We Don’t Need a Season to Adore Him

Posted on by Wendy
There's never an incompatible season to adore Him.
There’s never an incompatible season to adore Him.

When I was driving to work yesterday morning, I’ll have to admit I felt kind of down. It had rained here in Georgia for close to two weeks. I had seen dozens of pictures on Facebook of our neighbors in South Carolina, literally washing away. These weren’t Weather Channel hype photos either; they were shared by people I know. I had been praying for the citizens there, but mourning with them as well.

The shootings in Oregon also weighed heavily on my mind. The world felt unusually dark to this normally glass half-full gal. As I scanned the radio for music, every channel featured deejays talking. I gave up and hit the CD button and music from my church’s Christmas Cantata began to play.

Yes, I’m aware that it’s only October, but if you want to learn something like eight songs by the second Sunday in December, you have to practice now. We are supposed to be listening to the cantata music before practice, to help us learn the new songs.

But, the truth is, I haven’t really found myself in the Christmas mood. I wasn’t ready for Christmas so I keep putting it off. But, this morning, I hit play, truthfully because I couldn’t find anything else to listen to.

Isn’t that how many of us end up at the foot of the cross? We simply have nowhere else to go.

The first song on that CD is really powerful. It’s about praising our coming merciful King with, o come let us adore Him. Then it switches to parts of, “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

It’s truly amazing how your heart and outlook can change when you are singing praise music to the top of your lungs for no one, but you and God to hear. When I got to the, “Gloria” part, I had tears running down my cheeks as I felt my spirit ignited by that which is Holy.

I needed to sing praises to Jesus that morning. My downtrodden heart needed the filling and uplifting that can only come from worshiping our Savior.

While it’s true that I’m not ready for Christmas trees and wreathes at retail stores when we haven’t even made it to Halloween, my heart is ready for the true meaning of Christmas.

I needed reminding in my dark moment that Jesus came to bring us all light, a miracle that’s worthy of praise regardless of the season. Yesterday I was reminded because I was desperate. But, then again, God is always faithful like that to those who seek Him.

Sometimes in between all of petitioning for intervention, I need to remember to stop and simply praise God. It’s amazing how it can change my outlook. Maybe it can change yours too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

P.S. If you want to hear an awesome version, I’ve attached one. Enjoy!

The Answer is Jesus

Posted on by Wendy
If we want to stop the violence in America, then our country has to turn back to God.
If we want to stop the violence in America, then our country has to turn back to God.

Last Thursday, in Oregon, a twenty-six year old gunman shot and killed 9 innocent people and wounded 9 more. They were students at a small community college who were simply trying to better themselves. Oh, yeah they were also Christians who openly professed their faith.

The media did its best to keep that crucial part of the story out of the headlines for as long as they could, but at some point, there were too many survivors telling the same story, for them to discount it.

The shooter first had his hostages lie face down on the floor. Then he had them stand up one by one and asked them if they were a Christian, if the answer was, “yes,” he shot them in the head.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time we have heard this narrative. The shooters at Columbine High School back in 1999, asked students to renounce Jesus. When they refused, they too, were shot and killed. There was even a story where one of those shooters pleaded with a girl to renounce Christ, like he didn’t want to shoot her, but had no choice. She refused and he killed her.

Interestingly enough, her father has appeared before Congress to discuss the importance of school prayer. He had the real issue right, way back then.

The families of the Oregon shooting hadn’t even been notified before our President had a press conference to call on new gun control laws and the press and political pundits jumped on board, both sides throwing barbs at the other. The Constitution was of course invoked, and the insults have flown.

And the real culprit, he’s enjoying every minute. Of course, chaos and destruction are on the top of his to-do list. The headline is not about guns or the right to own them or whether they should be controlled. The real headline is not even about the death of these saints who are sitting with Jesus.

