You.13For You have delivered my soul from death,Indeed my feet from stumbling,So that I may walk before GodIn the light of the living.Psalms 56:8-13

As I read this passage I am reminded of the place in scripture where an angel of the Lord visited the Israelite army before a battle and they asked "Are you for us or for our enemies?" The angel replied "Neither, but in the Lord's name I have come." (I will look it up and add the reference in the comment section when I am done here.)

If I were honest I think I would always want God to be on my side, backing me up. If God is for me, who could stand against me? Right?

But while the essence of the truth is that God loves me so much that he died to make a way possible for me to be with him for ever, that doesn't mean that he is behind all the situations I find myself in. Just because I believe passionately in a thing doesn't mean that I will have his support in pursuing said thing. He can be on my side for the sake of my soul without my using him to justify the things I want. He's not my big-brother body guard he is the parent who can love me completely, even when I mess up badly.

He says nothing can separate us from his love, and no matter where I go on this earth I can't run farther than he can reach. He is for ME. And that is different from being FOR me.

It's about humility and power. About acknowledging how deeply we mess up and go wayward. It's about firmly holding to the truth that no matter what the dire circumstances, HE is for ME. He won't give me up, He won't get tired of my whining, He wont leave me in the middle of the messes I make.

It's a subtle power shift when you re read this passage and see how much better it is that it's Him that is in the right and he is on your side, than the other way around.

Wisdom and Foolishness: A Mother's Plea

A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish son is a grief to his mother.Proverbs 10:1

Parenting is tough enough without prideful willfulness and our proclivity to sin mucking things up.

When you do have wisdom on an issue and you watch your kids still choose a painful path, where is the line between reality discipline (letting the natural consequences do the teaching) and not being a party to their self destruction? (Prov. 19:18)

This is where I am struggling today, Lord. I pray you still my desire to micro manage. Help me hear from you to know what is right for my  teenage children, and to know what I should do  for where they are at in their growth. Teach me how to do this right. Amen.

Deep Calls To Deep

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.PSALMS 42:7 or

I am so glad that the Holy Spirit within me knows God better than I do. So glad that He can speak to me even when I am confused or hurting, Because He doesn't have to wait for me to understand Him in order to teach and guide me.

1 Cor. 2:10-11 says "These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.  The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them?  In the same way no one knows the thought of God except the Spirit of God."  I don't always have to have the answers.  

Yet, even though I have access to the infinite God, I am small.  I learn slowly.  I fall down and make mistakes.  I also am willfully disobedient sometimes too.

So I wonder why He bothers with such a frail container for His Holy Spirit to dwell within.

All I really know is that without His mercy and faithfulness, that continually works with me and patiently loves me, I would not be who I am. There is nothing special about me, and left to my own devices and my own resources, I would be a hot mess.  But He has promised to love me and speak to me through the spirit.  He's promised not to abandon me.

He is making me into something new.

Fasting, Weeping and Mourning

"Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning;And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.JOEL 2:12-13 NASB

The point of the scripture of course is that we would lock eyes with God and agree with him on what the sin is.  That we would actually see our sin as actual sin and not try to justify, minimize, or redefine it.  This scripture is the heart-cry of God to have his people return to him.

Something else caught my attention though.  "...with fasting weeping and mourning" I find it interesting that fasting is linked with the fine art and high tradition of lamenting. something we don't really talk about much here in the states. We are quick to take on praise and even service, but I wonder how much of our spiritual walk is hampered by our decision  to avoid fasting and our inability to enter into a lamenting frame of mind.

So many of the psalms are laments.  Ecclesiastes is a whole book on lamenting.  Old testament times it was common to fast, tear your garments and put ashes on your head.  Even in our country in years past we would wear black arm bands, or wear all black for a period of time. During this time of mourning, people were more gentle with you, didn't expect you to jump right back into the busyness of life and gave you time to grieve, and so in this modern time we keep moving and don't do the reflection and repentance that generates a lasting change

I believe that if we saw our sin for what it truly was (not the minimizing and redefining thing we've turned it into), we would see the damage we've caused  and we would weep and mourn.

You Thought I Was Just Like You

"These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.PSALMS 50:21 NASB

 "...you thought I was just like you." Wow... the truth of that statement keeps hitting me fresh, it's not the first time I've read it and it's not a new concept for me, it's just that it never looses it's punch.

