2 Negatives Make a Positive...Really?

Negativity...

It's everywhere.
It's especially rampant in people who are stressed out.
It saps the oxygen out of an atmosphere.
It makes a person focus on even the minutest of inconveniences and exaggerate their effect on their life.
It schools the soul to search out the worst case scenario.
It twists the innocent motives and benign happenings into evidence that the cosmos has a personal vendetta.
It causes a preoccupation with navel gazing to the extent that blessed opportunities are lost.
It drains a person of synergistic energy.
When it rains, it sees the mud puddles - not the glistening rose rising out of the mud.
When it's cold, it feels the damp instead of basking in the warmth of the fire in the hearth.
When it's hot, it wallows in the sticky humidity of the summer day instead of savoring the taste of refreshing cold water.
The food is too bland, too spicy, too cold, too hot, too expensive; the serving too big, too small; the waitress too slow; too grouchy, too friendly.
The professor is too boring; too long-winded; too thorough in presentation.
The exams are too hard; too tricky; too long; not enough points; too close together.
The house is too hot, too cold.
Gas is too expensive; the grocery bill too steep.
Your job takes too much of your time; the pay isn't enough; your boss is too hard to please.

And on and on I could go....

Does any of this sound familiar?  We all are a bunch of spoiled kids who think the world revolves around them and them only.  Got news for you - the world does not spin on the axis of you or my likes, wants, and "needs".  And most of the things we complain nonstop about?  Guess what, they are luxuries - things that most folks in other countries never take for granted.  They don't even know if they will get the basics of survival for the next day.  Still feeling negative about the petty grievances in your life?  Then perhaps you ought to stop that navel gazing.

I've been on a self imposed negativity awareness watch here of late.  It's amazing how many times I heard it in a day's time once I started tuning my ear for it.  And yes, it came out of my mouth far too many times than what I would like to admit.  It's debilitating to myself and to others.  By being negative, I'm making myself the most miserable, but I'm also making it extremely miserable for those around me too.

I've found that when I'm looking for the negative; things become negative that would not have been negative otherwise.  I'm not advocating looking at life with rose-tinted glasses.  There is such a thing as reality and being a realist.  But it's possible to be a realist and be upbeat about it.  I learned that lesson from my Dad.  And so many people have told me the same thing about my Dad - what impressed them the most is that in the most impossible of situations, my Dad would find something positive about it or at the very least keep his smile and his upbeat attitude.

That, my friends, is an admirable reputation and legacy to leave with people.  I've got me a lot of growing to do.  Gotta toss off those dark, stormy-gray glasses and trade them in for glasses that show me the light in every situation.

Happy Monday to you all and hey, do yourself a favor and look for the positive this week!

"The Jesus I Never Knew"

Good morning, folks!  Yes, I do still exist!  After a stretch of silence, there are many avenues I could take but I want to share with you my renewed passion to know my Jesus more intimately.

I was looking over my packed bookshelves the other night in search of a medical textbook when a title on a book spine jumped out at me.  "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Philip Yancey.  I recalled being all excited about picking this like new book up in a used bookstore and being eager to start it as soon as I got home.  But alas, this book got lost in the shuffle and since I've got enough bookshelves now, it was unearthed from a box and set on the shelf.  Funny how it didn't strike me when I was transferring my books onto the shelf.  

Perhaps I now have more of an intimate interest in exploring Jesus than what I did back a couple of months ago.  Am I alone in these periods of lackadaisical perception of Jesus?  I don't think so.  Does everyone want to admit their times of struggle with this lack of interest?  I think we all feel alone in this struggle and feel somewhat less of a Christian if we admit it.  I know I struggle with doubts of my sincerity in my Christian walk if I don't feel a consuming desire to learn more about Jesus.  Satan knows too that he can get me down pretty quick with these doubts.  If he gets me to wallow around in my doubts and insecurity, I'll be so consumed with that I'll waste time that could be spent in fanning the smoldering ashes of interest into a burning passion to reconnect with my Redeemer.

