What Great Men look like in 2020

 I see a silent revolution of great men silently breaking the stereotypes of the past in the young men who are coming into maturity and usefulness in 2020.

The attempt of the media and the political climate to silence these men is the enemy, but their futile battalions have only seemed to shine the armor of these mighty warriors who are showing their hands to the plow in this season.  In spite of the blindness of their elders and in spite of the dark clouds of grief that have been thrown their way, they are doing their duty.  They are Manning Up!  by the grace of God they are taking up the mantle of masculinity and leading in the fear of God. 

I can't wait until they get to show their leadership on the public stage!

The God of the universe has chosen this season to show His mighty ability in creating sensitive and strong mighty men who are carrying their families to the throne of Grace and keeping this country from completely falling apart! Halleluia!

What a delightful birthday weekend!

Dear Ezra, Thoughts about God's providence in my devotions...

Job 1:5  

And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

My Dearest “son of my Vows”,

what a bright and resourceful young man you have become.   I feel that I can share more with you now because you have struggled some in this COVID time.  I feel so much in common with you, although I am eldest child in my family and you the youngest.   So much struggle has made you very sensitive and careful as a communicator and as a peacelover in the family.  I love to watch you carefully tread through the minefield of personalities that it is your providence to endure.

This morning, it was the providence of God for me to begin the book of Job.  I really think this is my least favorite book in the bible and yet perhaps the most endearing to me.  I put on the seatbelts of my mind, every time that I get to this reading.  I prayed to God to give me strength in the form of a very deep sigh! and I pressed on.  

Lord,  this is Christmas season and you know how this book will carry me through seasons of memories that are difficult for me to get up from.  Yes I was this impertinent to the Lord, all the while knowing that He can carry me if I fall from this Christmas meditation.   “You need this right now”. I felt that His silence and comfort confirmed this and I pressed on.   Of course I can choose to wriggle free from this providence and go on to a happier book.  A less personal book, etc.

We were in the book of Job as a family in devotions, when Baby Benjamin passed away.   It always carries me right back to the last day that I held him in my lap and cradled his tiny head in my hands adoringly.

I considered rushing through the book seeing that it is 42 chapters long I thought perhaps if I read 6 books a day I can get through it in 7 days instead of dragging this all through the Christmas season.  I knew in my heart that this wasn’t going to edify my soul to rush through this difficult and blessed expression of God’s heart to me.  So I am trudging through it and I intend to drink every lesson from God as He holds my hand and walks me through the many years of Job’s life and the many years of my life where there are questions and lets me see His sovereignty, even here on earth, before I face Him in the true judgment.   I trust Him to settle my soul.  I will be 59 this year and I trust that God will renew my strength in this reading as He has so many times before.  

I ask for your prayers and hope that you will grow to know and love the Lord and see Him working in your life in His wonderful and sometimes scary ways!  Love, Mom

Thinking about the most easily entreated one. God

missing Stanley:

 God created everything and He redeemed us and the more we get to know Him the temptation is to leave off entreaties.  It seems like that in my meditations about the blessedness of knowing God in the pardon of my sins.

I am still in awe of this truth, this many years after discovering it.  What I fall out of awe in is how to beg God.  

Abraham’s relationship awes me.  He was begging for a sinful nation and a sinful cousin who had argued with Him and his entreaties to God were plentiful and undoubting.  I am sure that this is not the only time he did this with God.

I partly imagine that many people saw their prayers answered because of Abraham’s real relationship with God and how He entreated God.

Please, Please, Please God help us to entreat you rightly for the healing of the nations and ourselves.

Would you exalt your name in the midst of this horrible pandemic and not allow the gainsayers to throw their weight around in our gathering and prayer.  

Meet us, when we gather and teach us how very easily entreated you are!

Ain't too proud to beg… 

wasn’t just a song in the 60s it was line of demarkation from the big “ish” who have access  to all privilege and advantages and everybody else struggling to make ends meet.

