Thursday, February 26, 2015

"Nevah, nevah, nevah give up!"

On the subject of being called of the Lord and meeting with human rejection-




rejection is one of those life events that can make or break you.  when tenacity is the product of rejection, you'll be faced with a choice: self-sufficiency or God-trusting.  the hard choice is God-trusting because that path does not offer instant gratification.  if we wait, we will see a side of God that few see.  people will ridicule your choice to wait to follow a path that's never been cut before.  ignore them- turn your eyes upon Jesus--  
but honestly what better gratification do we have if we are able to wait in His presence for His will to be done by His own hand?  
the result is not only intimacy with Him but that we get to witness His Glory.  being awe-struck by His Mighty Hand drives us to our knees in worship... and we are caught in His perfect circle of love, grace and glory... and then we are blissfully unaware of the nay-sayers and the critics because once we have Jesus, we find all that we ever need.

Monday, February 16, 2015

monday musings: church wounds, Rick Grimes, shieldmaidens, 50 shades, oh my!

last night's The Walking Dead.
during The Talking Dead aftershow.
Hardwick asks, "what did you think of Rick's 'We are the Walking Dead' speech?"
oo - oo - me - me!  pick me!  I have an answer!

Rick just said what I had suspected all along.
We are the walking dead.

.... yesterday, I didn't take the littles to church because of snotty noses.... follow me down this rabbit hole for a bit...
I read a post by Jenn Hatmaker encouraging us to try church even though we are church wounded... It was such a lovely missive- full of everthing I have ever wanted to say.

And Hatmaker + TWD= we need to take a moment to recognize that we are the walking dead: whether we are full of sin and we are the walking dead in that respect...
Or we have "died to ourselves" and so we are the walking dead...
Either way we need Jesus.
And that need should be the great equalizer.

O Christian, stop hiding out in your Christian ghetto, shaking your head about how bad the world has gotten.  We have to get out and fight.  We have to hold the barn doors closed when the enemy tries to hit us with a one- two punch.  The tornadoes and the shady guys tempting with bottles of water when we haven't had any for days and the demons of hell themselves will come after us.  We can't just sit here and close our eyes and hope it all goes away... We have kids and loves ones in the enemy's crosshairs.

This whole "Fifty Shades of Grey" movie stuff has struck a deep cord with me- I havent seen the movie and I haven't read the book.  But what I have read on line sends me into another realm because I have seen the effects of unhealthy relationships and I just don't want y'all to get stuck in that fear of being alone driving us to compromise ourselves.  So I was lamenting this to Heath and talking to him about what can we do to start prepping our boys for the adolescence of their lives.  Heath said to me, "you obviously feel very passionate about this- what do you think the Lord is calling you to do about this?  Maybe He wants you DO something instead of just feeling all this.  If this makes you mad, maybe you need to DO something."  I don't know WHAT I am gonna DO about it just yet (True Love Waits revival, anyone?)... But Heath makes a good point: don't whine about it- do something about it.  I mean, I guess standing at the door with a shield like Lagetha is not what he had in mind?

Okay, see? There- spaghetti brain- taking me down all kinds of rabbit holes.

So anyway- here's what I hope you get out of this:
1) we are ALL the walking dead- either we are dead IN sin or we are dead TO ourselves - either way - we can't get too uppity about where we are in life- WE ALL NEED JESUS.
2) if you are a Christian, realize you are in a fight- and I don't mean to tell every gay person you met that he is going to hell-  You didn't accept Jesus because someone was rude to you so be nice-- but the idea of a fight hurts some of our Southern Belle hearts because we were raised not to engage in conflict.  Well any good solider knows- if you don't go to the fight, the fight's comin' to you- last night Rick and the gang kept walking away from that hoarde but they just kept comin' for 'em.
3) I think prayer and worship along with fasting is a great place to start to DO something.  No idea what to do? Consult the Word. 

We do have an advantage to The Walking Dead gang- our Jesus already won this war.  We already know the outcome.  But don't let that lull you into the deception that the enemy got that memo- he's so stupid, he still thinks he has a chance- so he is still comin' at us with everything he's got.

Put on the armor of God, beloved warriors.

Get connected to a healthy church.
Pray. Fast. Worship. 

God's got this.  

And He loves us even though we are The Walking Dead.