Category — ramblings

Today’s verse is found in Matthew.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” – Mattthew 5:8

Purity.  That’s a pretty hard thing to achieve.  In fact, it’s something that we cannot achieve without God.

But there has to be something that we can do to help that along, right?

Absolutely.

We can guard our heart from impurity.

Think of the old adage – “Garbage in, garbage out” – what we put into our hearts is what will come out of our hearts.  But how do we put things into our hearts?

By putting thing into our minds.

Our eyes and ears are the portals through which ideas enter our mind.  What we take in will affect us – even when we don’t realize it.

Have you ever been reading a book or watching a movie and you felt uncomfortable?  That’s God’s Spirit nudging you to remind you that you shouldn’t be taking that into your mind.

One of the lines from the movie Inception really encapsulated this perfectly.  They were talking about the most powerful virus being an idea.  Once an idea is planted inside your mind, it will begin to grow and take shape and can take over your life – if it is powerful enough.

There is a lot of truth to the old kids song we used to sing – “Be careful little eyes what you see!  Be careful little ears what you hear!”  If we will be careful what we let in, we won’t be haunted by ideas or images that shouldn’t be there, but we can’t ever get rid of.

I remember once sitting at a friend’s house and her husband had rented the movie .8mm.  Not something I want to watch!  There are images in that movie that a person may never be able to get rid of – very sexually violent images.

She and I chose not to watch it, and I took my 5 month old daughter up with us to another room.  But he kept his 1.5 year old down with him to watch it.  I don’t know how old a person has to be before those kind of images will stick, but I would rather not chance it.  Who is to say whether or not one of those images will come back later in his life – and he would have no idea where that idea came from.

²²“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

²³“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” – Matthew 6:22-23

If our eye is clear, it will be easier to live a life of purity.  We will not be so stained and tarnished by this world if we do not take part in the wickedness of this world.

Be careful little eyes what you see.

***SPOILER ALERT***

seriously.  If you haven’t yet seen this movie, don’t read a single sentence of this post.

Just don’t do it.

Go see the movie and prepare to have your mind bent.

Then come back and let’s chat.

Some of my observations:

• the house they lived in – the lighting was EXACTLY the same as in all of his memories.  And the kids were the same age, and in the same place in the back yard.  Even when he “came home”
• Perhaps when Mol showed up, she was actually trying to wake him up?
• His “reality” was driven by guilt.
• He couldn’t go home – he was trapped.
• He couldn’t do an honest day’s work because his wife killed herself – and he was blamed for murdering her.
• He was coerced at the last possible moment to work for a corrupt corporation which enabled him to avoid jail.
• He had a “savior” just when he needed it to remove him from the claws of said corporation.
• His totem was in the hands of at least 2 other people… and it wasn’t even his totem.
• When they constructed from memory, they built Mol’s childhood house, but not his.
• His father-in-law was in LA waiting for him, but lived in Paris.
• His FIL was not French.
• His wife was
• His mother-in-law sounded like his wife, but lived in the US with his kids – not in Paris with her husband.  Why didn’t they move?
• His crime was so heinous that the US gov’t would pull strings & go past political issues to get him back to the USA from France… but not any other country?  And it wasn’t something that would normally merit that kind of action by the gov’t.  (but guilt would make it seem larger in his own mind)
• his kids knew where he was to call him, but the gov’t couldn’t track him.

These are just a few of the things that have come to mind since last night.

So, do I think he ever fully “woke up” – no.  I don’t think we ever saw his actual reality.  If the top layer were reality, the kids would be in different clothes and would have aged from his memories.  They didn’t.

But who knows just how deep he was at that point?

Is it all just the delusions of a mental patient?

Are any of the characters real?