When those boys sang that song last thanksgiving it reminded me of the difference between then and now.  They nailed it from stem to stern.  They sang it as though it were a reality in their life.  But it isn’t.  Everybody from the lowest to the highest of the entertainment field is able to access things that they need to deliver a good performance.  That wasn’t so in the 60s.   You had to be scrappy and put things together to get things done.

We today, think of certain people as educated to form an argument and because of their legal education they are able to argue our case and make us look guilty or innocent.   I take a real offense to this concept when it comes to worship and prayer.  We are not making our case before God to make ourselves look innocent when we are guilty.  We are all poor wretched and blind and yet we are entreating the dearest and only hope of our souls.

We are inept and we are entreating the adept one!   How should we come to Him?

What do I want from God?

 The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want

Lord, I want to be a better person! Lord, I want to live with a grateful heart.

Wanting to become a person who is given to seeking the heart of Jesus in your every endeavor. What could that mean..?

Jesus wants us to be more like him than we want to be like him

I shall not want : I will do all that I can to keep people who are around me

From being in want.  That is real governing.  Not putting people on a hamster wheel, but teaching people to live well in the relationships that they are blessed with.  We can be duped into believing that our goal is to create new nooses for people to hang themselves.   Plowshares grow the things that nourish people and give people purposes in making something out of nothing.  Not in creating new slave relationships.   God is able to give us the reigns of our own lives

…Sympathy and empathy and loving leadership is a gift from God and not an automatic thing. Some people make it seem so easy. They are always talking to others with a sympathetic kindness.

I don't have that gift. It kind of reminds me of when Ezzy took my racquet thinking that it would make him hit the ball better. He said your racquet looks magic mommy. Practice has made it look like anybody can place the ball wherever. It took years and love of the sport and emulation of many others to get there.

The same is probably true of sympathy and empathy. Watching and emulating is the first step and after that there is probably an anointing that God grants to make it your own. Praying for the heart of a pastor and the life that grants a sense of peace to those who are enduring hardships. God can do it! I pray that for all of my sons who desire the heart of love toward God's people!

HE'LL DO IT

My Faith looks up to Thee!

Rev 18

Bartering in the “souls of men”?

Wasnt that one of the most horrific challenges of the Babylonian era of history?  People, Nebuchadnezzar and the presidents and governors putting a value on people in their usefulness and in their value to men and to God was horrific.  That is the beauty of the enlightenment of Revelation 18 is that men have come to realize that this is not right.  Jesus came to deliver us from the  tyranny of a value system that is not God’s.

I am seeing children come to their maturity of self valuation and looking into the eyes of teachers and parents and peers for their value.  Confident and pretty children from secure backgrounds are walking with great strides and expectations for themselves.  They throw around their authority and lift or  drop other souls around them at a glance.  You are great and necessary for my comfort and you are not, they seem to say in their play.

It is very unstable for a generation to be raised to think that they create their own value system.  If we don’t take them by the hand and give them the BOOK  of God’s  truth and value system they will become monsters.  Feudalism and every man doing what is right in their own  eyes will create a barbarism that we haven’t yet seen in history.

People with money and people with beauty making the decisions of life for everyone else.  We are very close to this.  But the ugliness of this battle we are preparing our children for is closely animated in the battles with the orcs in Hobbit.   I believe it can get worse.  God can make it better, but we must plan for the reimplementing of  real education  shared with rich and poor alike?                                                                     

The Taming of the Shrew

 The Essence

The taming influence of faith

Are you a feral kitty or an alley cat?

The roar of the Woman of God in these days is a roar of anguish that her role and her position and her purpose is attacked at  every juncture. 

We are wrestling against the principalities and powers of ungodliness and antifamily values which tout themselves as the majority in our time, when they clearly are not.  They make us believe that in the name of unity we must condescend to their base and baseless demands for capitulation to their demands.  They hold our children hostages to their demands and in every Presidential election cycle they laugh at the strength that they are able to sway against the godly Christian woman. She questions her every choice for the power of their suggestions.