Michael Card wrote in one of his songs "We've made you in our image so our faith is idolatry." that was the first time I'd come across the concept and it rocked me then. Here I am a quarter century later and that truth still challenges me.

Sin... our pride makes us so myopic and self serving. And even now as I use that distancing language to separate myself from it I know that my flesh and the desires I have battle for the wheel and for control. Every. Single. Moment. And I wonder why He bothers with us, I get whelmed with the struggle to contend with my own spirit, to bring it under his head ship and discipline my body and it's drives. It is too much - and I can't even do that without his help. How is it possible that can He engage all of us and never seem to tire with our selfishness?

The Lord is patient with us to withhold His wrath so long, he has such grace and mercy... but in the wake of his kindness, there are those who take his silence for what it is not.

In my mind I see his wrath held back like the walls of the Red Sea. The passage is temporary and dry ground is our gift of grace to give us the chance to see the wonder and the consequences in time to make choices.

Lord, today I ask you to help me be aware of the choices I have in connection with the sin of pride. I don't want to assume you are like me in your silence. Help me hear you speak into the quiet and remind me that you are remaking me and I cannot remake you to suit my own comfort. I ask that you discipline me to serve you and not myself.

But Love Covers All Transgressions

He who winks the eye causes trouble, And a babbling fool will be ruined.The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions.PROVERBS 10:10-12 NASB

Today I am struggling with the power of words. The natural tendency is to take this verse and think it applies to someone else; to objectify the behavior as belonging to a certain kind of person.  But humans are rarely all of one thing or another.  We are complicated.

These verses speak of hatred stirring up strife and when I overlay the flavor-of-the-day trouble I can hear myself back pedal and sanitize my anger... calling it concern instead of hateful. I don't think of myself as being that way. It occurs to me that we can sometimes be the worst version of ourselves and say mean things without thinking of ourselves as troublemakers, fools or wicked as the verses describe.

We get caught in the moment of carelessness and once a thing is said we then have a choice. We either have to own it as truth or disown it as not being truth, but maybe a reaction to an emotion or a perception.

How wedded we are to our own authority or power will dictate the lengths we are willing to go to save face. And so when we want to be perceived as righteous it's the "other" who is wicked.

I think that when we harbor this wickedness within, but refuse to disown it, let alone even look at it, we end up concealing the violence in our hearts. To validate our state we stir up others to see it from our perspective... This validation enables us to nurture our own hurts, disappointments and the subsequent bad behavior and rebellion that follows as justification.

Lord, help me admit when I am the worst version of myself, when I stir up trouble, act wickedly or foolishly. Help me seek your approval instead of mans. I don't want my desire to be "right" put me in a place where I cannot back down or be transparent when I behave badly. I desperately need your love that covers my sin. Amen.

Trust In The Lord And Do Good

Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers.For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb.Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.PSALMS 37:1-11 NASB

I find that I carry such affection for this set of verses. Psalm 37 is my go to for when I am struggling with worry and fear. I like how practical it is. Many of the other Psalms are clear about where to take our fretting but this one outlines what to do with it.

Clear steps, reminders that it's what we DO when upset and not how we feel that matters. "Trust in the Lord and DO good. Dwell in the land ( no running away from it) and cultivate faithfulness. It says that He Will Do It. Cease from anger and forsake wrath, do not fret, trust, delight, and commit myself to Him. All those are actions intended to replace the destructive emotions that if left in the drivers seat will shipwreck my calm and as the Psalm says: "leads only to evildoing".

The enemy camps out here and whispers that it looks like it's just giving up and not doing anything about the injustice. The enemy would not have us look very closely at the self control and faithfulness that is required to trust in God to do what he says he'll do in his own timing.

For those who are accustomed to letting desire be in the drivers seat... this act of trust and faith is incomprehensible. There is no satisfaction for the anger, no promise of vindication in this life to balm the wound that our flesh can't think around. Our flesh does not think. It cannot accept faith in what it can't feel... it can only feel and consume.

I believe the steps outlined here in this Psalm are the baby steps that outline what faith is; the "how to". Do you want to know what it means to walk by faith and keep step in the spirit? Here is where you start. It begins when you are worried, in fear, desperately angry... any strong emotion that wants in the driver seat of your life. Throttle that feeling and submit it to God by replacing it with what Doing Good looks like. It's not the "giving up" lie that the enemy tells you it is. Rather, it's cultivating faithfulness, an active self control that looks to a Savior to do the job of saving. It's getting into the habit of demonstrating to your flesh through study, prayer, fasting and meditation that it does not get to drive the bus. Your hungers and desires, your thirsts and drives are not going to control how you respond and behave.

