Sweet, Sweet Spirit

Often times it's the little things that get my attention the most.  Maybe I'm just a little slow at recognizing things from time to time, but every now and something will leap out and grab my thoughts.  Something like this...

Have you ever really considered the significance of the Holy Spirit?  I mean, beyond the scope of being a part of the trinity, or just that "thing" that came down at Pentecost?  I know within different denominational groups and styles of worship the presence of the Spirit is recognized and valued in different ways, even sometimes being a heavily debated topic.  However, it is not the dissention over the Holy Spirit that fascinates me; it is the Spirit's very practical role in carrying on the work of Christ through the lives of His disciples.

Being a very practical-minded person, it always makes me chuckle when God shows me how down-to-earth and practical He is about the shortcomings of human nature and about the fulfillment of our every need.  Case in point...the importance of the Holy Spirit.  As I worked my way through the gospel of John this past year, I was continually amazed at how the disciples just didn't get it.  What do I mean by "it"?  Well...they just about didn't get anything Jesus was trying to teach them.  Very rarely during the time of Jesus' life and teaching on earth did the disciples truly grasp the full meaning and implication of Jesus' words and actions.  To me it always seemed as if they couldn't get beyond the here-and-now...they were limited by their connection and understanding of the physical world in which they lived, and had difficulty understanding things they could not see or experience first hand (sound familiar anyone?).  In John 14:11 (and in several other places) Jesus says, "Believe me when I say...or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles [you have seen me do]."  He knew they had trouble grasping the meaning of what he said, so he appealed to their physical beings through physical ways they could see or experience first-hand. 

Now we get to where the Holy Spirit comes in.  Jesus knew his time on earth was going to run out before He could teach the disciples everything He wanted to share with them.  John 16:12-13 says, "I have much more to say to you, more than you can bear.  But when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth."  What is this Spirit of Truth?  The Counselor...the Holy Spirit!  The ever-present spiritual presence of God!  Jesus' time of physical presence with them would soon be at an end, but the Holy Spirit would continue Christ's work within them, helping them to make sense of what Jesus told them and truly learn how to follow Jesus' teaching and examples.  It is like having Jesus' personal presence with us and teaching us all the time.  Any teacher can say memorable and meaningful things, but over time even the best pupils will forget or even worse, twist the meaning of what they had learned.  Jesus is the teacher that never stops teaching, through the invisible hand of the Holy Spirit.  It's like a perpetual conscience, illuminating truth, showing right from wrong, and making it all so much easier for us to understand.  No wonder many of the writings of the disciples and apostles that were written after they received the gift of the Holy Spirit (Phillipians, James, etc.) are so much easier to read and decipher for many of us (at least for me!).  They were written under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth, which showed the writers how to apply the teachings of Jesus to every facet of life and helped them to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12)

The continual presence of the Holy Spirit in believers through out time negates the idea that the teaching of the Bible no longer applies to modern times.  Anyone who has accepted Christ and received the gift of the Holy Spirit has a constant adviser to help him or her understand how to live like Christ in a modern world.  The world around us may change, but God's truths will always remain applicable.  John 16:13-14 continues with Jesus' words about the Spirit, "He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears (a.k.a the Truth!) and tell you what is yet to come.  He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you."  Sounds like one incredible adviser to me!  Only speaks the truth (from God, not some independent, biased opinion), tells us what is to come, and opens the heavenly store house of God's wisdom and blessings and gives them to us!  I don't know about you, but it seems to me that we all would be a lot better off if we spent more time listening to and following the guidance of the Spirit, than listening to and following all of the other voices that surround us.

John 16:16 - "In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."  I don't think Jesus is referring to the resurrection here, but rather to sending the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Although we may not have his actual,  physical presence among us (a human form we can walk with and talk to like the disciples did), He has given us something equally valuable...a constant spiritual presence that teaches us to really "see" and understand who Jesus is and how He is doing incredible things in our lives. 

Thanks be to God for His indescrible gift!

A Strong Woman vs. A Woman of Strength

So...I didn't quite get this published in time for Mother's Day, but I wanted to share a beautiful reading I recently heard at a women's gathering that I think does a good job of depicting the kind of woman I want to be...a woman strong in God's strength.


A Strong Woman vs. A Woman of Strength

A strong woman works out everyday to keep her body in shape…
But a woman of strength builds relationships to keep her soul in shape.

A strong woman isn't afraid of anything…
But a woman of strength shows courage in the midst of fear.

A strong woman won't let anyone get the better of her…
But a woman of strength gives the best of herself to everyone.

A strong woman makes mistakes and avoids the same in the future…
A woman of strength realises life's mistakes can also be unexpected blessings, and capitalises on them.

A strong woman wears a look of confidence on her face…
But a woman of strength wears grace.

A strong woman has faith that she is strong enough for the journey…
But a woman of strength has faith that it is in the journey that she will become strong.

By Dee Cheeks (2005)

 

Do You Truly Love Me More Than These?

For months I have felt God working on my heart...giving me glimpses of His truths, challenging me to learn to trust more explicitly in Him for my every need and desire.  I have walked with, learned from, and experienced Christ in many ways in my life already, but now I feel him calling me to something more; to surrender the remaining areas of myself that I have refused to give up before.  It is a call for utter dependence on Christ.  I have felt this call, and I have resisted it...am still resisting it.  