How many times does Jesus Himself get lost in the shuffle of my life?  Do I pack Him away and attempt to confine Him to a box?  A box with borders well inside my comfort zone and my stipulations of "sane Christianity".  You know when you say, "Wait, wait, not too radical here, Jesus, after all what will others think about me if You lead me to a more passionate lifestyle, a more intense emotional investment in life?"  I am guilty of holding the reins back way too much in my relationship with Jesus.  How do I expect Him to be able to move in me and work through me if I'm constantly pulling back?  I know that feeling somewhat - when my horse is being obstinate and refusing to engage in riding and give it all she's got when I ask her to gallop, it's frustrating and I nigh to lose my temper with her.  That's essentially what I'm doing with Jesus - He says, "Lets gallop!"  And I say, "I'll fully engage my heart for the next 5 minutes but then I'm gonna fall back into my safe routine of Christianity."

Why don't I know Jesus more intimately and grasp His passionate zeal?  I can't use the excuse that there's not enough info available about Him.  I have no excuse.  God has revealed Himself clearly in all of Scripture and the Messiah is the main theme woven all through the tapestry of God's Word.  The ball is in my court - am I going to play it or ignore it?  Does the intensity of Jesus scare me?  Does His unapologetic direct approach to truth make me uncomfortable?  Does His reckless abandon of man's preconceived boundaries of righteousness infringe on my space?  What is it that prevents me from losing myself in Him?  

Modern day mainstream Christianity has tamed down what it means to live for Jesus.  We don't want to offend anyone and we cringe from appearing radical.  We want want only what's easy and whatever goes with the flow.  Too often I am guilty of restricting the power of Jesus in my life, simply because I am reluctant to go at a gallop with Him.

I have decided I am going to study just who this Jesus is.  I am going to put aside my preconceived ideas of Him and look at Him through the eyes of the Gospel writers as though I were learning about Him for the first time.  I desire to be radically changed by Jesus without impeding the process by dragging my heels.  I will work my way through the Gospels taking my time in order to scrutinize Jesus rather than giving Him my passive attention.  I also am going to read Philip Yancey's book along with this study.

I hope to gain some fresh insights and am excited about sharing them with you.

Angels Came

You're probably thinking this is another retelling of the Christmas Story.  It's not.  It's about the reality on earth that Jesus the baby grown-up went through for us as proof that it is possible to survive the Tempter's attacks on our souls.

Recently I was reading out of Matthew 4 about Jesus in the wilderness.  Here of late I've been feeling like I'm in the wilderness with no oasis in sight.  Sometimes I'm quite sure my GPS is constantly recalculating and meanwhile I'm walking in tiring circles.  You ever been there?  If so, you know that's when Satan has a hey-day.  Maybe you're there right now - perhaps we should make our circles overlap.  Misery loves company after all!  I fail to remember that my GPS is divinely designed to need daily re-calibration and without that it will be constantly recalculating without successfully pointing me to the shortest route toward Jesus, my centering oasis.

I for one could take a major lesson from Jesus' interaction with Satan here in the wilderness.  Jesus wasn't cowed by Satan.  Neither was He deceived by Satan's lies.  Why?  Because Jesus knew His Father's Words by heart and that was how He could successfully refute the lies.  Jesus also knew without doubt the power that He had available.  And no, the power was not just His because He was still God.  He went through this as a human.  Hard to grasp?  I know; if you're like me you kind of brush off the import of this scene because you say that Jesus had a cop-out.  He could pull His being God power out and refute the Devil.  I believe though that in reality He faced the devil as fully human, not God, there in the wilderness after forty days of fasting.

Something that also stuck out to me is that verse 1 tells us He was led to the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted.  Ever cross your mind that the Spirit is leading you into your wilderness of temptation?  That kind of makes me a little miffed at God.  Why does He lead us into the wilderness of temptation of all lonely, trying places and after a time of fasting at that?  Perhaps the time of fasting is a time of desolation in your heart where your spiritual nutrition seems scarce or perhaps it's a time of intentional physical fasting in order to concentrate on God's presence in your life.  Either way you are hoping for some kind of Divine respite from the personal fasting but instead along comes the Devil.  With his lies convincingly cloaked in the very words of Scripture.  Think about that for a moment.  Satan knows his stuff.  If even the devil knows the words of Scripture, how much more we the children of God should be stashing our armory full of those Words.  But am I?