The headline is that God has an enemy and therefore, God’s people have an enemy. Our enemy is Satan and he’s clever. He specializes in murder and mayhem. John 8:44 calls him, “a murderer from the beginning.”

1 Peter 5:8, says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

Revelation 12:9, calls him, “the deceiver of the whole world.”

Does any of this sound familiar when we think of the killing of Christians? The bottom line is whether the murderer is in the form of ISIS, or two high school kids, or a teen who opens fire in a church, or a twenty-six year old loner, when a person kills another person for being a Christian, they are followers of Satan.

It’s not about mental illness or guns. Satan did a fine job throwing Christians to the lions back in 64 AD. I suppose we would consider Nero mentally ill today. Christians have been killed since Jesus went back to heaven.

Satan doesn’t need guns. All he needs is a populous who doesn’t call Jesus savior and doesn’t read the Bible. If people don’t read the Bible, then he can continue to do all of his evil undercover and we can all debate gun control.

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

How can we resist the devil if we don’t acknowledge his existence?

To stop the violence, we have to turn back to God. We have to teach our children about Jesus. We have to share truth with our neighbors and with people who seem lost and on the edge.

The Bible says God is light and Jesus taught that the most important thing is love. When we were a nation of faithful Christians, we knew that. We were able to stop evil in the world, like Adolf Hitler, who I suppose now would be considered mentally ill.

The simple answer is Jesus. Any other debate is just a smoke screen.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

God Knew

Posted on by Wendy
We couldn't have possibly known last summer that South Carolina would have catastrophic flooding. But, God knew.
We couldn’t have possibly known last summer that South Carolina would have catastrophic flooding. But, God knew.

I clicked on the Weather Channel yesterday morning to figure out what I should wear to church. It had been raining for days and was unseasonably cool. But, when the page opened up, the headline made me catch my breath. It read, “Catastrophic Flooding in South Carolina.” What to wear to church was completely forgotten.

A Salkehatchie summer mission trip, to South Carolina, has made a lot of people there very dear to me and my daughter. I silently prayed for their safety as I scrolled through pictures of the horrible devastation that had roads that looked like rivers and Interstate Highways closed, due to flooding.

As the morning went on, I began to think about the couple that we were able to help on that trip. When we arrived, their ceiling was caving in from a roof leak in the front of their house. In the back of their house, the roof had leaked so badly that the floor had rotted completely out and was literally being held up by the carpet.

Another group worked on a house that had a tarp and cement blocks on the roof. No one knows how long it had been there. But, when the Two Rivers’ Director and her team, toured all of the homes of the people who had requested assistance, and there were many, one of the team members spotted the house with the tarp and said he felt led to talk to the owner. Upon learning that he was a disabled Vietnam Veteran and had no means to fix his roof, his house was chosen.

Keep in mind that according to Clemson University statistics, South Carolina has been in drought for 8 out of the last 10 years. But, according to a weather report, the Metro Columbia area, which was where we were working, got 5 to 10 inches of rain in just 24 hours and it was still coming down.

I thought of the couple that we helped. They had needed help for a long time. Their church had reached out to members of the community for assistance, and I’ve no doubt that they had prayed about it. But it wasn’t until last summer that help arrived with a brand new roof and new ceilings and floors on the inside and apparently, just in the nick of time.

There’s no way, that their home could have survived ten plus inches of rain. I suspect they would be homeless now. And the veteran with the tarp on his roof? There’s no way a tarp could have held out that kind of rain either. I suspect he too, may have been homeless, without intervention.

We had no way of knowing in the unprecedented heat wave last June, what was coming in October, but God knew. God knew unprecedented rain would be coming. He hand-picked each one of us and each one of those homeowners. God intervened and each one of us who volunteered allowed Him to intervene through us.

As horrible as all of the flooding is, and it’s bad, God reminded me this morning that He is here and working, even when it seems all is lost. Please join me in prayer for all of the residents of South Carolina. May they stay safe and dry and see blue skies soon. And may they all have the blessing of seeing God at work in the aftermath.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Waiting…..