Trust in the Lord and Do Good sounds so poetic... until you realize how much of a fight you are in for.  Your emotional flesh wants to be satisfied.

Lord, help me dig out the enemy camps in my life, ground I've surrendered by believing the lie that waiting on the Lord was giving up. Help me to look at my self delusions square on and reclaim your truth from the lie I bought.

Amen

Cease Listening...

Cease listening, my son, to discipline, And you will stray from the words of knowledge.PROVERBS 19:27 NASB

 Following my earlier train of logic about the Holy Spirit standing at the gate of where thoughts that shape the words written or spoken - this verse fairly leapt off the page to me. Our goal oft repeated in scripture is to listen and follow the words. This verse clearly says that if we stop listening we will stray.

 So many voices shouting for our attention. Th real trick is to slow down long enough to tease apart the voices of the world and the ones in our own head that scream from fear, insecurity, pain, desire and envy...

So grateful for the Spirit who promises to keep us close and speak truth.

Lord deliver me from the lie that I must always do things to be in your favor. Help me slow down and hear you. I can't even reach for you on my own without your Spirit drawing me. I want to be so filled with the life and knowledge that your words bring that the doing of your word takes root in me not to earn favor for myself but because your manifestations of the word through me is what brings about your favor.

Amen

The Voice Of The Lord

The voice of the Lord is powerful, The voice of the Lord is majestic.PSALMS 29:4 NASB

Okay, my brain is weird. This whole psalm is about the Voice of the Lord... the spoken word, the Word that is voiced and with it creation came into being.

So if God is the spoken Word... and if the bible calls Jesus the Word made flesh... then does that make the Holy Spirit the Words unspoken? Is the Holy Spirit that part of divine communication that proceeds the Word before it is spoken, written, or manifested in action? The written word we carry around and memorize was inspired by the Spirit, one intellect, guiding such a diverse collection of individuals...

I don't even know where I am going with this, chewing it out loud I suppose, but it gives me clarity when I think of the Holy Spirit as the one who stands between the idea or inspiration of the thing to say, and the formation of the word that crafts and shapes it.

Not surprisingly that is also where temptation, guilt and fears reside too.

I am so grateful for a loving God who sent one who can help us battle the internal demons as well as the ones who stalk us from the outside.

Power Of The Tongue

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.PROVERBS 18:21 NASB

Sometimes I wish that the product of our mouths actually manifested. Instant biofeedback. A physical and plain way to tell our effect on others that cannot be spun into platitudes of minimizing importance.

What we say matters, things are loosed or bound in heaven by our words. James talks a lot about the power of the tongue, using word pictures just so there isn't any confusion about the meaning.

The world was created with a word.  The Holy Spirit is the CONTENTS of the Breath of God... and when we use this borrowed breath to speak there is power in it.  Borrowed power.

So the question is, what will you do with the words you have inside you?  What will you do with the borrowed power that's been lent to you?

Will you use your power for good?

Hope Deferred

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.PROVERBS 13:12 NASB

For years I've regarded this as an axiom for human responses concerning the disappointments of life... but what if it's instead referring to the need to put our hope in God who never fails and never lies and always seeks out life?

In either case it makes me look at where my hope is placed, questioning the sources of what makes me feel fulfilled, and looking square at the things I desire.

Prudence: A Language Shift

"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, And I find knowledge and discretion.PROVERBS 8:12 NASB

 I am struck today as I am often by the language shift in just a few hundred years.

Take the word prudence for instance. Culturally that was a strong and wise word until the 60s. I know this because it used to be what parents sometimes named their daughters back in my great grandparents day.

My parents generation associated that word it with "the establishment" and the free love movement shortened the word to "PRUDE" and turned it into something it was never meant to be.

 I was born after that and grew up on messages in the music that was defiant and angry, where those angry people protested war and checked out of responsibility.

Then the rise of birth control gave women the freedom of sex without the consequences of pregnancy. As a result the divorce rate soars. Suddenly the word prudent was seen as shackles to keep a woman in her place... barefoot and pregnant. Then they legalize abortion so it didn't hinder her ability to have choice. And suddenly we are not very far from the Aztec who threw their babies off the temples as human sacrifice.