Slowly He has been showing me that something I have long regarded as a merit He regards as sin...my self-sufficient independence.  It is the last-standing stronghold of my heart where I have refused to let Christ open the door.  For years I have been proud of my independence...my ability to take care of myself (in most cases), to act alone, and to succeed on my own.  It sprung up as a mechanism to hide hurt...to be self-sufficient was to be a safety against others inflicting pain or letting me down.  I see know more clearly than before that my own selfish pride in my independence has been the greatest barrier to truly loving and trusting God and experiencing all He has for me.  Even now the prospect of totally putting away my well-organized, always-be-prepared, planned-out, don't-really-need-any-help self frightens me.  It is how I have defined myself for years...without it I would be...what?  It means throwing out the carefully plotted road map I have made and setting out a journey with nothing...not even any idea of where I will end up.   

Something the guest speaker at church said yesterday really hit home in terms of how I view my life and how I view God's role in my life.  He was referenced John 21:15-16, where Christ is "reinstating Peter" after he thrice denied the Messiah a few chapters earlier.  Peter has gone home, and has gone back to fishing - back to his comfort zone - when the Lord appears to him and a few others.  Three times Jesus asks Peter, "Do you truly love me?"  Peter's response is always the same, "Yes, Lord...you know that I love you."  He was calling Peter to service, calling him to a life of the unknown, but a life of complete dependence on God, born out of a deep love for Christ.  I'd like to think that if Jesus was asking me "Heather, do you truly love me?" that I would answer just like Peter did.  However, have I really shown that love to Christ?  Do I live as if I truly love Christ?  Does He have preference and priority in my life?  "You won't put him first until you love Him," the speaker said.  Do my actions show my love for my Savior?  Or would my answer just be empty words.  

Am I willing to leave let go of everything in my "comfort zone" in order to love and serve Christ?  That was what Jesus was asking Peter in vs. 15 when he asked, "Do you truly love me more than these?"  What are these?  Fishing, Galilee, friends, family, the comfort zone.  Peter gave it all up and set out with no certain destination, to definite timeline...just an earnest desire to serve the Savior he loved and to follow wherever He led him.  Could I do that?

Softly and tenderly Jesus has been tugging on my heart.  Jeremiah 31:3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness," has certainly been true for me.  Now he wants to be my strong tower (Prv. 18:10)...not just when I think I need him.  He wants to be my strong tower period.  In everything.  No conditions.  He wants an end to ANY reliance upon myself and total reliance upon him.  Do I truly love Him more than I love my self-sufficient pride?   Can I give up my self-oriented security and live in the shelter of the Strong Tower?

Changes and Questions...

It's be almost a month since I have written anything here of any substance.  Reflecting back over the month of April, I can't make the excuse that I didn't have time to blog.  Instead, let's just say that April was a month of uncertainty.  The month began with the looming prospect of being moved from Arkansas to an unknown destination (as a result of Nate's work) by the end of the April.  This move has long been inevitable,  but not knowing a date, time, or destination made it difficult to know how to manage our time are resources.  As it turned out, the 3rd week of April we discovered that we would be moving around the 1st of June, and that our destination (for a few months at least) would be Kansas City.  More on this in the future.  For now, I'll simply add that my preparations for our departure have been moving along rapidly.

The move back to Kansas City raises new questions for me.  Right now the amount of time we will spend there is still uncertain, which makes forming plans difficult.  The biggest question for me is when, how, and where to find a job.   I can't say that I have wasted my time here in Arkansas as a result of not having a job.  We have accomplished many things in a short time, and to be quite honest, I really enjoyed having a break from my usual, chaotic and crazy-busy lifestyle.  It makes me reluctant to go back to it.  However, recently my self-discipline and motivation have been lacking, so having some sort of schedule would probably be a good thing again.

I pretty much gave up my desire to earnest pursue a career when I got married.  Don't get me wrong, marriage is not a decision I regret in the least.  It's just that Nathan's job is naturally more demanding and I didn't want my own stubborn resolution on a career to hold him back from moving forward with his own.   Also, I always expected to give up my career when children came along...taking care of a family/being a parent is the most important career of all!  However, this desire for flexibility and time to support husband/family, when coupled with my own natural ambition to succeed, makes determining what kind of work to look for a difficult task.  Then there is the guilty feeling I get from failing to live up to cultural expectations that someone like me should be career-focused at this stage in life.  To have a career...or not to have a career...that is the question.  Maybe I'll just create my own career.  I have my own ideas, but how to make them feasible is another question.  I know my natural response should be to trust God and allow him to open the doors he wants for my future.  I am ashamed to admit that I haven't been doing that.  I really haven't been seeking His will and purpose for me at all.  Perhaps that's why I find myself with this weird, uncertain feeling...looking into the future and just feeling...bleh.

Lord, open my heart and eyes to the opportunities you place around me to serve others and do the work or your kingdom.  Equip me for what you have in store for me.  Amen!

So...I found this in an online article about 13 Fantastic and Fun Image Generators; it's really kind of fun to play around with the stuff they have there.  However, even though I appreciate the humor of this "demotivator" on blogging, I have to say that I have read some very profound and insightful things on other people's blogs.  None the less, I had to share this.