Category: Biblical Wisdom

I’m not really a big dare-devil with my life. I like to weigh all of the pros and cons before I make a decision. I like to dot my i’s and cross my t’s. I like to prepare for all possible scenarios before I proceed. I’m not too keen on taking a lot of chances not knowing what the outcome may be. This clinging to the shore, attitude has cost me a lot of sleepless nights. Part of it is how I’m wired. I’m a planner. My mama is a planner. I suppose it’s genetic.

But, lately, God has been showing me another way. There have been several instances where I felt very little planning was involved, (not nearly enough to my way of thinking), yet things turned out beautifully. God doesn’t seem to mind taking chances on us, so why should I think  any differently?

There are a ton of examples in the Bible of God taking a chance and trusting a human. He trusted Noah to build a giant ark and save all of the animals of creation, in the desert. All of the rest of mankind had turned wicked. Why not Noah and his family? Noah came through. He trusted that Job would continue to worship and praise Him even if he lost everything that he had been given and he had been given a lot. Job proved Him right. And my favorite, is a teenage girl named Mary. God trusted her to carry His son. She did beautifully.

These are just a few examples of God taking a chance and trusting humans to get it right. And it was a gamble; we are notoriously unreliable. We have proven that fact repeatedly. Yet, our Heavenly Father who loves us anyway, is willing to trust us with some important missions. He gives us multiple chances to get it right and forgives us repeatedly when we get it wrong.

Knowing that to be true, I have to ask myself if I shouldn’t be a little braver when I think of taking chances on things that I know God has asked me to do. I also sometimes need to take hard look at the people He has put in my path, you know the ones. They might drive me absolutely crazy or appear to be a lost cause altogether. But, God often reminds me that nothing is impossible if His hand is on it. I may not be able to fix any situation or circumstance, but He can.

So, maybe instead of playing it safe, what I should do is go all in and take a chance on what or who has been in front of me, give it my very best shot and let God handle all of the rest. Maybe I should give my heart and soul a break from all of the what ifs and just go with it. Even if I fail in my own eyes, as long as I’m serving Him, I have succeeded in His and isn’t that all that really matters?

What do you think about taking chances?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Our sermon at church on Sunday, was about the Israelites escaping from the Egyptians through the Red Sea. Most of us are familiar with this Old Testament story. I particularly love stories in the Bible that demonstrate God’s use of His incredible power when His people are being pursued by those who wish them harm.

I haven’t read the story in a while, so I checked it out when I got home. The account is found in Exodus, Chapters 13 and 14, if you want to check it out for yourself. The first thing that jumped out at me is that God took the Israelites the long way around to the Promised Land. He had a plan. How often do we question why it takes so long to get where we are trying to go? It could be anything from personal finances to relationships. God’s timing is usually different from ours and there’s always a reason. The Israelites had to have wondered why they were headed directly towards the Red Sea. They didn’t have boats.

How often do we wonder the same? Is God listening to us? Does He know what He’s doing? Doesn’t He see that giant obstacle in our paths? We could learn a lot from the Israelites.

Then there’s the awesome parting of the Red Sea. As the Egyptians get closer, the Israelites panic. At this point, they are regretting even leaving Egypt. How quickly they forget all of those plagues that God kept them safe from. At this point Moses tells them one of my favorite Bible verses. “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14.

How often do we need to hear those words? How often do we listen to them and really take them to heart?

Moses lifts his staff and leads them directly into the Red Sea, which has parted and created a wall of water on either side and they walk through on dry land, not muddy muck, but dry land. But here’s the thing, the Egyptians continue to pursue them. God at any point, could have just struck them down or put an angel in their path, but He allowed them to pursue the Israelites. Why? Why would God do that? Why not just stop them?

God had a plan. He always has a plan. He wanted to teach the Egyptians a lesson they would never forget. He wanted to show them what happened to the enemies of God’s people. He let the Israelites get safely across and then the Egyptians who had happily been enjoying God’s gift of dry land, were swept away when Moses raised his hand again. The text says that not one of Pharaoh’s army survived.