Posted on by Wendy
Waiting can sometimes be miserable, but there are times when we are called to wait.
Waiting can sometimes be miserable, but there are times when we are called to wait.

Waiting is not something I do particularly well. When I have a task that needs to be tackled, I make a list and I come up with a plan, and then I act. I suspect I’m not alone here. Waiting can be difficult and sometimes downright miserable, but there are times we are called to wait.

Sometimes God is growing us for something bigger and better than we could imagine, but we aren’t ready yet. Sometimes He is putting all of the little pieces into place before it’s time for us to act. It’s really amazing when you can look back and have a light bulb moment when you understand why you had to wait. Sometimes we don’t get that moment; yet we’re still called to trust and obey. Obedience sometimes means waiting.

When we decide that we can no longer wait on God to guide us or to provide for us and we act on our own, disaster can occur.

Just look at Sarah in Genesis. God had promised Abraham children, repeatedly. Years went by and Sarah didn’t conceive. They had been in Canaan for ten years when she uttered the words that would cause her so much heartache down the road.

“So, she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant perhaps I can build a family through her.” Genesis 16:2a

Perhaps seems like such a harmless word. Dictionary.com defines it simply as “maybe, possibly.” But, if we learn anything about the nature of God from reading the Bible, we know He doesn’t do “maybe.”

God gives commands. He doesn’t waffle or change His mind. He’s decisive. When He told Abraham that He would build a nation through Him, it was a promise. God always keeps His promises.

Maybe Sarah was tired of waiting. Maybe she panicked. She was way past childbearing years. Still, she could have obediently waited on God to act, but she didn’t.

Her maidservant became pregnant. There were problems between she and Sarah from the moment the stick turned blue.

God did provide a child as He promised, and some thirteen or so years later, Isaac was born to Sarah, some twenty-five years after God’s original promise.

The first son, the one that Sarah orchestrated would be a problem for the Jews throughout history. Modern day Muslims trace their roots back to him.

Who would have ever believed that such a rash decision to take matters into her own hands, could have caused so much heartache even thousands of years later?

There’s a little Sarah in all of us. We all get tired and impatient. We want our answers or our blessings and we want them now, but God doesn’t work that way.

When we grow in our faith, we learn obedience. The Holy Spirit teaches us patience and self-control. When we learn to wait, our faith multiplies exponentially.

And when God does finally act, be prepared for fireworks. His plan is always worth waiting for. Sometimes I need reminding. Maybe you do too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Breaking Out of Holy Huddles

Posted on by Wendy
Christian faith is a call to action.
Christian faith is a call to action.

My Facebook page was covered recently with news of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States. There were quotes from his many speeches and they were good ones too. I even found myself jotting them down.

The fact that he chose to eat with homeless people instead of dining with Congress touched a nerve with a lot of people. I’ll have to admit that his act of humility impressed me. I am not Roman Catholic, but I have the utmost respect for someone in a leadership position like his, actively doing what all Christians are called to do.

It’s always easier to make speeches and talk about what to do. Action is another proposition altogether.

Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, the superintendent of the Wesleyan Church commended Pope Francis for his interaction with the homeless. She went on to say, “Wesleyans are not called to hang out in Holy Huddles on the edge of society.”

I jotted her quote down too. The truth is all Christians are called to help build the kingdom of God. We can’t really do that sitting in our comfortable pews in our air-conditioned and heated churches. Although it’s easy to get comfortable there. I’m certainly guilty of that myself.

However, the Bible tells us, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” James 2:17

That seems kind of harsh. But, the thing is, if we truly walk with Jesus, we align our hearts with His. The things that trouble Him, trouble us. We know He had a heart for the poor. It’s all over the Gospels; so we are supposed to care about the poor as well.

