It's Okay Now

Do you ever feel like you’re drowning? Like somehow while the world around you is basking in the beauty of a perfectly sunny day, you’re simply trying to find your way to the surface of the pool of water you seem to be suffocated in?  Like somehow fog, hail, rain and wind have joined forces and you are trapped underneath them all?  Thoughts scrambled, fears elevated, blood pressure heightened, faith shaking while you stare through the fog hoping it will end.  With your mind running in a million directions – you gasp for breath.

You and I may be quite alike.  As I sit here tapping on my keyboard, I am thinking of situations in life where there seems to be no answer, no firm resolve, just more questions.  The other day I was in such a moment. My mind was spinning and fearful “what if” thoughts were my company.  It was as though fear were my companion and his arms were draped around my shoulders daring me to dispute his convincing arguments.   Being the domestic goddess that I am after 3 months of marital bliss,  I was cleaning.  So, I put down my dusting rag and sat on my bedroom floor, looked to the heavens and begged God to make my mind stop.  Quietly as I sat there, I found myself asking to know what is True.  Slowly God began to give me some direction… and I’m finding what He is showing me to be an incredibly liberating act of spiritual warfare.  Because all good steps come in three, I do believe there are (at least) three steps that I am finding to be very effective in keeping the lateral noise (fear due to circumstances in life) from crippling my faith, weakening my joy, and making me walk in fear.

Pursue Confession – Sprinting to the loved one you trust most and confessing the fear, disbelief or obsessive questions seems to quickly disarm the torment.  It’s amazing what can happen the minute the real, God-honest thoughts come to light… They seem a little less true.

Get Out – Declaration is powerful.  A previous colleague of mine told me one time that declaration is different that stating.  When you state something, you’re talking about the natural. When you declare it you’re speaking into the supernatural. Declaration is active. Stating is passive. I’d advise you get out of the storm.  Find something you know is True and declare it.  Declare it like you’d declare your first, middle and last name to the judge.  If fear is your enemy and it’s been knocking on your door— Declare Truth. God is bigger than Fear.  God is bigger than the unknown. Declare it until you believe it. Declare it until it feels like you are looking at the fog, rain, hail and wind beneath you and no longer around you.  Once again, declaring Truth has a way of disarming lies.

Love Being Above – Storms are cyclical. One leaves, another one comes.  We’d all like to believe that we can have perfection on this earth, but it just isn’t going to happen. However, if we can learn to operate and live above the storm, then the joy and hope we will have in this life will exponentially increase.  Once you’ve gotten out you can get above. With the understanding that I may start sounding crazy spiritual I really believe that learning how to look at circumstances, declare Truth and stay above the storm is to stay in the Word.  Love having Godly perspective. Spend time uncovering new Truths from the Bible that you can stand on. Staying in the Word is so important to living a life of victory. And when you love being above the stormy circumstances in life, you’ll put forth the effort and will quickly find it to be effortless.  With an arsenal of God-breathed declarations, it’ll be easier to hold fast to joy and hope as you run to the Bible for solace.

Hebrews 10:23 (NIV)
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Tweet

Hebrews 11 (The Message)

Faith in What We Don’t See

 ^1-2The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

 ³By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.

 ⁴By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.

 ^5-6By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.

 ⁷By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.

 ^8-10By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

 ^11-12By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.

 ^13-16Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

 ^17-19By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, “Your descendants shall come from Isaac.” Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that’s what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.

 ²⁰By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.

 ²¹By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph’s sons in turn, blessing them with God’s blessing, not his own—as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.

 ²²By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.

 ²³By an act of faith, Moses’ parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child’s beauty, and they braved the king’s decree.

 ^24-28By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God’s people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah’s camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king’s blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn’t touch them.

 ²⁹By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.

 ³⁰By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.

 ³¹By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.

 ^32-38I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more— Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets….Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.

 ^39-40Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.Tweet

God is bigger. He’s always been bigger; He’ll always be bigger.
I have to believe it. I have to.

Amy.

I met Amy in 2003 over the phone. She was a speaker for the company that I worked for and was one of the most genuine, lovable Texan beauties I had ever known. Within three fast minutes, we were life-long friends and within three fast months I had only begun to realize the impact she was having in so many lives.

Her Story.