And for those wondering, I think the kids are the actual totem.  And them turning around doesn’t mean he’s out.  I think it means he’s in even more deeply.

~~~~~~~~

One thing I wondered though… regarding the phone call from the kids.  They sounded older than they looked.  She sounded very much like an 8 year old.  It is almost as if they had been brought to wherever his body was and were tring to talk to him to pull him out.

What are your thoughts?

1 HAVE MERCY upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercy and loving-kindness blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquity and guilt and cleanse me and make me wholly pure from my sin!

3 For I am conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me.

4 Against You, You only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment.(A)

5 Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful].(B)

6 Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.

7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow.

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice.

9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.

11 Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13 Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted and return to You.

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice).

15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

16 For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.(C)

17 My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.

18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then will You delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, justice, and right, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then bullocks will be offered upon Your altar.

Psalm 51 – Amplified Version

There is something more important than any outward manifestation of our faith that may show.

Our heart.

We may life the purest life of anyone we know, but if our heart is not pure, our works amount to a pile of crap… literally.

But if our hearts are pure, the offerings of our lives will be met with delight by God.

So I ask, how is your heart?

Is God on the throne, or are you?  Do you covet the things of this world, or do you set them aside in the pursuit of God?

I will admit that often when I look at my own heart, it is a dark place – more often than I’d care to admit!  But God will cleanse our hearts if we ask Him to.  He will cleanse them day after day, moment after moment, all we must do is ask.

And so I ask.

Dear God, I come before you today and ask.  Create in me a clean heart.  Clean house – get the cobwebs out of those dusty corners.  Take the trash to the dump, take the stuff I don’t need to goodwill.  Put the stuff I do need where it goes so I can find it.  I know that I have neglected some rooms of my heart (much as I neglect certain rooms of my house) and they have gotten filled up with so much stuff it’s hard to get in.  I ask that You would clean them out, and show me how to keep from re-accumulating so much stuff.

Then Lord, I ask that You would renew Your Spirit within me.  Fill my life with your peace.  Fill my mind with Your ways and cause my heart to hurt for those that You hurt for.  Help me to see this world through Your eyes – and cause me to be your hands and feet to reach out to them.

Thank you, Lord, that You love me.  Even when I am prideful and arrogant and angry and willful and obstinate and say or do things that hurt others.  Thank you for showing me the areas in my life that need to be worked on.  And thank you for walking by my side as I learn to be more like You.

Teach me Your ways.  Inscribe Your statutes upon my heart that I may not forget them.  Help Your Word to be my daily bread – the food that I need to survive each day – and don’t let me starve any longer.

Draw me close to You.  Break my heart for the things that break Yours.  Teach me humility.  And above all, help me to not get in the way of You.  Help me to point people to You.. only to You.

This week we are studying 1 Samuel 16:1-13.  This is the passage where Samuel anoints David as the next king over Israel – while Saul is still very much on the throne.

The first verse is as follows:

¹The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go.

There is so much in that verse!  First, there is the question – how long will you grieve, since I have rejected him. Samuel was sitting in Ramah, apparently with a great amount of grief and dispair.  Last week we saw that Israel told Samuel they wanted a king – having judges and prophets was no longer enough for them.  After all, the other countries around them all had kings, why not them?  (such a human trait, no?  Wanting to have whatever those around us have.)

So Samuel is rejected by Israel, although it was really God that was rejected.  Saul is chosen by God to be king over Israel, and anointed by Samuel.  At first Saul does great.  He is humble and contrite of heart.  He is scared of the responsibility.  He doesn’t think he qualifies for the job.

Apparently that changed.

Over time Saul grew into the status and enjoyed being King.  He took credit for things others did.  He decided to take Samuel’s position and offer a sacrifice to God before the Israelites.  Don’t misunderstand – he did good things too.  He waged a war against the Philistines and drove them out of Israelite land, temporarily.

But then he chose to disobey God.

God sent him to wipe out the Amalekites.  Why?  Because of the way they treated the children of Israel while they were escaping from Egypt.  Because they were tormenting the small town on the outskirts of Israel.  Because they were the cause of God’s children crying out to Him.