The inner journalist in me, would love to know what was going through the Israelites’ minds at this point. What was their conversation like? What does this story hold for us?

I think that there are times in life when we wonder if God really has our backs. Is He listening to our prayers? Why won’t He remove the negative people or circumstances that at times seem to pursue us, our Egyptians? Then there are the obstacles, the Red Sea in our own lives that appear impossible to get around. Why doesn’t He just remove them?

While I don’t have the answers to any of these specific questions, my faith and the Bible tells me that God has a plan. We don’t need to panic. We can stand still and know that God will fight for us and if we know deep in our hearts that truth, then we should be able to rest easy. There is no enemy or obstacle that is too big for God. If you have any doubt in that, check out the Exodus story. It’s pretty powerful stuff.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Have you ever seen a toddler throw a temper tantrum? They completely lose control of themselves as they scream and cry until their little faces turn red. They sometimes lie on the floor and thrash about. As parents, we have several ways of dealing with their behavior. We can ignore it or meet it head on. We also know that there can be extenuating circumstances. For example, if the child hasn’t had a nap, losing self-control is much more likely. A well rested child is typically happier.

We hear the phrase, “I couldn’t help myself;” a lot in our society. Most of us have said it at some point. It can refer to ordering a dessert to eating an entire bag of cookies. It can refer to drinking too much alcohol or making a purchase that we had no business making. It can even refer to words we had no business saying to someone. The phrase itself can seem rather harmless. But, is it?

When we say, “I couldn’t help myself;” we are acknowledging that we had no control, whatsoever over our actions. But, if we had no control over our actions, then who did? Now we get to the phrase, “The devil made me do it.” That’s another phrase that seems harmless. Most of us have uttered that as well at some point. When we say something like that, we don’t really believe we have succumbed to some sort of demonic possession.

But, here again, can we really not control ourselves? The New Testament has a lot to say about self-control which isn’t really surprising when you think about it. The Old Testament had a lot of rules and laws to follow. The New Testament is centered around grace and Jesus’ call to follow him. Jesus was definitely a portrait of self-control.

Self-control is listed as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit right up there with joy and peace and love. Have you ever wondered why that may be? Why is self-control so important to Christians? For one thing, our religion doesn’t teach that if we don’t do exactly as we are told by our leadership that we will be be-headed. Our faith teaches a different way. We are to love God and love one another, when we do those two things, all of the rest falls into place.

So, how do we attain this elusive self-control? We can take a cue from our cranky toddler example. When we are over tired, Satan can get a foothold. It’s easier to lose control when we are exhausted. We can read the Bible. As I said earlier, there are a ton of examples of the importance of self-control found in it. We can surround ourselves with community who will help us with whatever we struggle with. This is why Weight Watchers works for those who are trying to lose weight and Alcoholics Anonymous works for those trying to stop drinking alcohol. Community works. Those two programs are shining examples.

A solid church community can also be helpful if we are fighting on keeping self-control in some area. Being accountable to others for our actions can really help us stay on the path to self-control.

Of course, there is prayer. We always have the ability and privilege to give to God whatever is gnawing at our souls. When we pray earnestly about something as important to our faith walk as self-control, I have no doubt He will send help. Sometimes we simply need to ask. The Bible tells us that, “The temptations in your life are no different than what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” 1 Corinthians 10:13

I don’t know about you, but I find that comforting. How do you do with self-control?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

When I looked out of my upstairs window and spotted this tree, I called to my hubby who was downstairs, and asked him if he saw the huge limb that had fallen. He came and looked and informed me it was a tree, not a limb. In my defense, we do have a lot of very large trees and I was kind of far away, and yes, it may be time to schedule a visit with the eye doctor.