I lean on the God of the Bible and how He has promised to make Himself strong against the laughing enemies of the Gospel and our health.  Instead of seeking God for solace and help, they laugh at the sickened and taunt their health stratagem.  God come and heal our land and show yourself strong against their tactics of taking our privileges and our freedoms hostage to their demands. 

Jesus Save us.  For the glory of your Strong Name, Jesus Christ! Amen  

taste and see?

 Hebrews 13...

Because Jesus died outside the camp that should inspire us to live outside the camp and identify with Jesus...

When we live without covetousness, what would that mean?

What would our prayers look like without covetousness?

We live in such a covetous wrought world that we don't know the joy and comforts of Hebrews 13 in our lives.

I will not fear what man can do unto me?

What if I can't pay for this or that thing that I want or wanted?  Fear brings torment and negates prayer.  I work hard to pay for what I want and need.  These are the sentiments of prayerless covetousness.   I hide my head under the pillow living from Christmas to Christmas.  Do we start it by making our children slaves to Santa? and to their lusts?  I don't know.

I want to live minus covetousness, Lord.  I confess it to you and pray for healing and peace in my own soul.  My heart is attached to so many little things and so much of this world's goods.  I need to know the reality of Hebrews 13.  I trust in God for my sustenance and my peace.  I pray that for my own heart and for my children.

For the sake of your Church and your people, In Jesus Christ's Strong name.  Amen.

 The Essence

The smell of prayer is repentant and penitent.

Mea Culpa Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

Listening to your own heart is a difficult exercise in prayer.  My needs, seem to leap over my mirror vision of myself and leap to the forefront of my expressions.  I need this and that and soon the shopping cart is full of stuff and our hearts are empty of the vision of God.

Remembering who God is in Praise.  Ministering to God in Worship is more than saying how very perfect and holy He is.  It has to seep down past my self aggrandizement…

Remembering that Jesus said 2 men went down to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and One a Publican…Do we want to be heard in heaven or heard on earth?

Listening and prayer

 I have been meditating on this topic for years. But it came clear in my mind last year when I met a woman who was a wonder in her articulation of prayer to God about a subject that came up in a service.  I was in awe of her ability to find the problem and speak it to God in a terse and wondrous way, without an accusatory tone or a judgment on the subject.

I, of course had come to a conclusion on the subject, as had everyone else in the room I thought. Who was right and who was wrong and whether or not the conflict could be resolved were seemingly clear.  We were carrying wounded brethren to the cross for healing and help in a struggle.  Her expression of that was forever a prick in my conscience and a standard that I intended from that moment to strive to attain.  I want to listen to the subjects of my prayers like that!  I want to carry their concerns to Jesus just like she just did!  Wow!

I will take the rest of my life to grow up into an intercessor like that, but thank the Gracious God in Heaven that Jesus is in Heaven and hears us and intercedes for us in an infinitely greater way than even that woman.  There are no words to express the reality of what the Holy Spirit does in our lives when He comes and interprets the longings and expressions of our groans and grunts, sometimes in words and sometimes not.  He listens infinitely more intently than we ever could.  He covers the gammitt of our need with intense healing and grace and we can trust Him to give us grace to endure unto the end, even in spite of our hardness and ineptitude.

"Men ought always to pray and not to faint"

Public prayer is not a free for all.  I am not coming to God for myself alone.  I am growing the faith of others in my responsibility, as well as articulating to God the needs of the people.  Lord, your people have great needs that I am not worthy to carry to you, nor qualified to fully articulate to you.  This is what they have said to me is the need.  This is how the devil is using their conflict.  This is how we see it and this is what your Word has said about the situation.  So difficult a consideration to discuss with you, Lord.

