The Stillness of the Awe at God's Greatness vs. the Quivers of God's Absence

There is no stillness of the night, without God's abiding presence. The devil whispers to us that there is peace, perhaps, from a screaming conscience, should we silence it, by our yielding. It is not so. The quakes of the earth and the picture of souls running for protection constantly, begging the rocks to fall upon us, that it would silence our expectation of the wrath of God are but a precursor and a poor analogy of the true magnitude of the wrath that our sins deserve, if we should find ourselves in the state of remaining unrepentant and attempt to pay God for our sins throughout eternity.

This is truly a vain thought and it is a sure comfort that Christ came into the world sinners to save. We cannot hold onto this comfort in our need too much. As sure as the sun rises upon each day, there is a hope of grace and comfort that is ours if we are in Christ. He has paid the uttermost shilling, as it were. He has gone to the depths and end of payment for our sins and there is no other who is mighty to save.

The earth shakes as if to tell us, when will you get it? When will we get it that there is no other payment for our sins? When will we experience the freedom and comfort of His eternal love and go about trying to grow and live in the light of that truth? It is never too soon to try to walk with Jesus. It is never too late, while we breathe to embrace the cross that is provided for our salvation and take His hand and walk on into that true stillness of conscience.

God grant us grace to do so, in Jesus Name, Amen.

Just enough time to tell them that Jesus loves them...

I kick myself for the bad examples and the unclear directions that I gave them, over the years.

This season is about repenting and looking back and seeing clearly what was murky in the outworkings. I should have emphasized this issue more, whatever their objections and I should have laid back on that issue, whatever my bent. It is still a miracle to see Jesus own your labors in their hearts with all of the baggage and mire. When I look into the eyes of the future, I see an awesome providence that has given spiritual direction and resilience to the likes of fallible human efforts. I believe that this is the purpose of God in our sojourn, to find His purposes in our providences and use them to glorify Him.

Do we glorify Him, daily, or just on Sunday? Do we glorify Him in our good providences as well as in our sacrifices? Are we thanking Him and praising Him in all things?

God give us grace, please!

Did you send your mother out to war on your behalf? I would hear God ask us.

Would we send our mommy to defend us at Benghazi? We must give an account. Mommy doesn't even know how to use email without a problem and she can't remember some things. Mommy should be President? I pray that it is not a symptom of masculine withdrawal. I fear that it is.

Mother, we would spare your conscience to answer to God for such things. We have gotten used to seeing a young and viril representative of leadership and what would it say of us and to our young men about the role of protecting women and children? I do wonder? I trust the providence of God, in these matters. I pray for all of the women in leadership and their counterpart men. I pray for this thrust of sympathy for a suffragette movement that was completely of a different hue, coming to buttress the woman in the presidency movement. We have wise and competent women all around, but is this the woman of the hour, because her experience is there? Is it sufficient experience to guide us?

Dear God, intercede and keep us from vanquishing our country by our special interests. Help us to see the importance of reality and not facades. Give us a hand of true guidance and sympathy to our simple minded expectations. We want our own wills and not what reflects or guides us into your Glory.

We love our mommies. Whatever they have done to us and our world, but we would protect and preserve them to make it to Heaven with us. Help us tell them that, Lord. In Jesus' sweet name. Amen.

How Can strong, commanding, leading women, avoid the Jezebel Spirit?

I am woman, hear me roar...

We grew up with that as a mantra...No man rules us anymore. No more Braun's to mourn for. We will never fall into that pit, we swore to ourselves.

Submission, but not subjection. We will never genuflect to any man, as we saw in the historic woman's role. Christianity was careful to preach both sides of the story in our generation as their penance for the historic and massive mistakes of their predecessors.

I see myself in the roar of Hillary's victory lap. Isn't this what the woman's movement has prepared us for? Isn't this the hope of all woman who grew up in America? Didn't God answer us on this regard and give us a woman to represent our cause in the public eye? No one who has given birth from her womb has risen to such a height in our country. Isn't it because we are a neophyte country who hasn't learned how to accept commands from a woman? I don't think so.