I remember the first time Amy told me her story as we sat in a restaurant overlooking the Boise city streets. A former beauty queen, passionate speaker, heartfelt friend and the biggest giver I’d ever known, I never imagined I’d hear of the tragedy that had colored her life.  From losing her father to losing her husband, pain was not a foreign concept for my dear friend.  Yet, as she told me her story with tears on her cheeks and hope in her eyes, I was once again in awe of the kind of woman that sat before me.

Continuing in her story, she told of her moment of breakthrough when her life began to take shape again. She declared with quiet boldness the verse that had granted her sleep and set her on a firm foundation once again:

“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

With those words Amy moved forward and quickly found herself presenting her message before large audiences.  She shared the stage with Heads of States, but her most treasured moments were in ministry as she spoke to battered and bruised women in shelters.

Shocking.

When I moved to Dallas in August of 2007, Amy was the first to greet me, bubbling with excitement and plans.  Our working friendship was over but our real-life friendship had continued.  Her life was full, her joy overflowing and her lasting touch in the lives of people glimmered with the fruit of a life well lived.

So one can imagine my utter shock when I heard the news.  As I was preparing for a women’s conference at my church one spring day, I ran into the grocery store to grab an apple and unexpectedly ran into my friend Jay who I had also worked with during the time when I met Amy.  We caught up very quickly and then he told me of Amy’s fall on stage the week prior and the tests that produced evidence of kidney cancer.  Stage IV.  Terminal.  Nothing can prepare you for a moment like that.  Amy was 41.

God is Bigger.

I hate cancer. It’s an evil disease that seems to cast its sites on the most unsuspecting, precious people.  Yet, my faith was sure and I had a bold confidence that “God is bigger.”

In the days that followed I spoke with Amy and we began to plan the next time we’d meet and catch up.  I asked her how to pray and she told me to pray as I always had and to pray for healing.  I told that I would and I did. With tears streaming down my cheeks and hope in my eyes, I asked the Lord to heal my friend.

Last year, after a 2-month battle with cancer, Amy went to be with Jesus.  A couple of days before she passed away, while at a fundraising dinner for the ministry she had founded, she sent a message:

“Whether in my life or in my death, God will be glorified.”

I remember her telling me a long time ago how she wasn’t afraid of painful things happening to her anymore, because she had seen what God had done for her out of the most horrible tragedies she could have imagined for herself.  She had given her life to the One who had rescued her so many years before, so to her, there was no fear.

Celebration.

Many tears streamed down many faces in the days that followed, but it became so clear that the ministry she had founded was booming with the radiant faces of lives that had been changed as the girls declared the redemption that they had each experienced in their own lives.

I’ve known a lot of people in my life, but if one day I remotely resemble the radiance of Amy, then I will be honored. She was driven, yet soft, passionate and hopeful. Yet, most of all, she had experienced first hand what it was to be loved by God and rescued by His hand.

Tough theology.

I have more faith in God’s healing power today than I have ever had.  Yet, it’s hard to understand cancer. It’s hard to understand healing. But as my friend Jill said at the funeral, “I can just hear Amy in heaven now… ‘You’re never gonna believe this!’”  If anyone is going to love heaven, it’s Amy.  She just beat us there.

Yes, God is bigger than cancer. I’ve seen him heal many people.  God is also bigger than my theology and my understanding.  I’ll miss Amy. But in her death, my eyes were opened to where God was calling me.  On the day she passed away, I wrote in my journal: “Okay, Lord. I’ll do all that you called me to, everything I’m afraid to do.  I’ll do it because I know that she was afraid too.  But she did it… in half the time.”

****************************************

Amy Jones, author of book: Twice As Much In Half the Time.

Tweet

Brace yourself because I am about to blast a very, very secret recipe across the world wide web for the first time ever in history. My friend and I created it when we were little… The name?  Friendship Blue.  For obvious reasons: We were friends and it was blue.

RECIPE: Water, sugar (lots of it), mint leaves (from the backyard) and blue food coloring.  Delicious.

We tried our best to only use these special ingredients in each batch of Friendship Blue (wouldn’t want to mess up this killer recipe with unknown variables), but if we had to substitute something, we could make that work as well.  These days Friendship Blue has become a bit too elementary for me. In fact, my formulas have gotten a lot more complicated… in everything.

