Hiking In Grace & Capturing My View

Enjoying My Front Row Seat

04.20.10

(From Here)

This morning as I was thinking about posting on another Tuesday, I stopped by Emily’s blog to see if she had left a prompt for the day. She was thankful for her husband but especially she mentioned the “love choice” that is marriage. Ah, that made me smile. What great truth is in that. Each day for every one of us, the relationships we CHOOSE to be a part of are just that. A choice. We choose who we love whether it is our spouse, children, parents, siblings, relatives, or friends… or even enemies. It made me thankful for my husband, who chooses to live his life with me as his wife.
Then, I clicked over to another blog that made me thankful for my husband again.
I am thankful for the blessing of a husband who seeks to honor God with his life. ALL of his life. Not just part of it. I have enjoyed watching Christ change his heart in many areas.

I have watched God take this man from a darkroom where I met him, following his own will, seeking to go into photo journalism, to a man seeking to follow God’s will for his life, in all he says and does, preaching the gospel and teaching solid biblical truth.
I have watched this man grow from enjoying the action/shoot ’em up type movies, and become a man seeking to be useful to the Lord’s work and clearing his life of those things which are contrary to the teachings of Christ, wanting to be a clean vessel meet for the Master’s use.
I have watched him grow in grace and sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I have watched God mold him into something new.
I have watched him grow from fishing on Sunday mornings for bass to spending his Sunday mornings fishing for the hearts of men for Christ, his Savior.

I have the great privilege of having a front row seat. Long ago I realized I cannot change him, THAT is God’s job, not mine. These are just of few of the ways Christ has changed his life… and there are so many more…

(To Here)

This morning I unwrapped the blessing of God’s gift to me, allowing me to watch it all come to pass, right before my very eyes.

Weeds?

04.17.10

Having missed the last 6 springs, I am really enjoying what others think of as weeds.

I love that even though the grass was cut about a day ago,

we already have a lot of yellow and purple covering our lawn.

My youngest is having a great time picking them and for the first time ever,

I have been the recipient of several bouquets of dandelions and wild violets.

My heart is very happy with what others may call weeds.

**edit/correction: I did get to see the Spring of 2008**

Reflections in the Kitchen Sink

04.17.10

Is your drain basket clogged?

I got to thinking about how much we are like the drain basket in a sink. Ever look down in that kitchen sink and find the drain basket full of gunk?

Bits and pieces of the day’s food stuck in the holes of the strainer.

If left rotting there very long it begins to stink, clogging the holes in the drain basket, and stopping up the sink not allowing the water to flow through.

You can dump cleanser in the sink but unless you actually pick the rotting bits out, the cleanser won’t do any good. It may smell better but only for a few moments, nothing lasting.

Our lives are very much like a drain basket. Our life can get clogged with lots of worldly attitudes and values instead of Biblical values.

We become distracted by the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things.

They clog our lives so that God’s love and light is prevented from flowing through us to those around us. Things we have allowed to accumulate in our lives so often sidetrack us from our God given purpose.

Our lives are supposed to be a sweet savor unto the Lord (2 Cor. 2:15) but when our drain basket is clogged with all this other junk… it is more of a stench than a sweet savor.

Ephesians 5:26&27 …even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

God’s Word is to cleanse us. We must keep the gunk out of our basket and keep it clean with the washing of the water of the Word of God.

We must consciously keep our lives free of these things or they will build up and clog our lives so that we have very little space left for God to flow through us.

We have to put effort into this.

My sink won’t be clean unless I physically clean it up myself, picking the chunks of waste out of the holes.

The Word of God is like the soap that disinfects the drain basket.

However, I have to cooperate with it and remove that which clogs the holes for God’s soap to really disinfect the basket, making way for living water to flow through us.

If those particles of sin aren’t repented of, God’s love and the light of Christ are hindered from pouring through to those around us.

How is your drain basket today?

Tuesdays Unwrapped: Blogging Blessings Unwrapped

04.13.10

As I was going through my daily routine, I was thinking about what I could post and link up to Tuesdays Unwrapped, it being Tuesday and all.

I really enjoy the blogs that I read on a regular basis. So often I have read a post and it speaks directly to what is going on in my life, spiritual walk with Christ, and relationships.

One, is facing a long distance move and I can empathize with her. I have just moved half way around the world not long ago and I understand all the stress involved with the packing and planning.

Another, has recently stepped into sobriety and blogs often about the inner struggle and battle with her ‘self’, and her honesty and rawness of how she feels. I am proud of her for her stand and pray for her as she continues on that path. I find it encouraging because, though I have not had the battle she faces now, I have personal battles with my ‘self’ all the time. So many times she has written about her frustration, of the stress of a bad day, and how she used to handle it and how she handles it now and I read it and it strikes a chord of “yeah, that is how I feel when ‘such and such’ happens.”

Just today I read a post about bitterness. I found it a good reminder, as Christ is helping me climb out of that hole at this time, God used it to remind me not to spew it all over those around me but put it in the proper receptacle, found only in Christ.

And then there is the one who so often makes me so very hungry. A long time friend, she introduced me to the world of VeggieTales and my life has never been the same. (Funny, the phrase “if I only had a brain” just flew through my head! wink wink)

I have a very close friend who has hiked many a long trail with me literally and physically. She has been right beside me, edifying me, uplifting me, and always reminding me to look up to the Savior we both love. Helping me to see things crystal-clearly.

Today, I unwrap the small blessing of fellow bloggers that God has used many times to encourage me, edify me, and also to help me know that there are others who face the same joys, struggles, and stresses that I face.

Keeping Busy

03.23.10

This excerpt from a daily devotional I receive in my email each day really got me thinking. Even though today’s email was more directed at overcoming the sin of lust, one could just as well substitute any other sin in its place.

“God uses the Law to expose the sinfulness of our lust, yet the Law does not give us the power to overcome it. (See Romans 7:7.) The power to overcome lust comes by exercising the gift of God’s grace through righteousness by yielding the members of our body. Thus, we are not to yield our members to unrighteousness, but “yield [surrender] yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments [weapons] of righteousness unto God. For [then] sin shall not have dominion over you …” (Romans 6:13–14).

This is explained in Romans 5:20–21, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Righteousness is the Greek word dikaiosune, which in the broader sense means “the condition acceptable to God; integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking, feeling, and acting.” “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:11).”

~Daily Success email from Institute for Basic Life Principles, Command 7: Do Not Lust, Day 44 by Bill Gothard

This is how I customized it for myself:

“God uses the Law to expose the sinfulness of our {insert sin here}, yet the Law does not give us the power to overcome it. (See Romans 7:7.) The power to overcome {that sin} comes by exercising the gift of God’s grace through righteousness by yielding the members of our body. Thus, we are not to yield our members to unrighteousness, but “yield [surrender] yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For [then] sin shall not have dominion over you …” (Romans 6:13–14).

What it said to me:

1. The law shows us our sin. Any sin we are struggling to overcome.

2. Grace helps us overcome that sin.

3. Overcome it by:

a. Not allowing our flesh to give into it.

b. Keep busy with works of righteousness, serving Christ by serving those around us.

This got me thinking… it is just like trying to keep a kid busy with activities to keep them out of trouble. Denial of self-will for God’s will. Don’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. Do this by keeping busy at what God has called me to do. (… and not to get sidetracked by all the other stuff screaming for my attention that was not God-given!)