Category: Christian Life

Blessed

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Last night, while driving around Minneapolis, my radio was tuned into 91.5fm, a great Christian rock station which also plays clean secular music too! (It’s great!) I asked my friend if she’d heard of it before, she said no & I then told her just HOW great it was, and encouraged her to try it sometime! Well, it really didn’t occur to me WHY I was so excited to tell her about it until this morning. I thought…why did I mention it specifically to her & not to my other friend in the car? Well, the one lives downtown Minneapolis, where the station comes in really great! …and the other friend doesn’t…like me, so we can’t tune in the station at all. 😦 I thought it out further and thought it’s like…I really appreciate that station, what it says, who they are, what they do, etc…but because of where I live, I don’t have the opportunity to enjoy or listen to it! Therefore, when I find out someone I care about DOES live in an area where you can hear the station, I feel compelled to tell them about it. Since I can’t hear it, but they can, it’s like aHHHH! Listen for goodness sakes!

This is not just a bunch of ramblings…I do have a point. How many of us live in an area where Christianity is suppressed or banned? I doubt if any of us do. (Maybe suppressed a little, but more by ourselves.) What a great opportunity then, seeing that we HAVE the signal, we can hear the gospel, we can talk about it….but why don’t we? People in other countries or under other governments don’t have the freedoms we do when it comes to our faith. It feels like I hear things from those oppressed people like “don’t take your faith for granted,” or “you don’t understand how good you have it,” or “if I had the life you do, I would be telling all sorts of people about Jesus.” It makes me wonder…why don’t I head that thought, or act on it?

Detox

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Alright, I know you’re all thinking…..man, she’s going deep with this, and I might by the end, but seriously, I’m just writing to say how incredibly odd my family is! (Though it’s rather endearing!) My mom borrowed a “detox” contraption, where you stick your feet in salt water & add this electric thing in the water….and the color the water turns after 30 minutes, will show you what in your body is really needing detox….in theory, if you do this enough, it’ll “clean you out.” SO….what did we do tonight? Had my aunt, her two kids & all of my fam try it out….while the rest stood around and watched. AH! what a great past time eh? I can’t believe this….we’re serious crazies some nights.

But bringing this around, don’t you wish we had a test like that, where we could stick our feet in the water of life, and depending on the color, we’d know if we needed to really work on pride, lust, envy, greed, or any other thing we are holding above God? It’d be great too if there was something we could do for 30 min. a day, and eventually it’d just be gone! Well, I can say from experience, that God Himself WILL tell you what you need to be growing in or working on, and if you purposefully spend time with Him and His Word, you will see those things working their way out of your life & being replaced with the goodness & purity of Christ himself….AH detox.

Realization

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Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!” Just heard this & I love it.

L-0-V-3

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So today I’ve just been going through stuff… if you know me much at all, you know that when people close to me hurt, I hurt with them…it’s hard for me to not feel pain of my friends or family. I can’t give you details, but would ask for your prayer. Strength, courage & humble honesty is what I need right now. Also, for the others involved who need peace, wisdom & faith beyond understanding. I was reminded tonight of my favorite Bible passage…Romans 12:9-12 which starts off with “Love must be sincere.”

hm….

even typing that makes me go blank. Am I sincere in my love? How does that play out in my life? Who do I need to love more? How is God using me? Am I honest in my love for God & where am I in my journey with Him? “Love must be sincere.”

wow….can we say that when we think of how we treat our brothers? neighbors? friends? our bosses? our co-workers? the people we see on the street? in the check out line? “Love must be sincere.”

Do everything in Love…..sincerely & with a pure heart. only by the grace of God can this be done…..only by his Mercy can we be freed of the bondage that looks to hold us back from loving others unconditionally, from loving God as much as we should….He’s freed us & because of His love, we love. I’m praying for your love & hope you’ll pray for mine.

Relying on God

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So tonight, a topic came up about support & doing things like the world or like a Christian…and I said how God can make things happen without us having to do things like the rest of the world. This hit me AFTER I said it, because I guess it’s one of those things I took for granted in my beliefs. God really CAN make certain things work out without us having to do just like everyone else! The example was about Club 3 degrees, and how they’ve made it w/o selling alcohol. Well, yeah….just because the other clubs make their money from the alcohol, doesn’t mean that this one does. Club 3 relies on God rather than man to support & sustain the ministry that has been put before it. Our God is a big God, the BIGGEST, the ONLY God who is alive and working, just as hard as He has from our beginning & long before that! How can we trust in our own doings when we are powerless without Him? How can we believe that we need to do as the world does in order to make things happen? We are not of the world, the things we produce should not be of the world, what we become should not look like the world. I don’t know that there is an accurate comparison that I can give that would show just how different we are, or SHOULD be from the world. I’m reading this book about Ruth & Naomi….how Ruth was a Moabitess who married Naomi’s son (a Hebrew) but how Naomi’s sons & husband took on the appearance of a Moabite….dressing like them, talking like them, taking wives from that land…and they were accepted in Moab…but God was not pleased, and Ruth saw the difference in her mother in law. She saw enough difference that when given the choice to remain with what she knew, her home, her friends, her mom & dad, she gave it up willingly to follow after whatever that was that Naomi had and she didn’t. She wanted to follow this God that had done marvelous things & made her mother in law the woman she was. I want to be like that, we should all be like that…so noticeably different from our surroundings that people are magnetized to our God. So separate in being, so set apart, so “weird” if you will, that people wonder what it is that we have that they do not. Do you have a God that transforms you like this? I do….I just haven’t always been open to Him. But a God like that has grace, and I’m open for Him to make me different, changed, renewed, transformed….whatever He has to do in order for me to look more like Him than the world.