He immediately knew which tree it was. He had tried to take it down himself, but at the time, it wouldn’t budge. That’s the tricky thing about trees. When they die, they die from the inside out. We can’t tell what’s happening on the outside, so we can be oblivious to their slow destruction until they fall on our house.

Thankfully, this one didn’t fall on the house or the deck, but closer inspection of it, really made me think.

The roots on this tree were completely dead. There wasn’t even a stump left, just a hole in the ground where a rather nice size tree had once stood. I don’t know what killed it. I do know a tree can’t live without roots. Georgia was in many years of drought and many trees in our neighborhood have been stressed and died. Prolonged drought can be extremely dangerous for trees.

Unfortunately, our spiritual lives can become like this tree if we aren’t diligent. Whether we have been raised in church or find Jesus later in our lives, we are all susceptible to life’s droughts. We weather relationship failures, divorce, job loss, illness, the loss of loved ones or infertility. There are so many hardships in life that can lead to spiritual drought that there’s just no way I could list them all here.

The point is, there are many situations that can lead us into drought. Sometimes they aren’t even life altering circumstances. Sometimes we stay married, raise kids and attend church every Sunday, but we don’t really seek God or His will for our lives. Sometimes, our spirituality slowly dies without us even knowing it. We don’t leave worship services on fire and ready to change the world. We just leave worship services, complacent and check it off of our to-do list. We can be slowly dying spiritually and not even know it because we are in spiritual drought.

The good news is, unlike that dead tree that had no choice in its fate, we do have a choice. At any moment, we can decide to search for something more and there’s so much available. We can pray for forgiveness for turning away from God to start off with and for guidance on this journey. We can dust off that old Bible and read it. We can follow along with Bible studies and blogs online. There are so many to choose from and there are so many people who struggle with this. We can find a church home and then a group or Sunday school class to plug into. We can serve others in some way. We can seek a mentor. We can find a new fresh church home if that’s what we need to do.

The bottom line is if we are in a season of drought, we must make changes and we must seek Jesus if we want to reverse our deterioration. He is really the only one who can guarantee restoration. Jesus said, “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

I don’t know about you, but fresh bubbling streams sound pretty good and it’s all there just for us. We only have to ask. If you are in a season of drought, I hope you will take Jesus up on his offer. The invitation is always open.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

When I was growing up, we used to say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I suppose as a child I really believed that. Young children often say mean things to one another. I guess I really never gave it too much thought when I was younger. By middle and high school though, words can really start to wound, often as badly as those proverbial sticks and stones.

I would imagine that there have been as many fights and wars started over words than for any other reason. Why is it that we take our awesome ability to communicate with each other and turn it into something ugly and hurtful?

Now that I have a child in high school, the words are flying. Everyone has something to say about somebody else, and quite often, it’s not very nice and sometimes downright ugly.

Hurtful words can sometimes be like that paper cut that we get; they aren’t really serious, but they hurt every time you wash your hands or take a shower. For a few days at least, that tiny cut is ever-present in your thoughts. After a little while it heals and we move on, but we don’t forget. Of course sometimes, words can wound much more deeply and can damage relationships and the people in them permanently.

Maybe our use of hurtful words stem from fear. Maybe we are afraid that the person we are talking about will take something away from us. Maybe they come from judgement. We are all fairly masterful at judging others. Perhaps they come from our own hearts that aren’t pure like they should be. I once heard a pastor say that if we sought to have a pure heart that seeks God, all of the rest would fall into place.

The Bible has a ton to say about our tongues and the words we use. The Book of Psalms uses words like swords and razors to describe the destructive capabilities of our tongues. It says our words can be used like arrows. Jesus said in Matthew 15:10-11, “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.”

Ouch! So, what we say actually has an impact on our purity of heart. But, what if that person really is a bad person? What if we just need to vent?

Sometimes we need to talk things out. We are made that way. But, there’s a difference between talking things out and pure old gossip. When someone is acting in a way that is clearly wrong, maybe instead of calling our best friend and talking about her, we should pray for her, talk to God about her or him instead. Maybe we could reach out to that person and see if we can help in some way.