I am also struck by the tension it creates for a translator who needs to speak to the heart of a passage to a generation of people who's social mores no longer recognize God's truth as absolute. The boundary stones of meaning have shifted so much in just my lifetime ... and I know that there is nothing special about this generation. Every generation slips this way.

Lord, I desperately need your wisdom -- the Holy Spirit to keep the truth clear from the semantics and cultural references I drag behind me as I read your word. I get a glimpse now and then of how our short life spans keep us from truly grasping and passing down your wisdom. It takes such careful thought to try to untangle what you say and the heart of your meaning when my worldly wisdom and emotional roots are completely knotted in my own experience.

Words matter. They define the container of our understanding and when they shift it breeds delusion. I worry for a generation of people who don't understand what Gods will is because the plain words are no longer plain.

Help me, Lord. I want to know you as you have revealed yourself in the Word. Help me let go of the cultural shackles and truly let Your Word define me. Amen.

The Innermost Parts

The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the innermost parts of his being.PROVERBS 20:27 NASB

To know in my head that the Lord searches my heart is one thing... but do I govern my heart in such a way that my life reflects this belief?  Do I ACT as though this is true?

When temptation comes, Lord, please give me the will to reject it and not allow it consent to stay. Give me clarity and strength to hold each thought captive!

He Who Separates Himself Seeks His Own Desire

He who separates himself seeks his own desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom.A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.PROVERBS 18:1-2 NASB

This is how pride takes over and self delusion and self destruction begins. The word says that the enemy prowls around like a hungry lion.  Lions hunt herd animals by singling them out of the crowd; targeting those who are weak, hungry, lonely, tired... alone.  If we are isolated it's easier to wear us down, feed us lies, and convince us that no one else understands what we are going through.

It's why we are commanded to live our life in community, so that we can admonish and correct and love and support one another. It's why we are supposed to confess our sins to one another, so that we can live in the truth with one another instead of the complicated justifications we make to avoid our own sin and culpability.

I grieve for those who have withdrawn from fellowship with believers and now follow what is right in their own eyes. The reasons and the stories vary but ultimately, they don't want to be told that the thing they are doing, that is meeting their core needs, is wrong.  They don't want to give up this thing that God calls sin ...and they call precious.

The enemy encourages this by telling them they are smart, enlightened, empowered.  And by this time, many have burnt relational bridges behind them and used scorched-earth tactics to avoid the guilt and shame of their behavior.

I know and care about many who have fallen away some pick fights with me because they fear that I will preach at them or judge them.  I guess it's true, I judge that they have made some terrible choices.  Those decisions have consequences.  I will and I do preach the good news.  I have to. In my mind right now I am listing them by name, I do this every time I pray for them.  They are in my prayer list, and there are enough of them that they are their own line item for prayer, all grouped together and mentioned by name every time I pray for them. I haven't given up.

Why?

*Because their lack of belief doesn't make God un-true.
*Because HE knows them by name.
*Because HE loves them even more than me and he is faithful and just.
*Because if I take refuge in His judgments instead of my own, I must keep praying for them like one does CPR.  I cannot write them off and out of my life until death.
*Because He is the great physician, and they aren't dead until they are dead, I will continue to pray until He notes the time in His book of life.

What I haven't done is written them off.  I grieve for them.  Pray for me to have the right words to draw them back!

What about you?  If you have stuck with me on this journey I am on, I will assume that you too have a list of people that used to believe and now do not.  Let me encourage you to write their names down.  Pray for them regularly and often.  The bible says that there is no where we can go that He cannot reach.  The Prodigal Son found his way into a pig pen, at rock bottom and penniless .  King David committed murder by proxy to keep another woman through adultery.  Where are your friends and family that have fallen away?  Their story isn't finished yet.  HIStory, is still being written and there is still time. Because God can reach them even where they are.

I pray also for you, that you do not give up doing good.  Hold the hope for them for a while if they have lost their own.  Hope is a powerful thing, and one of the three that remain (1Cor. 13:13).  My prayer for you, dear friend, is that the Holy Spirit stoke your hope.  May the breath of God breathe new life into your hope and make it burn bright.

I pray it light the way home for those lost in the dark and alone.

Amen.

3 months ago

Deliverance and Justice

But You, O God, the Lord, deal kindly with me for Your name's sake; Because Your loving kindness is good, deliver me;PSALMS 109:21 NASB

 I can't help but marvel at how the Israelite viewed injustice as coming from man and God as the one who delivered justice. Today in our culture man is so quick to blame God for all wrongs and then use it as the excuse to not trust or believe in Him.