Am I ready to fight temptation with the Words of God even though I may be physically spent & weak, spiritually exhausted, thirsty & hungry?  Or do I spy the approach of the Devil and think "Oh I'm toast!" before he's even tossed out his first devious suggestion?  Do I fume under my breath at God for allowing the Devil to approach me here in my time of weakness after enduring a fast or do I draw my rebuttals from His unending source of Truth?  Do I toss the real Truth right back at Satan or do I give pause and consider his twisted, out-of-context versions?  Do I persist however many times it takes, however many repeats of the Truth it takes?  Do I even have a constantly replenished Arsenal of Truth in my mind and heart to draw from?

One final thread: Do I allow the angels to come near after the temptation has wrung my spirit out?  Or am I so scrunched up bemoaning my battle wounds that I don't invite the approach of God's ministering angels?  Do I distance myself in the shame of my battle wounds that I forego healing treatment from the One who's been through it all before?

Invite the Veteran Warrior in on your battles no matter how shameful the content.  And no matter how remote the wilderness seems, He is there ready to help you fight off the Devil.  And God always has His ministering angels, of any shape and form, standing by to move in and minister to your battered soul.

--your fellow soldier in the journey thru the wilderness

Assessments in General; Inspection in Particular

My fingers have an urge to write but my heart wants to shut down.  So forgive me if this doesn't flow very well.  I have no idea as to what is going to come out but I'm just letting my fingers on their own.  Rest assured I will attempt to engage my mind as well.

We've been focusing on head to toe assessments in nursing school for the last multiple weeks.  And we've been poking and prodding our patients in a very intrusive, bumbling sort of way.  So far the patients have all been very kind about the fact that they are the newbies' guinea pigs.  I still feel bad for them though because who feels like having slow and tedious assessments done when probably a dozen medical staff have already assessed you in the last 12 hours.

All that aside, doing all this studying on physical assessments has had me thinking a lot about spiritual assessments.

There are four main aspects to an assessment of your patient:  inspection, auscultation, percussion, palpation.  We'll take a look at inspection in this post.

Inspection:  With inspection you're on the look-out for scars, pressure ulcers, swelling, discoloring, asymmetry, and just the general condition of the patient.  Initial inspection upon walking into the room can tell us a lot about the patient but it doesn't disclose the deeper conditions present.  That is why with each step of the assessment we get a little more intrusive. Close up inspection often gives away the presence of something internal.  And so it is with spiritual inspection.

We think we can successfully gussy up our outsides so that on initial inspection we look as though our hearts are in excellent condition before God.  But upon closer inspection, our veneer will eventually crack and the tell-tale signs of inner struggles will tip others off.  We humans are proud fools.  We don't usually stop at just trying to fool others - we try our hardest to cover up and fool God.  People may pick up on the outward anomalies but they may not be able to put their finger on it right away, however, God is like the X-ray machine - He sees right through you at first glance.

Do I allow others to see my scars, my wounds, my pressures, my swelling, my discoloring, and my asymmetry?  If the answer is no - why?  Why do we as Christians fear to let our insecurities, our doubts, our spiritual deformities show?  People who admit their doubts and spiritual deformities and share the story behind their scars are far more effective in God's kingdom than are those who act like they aren't the wounded souls that all humankind essentially is.  Scars are not shameful.  If you, like me, struggle to believe that your wounds and scars are not something to be ashamed of, take a look at Jesus.  If He would be ashamed of His scars and wouldn't have revealed them to us, for me the reality of what He went through would have less impact on my soul.  Those scars are testimony of His love for us - the unfathomable love that drove Him to suffer the worst imaginable horrors of suffering.  Same with us, I think that the more we are willing to bare our scarred souls and wounded hearts to others the greater the impact of God's redeeming grace on the souls we are trying to reach.  So drop the mask of mastery in life and allow the wounded glory of your God-touched soul to shine the Gospel's healing Light on those you meet along the way.