The Problem with Formulas

Well, they kind of don’t work… and that sucks.  Here’s what I mean:

• Job: You are trained and qualified for a job + the job is a perfect fit = they’ll hire you.  Nope. Not always the case.
• Relationship Formula (one of many): She thinks he’s cute + he thinks she’s cute = they’ll date.  Nope. Not always the case.
• Calling/ Purpose: You feel you are supposed to go into ministry + you are following after God and active in community at church = you’ll begin full-time ministry right away. Nope. Not always the case.

Beyond the Formula

Greater than the ability to work a formula is the ability to look at all of the variables and create something far better.  God works beyond our formulas.  He sees the variables we don’t see. He is the greatest strategist, understanding how each piece effects the other. He understands the story beneath the story.

I’m not sure about you, but I am horrible at knowing “the right time to say the right thing, do the right thing, or be the right kind of person.”  All I can do is live and trust God with the variables.  Because in all honesty, I am usually clueless anyway.

Psalm 20:7-8

⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

⁸ They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.Tweet

Peace, Joy, Love and Faith require divine intervention.

I can never love God more than He loves me and I find that every day  I need him more than I did the day before. Relying on His plans rather than controlling my own requires Him… and more than yesterday, I need him today.  I mentioned Isaiah 30 in my last post and since then, I’ve been stuck in that chapter.

“So the Lord must wait for you to come to him so he can show you his love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.” Isaiah 30:18

Easy to say… but waiting for God when we really don’t know His divine happy ending and if it’s what we really want… well, that requires us to rest in our trust that He really is faithful.

This song has been rocking my world every since the BFF’s hubby told me about it yesterday… Listen and enjoy.  Kim Walker gets me every time…

Tweet

What do I believe about God?

I believe in God who loves with more love than we could ever fathom.
I believe in God who redeems hearts and people.
I believe in God who fights for the concerns of the orphan and the slave.
I believe in God who through his Son set all of our hearts free.
I believe in God who offers peace and joy beyond circumstances that warrant it.
I believe in God who interrupts life with blessings.
I believe in God who fights evil and teaches us to stand for Truth.
I believe in God who is just and whose love demands justice.
I believe in God who knows the best outcome for my life, even when I cannot see it, nor understand it.

I believe in a personal God.
My God who speaks to me.
My God who turned my sadness into joy.
My God who set me free from fear and hate.
My God who provided for my needs when all logical thought provided no way out of the pit I was in.
My God who has given me purpose.
My God who has given me hope.
My God that gave me Jesus.
My Jesus that provided for me salvation… salvation from my sin. Salvation from my own worst self.  And my Jesus that provided for me the Holy Spirit.

¹⁴For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  – Ephesians 3:14-19

What we believe about God matters. Faith isn’t about what you are believing in but it’s who you believe in…

What do you believe about Jesus?  Who is God to you?

Tweet

It’s not every day you get to do yoga in a 98 degree room with 60% humidity. It certainly isn’t every day that you get Demetri as your teacher.  Disclaimer: He’s quite possibly the sweetest guy on the planet. However, after 90 minutes of time spent with our sweet Demetri… I’m still not sure what just  happened.

Remember Charlie Brown’s mom and every adult in the cartoon for that matter?  Well, imagine Mama Brown (but a dude), in yoga shorts, and with an Irish accent (or maybe don’t…).  All I can say is it sounded like “dote-dee-doe”… and hold…  “dote-dee-doe” … and hold… If I hadn’t been taking the class for a while, there would be absolutely no way that I would have known what to do.

The Flexible Scottish Man’s Lessons

Lesson #1: You can actually tell someone’s character without them saying a word.

I have no idea what Demetri has ever been saying when he’s spoken to me. However, his character shines. He is warm and kind and you can tell.  Lesson?  Love with your life and your countenance, not just with your words.

Lesson #2: Sometimes you’ll just know what to do.

Once you’ve been in yoga for awhile, you know what the next move is.  Sometimes when I’m asking God direction on an issue, I’m not sure what the next step is for me to take.  However, I’ve been in class for awhile listening to the best Instructor, so I trust that when the time comes for me to get into position, I’ll know what to do.

Thanks Demetri… Both for the lessons and for not wearing the stretchy shorts today.

Tweet