 I ask you to take the hearts in your hands and suture them and begin the healing process!  Come with the medicines of Truth and Compassion to allow a season of refreshing that might enhance the healing process to take place.  Give grace and peace to their hearts and souls as they attempt the difficult journey of forgiveness of one-another.  I can't give these things to them but You can, Lord.  Your people need to see the largeness of the God who can hold them and the trouble in His hands without conflict in His heart.  You are no respecter of persons and You are no partisan.  You can grow Your people to reflect Your ability to carry their loved ones and community to the Throne of Grace and find mercy and grace to assist the process and expedite the completion.  In Jesus' Strong and Mighty name.  AMEN

2 Kings 20. The devastating precursor to Daniel's life in the slavery of Babylon!

Where's your faith?  What are you showing the Babylonians in your life and demeanor?

Hezekiah forgot, or neglected or was ashamed to show his faith based treasures to them.  He had been adept at consulting and negotiating with the polytheistic peoples.  Where was the boasting?  "I have 200 dollar shoes and a suit that costs this amount, "is that all?

Daniel and the boys were the tragic fallout from that crisis of faith that overcame Hezekiah.  Gods friends partake in a tangible and earthly consequence.  They won't taste Hell, but they will taste the fruit of their deeds and misdeeds.  What is our boast and what are we known for?  A beautiful bunch of stuff is no comparison to a beautiful faith and relationship with God.  An honest hand in hand walk through the rough places of my life is a lot more to adorn your life than a wonderful wardrobe!   Help Lord!   

We trust you Lord!

2 Kings 19:14-34 KJV

[14] And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. [15] And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. [16] Lord, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God. [17] Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, [18] And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. [19] Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only. [20] Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. [21] This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. [22] Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. [23] By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. [24] I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places. [25] Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. [26] Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up. [27] But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. [28] Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest. [29] And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof. [30] And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. [31] For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. [32] Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. [33] By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. [34] For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

For Still our Ancient Foe…

doth seek to work us woe

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal { NYT.   WJT.  Wash Post, etc, etc,}

And the enemies of our souls are not people, but principalities and powers in high places...

How then, can we cast down the imaginations that have funded and emancipated the Prinipalities and powers that plague us in this generation?  what a question/  How then, can we free ourselves from an identity of Christendom that deems us a Facist few, instead of a reconciling majority, which is what we are.  

We refuse to be deemed the problem here.   we refuse to be  blamed for the Covid and the BLM movement and the chaos in the streets that the antifundamentalist media have labeled us to be.  

They are happy to place the label of Special Needs upon us when we have been and remain the gel that has kept this republic together for its history.  We have compromised and we have discussed our differences all the way to the barn and now that we are over the Lord’s knee in spanking mode, the naughty are blaming the problem on us.

We are redeemed in our souls and not afraid of God’s judgments upon our nation, because we have asked Him to spare us from full annihilation for the sake of the few praying people.  We know we all deserve Hell and that we have been blessed with so much mercy that this sad moment in history where we are experiencing a plague is just a small token of what our sins deserve.  We haven’t been God-pleasing in our personal lives or in our churches.  We have tried to reconcile when we should have been fighting against the powers of division that sent us to our homes.  No other generation has hidden the remedy from the sick minority.  We have.  Prayer and corporate gatherings are the healing balm that our nation needs at such a time.  

It is not our expectation to escape such a time of accountability.  Trusting in the God of the Sciences is what I choose to believe He created science and data and the people who askew these data points for the fear of the weak is not hidden from his sight or the sight of the church.  Still, we would not be those who are blamed for the death in our nation for the sake of saving face.  We have been blessed with other ways to gather and we have gathered.  And we are praying and we will not be devoured by the attacking foe and the imagination of “White Evangelicals” being the problem.  We are not the problem.  we are the reality of healing in His wings White Evangelicals, Black Evangelicals, Black lives that matter and white lives that matter, White churches orthodox and Black orthodoxy, We are the solution and not the problem. The fear mongering media and divisive tactics of the media in the attempt to justify their presence is the problem.  Cover the reality and not your fear base.  