So far I've just been focusing on what we ourselves appear like upon others' inspection of our lives.  But what about our inspection of others?  I guess my biggest question is...Do we inspect others through the eyes of Jesus?  Or do we inspect them with a harsh eye of judgment?  Do we allow the longing ache in others' eyes to register in our hearts?  Or do we, in our selfish, hasty pursuits of life, quick glance away from their hurt, their empty looks and think to ourselves "if only those hurting souls could get help"?  What about the friend who says she's fine but you see the contradiction in her eyes? (Let's face it - we women are excellent cover-uppers.  Somehow we've imposed upon ourselves the need to be strong at all costs and bear the weight of the world on our shoulders alone.)  Do you glibly promise prayers for her and then fail to take time to hound the throne of heaven on her behalf?  Do you take the time to follow up with those who share their hearts with you?  Does your worldview consist of only you and the immediate circle of close friends in which you move?  Or do you see the loner on the street, in the coffee shop, in line behind you at the grocery store, sitting next to you in school, or how about the person next to you in the pew on Sunday?

I guess what I'm aiming for is this: humans naturally try to appear like they have it together because they fear the scorn of others.  In truth though, more often than not, we are struggling bravely in the throes of our wicked hearts' battles and are secretly wishing that someone would see through our thin facade and hear our silent, desperate cries.

I'm challenging myself to learn the art of inspecting with the eyes of Jesus and recognizing the emotional scars and wounds of others without quickly averting my gaze so I don't have to become personally involved.  The world around me is a kaleidoscope of hurts, fears, insecurities, disappointments, sorrow, loneliness, rejection, and desperation.  My job is to be on the look-out for opportunities to allow God to use my battered being to reach out to those souls with His hand of compassion and hope.

Prayer for All My Faith Sisters Out There

Hi y'all.  I know I've been horrible about writing on here.  The only thing I'm going to raise in my defense is that...

A. I'm in nursing school and it's hardcore, never time to catch your breath (or your thoughts or your sleep or your friends...you get the idea)
And....
B. I'm in nursing school and I'm working almost every day, which I'm cool with that but just saying...
And....
C.  I'm in nursing school and I study a LOT. (ok I'll quit the excuses already - oh did I mention that I'm in nursing school?)

I may be running around like a chicken with it's head chopped off these days but I'm telling you -- I am loving nursing school.  It just feels so right when I'm engaged on the floor as a student nurse.  I'm where I belong when I've "got my nursing on"  =)

Anyway, I'm going to cheat today and paste a prayer on here that gave me goosebumps just being in the group that it was prayed over.  I attended a Beth Moore Women's Conference the second weekend of September and I tell you my parched and weary soul was filled to bursting and I went away from that freshly energized to stick it out with God.

Here is the prayer.  Read it like you mean it and even pray it out loud.  But only if you really want God to do His life-changing work in you.  Because with God - you really do always get what you asked for.  At least we have the comfort that it's always for our good.