Instead of going into full make a list mode and getting out our debit cards, perhaps we should begin with prayer. We aren’t all called to eat dinner with the homeless, but we are all called to love and interact with our fellow man.

When we pray and read the Bible and get quiet and listen, the Holy Spirit will direct us to where we need to go. He will call us out of our “Holy Huddles” and not only will we be willing to go, we will actually get excited about it because we have aligned ourselves with Jesus.

I think Pope Francis gave all Christians a powerful reminder of what love should look like. It should look like service, us serving others, not being served ourselves.

Jesus told us to love one another. Maybe we should stop and ask ourselves from time-to time how we are doing. Perhaps that’s why the Pope dining with the homeless was such a headline. It got my attention. Maybe it got yours too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

 

Crossing Our Jordan

Posted on by Wendy
When God calls us, He wants us to go all in.
When God calls us, He wants us to go all in.

A couple of nights ago, my hubby and I attended our small group get-together from church. We are watching a video about different places in the Holy Land that appear in the Bible. The narrator then ties them in to our modern life.

This time our video was about the Jordan River which appears several times in the Bible. The narrator explained that the Jordan flowed extremely quickly in Biblical days. It has now been dammed up to help supply water for the nation of Israel, but it used to flow fast and at times was very deep.

In the Book of Joshua, we find Joshua getting ready to at long last, lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. They had been wandering in the desert for forty years as punishment for doubting that God could deliver them. An entire generation had died.

But, in that time, God continued to feed them everyday. He provided for them in their time of wandering. Even in His anger, He didn’t abandon them. That is the nature of our God.

But, the moment of truth had arrived. God had told Joshua the time had come to cross over the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. The Jordan stood between their old lives of being lost and wandering and their new lives of what God had promised them.

But, I learned in the video, that the problem was that the Jordan was at flood stage. It was very deep and fast. The priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant, were commanded to walk into the Jordan. This wasn’t an easy, gentle slope. There was no wading in or dipping their proverbial toes in. If they were going to trust God, they had to go all in.

The story took on a little deeper meaning for me. Anyone can gradually wade into something, but taking the plunge is an entirely different matter. Thankfully, they didn’t hesitate. They plunged in and God stopped the water from flowing upstream.

Just like with the Red Sea, a generation earlier, He parted the waters, and the Israelites walked through on dry land. But, to get their miracle, just as Moses did with the Red Sea, God expected them to step out in faith.

God wasn’t interested in baby steps. He wanted fearless faith and when He got it, wow! He came through in a huge, miraculous way.

I’ve thought a lot about Joshua and the Jordan since I saw that video. What does the Biblical account have to do with us?

We all would love to see God move in big ways, but time after time in the Bible, we see that we have to step out in faith first, and quite often take a plunge, not wade in timidly. Fearless faith requires trust and obedience, two things that we often struggle with.

In the modern Western world, we like to plan everything and have contingencies. Jumping in without a backup is kind of frowned upon.

But, when God calls us, He says we should jump anyway, no matter how deep our Jordan may be. We should all remember, that we worship the God who stopped the Jordan at its source. He can always do it again.

What are you being called to do today? Take a leap and watch. Your Promised Land may be waiting on the other side.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

God and Football

Posted on by Wendy

Back in August, a little organization called Freedom from Religion, sent letters to UGA, Auburn, and South Carolina, demanding that they remove chaplains from their football teams. In the past, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Clemson got them too.

It was the same old separation of church and state argument that atheists love to present at any given opportunity. Auburn apparently responded rather quickly and among other things said something along the lines of: the U.S. Congress has a chaplain; we’re keeping ours. Way to go Auburn! (That’s likely the only time you will see those words written here.)

After the UGA vs. Vanderbilt game, there’s a picture on Twitter (pictured above), of the players actually kneeling together in prayer. It’s pretty powerful. Sure, they are rivals; but football is only a game. Faith is forever. I’m proud to be an alum of a school that encourages their players to show their faith.