Bless us Lord! In the name of the Christ who is over it all. Amen

From aunt Jackie's funeral time

February 7 th   

I don't think it is an accident the voracity of yesterday's storm.  I was sent on a pivot from Aunt Jackies funeral...New focus in the middle of a storm...

I used to sing Immortal Invisible before and during storms of such magnitude.  It was God and my favorite rainy day meditation.  New day was the pivot from such a storm as yesterday when the creek wa higher than I have ever seen it. 

Game on whistle, like no other. These are the days when all that practice comes to bear on your life. Game time..?How so, Lord is my question. But it is so whether I understand or not.

The providence of running across the word find of Ecc. 3 the day before the storm was pivotal.   More to come...

Praise!

Praise to the Lord, the almighty!

How many times have I been in worship and wondered,  what is making these people so happy.  They must have nothing wrong with them.  They must be professional praisers.  I love God and I love praise, but there is some times of my life, when praise is illusive to me.  

Praise to the Lord is a hymn that felt like a dagger of conviction for years as I worked through the grief of my losses in life.  When we lost our infant son and for years after that,  when that hymn came up in the Liturgy I was ready to leave.  I couldn’t cry 10, 15 years after the day and explain it to the people who had looked at me as a spiritual adult.  I am an infant in this portion of my life.  I am thinking too hard about my faith.  Why can’t you just accept God’s providence and stop asking him the questions that plague you so regularly.  Why can’t you just praise him, like your spiritual directors have instructed you.  I did the outward praise and external praise, but when that hymn came up, I couldn’t help but go all to pieces!

The King of Creation…

Almighty, is acceptable to my conscience, but the king of creation?  Catechism question:  God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.  All of creation and there is no thing that happens that wasn’t and isn’t in your control.  I know this in my mind, but when it comes to the things that go against my will, it is normal to recoil from this truth.  Let me tell you had it works in my soul.  I can think in my mind that maybe God missed it, than to think that it was his loving purpose to allow me to suffer through this or that trial.  An unsaved soul could grow to hate a being so powerful, who allows all the things that have happened in history.  I am not talking about all of the things in history, I am talking about the things that he has allowed in my life.  Why? 

It is always delightful to find out that I am not the only person who feels like this.  Many people have asked that question in Scripture, but the hymn writer seemed convinced and fully persuaded to guide us to sing…

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the king of Creation…

Oh my soul praise Him for He is thy help and salvation?

Commanding my personhood to find a praise in every situation of my life, is the only help in every situation.  You are going to be helped by this exercise, whether you know it or not.  This is going to grow your spiritual sinew.  That is why you ought to praise him.

Not only don’t I like to be told to praise Him, when I am in pain, but I would much rather stay swimming in my sadness than grow from this problem.  I become angry, with the hymn writer and angry with God who allowed me to go through this difficulty and then make it this hymn that we would sing.  That is like not wanting to reach your hand up to the helping hand that is going to pull you out of the water and you are drowning.  That is exactly what it is.  I would rather keep my hands at my side and stand on the bottom of the pool than to raise my hand and reach for the help that is right there.  Some griefs take you to that point.  I can’t get up!

Praise to the Lord, the allmighty, the King of Creation, Oh my soul praise him for He is your help and salvation…

He is the only one who can pierce through the crippling effect of unbelief.   Get up!  Get up!  He is the help of your soul!

All Ye who hear, now to his temple draw near, Praise Him in glad adoration!

 

Starting at the "AND can it be"

Thanking God for all his abundant blessings, the things that we see and cannot see, this is where we are in our prayers and once we have said "amen" this is where this hymn begins.

Lord, you have been so good to us in the tangibles and in the intangibles and now let me discuss the things that I have had no part or parcel in the investment.  God is a Lord of sowing and reaping.  I have sown some seeds and I have seen much reaping from these investments, but these are the things that I haven't sown and yet have reaped much bounty from:

I wasn't there when Jesus came to redeem his people and yet "Can it be that I, I should gain from this?"  I have seen your mighty hand set upon us for good in things and have known you as mighty and magnificent in creation and sustenance, but also the interest on those investments, which you have made, do you grant unto me? "An Interest in the Savior's Blood?"