Living Proof Live Prayer 2012

All powerful, All glorious God,
Creator and sustainer of Heaven and Earth
The One who loves, us, calls us, and graces us
He who can do no wrong
And for whom NOTHING is impossible
With everything in me this day
I intercede for my sister
This, Your beloved daughter
Set Your love so steadfastly upon her
that she feels the beautiful weightiness of it.
Stir up in her an unexplainable hunger
for Your Presence and Your Word.
Be her prized portion, Lord Jesus.
Awaken anything that has died an unnecessary death in her.
Grant her tenderness toward You and compassion toward others.
Pluck out by the deepest roots anything in her life that YOU did not plant.
Make Yourself noticeable TO her and make Yourself noticeable THROUGH her.
Build her into a REMARKABLE servant
That impacts her entire family line.
When Your ways are hidden from her,
Flood her with the supernatural comfort
Of her absolute unhiddenness with You.
Convince her to quit hiding the things that need the most healing.
Be her stunning strength in weakness.
Lend her rapturous moments of exulting and dancing
Even in much tribulation.
Be the best thing that ever happened to her relationships Lord.
Give her favor with You and with man.
Miraculously birth within her a love for her enemies
And after her sacrificial love has come to full bloom,
miraculously cause her enemies to be at peace with her.
Right now, Lord, even RIGHT NOW go to the depths of the darkness within her
and dispel any hatred buried there.
Bring her dramatically into agreement with You
Over all her resentment and bitterness
And all claims to entitlement
Empower her to forsake her unforgiveness
and to forsake every grudge and destructive self-comfort.
Fire her up in her a fury of spiritual giftedness
and enable her to do what is verifiably impossible for her.
Grant her great delight and true humility in serving others
Slay every prejudice and fleshly partiality.
Whether or not she is gifted to speak or teach
Grant her the supernatural unction to clearly communicate Christ
Touch her lips with coals from Your altar
And sanctify her to carry the Gospel into her sphere of influence.
Give her eyes to see the invisible and the sacred in the simple.
Infuse her with a strong sense of purpose and
an undaunted appreciation of adventure.
Make her intolerant of any area of personal bondage
and urgent about her freedom.
Be her ever-loving Defender and Deliverer.
If she’s in a desert, bloom something stunning and obvious there.
If she’s drowning, plant the soles of her feet on the surface of the water.
If she’s coldhearted, crack the shell around her heart and set her free to love.
Reveal to her the root of her fears
Give her courage to forsake it
Then astonish her with a freedom that is not of this world.
Jesus, make her living proof.
Blow her faith wide open.
In closing, Lord, I speak Your all-glorious Name over her
In all the weight and authority it carries.
I speak Jesus over her Spirit.
I speak Jesus over her heart.
I speak Jesus over her mind.
I speak Jesus over her physical body.
In obedience to Your Word, I have prayed by faith
and my willing sister has received by faith.
As You accomplish these divine works according to Your will
and to Your purposeful timing,
Make her acutely aware that it is YOU.
Cause her to make her boasts in You alone.
And cause her with much amazement to behold the miracle within
And say, “Who is this You are making me? Who is in this body of mine??”
In Jesus’ wonder-working Name and matchless authority,
Amen and So Be It.

© Beth Moore 2012

Shame's Demise

I’ve been thinking a lot about regrets and the shame associated with most regrets.  I have regrets of words unspoken to my Dad; regrets of many times when I chose to worship self instead of my Creator; regrets of ignored opportunities to speak a word about my Savior; regrets of rashly spoken words in the heat of the moment; regrets of blatant sin and a calloused attitude toward those sins; regrets of missed chances to do a Good Samaritan deed; and the list could go on.  My point is that all of us have regrets of some kind or another.  Regrets are normal in our day to day living because we are human and we aren’t perfect in our manifestation of Christ in us. 

It’s good to reflect on those regrets to an extent but what really matters is what we ultimately do with them.  In my life, one of Satan’s most effective tools is shame.  Shame and regrets often go hand in hand.  Shame is an elusive agent to track down.  It has a tendency to lurk in the background.  It’s not out front with its influences but it rears its head when I’m weak and discouraged in the Christian battle.  Satan waits until I’ve fallen and then he pours on the power of shame.  He uses shame to try to persuade me that it’s not worth fighting anymore.  “Look at all the times you’ve face-planted in the muck of sin.  You can’t ever pull away from the shame of it all.  You may as well just keep living how you want to instead of following God because you’re a failure and you’re a shame to God.  There’s no way God doesn’t remember your failures.  In fact, it’s because of Him that you feel ashamed and dirty" and on and on.  When I’m down and out, those lies initially make a whole lot more sense than the absolute truths spoken by God the Father. 

Jesus died to redeem my shame.  The concept that grace and forgiveness eradicates my debilitating shame is beyond comprehension.  When all I see and feel is the overwhelming, paralyzing darkness of shame, I can’t grasp the truth that there is Someone who removes my shame and doesn’t even see it anymore.  Jesus doesn’t look at me and see my shame; He looks at me and sees His child who He gave His all for her forgiveness and redemption.  I’ve hidden so long behind my mask of shame that it’s scary to have the Light dissipate that shame.  No longer am I “protected” by my shame; I’m stripped of its familiarity and “safety” and my heart is now naked and vulnerable before my Father and before mankind.

Shame can quickly become a person’s best friend.  We don’t like the sway it has over us and yet we find a certain comfort in it.  Satan knows that if he gets us paralyzed by shame; it’s an easy slide back into our favorite sins.  If I continue to be manipulated by my shame, in essence I am doubting the power of Jesus’ blood and limiting His ability to redeem and sanctify me and my shame.