Lord, help me to trust in your justice, help me lean heavy on your mercy.

Perfect, As Your Heavenly Father is Perfect

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.MATTHEW 5:48 NASB

This whole chapter is just hard. No one can be perfect! It's an impossible command if we try to do it on our own.

And maybe that is the whole point, that we can't do it on our own resources.

Could it be that the whole point is that the Holy Spirit is to be what is perfect within us? That rather than being perfect in and of ourselves, we submit to Him and let Him be what is perfect in us?

How To Break The Cycle

For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.PROVERBS 4:16 NASB

 Submission to the Lord means that we adopt his rubric for right and wrong, not our own.

The world (our sinful nature) does not submit to him and continually seeks a flawed and short sighted vengeance for personal wrongs. It chews us up. While in pain we lash out -causing even more harm, continuing the cycle on others. When we accept that God will settle the accounts without causing residual harm, it frees us to break the cycle.

You can be RIGHT or you can be in RELATIONSHIP. If you are so focused on the the things done that were wrong it's very difficult to release it to the Lord and allow Him to make it right. Proverbs tends to make everything so black and white for teaching purposes, but people are complicated and never all of one thing or another. I've had my share of times when I couldn't sleep for wanting to make someone pay for something they'd done. This observation isn't just about "the world" but about me too.

The lesson in this for me today is to remember who has my back when I am wronged. He sees the heart of the people around me when I am blinded by my own emotions. Lord, help me trust you with my outrage. Help me lay my own agenda down, to submit to your leading and take up your cause instead of my short sighted and emotion - fogged one. Amen.

Hate Evil Psalms 97:8-10

Zion heard this and was glad, And the daughters of Judah have rejoiced Because of Your judgments, O Lord.For You are the Lord Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.Hate evil, you who love the Lord, Who preserves the souls of His godly ones; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.PSALMS 97:8-10 NASB

 There is a theme ringing through Psalms 97 and 98 and reflected again in the first part of Proverbs 31 about God's Righteousness and His judgments. In both cases all people's and even creation is happy to see it come. God's judgment is something to rest in and long for. They rejoiced in it.

Judgments made by anyone in today's culture are not received that way and I wonder if it's a lack of trust in Him... or that the Enemy has taken the gift of discernment between right and wrong and made it suspect ...  I mean, does this politically correct culture really hate evil?

Likely it's both and many more things I haven't looked at from this angle long enough to see yet.

 Lord, teach me to trust you more. Give me a discerning heart that can see your truth from the lie of the enemy. Help me make right judgments and the courage to quietly stand on them even if I do it alone. Amen

Slow To Anger

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.PROVERBS 16:32 NASB

Wow. This flies in the face of what the world has to say. We just aren't encouraged to do this today. I love the echoes of this thought in the father character in Little Women who encourages his children to "conquer themselves"(The book version, not the movie) . I wish more of our stories held the bar up and showed us how to rule our spirit instead of following our own desires.

Life Is Messy Proverbs 14:4

Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox.PROVERBS 14:4 NASB

In my mind I hear the ancient telling me in his own colloquial way that life is messy. But despite the mess, the effort is worth it.  You can apply this to a work model, as the proverb suggests, and also to all life interactions.

I think the point is that we need to be in the harvest, metaphorically speaking.  We need to be engaging with people, tending the relationships, binding the hurts and being willing to enter into the mess that comes with it.  It's part of storing up our treasures in heaven, maybe.

What do you think?  Do you agree with my take on it?  Do you have another thought to share?

But As For Me Psalm 59:16-17

But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength; Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning, For You have been my stronghold And a refuge in the day of my distress.O my strength, I will sing praises to You; For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness.PSALMS 59:16-17 NASB

As is often the case in the Psalms this song starts out with vitriol against those who "wait in ambush for his life". and then here in verse 16 (as so many of them do) it changes gears and says "but as for me" and it gives all the opposite emotions of ardor, trust and even joy.

Never once does the Psalmist blame God for the hard thing in their life. They don't throw out to God that he could have stopped the evil thing if he'd only loved him enough.

How vastly different we respond to terror than so many of the psalmists.  Isn't our first reaction to bad things to blame someone else, especially God, who is supposed to be in control of everything?

Reading the psalms over and over I see the pattern that we are supposed to follow while in distress.  God is very interested in what our troubles are, and invites us to spill them to Him.  What the Holy Spirit inspired scripture presents to us is a way to cope through the struggle by trusting Him even when we are under persecution.