What a magnificent calculation of the amazing worth of all that we possess in Christ.  He is amazing and His wonder is magnificent, but the fact that God, as it were bequeathed him to us, in our condition of being bereft and ignorant?  What a thought!

And can it be that I should gain An int'rest in the Saviour's blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love! how can it be That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

'Tis mystery all! Th'Immortal dies! Who can can explore His strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries To sound the depths of love divine! 'Tis mercy all! let earth adore, Let angel minds inquire no more. 'Tis mercy all! let earth adore, Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father's throne above— So free, so infinite His grace— Humbled Himself in matchless love And bled for Adam's helpless race; 'Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me! 'Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee. My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him, is mine! Alive in Him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach th'eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own. Bold I approach th'eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

That is So Amazing!

My infirmity finding my voice, in prayer.

June 14 2020,

From your mouth too God’s ears”

The older ladies used to say that in my family. Nobody would ask them what that means.  I wondered and wondered.  That ½ hour session of gossip praying that I referred to in the earlier post seemed to shed some light on that for me.

I felt talked about and I felt loved from that short session of prayer.  I could hear my father in my mind sucking his teeth at how petty women are to consider so many tiny items and I knew that my Father in heaven wasn’t doing that. It was an amazing contrast and an amazing acceptance of the beauty of the feminin observations that make up our womanly prayer life.

If this woman loved me enough to carry, even my smallest requests to the throne of Grace for consideration of the almighty.  God must love us women , more than I had earlier imagined.  Truly, truly, that dear woman loved a good many people to a very small detail of consideration and I was rebuked by my own settled antipathy to consider these small details and think them worthy of God’s consideration.  God made me a woman.  I learned a lot of what that meant that day.  I was reproved and undone and learning that my gossiping tongue could become more efficiently channeled into a prayer posture than a spouter of exaggerated self aggrandizement, either about my gossip or my not entering into the sharing of such things in my self righteousness.  God wants us to come to him with our concerns.  Our Adams might not be able to carry our concerns to the throne.  They may minimize our female observations and think them petty and inconsequential, but not Jesus.  He made us women, The 2 days of baby not pooping and the smell and consistency of the child’s vomit are just some of the things God made us to notice and care about.  We are always using our minds to solve problems.  Tiny problems and big problems.

Stitches in time that save nine are the part and parcel of our prayers and we must carry those to the throne.  There are n infinite number of differences between us and men and God made it so.  He intends us to carry our sisters to the throne of Grace to find mercy and grace to help in the time of need. 

When my heart is overwhelmed…

My heart is often overwhelmed and there is no one to notice the days of my stomach upsets and vomits.  The concerns that used to be spent upon baby’s many infirmities soon turn to my own personal care.  My nerves are spent and there is none to listen to the multitude of small and inconsequential seeming details of life as a person retired from mothering and nursing.  My breasts still ache sometimes when I hear a baby cry. Who can I talk to about these things.  The ladies prayer circle is spent with “real” concerns of people and not the hypochondriacal thoughts of women who spent their last nerves to serve their families and who are now put out to pasture as though that was th most stupid thing that anyone could do.  

God comes near and cares for us in our sense of lack of usefulness in our career choice.  God says can a woman forget her own son?  He certainly doesn’t forget our works and service of care to our children.  Our experience may not be accepted by the workforce as legitimate, but God cares.  He really does and He is coming to our rescue, whether we can find a prayer partner to help us see it or not.  Thank you Jesus!

God's handiwork in the stars?

As we get further and further away from grandmother's handiworks, it makes me afraid that we will lose some of the awe and wonder of God's handiwork. In bygone era's there were women sitting down to watch a program or some other restful activity and their minds and hands were as busy as their feet had been, just moments earlier.  The wonder of their industry was a monument to the development of skills that could be completed by the hands while the mind was engaged in another activity.  It is so hard to develop these skills to the level of mastery that our grandmothers did.  It is a relaxing and conscience clearing thing to sit down to some knitting or crocheting and see some completed or even incompleted project getting done and growing.