Parents have lamented for years about the poor role models that sports figures present. Maybe if the pro players attended colleges that encouraged faith along with winning, professional athletes might behave differently.

Last Saturday, UGA played Southern University out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Late in the third quarter, one of their players, Devon Gales was injured. It didn’t look good when he went down. He wasn’t moving at all. I said a silent prayer for him as they carried him off the field on a stretcher, the kind that keeps you from moving.

I continued to pray for him and when I searched the internet, I discovered I wasn’t alone. Facebook had several shares from different sources asking for prayers.

I learned that Georgia’s head coach Mark Richt, a man very open about his faith in Jesus, had visited Gales at the hospital and was quoted as saying, “We’re trying to cover him up with as much love as we can and let him know that we care and that we’re here to help.”

But, that should come as no surprise. Richt is a Christian. Love is at the core of Christianity. A spokesman from Southern University said that Gales’ family and the entire Southern University family was extremely thankful for all of the prayers and support. Also, not shocking, is that the football chaplains have been very involved.

Yeah, the ones that the Freedom from Religion group wanted to remove. I wonder how Devon Gales and his family feel about those chaplains. I wonder of any member of that group would care to comment.

UGA players also took to Twitter with their prayers and well wishes for Devon. Seems God is alive and well in college football.

Football is a rough game where it’s very easy to get seriously injured. The wise coaches know that they need God. The wise players know that they need God.

Everyday life can be awfully rough too. Although, not as physically dangerous as football, it’s easy to get injured just the same. We need God. Our leaders need God. Because in the end, He’s really the only one who can save us.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

Using the Right and the Left

Posted on by Wendy
Jesus wants your heart and mind.
Jesus wants your heart and mind. Just one, won’t do.

I love to sing in the choir. It’s like praying, but in a different way than just using words. I recently did a little research on music and how it affects the brain and I learned some fascinating things.

People who are not trained to read music, those of us who just love to belt out a song, primarily use our right brains. It’s a completely creative endeavor for us.

Trained musicians, on the other hand, use their left brains. Reading music is very technical. It’s a language of its own. But, the best musicians, the ones who are the most successful, the ones that we enjoy seeing perform, are the ones who can learn to engage both sides of their brains. They learn the technical, but they tie it in with the creative and emotional and that’s when a performance becomes pure magic.

Obviously, I couldn’t just get up there and use my musically untrained right brain to sing in the choir, if we didn’t have a trained and simply fabulous choir director. There’s no way we could have a choir without a trained musician or two. But, perhaps having the untrained, gives it an interesting slant.

I suspect that’s why praise music is so effective in contemporary worship services, especially for newer Christians. It’s just a few verses up on a wall. You don’t have to follow with your finger to keep up. It’s easy to be more worshipful and less technical.

If you have sung the hymns from the hymnal your entire life, I’ll bet a CAT scan would show that you use both sides of your brain, like the trained musician. Old hymns bring me comfort. I can belt them out like the newer ones and I know I’m not alone.

As I thought about how the brain works with music, I began to think about Christians. New Christians are often on fire for Jesus. They want to share the Good News with everyone they meet and their passion often proves to be very effective. Their message is emotional and completely from the heart. It’s more right brain dominated.

As our faith grows, we dig into the Bible and we learn more about God. We become more technical and here is where many of us stay. We can quote scripture. We attend worship regularly and volunteer. We go to, or maybe even lead a Bible study.

Like that trained musician, we can read the notes. We can dot our i’s and cross our t’s and that’s a good thing. We need to learn all we can and we need training in our faith. But, we also run the risk of being too legalistic, like those Pharisees back in Jesus’ day.

If we want to be effective, we also have to remember that Christianity is a faith of the heart. Jesus wants our minds and our hearts. Just one, won’t do.