Lord, help me to cast my disquiet and fear at your feet without blaming you for my lot. Teach me joy when things look bleak. Teach me to take refuge with you instead of fighting my own battles.

You Who Forget God

“Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you: Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me, and to the blameless I will show my salvation.”PSALM 50:22-23 NIV

 So many of us humans have mistaken his mercy and patience as involvement.

We have bought into the lie that God has no power or that He really is is the made up version that we created.  We've remade him into a personalized genie to focus on our happiness.... to get us out of trouble or help us with our addictions.

But there will be a reckoning. And every breath we draw - yes, our very life is borrowed from Him.

I urge you to read the word and find out who he really is, and what he came to do.  Let him speak for himself, and then deal with him!  Don't forget him or remake him into something that is less offensive or controversial.

Justice For Man Proverbs 29:26

Many seek the ruler's favor, But justice for man comes from the Lord.PROVERBS 29:26 NASB

 One of the side effects of thinking of God as an Un interested force or an impersonal one, is that the unbeliever doesn't really trust God for justice.

Flattery

In their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their own sin.
Psalm 36:2

 It's so easy to read verses like this and think that it applies to someone else.  But I will tell you this, every time I make excuses or justify my own sin, I have my focus on something else that I thought I was doing well or was blameless of.

Sometimes I am aware I am doing it and it feels hollow.

 But I am shocked at how often this seemingly contrived response to sin happens without my conscious choosing of it. It is a defense mechanism that roots itself itself in my flesh to avoid having to look at it square.

Without the word of truth to light up the lie I would be so much more self deluded than I am. So *raises coffee cup in a cheer* here is to looking intently into the Word and asking the Holy Spirit to continually convict and give us the courage to look at ourselves square on. *clink*

Proverbs 4:23 Guard Your Heart

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.PROVERBS 4:23 NIV

As a mother of girls, this verse I would tattoo on them if I could. It's in a girls nature to just want to be loved... guard your heart! Discipline it to see first the strength and maturity of the young man's own life before you give him yours.  But this verse goes even deeper than this top layer that I went to first.

The world works hard at teaching people to listen to their heart and follow it's dictates blindly, as though it were some great authority,and following it a virtue.  How many movies have you seen that follow this script?

Like a child, our hearts (the seat of our emotions) come into the world undisciplined and  always hungry.  Hungry for love, for acceptance, for respect, for belonging.

But somehow in our world we have it backward.  We believe that our hearts - our emotions are incourruptable, and it's everyone else who needs to change or understand or accomodate us.  So we go from one emotion to another always in search of validation to justify our decisions and  postitions.

Proverbs 29:17 Peaceful Children

Discipline your children, and they will give you peace; they will bring you the delights you desire.  Proverbs 29:17

There are companion verses that go with this, "Train up a child in the way he should go" is the most famous of them. My favorite is found in Proverbs 19:18 and says "Discipline your sons, for in this there is hope; do not be a willing party to their destruction."

The axiom here is that when we give children limits and boundaries, then hold them to it, they are just nicer people to be around.  They interrupt less, they are more careful of the space they occupy and the impact they are making on the people around them, they are generally quieter and less demanding.

I remember when my kids were small and they wanted my attention.  I'd trained them to come beside me and wait until they had my attention.  If I was in the middle of speaking to someone else, or they were speaking to me I would hold one finger up to tell them "One minute"  and then I would put my hand in their lap or take their hand so they knew I hadn't forgotten them.  They knew they were next for my attention and just quietly touching them helped them control their impatience.

Another trick I learned when they were fighting, was to put them on the couch and not let them up until they'd worked through the problem themselves, without making me the referee.  They had to talk through their frustration with each other, admit who was in the wrong, ask forgiveness, grant it, and then get up from the couch and play together again.  It put all the power in their hands to navigate the peace.  It especially helped the victim, as they couldn't get up until the one who was wronged was ready to forgive.  The one who'd behaved badly had to convince the one she'd hurt that she was sorry or they didn't get up from the time out.  It was exhausting when they were little, because I had to walk them through each step over and over, but now as teenagers and adults, they are still close and enjoy not only each other's company but I am consistently told by others how much they are respected.

The discipline that the bible is talking about is less about spankings and punishment and far more about giving them tools for mastering themselves.