The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork .


Perhaps we are unaware of the continued ability of God to show us his wisdom and dexterity in the sky in the daylight and especially at night.
Somewhat like a beautiful quilt and an extravagant embroidery the night sky shows us a beautiful, untouchable skilled designer and handiworker, who in his spare time threw a blanket over us of tremendous extravagance.  How can we imitate him?

Sept 14, 2009 6:30 am Devotional thoughts

Gracious God to begin the weaving process with a young man named Timothy who had believers as mother and grandmother and a Gentile father.  Paul seemed to have him circumcised to prove to everyone the faith of the mother and grandmother, meaning that he had had instruction in godliness from a young age.   He knew the scriptures and was well equipped at a young age to be a teacher.  Paul didn't want any questions about his credentials.  This would be different than those who were brought up as rank gentile cultured people.  The issue wasn't about salvation, but about maturity in the scriptures and the ability to use the scriptures in a godly way and not in an intimidating way.  The other Judeaisers were saying that people needed to be circumcised to be accepted in the beloved.  This was far from the truth.  Paul was acting as this young man's Godfather, so to speak: to attest that his gifts and graces were come by honestly and he truly did have the root of the matter in him.

What an encouragement it is, to meet young men with the root of the matter in place!  Those who have grown up with the training of the scriptures and prayer and the privileges of the grace of God in and upon their homes are truly blessed and a blessing.  It was God's mercy to introduce him to Paul at such a time, I can imagine.  Awesome, how God tempers our encouragements between the discouraging circumstances.  It will be worth it all when we see Jesus, Lord, but in the meantime, I would like to see some fruit.  A young godly man can give you a picture of what you are trying to rear in the young people that you preach to.  This seems to be what Timothy was to Paul.  The picture of the promise of the gospel going to the ends of the earth.  He wouldn't live to see all of his spiritual progenitors to maturity, but God gave him a token of blessing to spend some time with.

I pray for the young people whose privilege it is to know the Lord and the grace of God at an early age.  The privilege of having it as a tool in the house and the privilege of having tasted of the goodness of the Lord in daily living is something to rejoice in.  It is an unspeakable treasure.  It is the greatest gift from God is the gift of His presence in your life from your earliest thought.  May these children not take it for granted.  May they not be puffed up in pride for the privileges. May they be humbled and gracious and grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord.  Help them to know that they can never use up the graces and the knowledge of God.  They need not ignore it because of its familiarity, but grow in it.   I think that another element of Jesus growing in the grace and knowledge of God was that He, in His earthly body did not take for granted the relationship with God, but grew and was seeking God regularly.   Sometimes we say, I know you God, I don't need to know anymore about you.  Jesus showed us that for eternity, we will be continuing to do just that, getting to know God, who is infinite.  

The beauty of the human frame is that it is eternally lower than God and could seek and seek and continue knowing him and never attain to God, that is something the Angels do not have.  They have a knowledge of God that is consistent and glowing and not sought or reached for.  We have longings which must continually be reigned into bring to the conformity to Christ.  Just as soon as we know Him in this or that area of life, we are dusting ourselves off to see another area that needs His grace and needs to seek His face to know where He is in there.  It is like getting to know Him all over again in another area.  God grant our young people eyes to see that You are blessing them with the knowledge of Yourself.  Give us those young Timothys who will be an example of godliness at a young age and continue to seek Him through the vicitudes.  God,  I pray for those young men that were young and gifted when we were young and pray for fortitude and strength in going through these hard older days.  Plant their feet in your word Lord, use them for your glory and do not allow them to make shipwreck of their souls or their testimonies, either by the sin of pride and presumption or the sin of gross misteps.  Hold them fast, Lord and make them examples of the humble Savior to the young people.  Bring us to the unity of the faith, bring us to know You and be directed by You. 