Isn’t that what we are called to do? Aren’t we supposed to love one another? Is that unbelievably hard? Yes. Does God know that it’s hard? Yes. Will we fail? Yes. Will God forgive us when we fail? Yes. Should we try anyway? Yes.

As I counsel my fifteen-year-old on her use of words, I’m really forced to take a look at my own use of them. I think this is just one more way God uses our children to convict us. It’s always fairly easy  to look at others and their mistakes, but rarely as easy to look at our own. Who ever said the journey would be easy? I think that thinking before we speak, is probably worth a try.

What do you think?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

We had a guest pastor yesterday in church. His focus was on the 23rd Psalm and Jesus as the Good Shepherd. He went on to say that busyness is the great enemy of spiritual life today and that everyone is hardwired with a different capacity for busyness. I never really thought about it that way, but it made sense.

His point was that some people can stay very busy, yet still have the ability to rest and pray and listen to God. Some people only require six hours of sleep each night. But, some of us require eight and when we over schedule ourselves and don’t leave ourselves enough time for rest and prayer, our spirituality suffers. Our relationship with God suffers.

That means that to the human eye some people will always appear more productive than others. But, therein lies the rub. We aren’t supposed to concern ourselves with how we look to others when we are following the will of God. Will I look lazy if I don’t attend that event? Will it look like I don’t care or I’m not a good Christian?

These are questions that we should permanently remove from our internal dialog with ourselves. God made each one of us wonderfully different. We’re not all wired the same, by design. We are all originals. The only thing we are called to do is to follow God. If He calls us to do something, then we should do it. Caring about how it looks to others shouldn’t really cross our minds.

I’m always amazed at how the Bible can speak to me right where I am at any given moment and Psalm 23:2 really caught my attention today. “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.”

Did you notice that it didn’t say, “He asks us to slow down and rest.”? Nope, it says. “He makes me lie down.” Rest is mandatory. I also took note that it didn’t say to lie down on a couch in front of a noisy television or while I’m playing on my phone. I know those things weren’t invented when this beautiful book was written, but I think you get the point. He makes me rest in green pastures and leads me beside quiet waters; not loud rushing waterfalls.

It’s a peaceful picture. It’s a picture of our God acknowledging that we need to rest and providing a beautiful, peaceful setting for us to do so. Because what comes next is, “he restores my soul.”

So, we have a Biblical example here of the importance of rest and being surrounded by some type of peaceful setting in order for our souls to be restored and ready to work.

Once we have all pondered that, we should ask ourselves, how busy we are and are we too busy? Everyone’s answer will be different and everyone will have a different degree of acceptable busyness. Of course, there are seasons when we will be slammed, and that’s okay. But, if we find ourselves exhausted all of the time and we never have time to pray, or we have that constant tension in our shoulders, or the daily headache that never seems to go away, perhaps we have reached our capacity for busyness and we need to dial it back.

We weren’t meant to be constantly stressed and exhausted. We can’t grow that way and we can’t experience God’s plan for us that way. Rest and restoration is supposed to be a part of our lives. If we want to be all that God has designed us to be, we really need to embrace that concept.

The more I think about it; the more I like it. How busy are you?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

My son, bless him, is an avid collector of just about anything. My daughter calls him a hoarder. Aren’t siblings fabulous? He is truly fascinated by God’s creation and will pick up anything that catches his eye from rocks to shells. When we happened upon this horseshoe crab, on our vacation this summer, he was anxious to bring it home with us. It was kind of broken up and my hubby talked him out of it. We also happened to be on the way to dinner.

But, ever undaunted, he found several more the next day and we let him bag them up. Horseshoe crabs go through molts as they mature. They get too big for their shells and they must shed them in order to grow. There are many animals in nature that do the same. They shed hair, skin, feathers and antlers among other things, so that they can grow. We’ve all seen a snake skin. That snake had to shed his skin so he could grow larger.