A Question about Boundary stones

Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors.
PROVERBS 22:28 NIV

This is a verse I would like to study more.

Ancient boundaries... is this a word picture for the solid commandments that God gave to us? Is it a cultural reference for inherited land (as in what was promised through Abraham)? I just don't know and think I'd like to find out.

If anyone reading this has any comments or insights, I'd love to hear them.

Stage One in Echo Edit

Today I am trying to unravel the Gordian knot that is my novel. Its the last push, only seven more chapters left in the original draft, and I've hit a wall.  So, I'm procrastinating, writing an update here instead of doing the two revised character sketches that might provide the answers to my plot problems. 

You see, after several years of floundering, feeling whelmed by the task of editing this 540 page monster, I've been blessed with a lady who is graciously  giving me her time and expertise in the larger editing, not line by line, grammar or word choice stuff, but the bigger picture things. I think that the actual editing, rewrites / cuts will come easier than this painful process.  (Easy for me to say from this side of the outlining. *grin*)

Stephanie has given me a breakdown of my novel in cards, detailing each scene and providing reactions, feedback, and pointing out logic errors and asking pointed questions.  This has proved to be an amazing tool. Using this this as my checklist, I'm literally driving the new outline by the answers to those observations and questions.

In  anycase, to have this resource, after all these years of whining and avoiding, to NOT make use of it, would be wrong. There would be no excuse left for me to hide behind.

Okay. That it. I just spanked myself back to staying on task and going back to the outline.

Next time I update I'll tell you about the other projects I have on the burner.

Thanks for stopping in to check on my progress.

Winter, Writing Projects, and Photography Updates

Photo by Deanna Rittinger

It's cold!  Polar Vortex storms, sub degree weather ... brrrr!  I'm ready for winter to be over. I found these snowmen in my town on the way to dropping off my girls at school.  I'm gonna guess that the people who live here are tired of winter too.  That or they are really huge fans of Calvin and Hobbs cartoons.  *grin*

It's been a long time since I used this blog for anything other than devotionals.  Mostly because my husband felt that I over-shared with my posts and while I tend to live my life like an open book, he's much more private.  This illustrates one of the many places that you learn to bend when you are inside a marriage that works hard at two becoming one. So I let the personal stuff sit for a few years and took up the commitment to write an article once a week in tandem with the church as a whole reading through the bible. I spent those years building into my character how to write to a point, within a format, and to a deadline.  It did good things for me.  One of the biggest things I learned is that I can share the truth I know in a form that doesn't over-share.

After a few months of playing hookey, I'm back to writing again.  I have two projects in the hopper that are keeping me busy.  One is a book of wisdom I'm writing for my kids.  My legacy to them: things God has taught me about life, being a wife, parenting and friendship.  It's patterned after the scripture found in Deut. 11:19 "Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."  It's coming along, resembling a big slab of clay right now.  I keep tossing stuff in the document I think I want to cover, but it's not got much shape yet.

The other project is a rewrite of Echo.  The 540 page monster I wrote several years ago needs block editing before I can even begin to work on a polish.  So I've secured the help of a wonderful friend and fellow writer, Stephanie Gillett.  She's written her own novel and you can purchase On Edge at Amazon.com.  Go check it out, I'll wait for you to come back. *smile*

Anyway, she helped me by pulling the novel apart into various scenes and giving me detailed thoughts and asked pertinent questions regarding them.  I'm now using this tool to rework the outline, and create a checklist of scenes to rework, create, or delete.  This will keep the pesky details roped in to wrangle when I do the rewrite and force the novel to conform to the new outline.  Right now, as I go back through the outline over and over making changes it doesn't feel like I'm making much progress.  But I am working my way through her notes, and though each hard question I make the decision on means amending my outline the shape of the novel really is coming through with more clarity.

Oh!  Also, my photography business, Ritt's End Photography LLC made enough this year to break even on what I'd invested into it for equipment and marketing.  Yay me!  Along those lines, I've been approached by the high school Drama Club to take a more official stand with my photography and meeting their needs for documenting and archiving their productions.  How cool is that?  They are going to meet again and make some decisions, but even being approached for consideration is an honor to me. 

Dexter Drama just finished up their production of Crazy For You, and will be rounding the corner on their yearly Student Directed Shorts; several one act plays that are entirely created, directed and produced by the students. Megan got cast on one of them, and I'm looking forward seeing what she does with the role.

Well, that's enough for today.  Thanks for checking back with me.