In our Bible Study every Wednesday night, here in the tiny little village of Elkton, we have been studying the book of Romans. Paul's letter to the Gentiles for the sake of the Jews. Or something like that...
Last night we talked about God's mercy, what that is and what it looks like. How it's effected our lives and how we would describe it personally.
Mercy and Grace go hand-in-hand; Grace is giving a person what they need in spite of what they deserve, Mercy is giving a person compassion when they deserve judgement.
God's mercy is beyond my understanding. His grace is so unfathomable... and that He wants to give these things to me when I make stupid mistakes and do the same sinful things over and over and over is... amazing. It's invaluable, it's precious.
In my life God's mercy has been so great and so constant... He not only saves me so that I can live a righteous life leading to eternity, He actually gives me tools to help me do it; and then He gives me more tools when I have a hard time with the ones I have, and then He sits me down and helps me figure them out when I can't do it on my own.
I just think... wow. It would be perfectly reasonable for God to save us and then let us figure everything else out on our own, even condemn us for not living perfect and blameless lives from there on out. But He's willing to do all the work for us... all He needs is our submission to His will: control of our lives.
It's such a simple little thing... and yet this one thing I cannot give over. I give it over and take it back again. And again.
In our Bible study we talked about a living sacrifice and what the difference is between a living and a dead sacrifice. The conclusion was that the living sacrifice gets up and walks off the alter at times.
We have to continually sacrifice our will to God because it doesn't die. It wakes up and gets down off the alter when left to it's own devices.
Thank God for His mercy!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
"...The Reason I live is to worship You."
Lately... I have not been living like that is the reason I exist.
It's so easy to fall into habits. We wake up every morning and numbly stumble through our routine existence: I get up, blindly stumble into the bathroom where I somehow manage to adjust my eyes to light and get dressed. I go to the barn and fumble through the routine of milking the goats, filling feeders and getting goats in and out of the milking stands. Then I go up to the house and rush like a mad woman to strain the milk, fill the dishwasher, get a lunch packed, get dressed and dash out the door to get to work.
I come home and stumble through some more routines until it's bedtime, get up and do it all again.
Somewhere in the middle of it all I realize that I don't have a very good attitude. Gee, wonder why.
I will have a conversation with someone and they'll say something I don't agree with, or that seems nasty or something and find myself picking them apart in my mind hours later.
I cannot worship God and fault-find at the same time, it's just not possible.
I cannot blindly stumble through routine patterns day in and day out and live my life on purpose to worship God.
Now, that doesn't mean that all the routine things don't have to be performed. But I don't have to check my brain and heart at the door while performing. I worship God through the routines He has put and worked into my life. I could even make time for some routines that more directly involve Him
God has put me here to worship, honor and bring glory to Him in all that I do and say and THINK.
If I spent more time pondering that and less time picking apart things other people say, my routines could become infinitely more precious and worthwhile. They could become crowns that one day I will cast at the feet of Jesus!
It's so easy to fall into habits. We wake up every morning and numbly stumble through our routine existence: I get up, blindly stumble into the bathroom where I somehow manage to adjust my eyes to light and get dressed. I go to the barn and fumble through the routine of milking the goats, filling feeders and getting goats in and out of the milking stands. Then I go up to the house and rush like a mad woman to strain the milk, fill the dishwasher, get a lunch packed, get dressed and dash out the door to get to work.
I come home and stumble through some more routines until it's bedtime, get up and do it all again.
Somewhere in the middle of it all I realize that I don't have a very good attitude. Gee, wonder why.
I will have a conversation with someone and they'll say something I don't agree with, or that seems nasty or something and find myself picking them apart in my mind hours later.
I cannot worship God and fault-find at the same time, it's just not possible.
I cannot blindly stumble through routine patterns day in and day out and live my life on purpose to worship God.
Now, that doesn't mean that all the routine things don't have to be performed. But I don't have to check my brain and heart at the door while performing. I worship God through the routines He has put and worked into my life. I could even make time for some routines that more directly involve Him
God has put me here to worship, honor and bring glory to Him in all that I do and say and THINK.