Some Scriptures that recently reached me in my shame:  Isaiah 54:4-8, Luke 7:36-50, Luke 8:40-48, and John 8:1-11.  I highly recommend that you dig into these Scriptures and allow the truths of them to sink in to your heart’s innermost chamber.  I also challenge you to allow Jesus to enter into that chamber of shame with you and touch you with His healing hand of love.

I’m committed to daily make conscious effort to rid myself of shame and bathe in the redeeming, powerful love of Jesus, my Savior.

A lot of these thoughts have been sparked by a book I’m reading right now.  “Shame Interrupted” by Ed Welch, counselor at CCEF.  If you have the chance to read it, do!  

Controversy of God

I was paging through my journal and found this entry which was inspired by a Sunday morning sermon:

The Controversy of God 

Micah 6

The fact that the great God of the universe, the Most High and Holy One, comes down and pleads with us  boggles my mind. What does pleading entail?  It has two connotations, both of which pertain to the age-long relationship of God and His people.  On one hand, to plead is to earnestly appeal and implore, on the other hand, to plead is to argue or present a case in court.

God does both with His people.  I think right now we're more in the realm of His imploring us but the time is coming when He will take us to court and we will be defenseless before the Judge of the earth.  It's mind-blowing that He's even giving us a chance to voice our doubts and approach Him to talk.  Many times throughout Scripture, God gives us a very intimate look into His heart of hearts.  The way He lays bare His heart speaks much to me.  I don't lay bare my heart unless I am very close to a person and I am fully confident of their trustworthiness.  God reveals His heart and lays all out for us to see knowing full well that we are going to sneer and jeer at His tenderness and longing and stubbornly turn our backs on His pleading.

We can analyze the Israelites and point out all their shortcomings and wonder how they could reject God so many times after all He did for them.  We would do well to rather critique our own lives, our own track record.  Hasn't God done the ultimate for us?  We who were not His chosen people, the Jews, are now become His children and are given the permission to call Him, "Abba, Father" - the highest and most intimate endearment of the Jewish language. (Romans 8:14-17)  And this privilege is granted to us all because He loved us so much that He gave us the Ultimate Sacrifice - His only Son.  

Jesus begs us to come to Him when we are burdened and weary.  (Matthew 11:28)  He weeps over His people and laments over His longing to gather them under His wings as a hen with her chicks.  (Luke 13:34) God implores us through the words of His prophets before Jesus' time to return to Him and discover His goodness, mercy, and forgiveness.  (Isaiah 44:22)  The overshadowing theme of the entire Scriptures is God's longing for us to come to Him.  Arrogant creatures that we are, we constantly spar with God as though we have better answers for life.  Yet still God patiently beckons us to "Come".  He queries us, "What have I done to weary you?" (Micah 6:3) "Why do you turn away?"  

He doesn't write us off.  He never turns His back on us.  Instead, He turns His face on us to allow us to see His love, His longing, His pleading in His eyes.  Eyes that are brimming with compassion and hurt.  We would not purposely hurt our best friend.  And yet every time we have an errant streak or even a deviant thought, it's a personal affront to God.  We, the fragile creation, are capable of hurting our Creator, our Father, our Redeemer at the very core of His being.  He created us to be His and His alone.  We are not our own to do with as we please.  (I Corinthians 6:19-20)  No, we are His - our bodies, our minds, our souls, our passions, our longings, our desires, our secret ambitions, our very life - is His alone.

Do you dare to pray this prayer with me?

    

     Father God, I fall before You in repentance and sorrow for the many times I've willingly hurt You and spurned Your heart of longing for me.  My desire is to return Your love with all my heart and life but Father, it's so easy to become self-confident and self-serving.  Give me strength to continually fight down my sinful self.  Also Father, I long to grow in my enjoyment of You and my longing to spend time in Your Presence.  Teach me how to relax in Your loving Presence.  Abba, Father, I want to be Your little child, running to You for safety and help, climbing up on Your lap and allowing You to hold me while I face my fears and my hurts with You.  I want to please You with my life, my thoughts, my desires, and my worship simply because of Your astounding, overwhelming Love.  Thank You, Jesus for Your Love and Blood and for Your Mercy.