When we ask the Holy Spirit to help us combine the two, we can become world changers.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

The Seemingly Insignificant

Posted on by Wendy
Building an authentic relationship with God requires praying about everything, not just the really big things.
Building an authentic relationship with God requires praying about everything, not just the really big things.

A lot gets said about not comparing ourselves to other people. We have no idea what other people have been through to get where they are. We are all God’s own unique creation and we should be focused on Him not them. Can I get an Amen?

When we think about comparing ourselves with other people, we normally think about people who we think have more and better anything, or everything, than we do. But, what about the flip side?

Sometimes I find myself grappling with a seemingly insignificant issue like one of my kids not passing algebra. It upsets me to see my child struggle, trying hard and still not passing. But, then I sometimes have a nagging feeling that says things like, “How dare you be concerned about something so trivial. There are children starving to death in this world, or at least your child is healthy; there are children dying of cancer, or, or, or.”

When I buy into that, I’m still comparing myself to others. That little nagging feeling doesn’t come from God because it separates me from Him. It makes me feel like my problems are too insignificant to take to Him. It makes me feel ashamed for not feeling thankful for all of the blessings that I have been given.

God doesn’t want us to feel badly about our emotions.

God wants true, authentic relationship with us. He doesn’t want us to just come to Him with a smile plastered on our faces and read off an automated list of the things we are thankful for. Yes, we are supposed to be thankful and live with thankful hearts, but we are human. We have bad days. We have everyday struggles. We get our feelings hurt.

God wants to hear about that stuff too. He knows our hearts anyway; to really grow our faith, we have to be honest with Him when we pray and if we are honestly worried or anxious about something, it doesn’t matter whether it seems insignificant to anyone else. We need to feel free to pray about it.

Can we expect God to answer a prayer if we’re not willing to share it with Him?

I’m reminded of an old hymn from my childhood that says it perfectly, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

I sometimes write to remind myself. Maybe you needed a reminder too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂

 

Be Still and Pray Even on Busy Days

Posted on by Wendy
One of God's greatest creations was the companionship of a dog.
One of God’s greatest creations was the companionship of a dog.

It had been a long day for me. I had been up late the night before waiting for my son’s bus to return from a band exhibition. I had been up since 5:00 AM. As I was driving home from work, I mentally ticked off my to-do list, which included a couple of loads of laundry and dinner, not to mention I could write my name in the dust on my dresser. I also reminded myself that I hadn’t exercised all week.

But, when I got home, instead of rushing around and starting on my chores, I decided to take a little quiet time and do some yoga and pray. I love to pray when I practice yoga. The quiet, intentional breathing seems to invite the Holy Spirit to join me.

I did some stretching and standing poses and then I got down on the floor. “Lord, please show me your face;” I prayed. “Let me feel your presence.”

I was still for a few minutes, something I struggle with some days. When I started on my Pilates moves, my dog Sandy, came peeping around the corner. I kept working and he continued to inch closer, so close that I had to either pet him or kick him.

Of course, I chose to pet him and then he was all over me. He flopped on his back, wagging his tail, greedy for attention and as if I made some kind of announcement, my little dog, Piper came bounding into the room and took full posession of my other hand.

The dogs were in ecstasy as I focused all of my attention on them, my little workout long forgotten. They had missed me. They didn’t care how busy I was or what was on my to-do list; they simply wanted my time and attention. I gave it to them freely and felt more relaxed than I had all day.

At that moment, I knew God had been listening. My dogs served as a reminder of unconditional love. They served as a reminder that all of the stuff I needed to do could wait. The relationships wouldn’t.

When I thought about my canine love fest later, I was reminded that God too, desires my daily time and attention. On my busiest days, He still wants me to make time for Him to read His word and to pray. He’s not very concerned with my to-do list.

On the days I get it wrong, I am given forgiveness and grace. On the days I get it right, something beautiful always happens. Today I was rewarded with wagging tails and doggie kisses. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?

Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you do too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