If I spent more time pondering that and less time picking apart things other people say, my routines could become infinitely more precious and worthwhile. They could become crowns that one day I will cast at the feet of Jesus!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
They That Wait...
Lately I've been ... working. I get up and go to work and come home and sleep and get up and do it all over again.
While I love my job and am very happy to be getting all the hours I'm getting, it still gets rather monotonous.
Today on my way home I was driving along and thinking, something I do a lot of between the commute to and from Bend each day, and started feeling the monotony creeping in a little. I started feeling a bit impatient. Impatient for what? For the rest of my life.
I know this is where God has me at the moment, and in most ways I'm really happy with that. But it's hard to be content sometimes when I get stuck in a rut and feel like I'm doing the same thing every day, and the sin nature in me starts telling me that there is no purpose in it.
So then I get impatient with God and want the next chapter to begin. I start struggling, my spirit at war with itself over whether to calmly let God play the scenes of my life His way or not. It makes me tired.
Today I was sensing the struggle going on inside me (a lot of times this happens and goes on for some time before I become aware of it) and prayed.
Novel concept, right?? =]
Just a short, cry sort of a prayer. A, "PLEASE GOD!" sort of a prayer. And immediately, I mean, IMMEDIATELY, the verse, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount on wings as eagles; they shall walk and not grow weary, they shall run and not faint." floated through my mind like a whisper. I just contemplated it, and started, without realizing I was even doing it, to meditate on it. I went through the verse as a whole, then took it piece by piece. I got to "upon the Lord" before I realized He'd magnificently answered my prayer.
It was amazing. I thanked Him and continued mediating on the verse and peace just washed over me.
I have a purpose, I'm fulfilling it right now. It's called waiting upon the Lord. God promises that they that do shall renew their strength. I'm not sure what it means to mount on wings as eagles and I don't think I've ever felt like I could run a marathon, but I know God is renewing my strength because I'm not fretting anymore. It's a wonderful feeling!
I'm still tired and I still don't like being single and I still have to get up at six thirty and go to work tomorrow morning. But it's okay. God's got it and He KNOWS. He knows what He's doing and He has this amazing purpose in mind and it's got my name on it. And I'm okay with that.
While I love my job and am very happy to be getting all the hours I'm getting, it still gets rather monotonous.
Today on my way home I was driving along and thinking, something I do a lot of between the commute to and from Bend each day, and started feeling the monotony creeping in a little. I started feeling a bit impatient. Impatient for what? For the rest of my life.
I know this is where God has me at the moment, and in most ways I'm really happy with that. But it's hard to be content sometimes when I get stuck in a rut and feel like I'm doing the same thing every day, and the sin nature in me starts telling me that there is no purpose in it.
So then I get impatient with God and want the next chapter to begin. I start struggling, my spirit at war with itself over whether to calmly let God play the scenes of my life His way or not. It makes me tired.
Today I was sensing the struggle going on inside me (a lot of times this happens and goes on for some time before I become aware of it) and prayed.
Novel concept, right?? =]
Just a short, cry sort of a prayer. A, "PLEASE GOD!" sort of a prayer. And immediately, I mean, IMMEDIATELY, the verse, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount on wings as eagles; they shall walk and not grow weary, they shall run and not faint." floated through my mind like a whisper. I just contemplated it, and started, without realizing I was even doing it, to meditate on it. I went through the verse as a whole, then took it piece by piece. I got to "upon the Lord" before I realized He'd magnificently answered my prayer.
It was amazing. I thanked Him and continued mediating on the verse and peace just washed over me.
I have a purpose, I'm fulfilling it right now. It's called waiting upon the Lord. God promises that they that do shall renew their strength. I'm not sure what it means to mount on wings as eagles and I don't think I've ever felt like I could run a marathon, but I know God is renewing my strength because I'm not fretting anymore. It's a wonderful feeling!
I'm still tired and I still don't like being single and I still have to get up at six thirty and go to work tomorrow morning. But it's okay. God's got it and He KNOWS. He knows what He's doing and He has this amazing purpose in mind and it's got my name on it. And I'm okay with that.
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