My Grown up Christmas List

How often do we as Christians approach God like how as children we approached Santa Clause?

This past week, I started a Bible study at the church I attend MOPs at, titled Discerning the Voice of God. In this first week we talked about how different people believe God speaks to them. Whether you believe He speaks to you through His word, through those around you and opportunities that He opens or closes, through a silent feeling, or with a booming voice from above, God does speak to us.

The real question is, ARE YOU LISTENING? I know that I am totally guilty of going to God in prayer when a hard time arises and I need some help or I go to Him, like Santa, and say I need this, this, & could you give me a little of that. I try to manipulate God ......like we can do that.....to get what I want. I'm always talking, my husband will agree, but if I'm asking all this stuff, why am I not taking time to listen to His answer. Many times I ask for His will and direction, and then immediately go do what I think is best....why did I even consult God if I already knew what I was going to do? Also, I notice, many times, I've already made up my mind long before I even ask, hoping that somehow I'll get God's blessing on my decision, so heaven forbid, I don't get His wrath poured out on me.

It's very hard in our busy lives to truly slow down and just listen to what God's direction is for our lives. We know where WE want to be and what WE want to do, but we are missing out on God's amazing plan for our lives by pushing His will away. I encourage you to listen to God. If you ask Him a question He WILL answer. It may not be the answer you want or in the time you planned it...... but that's another week!

Are there areas in your life that you have made a snap judgment call and then regretted it or realized that you went against God's leading? I know I have, especially when it came to family decisions, it's hard, but we need to ready ourselves like Habakkuk and wait.

Habakkuk 2:1

I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what He will say to me,

and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

Please join me if you like in Discerning the Voice of God!

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

As I sit on my back deck enjoying the beautiful sunshine and light breeze I feel a stillness. The chaos that we live in currently is sometimes overwhelming. As always, I start to think that it is too much to bear and start to break down and cry. I miss my hubby bunny, those 4 months off really spoiled me and I became dependent on Tom for everything. With the addition of a new baby that has had colic/gerd since birth and hasn't stopped screaming, a new car after ours was totalled, a new home with the first time home owners learning curve, a new job that takes my husband away for all hours, and living in a new place where I know....no one, life can be overwhelming. But we have it so easy, my husband isn't deployed fighting in a war, my kids aren't battling a deadly disease, we aren't homeless, no one has died, we aren't living under persecution of our faith......how quickly our little problems seem so significant.

But how soon I forget that I need to be leaning on the Lord, not my husband, others or things for support. I forget that God protected Tom in that car wreck that destroyed our and 4 other cars, that he allowed us to be approved for a loan and bless us with our first home. I forget that He allowed us to Match at a great family friendly program and has us in Michigan for a purpose. I forget that I was blessed with a new child and with Grant 2 1/2 years ago, not by anything I had done, but because He GAVE us a family and all that we have.

I always say that God never gives us more than we can handle and I totally believe that or what kind of faith would I have. When the clocks hits 3 am and I'm holding my little crying bundle or when the dishwasher stops working for the 6th time this week, or the basement floods EVERYTIME I run a load of laundry how easy it is to stop relying on God and take all the blessings we have for granted. Just remember that it could all be taken away in a flash and that what is most important is that our family is together, healthy, safe and blessed.....and without the Lord we would be nothing.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.Delight yourself in the Lord,and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;trust in him, and he will act.He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,and your justice as the noonday.
—Psalm 37:3-6

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,my God, in whom I trust.”
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.He will cover you with his pinions,and under his wings you will find refuge;his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.You will not fear the terror of the night,nor the arrow that flies by day,nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,ten thousand at your right hand,but it will not come near you.You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—the Most High, who is my refuge—no evil shall be allowed to befall you,no plague come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning youto guard you in all your ways.On their hands they will bear you up,lest you strike your foot against a stone.You will tread on the lion and the adder;the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;I will protect him, because he knows my name.When he calls to me, I will answer him;I will be with him in trouble;I will rescue him and honor him.With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
—Psalm 91

The Glad Game

Pollyanna Faith

Isn't it wonderful when something is on your heart for a long time and God sends a little message your way so you know you are on the right track!! I wrote this post on Sunday, May 24th over on my family blog and then I checked my devotional on this sight and this is what it said:

Romans 8:28 KJV: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

In her 1913 book, "Pollyanna," Eleanor Hodgman Porter tells the story of an orphaned little girl whose tenacious attempts to find the good in all things, often rubbed hard against the people she was near. While they would bemoan the bad in life, she would respond with something good, then speak her familiar mantra like phrase: "You can be glad about that," she´d say. In time, the hearts and lives of those close by were changed and given hope. Sometimes it seems we forget the power in a positive word. Sometimes we underestimate the hope we can stir in others simply by searching out for ourselves the good that God can bring-and finding ways to pass it along. Some think a Pollyanna faith is unrealistic, and only found in fiction. But let´s not forget that in all things, bad or good, we have a very realistic hope that God can and will work all things together for good. And we can truly be glad about that.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

So the first major point of this book is that women's greatest need from their spouse is love, but men need respect more! Woman base most of their decisions off of emotion and how good a relationship is going to them is determined by how loved they feel. Men, oppositely, would rather feel rejected and unloved than feel disrespected in life and relationships. This is a biblical principle that I have heard preached on many times, but until they put it in this language, it never hit me of the importance of how this played into the husband-wife relationship.

In the Bible God commands husbands to love their wives even as Christ loved the church and commands wives to honor and respect their husbands formost. God knew, obviously, how He had built us and the importance for us to feel validated as wives/women by feeling loved. Christ gave His life for the church and He expects our husbands to have that same kind love, the love that means protecting us and possibly dying, for us.

Wives, on the other hand, are commanded to respect their husbands and revere them like we are to respect and revere the Lord. Sometimes this may mean having to live with a decision we don't agree with that our husbands feel is best for our family, or having to let go when we want to put our two cents in. It also translates into major and minor things that happen in a relationship everyday, but we will get into that more later.

The first thing we need to start practicing to get our hearts and minds on the right track and in line with what God wants us to do is pray for the ablilty to trust and respect our husbands. This is a hard thing for me to do, since I like to be in control, but God put our husbands in charge of our households, and even though most of the time we are the ones home making the daily decisions of life, we need to be praying that God leads us in our decisions and that we follow what our husbands have asked of us when they are home or away.

On a practical note, the easiest way we can start respecting our man is to make sure that we are not bad mouthing him, ever, to others. This means no venting to girlfriends, whining to kids or family, or even thinking bad thoughts about him to ourselves. He has a very tough responsibility, one that I don't want, and no one is perfect. By lifting up our man to the Lord and finding the positive about him in everything he does, we get our hearts in the right place and can help and encourage him to be the man, husband, and father God intended him to be.

Ephesians 5:22
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Ephesians 5:25-30
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

For Women Only Intro

So a while back I started the For Women Only series by Shaunti Feldman. I got the Bible Study Guide for groups, but use it as a devotional book. I love it, it has thought questions, fill in the blanks, scenarios, things to work on that week and tons of other helpful fun stuff. I really learn better when there is a workbook style book available, so that it holds me accountable and really draws the information out of me. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone, it will make you a better wife, mother, and a stronger woman in the Lord. I am waiting for them to come out with the For Men Only Bible Study book, because I know my husband would benefit from it, any husband would.

I have been slacking and it's been a while since I really delved in and got serious about it. So I am going to start from the beginning again, reviewing everything that I have learned. I will be posting the first chapter's main points and scripture that goes along with it if anyone wants to follow along. I hope you will enjoy it and will jump in with your ideas and opinions if you are interested!