What we didn’t know about the cool looking horseshoe crab shell, was that they stink. When I tell you they stink, think dead, rotting fish sitting around. They smelled awful. We put them in several trash bags and kept spraying them with Lysol until we could get them home into some bleach and water.

The entire process got me to thinking about how we as humans grow spiritually. When we begin a journey with Jesus, we sometimes begin to shed bad or unhealthy habits. Sometimes particular attitudes that used to fit us beautifully, no longer fit. Sometimes relationships that used to fit us like gloves, no longer fit. In our process of personal growth, we can outgrow actions that used to make us happy.

But, just like animals who molt, we are most vulnerable as we begin to shed the old attitudes and old choices. In the beginning of our faith walk, we can be unsure of our path, which is why it can be so very important so surround ourselves with a strong faith community, who can encourage us and help us along as we grow stronger. In turn, as we grow stronger, and get further along, we should make it our business to help those who are  just beginning their journey.

In the beginning, we can be tempted to go back to those old pre-molt ways, but we can find that they no longer fit us, just like the horseshoe crab shell, and furthermore, they can be toxic and stink like those shells.

Paul wrote a good portion of the New Testament, and so much of it is about community. It’s so important to our faith walk. When I hear people say they don’t like “organized religion,” it drives me crazy because with no organization or plan, how can there be community? How can we learn from other Christians and how can they learn from us, if we sit at home and read the Bible or just watch a sermon on television?

I think that we go through spiritual molts throughout out lifetimes. The more we grow, the more we shed old beliefs and attitudes and I think the bottom line is we need each other, whether we like it or not. That’s just how we are made. We should always seek community and encourage one another.

“And let us not neglect meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25

What do you think about community and spiritual molts? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

I was working as a substitute teacher last week and we had the fourth graders out on the playground. I had my eyes on the kids on the swings when some commotion on the basketball court caught my attention. Apparently, some wasps had made a nest inside the basketball goal. When the basketball was thrown into the hoop, a few came out. What do you think happened next? Do you think those children ran away in fear?

Nope, they continued to throw the ball at the hoop and created a swarm. After I scolded them and moved them all far away from the swarm, I told another teacher and she radioed the office. A few short minutes later, the custodian arrived. He’s an older gentleman who has worked at the school for many years.

I pointed out the problem to him and he said he would get some spray. When I told him the wasps would likely be hard to get to, he didn’t bat an eye when he told me he would get a ladder. This man was willing to get inches away from stinging wasps to keep the children safe. I then watched him cross the playground and fix a hole in the fence, again keeping the kids safe. He obviously takes his job very seriously.

When we think of custodians, we often think of janitors, people who clean up messes. But, when I looked up the definition for custodian, the first one was: a person who has responsibility for or looks after something. The synonyms were: keeper, guardian, steward and protector. This man clearly was way more than a janitor; he was a custodian.

Then I began to think about all of the things in our daily lives that we are the custodians of, from our homes and cars to our marital relationships and friendships. We are certainly the custodians of our children and pets and sometimes our parents. I think for the most part, we take these physical jobs fairly seriously. We make dinner and keep doctor appointments. We lend a hand or an ear when a friend needs us.

But, how do we do with our faith. Do we consider ourselves custodians of our faith. Do we protect it and guard it? Are we good stewards? When someone in our church stirs up a wasp nest, are we willing to get a ladder and get close, to get it taken care of permanently or do we run away?

How about out in our communities, when something gets stirred up regarding our faith, do we stand fast or do we duck out heads and walk away? How about in our country or in the world at large? How are we as Christians, doing as custodians of our faith? What sort of message are we sending the world about what we believe and is it a message that Jesus would be proud of?

Luke 12:48 tells us that, “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”

I don’t know about you, but I definitely fall into that category. I think I need to give some thought and prayer on being a better custodian to all that has been entrusted to me. What do you think? How are you doing?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