I saw some very concerned and sensitive men who know that God said that women are the weaker vessel. I saw some men who loved this woman so much that they would protect her from the struggles of conscience that being Commander and Chief will bring. I saw that, whether we have a woman president or not is not as much an issue right now, as what God is wringing out of our struggle to find self government, under God.(as we still confess ourselves to be, under God)

God grant us a prayerful spirit about whether we want to make special interests the issue of our leadership choices. If we are shining for the glory of God in this generation and giving our children a thread of hope to hold onto as they face a future of hammering out hard problems; let us carefully choose which ones we want to count as already hammered. I love that God is owning our attempts still, as we stumble in this experiment and that He hasn't chosen to crush us under the weight that our sins deserve. He hasn't waged war against us, yet. He is allowing us to continue, some in prayer and some in politics and such. I thought perhaps we are as the dogs who licked Jezebel's blood from the ground and we will either be obedient to a good God, who has shown us mercy in our self-willed crushing of God's fear in our world. Do I have a conscience about this or that decision that costs lives? As a woman, my conscience is more sensitive, it is true, unless I have hardened it in the fires of sin's acceptance. We need a woman who can say, I do feel responsible, but I know that God has heard my confessions and I will lead into the future knowing that my mistakes and sins are under the Blood of Jesus.

If that would be the woman that Hillary has become, by faith, then, I know that God is saying that he could have humbled wicked Jezebel and saved her for His glory, had He chosen to. To the utmost, Jesus saves. I believe that, but we mustn't justify the hardenedness that has become the woman's movement. The spirit that pits childbirth against my own ambitions. My ambitions must submit, first to God and then to the powers that be. God grant that we would be the ones to paint a picture of the power of God using government to pare down self will and making a general good and a hopeful spirit that losses are opportunities for future generations to hammer that knotty problem. Christ heal us from abortion. Heal us from hardened hearts at the wonder of what You do. Heal our land from the lioness woman's self-seeking generation that we have become. Help us see the love that the men in our lives show to us when they see our anger making us want to eat our children and show ourselves and them that we could have really been great. I saw a group of men that showed that to me in the Senate. Maybe nobody else saw that, but I did. If you girls want the ball, we will give it to you. It is not a game and we are not trying to keep it from you, they seemed to say. Many things we would hope you would never have to see or decide on as women, but if you want it, here it is. We don't want to be protected from that, we say. We may just wish for these days back, when we see the craziness of war and death and sadness that is governing. God grant us wisdom, Amen.

Matthew 18---Offenses? Angels? Discipline? {In the life of the Church}

Matthew 18 reading Are there guardian angels? Their angels always behold the face of your Father in Heaven..." Do you realize what a privilege that it is that you have been chosen by God? Do you know what a privilege to know Him?

I really think that it is a judgement that the same passage that many people use to justify "church discipline" is the same passage that guardian angels are. How many times have you heard a message on "tell it to the church"? How many messages about "their angels"? Whip them, I have heard messages on, but not "their angels".

I have seen their angels dandling on the knee before letting them out into the world and I certainly wouldn't want to answer to those angels for my care of the children. I am chewing on this for the rest of my life...

Christ's sacrifice is more than ample payment for all of my sins...

His payment is sufficient for the payment of all my sins. He is the perfect sacrifice to God and was willing to pay it. He was willing to become poor on my sin's behalf. He counted the cost to the smallest detail and the hugest cost. "Nevertheless, Thy will be done!" was no afterthought. My soul was in His consideration, that I would be with Him forever. He saw the cost and walked right on into the torment to redeem my soul and all those who believe in God, through Him. Halleluia, What a Savior!

On God's Green Earth, How Green is my Valley?

the blindness of unbelief, in aging and grief can make your mouth form such questions of our benevolent God... What a simpler time was the testimony of Richard Llewellyn in "How Green..." In the movie it was boiled down, but in my mind's eye, I see a grieving and lonely boy left with the solitude of memories of a bustling happy season of family life and asking God, was it worth it to be born with all the happy times of family in my rearview window. Was I supposed to document the beauty only and not include the darkness of my journey? You said "He leads me beside the still waters and makes me lie down in green pastures." Where's my team now that it is my turn to walk through the dark valley?---I see the silence of the last birdie leaving the nest having had all of the burden of laying parent's to rest and looking for the future in the looming hard memories of the past. How can I hang onto my faith when all who have led me here are gone and they don't seem to be trustworthy in my estimations?

God is real even then!

Llewellyn didn't paint any rosy pictures of the world that he had inherited. He didn't leave any hypocrisy unwritten. The saving of the souls left some spiritually alive and was a savor of death to some, as well. The Great Awakening and the spiritual strivings of earlier generations have blessed our world with a greater knowledge of the physical needs and the spiritual needs of individuals. God wants us to fight the fight of reformation and restoration in all of these areas and not to leave the hypocrisies undealt with. Instead, we shut our eyes to the psychological and emotional questions of these rantings. Baby brother, Richard Llewellyn God is good and our valley is green, even when the green looks darker than at some other generations.

just a thought