Hardship and Blessings working together?

The radio is playing a song right now that is just ministering to me in so many ways. Because I have always been an advocate that our walk with the Lord is not about our comfort but about His glory, I am not always popular when some comes whining to me about where is God in the midst of the trial. I have just spent almost 2 years walking through trials, health issues, financial issues, and everything else the devil could throw. I literally read the book of Job at least 10 times to find encouragement and truth in our circumstances. Really - Cindy - Job?? I agree, Job is not the first place our "make me comfortable" faith wants to read but there are some great truths about walking things out in there that you will not find anyplace else.

So what if your blessings do not come in masses and miraculous ways to let you know that God is there? Does it mean he is not? What if you have to cry, lose sleep, walk it out in faith and find confidence that God is able? Does it make God less sovereign? NO! He is always going to be sovereign, faithful, loving, merciful, gracious, victorious and a million other adjectives that make God. I don't have answers as to why some people get instanious miracles, deliverance or answers. I'm not God, but I know God and his character. I have experienced Him, I have felt His presence in my life even when I questioned where it was. I knew that there would be victory, freedom, healing, restoration and redemption. I didn't know when I would see it, but I knew it would come because God promised. He didn't give me a date, he gave me a word and a promise and once you have that Word -- nothing can penetrate or break it off you.

Our walks are different. For some faith is just a part of our fiber. I wish I was like that. I have a friends that do not seem to have any problem at all taking God at face value, I'm a little more analytical and sometimes am sorry to say I demand proof. I'm not proud of it, many times I just sit in my the middle of my small living room floor and find myself crying out and then apologizing for not trusting Him more. I get impatient in the waiting much of the time and have to flight my flesh every single day to sit back and wait for God to work in areas I have been praying over for years. I am amazed that sometimes God has moved, stirred or acted and somehow I missed it, but then again I missed the fact that through the impatience, tears, etc., something inside me is different.

I have been camping out on the topic of "avoidable pain" this week. I have had to ask myself how much easier would things have been if I had not put myself in circumstances to avoid the pain of consequences for my actions. I also believe that this type of pain pushes us to what my wonderful friend Diane Sample says is called"unavoidable prayer". And that my friends is the answer. Most people I know who have experienced great pressure and faith trials have learned the secret to praying without ceasing that we read about in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. If you read it in context we are to rejoice always, and give thanks in everything, and PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. It does not say rejoice when things are good, and give thanks when God blesses you without merit. When things are hard, when times are tough, when your health fails, when your friends and family seem to abandon you, at all times and in all things, practice unavoidable prayer because that is what is going to get results. I'm not saying it's easy, the disciples could not do it, but it is possible to learn to pray and out of that prayer comes everything.

One of my key scriptures for 2011 is out of Psalm 91: 16-18: Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him;I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.

Every time I read that I am reminded, how faithful he is. So in closing this blog this morning I decided to do a little back story on Laura Story. She is the writer of that song that I am loving so much these days. What causes someone to write such profound lyrics, unless of course they have experienced some pain that God has brought them through and out of that you can minister it through song? So the back story is that shortly after she married her high school sweetheart the lives of the newlyweds were shattered when they were told that her husband had a brain tumor. The result of that diagnosis would leave them trusting God to a point of utter dependence. She wrote Blessings because has experienced walking out two years of her young life with her husband and trusting God every step of the way - even unto death. She knows that He is in fact all that He says He is. God brought them through it and today she writes out of that victory in a way that can only minister to those of us who have walked through or are in those places where it does not seem like God is moving.

I thank God for the past two years. I have learned some things that have forever wrecked me. Primarily I have learned that I can confidently trust the Lord in all things, even when I don't see the outcome. He is the keeper of my life and the lifter of my head and I will rejoice always at that!

Blessings -- Laura Story

Because what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

What does it look like?

My daughter said something to me during a short visit from Austin last week. In a tender moment (she does not share these with me often), she said she was trying to discipline herself to not go to the Lord each day out of duty or some mechanical formula which she was taught, but that out of a pure heart and devotion for His love and His working in her life. What a concept. Here is this young woman that I was given the great priviledge of hopefully not screwing up too bad and she is speaking into my life without ever knowing it.

I love quiet time. I hate it when I don't do it, put it off or tell myself it's not important. I have journals all over my house and sometimes, usually when I'm reorganizing things I will pull them out and try to see areas of my life where God has moved profoundly and changed me, I will see areas He is still working on years later and commit to NOT going around that mountain again, or I will just sit and laugh at some of the stuff I thought was God, but now realize I should not have given Him credit for that at all! I will be the first to admit that I probably come to the Lord each morning with some sort of formula. I will read a devotional, I will read some scripture, I will reflect, sometimes journal, sometimes pray, sometimes do both, but always it's the same methodology -- so now I am asking myself that same question. Why do I come to the Lord? Is it out of some kind duty that I have put myself into a cookie cutter recipe of or is it out of a true love and devotion to spend time with the lover of my soul? I think the "Christianology" word for this is "Putting on Christ". What does that look like in our lives? What does it mean to put Christ on each and every day? Is there a formula for this?

As many know, I have recently started Yoga therapy as a way to help my health. Going to that mat two times a week is not enough. I really should take what my therapist teaches me on Monday and Wednesday and put it into practice, but I think I have developed a mindset that I am only doing this for my health and for no other reason. Yoga would not be my first choice in any exercise program. First it is much harder than I ever expected to be, it is very challenging to concentrate on balance and form while in a standing position, usually on one leg. But there are three poses that I really love. I love Prayer, Childs Pose and Corpse. At the beginning of every session we warm up by doing a series of stretches which always end in the position of me standing still on my mat with my hands in prayer and about a 2 minute hold. It is during this short 6 minutes that I can truly focus on the Lord and his good ness in my life. It is in this position that I can tell God how truly grateful I am. Child's Pose finds me prostrate and bent over from a kneeling position, and even though I don't hold this position for very long it once again reminds me to be humble and take baby steps. Recovering from a major Lupus flare is a marathon not a sprint. And corpse finds me laying down at the end of my session and quietly reflecting on the peace of God in my life, unfortuneately this is not always evident any other time in my life.

I think putting on Christ is very much like any other discipline in our life, it may become mechanical at first, but eventually it should bring change and we end up doing it out of a pure love and devotion for Christ and what he did with us. And I think that is what Tessa meant when she said - I don't want to do this becuase I have to, but I want to do this because I am in a relationship with Him and out of that love and devotion I want to.

I don't want to feel guilty when I don't come to the Lord, I want to be okay with whatever time I carve that day. I don't think it's a mechanical formula we put together so that we can feel good about ourselves and mark that task off our list that day. You know, brush teeth - check, eat food - check, seek the Lord - check? There has to be more to this all that! I believe it's important for us to come to the Lord not just with our wants, needs and whining over our emotions, but because there is something that comes from sitting in a position of expectancy that the God of the Universe would meet with us. I am always amazed that no matter what time I carve out, be it 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or hours -- that I know that I have been in His presence and He has met with me.

This week I'm reflecting on transformation. So naturally I am concentrating on what God's word has to say about transformation. In closing I want to use some scriptures as a guide for putting on Christ in your life out of Phillipians 4:7-8 - "And the peace of God which suprasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. THEREFORE, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is of a good report, if there is anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."

Until next time friends,

Selah