Please, don't give us up to our own misgivings and the deceptions of the enemy of our souls.   When the devil accuses the brethren, in our ears and in our minds, raise up a standard against him.  When the enemy of our souls seeks to use our love for oneanother for sordid purposes, raise up a standard against him.  Help us, indeed to live in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and to provoke one another to love and to good works.  Help us to comfort one another in our distresses and to encourage one another in our most holy faith.  Give us the energy and the boldness to live in community with eachother with love unfeigned.  Help us, of this mesh of intercultural conditions that we have inherited, to truly respect one anothers' cultural differences and love eachother, provoking eachother to love and good works.  When there are those going through the griefs that will and do come, help us to be sympathetic and compassionate to one another and not to compound the grief by our course insensitivity.  Give us this in our local assemblies and give us this in our interchurch fellowships.  

I pray for Trinity and the ministry of Pastor Chanski, bless his transparent and humble attitude with the flock.  Help them not to run ripshod over him because his hand is not as unyielding as they have known in times past.  Help them to learn the beauty of obeying and being guided as with Your eye and not just with eyeservice.  Use this man to grow up a generation of humble and submissive people of God.  Bless Grace in Long Island and Pastor Doug strengthen his hand in the work and give him help and hope for the next generation.  Bless Pastor Loran and the Central Church to be a beacon for the next generation and to truly preach the truth of God over the airwaves.  Raise up men who can and will be the gentle shepherds and not idols or icons.  Bless the Pastors in Michigan, Pastor Nichols and Pastor Chanski, minister to the elderly people there and raise up the next generation to love and fear you.Bless Bishop and the people at Bethel, build community and hope there, as well. Halleluia to You Lord that You said that You will build Your church and that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.  We need You Lord.

Ecclesiastes?

I was in a wonder of the sticking power of God's Word. 
Aunt Jackie's reading was Ecclesiastes 3...

The beauty of the next generation reading that beautiful passage and the beauty of the realness that Aunt Jackie fleshed that passage out to us. Isn't there a time for everything?, her life seemed to say.

The clouds came down and embraced us on the way to NY for that trip.  A complete rainbow was over us as we entered Jersey.  There she is, there is Aunt Jackie helping design the NY sky so that it can compete with the NC.  We couldn't have a lesser sky design than any other state.  She seemed to be right there. There was a cloud that looked like a chair that was dark on the under side and bright and rainbow colored on the top of it.  That was the seat I chose to represent Aunt Jackie's chair around the table that Uncle shows me so regularly.

I didn't wail like I have at other times coming and going from the greatest city in the world and my hometown and Aunt Jackie being gone on ahead of us.  All of this couldn' catch me, I thought if I wizzed in and wizzed out.  My emotions are on the clock.
Getting a bag of bagels was a comfort.  Standing on Union Tpke at the bus stop was a comfort.  Why did I walk home so much?  Why didn't I take the bus?  Why are the bagels so delicious?

All these questions took my mind off my cry.

Days later I was at work and decided to carry my Bible Word Find Book.  Providentially I was at Ecclesiastes 3 on my word find.  Oh Dear God, do you want me to cry at missing Aunt Jackie at work?  You can handle it, he said.  I did.  It was a study that I had never done before.  15 couplets of things to do between the 1st couplet and the 15th there were 14 other things to do before you get to thing number 30: a time to die.  Have I done them all?  I asked myself.  Some are easy planting, reaping, embracing and refraining from embracing and some are very hard, like number 30 which is a perseverating contemplation of mine.  It is March and I am Marching for Jesus and for the completion of my 30 things and honoring the memory of a wonderful example of doing the things in time.  She changed my song for the storms and she changed all of our lives and God showed me many things through her life. 

I will continue to meditate on Ecc. 3 for a long time because of the beauty of the granddaughter carrying her Great Grandma's legacy to the altar...