Saul was told to keep nothing and to destroy everything.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Saul and the Israelite army chose to keep the best of the livestock.  He chose to bring Agag, the king of the Amalekites back with him… alive.  And he had turned his back on God.

How do we know this?  How do we know that he turned away from God?

“…for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” – 1 Samuel 15:15b

“But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.” – 1 Samuel 15:21

“Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the LORD your God.” – 1 Samuel 15:30

What is the phrase that is repeated over and over in these verses?

The Lord your God.

Not the Lord my God, but your God.

Not good, Saul.  Not good at all.

God had make him king over Israel – king over God’s chosen people – and he rejected God.  What he failed to realize was that God had placed him there… and God could remove him as well.

And God could choose someone else to be king over Israel.  Another family to begin a dynasty.

Which He did:

“And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel.” – 1 Samuel 15:26

And that catches us up to verse 1 of 1 Samuel 16…

Wow – I hadn’t realized how long it has been since I posted a setlist!  Life has been just a tad busy I guess.  Sorry about that!

This week’s topic was centered around worry in our home groups, and the passage we were focusing on was 1Samuel 13:1-14.  It highlights a time when Saul decided to take matters into his own hands instead of waiting on Samuel, or, rather, waiting on God.

Worry and impatience.  Anxiety.

There are so many times in the Bible where this comes up and causes problems for people!

With that in mind, our setlist focused on giving our anxieties to God and keeping a heavenly focus.

• Forever [F]
• Today is the Day [F]
• Rain It Down [A]
• We Will Worship You [D]
• kids storytime
• Beautiful One [E]
• announcements
• message – Staying Small in Your Own Eyes
• Trading My Sorrows [G]

It was a really great sermon, and hopefully we got a good recording of it.  I will post it this week if so.

I really liked leading Rain it Down and We Will Worship You back to back – the first focuses on crying out to God in the midst of the storms instead of trying to run away from them, and the second calls for is to cry out when we get too comfortable, to content.  These songs remind us that we need God in both the good times and the bad – not just the bad.  It is so easy to forget about God when everything is going well… but we can’t!  Our focus needs to be fixed on Him daily.  Our desire needs to be to have a relationship with Him daily.  We need to seek His face… daily.

And that is often so hard to do!

When things aren’t going our way, it is easy to cry out to God.  It is easy to admit that we don’t have it all together.  It is easy to admit that we need Him, because we (obviously) can’t do it on our own.  We need to translate that same need to when things are going our way too.  We still need Him, and we still can’t do it all on our own.  We just so often don’t recognize our need.

We need to continually focus on Him.

This week our church is studying passages on worry – and how we need to put our trust in God.

It’s some heavy stuff.

We live in a stressful world.  There really isn’t a way to escape stress completely, and it seems that more and more stress seems to find us in greater amounts.  How can we deal with this stress in a way that doesn’t kill us?

Our key verse this week is found in Philippians 4, and it is one of those verses that we have clung to in the past.

“⁶do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Do not be anxious about anything.

That’s how these two verses start out, and that in itself is a wizz-banger isn’t it!  How can we not be anxious in this world?  How can we not find ourselves stressed out and frazzled with anxiety when we don’t know where the next house payment will come from and the car needs to have $4,000 worth of work done so it will run and we need to find a job in an economy where no one is hiring and our loved ones are dying from horrible diseases like cancer and cystic fibrosis and our spouse works crazy long hours to provide for the family, but that means we never get to spend time with them, and our kids are growing faster than we realize and they are entering into a world where drugs and sex will surround them on a daily basis and we can only hope that we have trained them up in the way they should go, and… and… and…

That is the reality for so many of us.  Bills, work, putting food on the table, providing for our families, avoiding serious illness.  We all have these lists of worries and fears and areas that are causing stress in our lives.

How can God expect us to “be anxious for nothing” when that is the world we live in?

Pray about everything

Yes, that’s a loose translation, but it boils it down.  “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” We need to bring our worries and stresses to God with thanksgiving! Yep, we need to be thankful in the midst of everything.

We need to be thankful that we have a house to live in.  We need to be thankful that the car is stuck in park and we cannot go out and spend money that we don’t have to spend anyway.  We need to be thankful that God has blessed us with these beautiful kids that we can pour His love into on a daily basis and send them out into the world so they can share it with those they come into contact with.  We need to be thankful for the job that is providing the paycheck that is paying the bills, and thankful for the time that we have to pour our lives into those around us while we aren’t working in a 9-5 job.  We need to be thankful for the precious moments that we can set aside to spend time with our spouse – and for friends that help make those moments multiply.

The key here is having an attitude of gratitude.  The key here is where your focus lies.

And while we are being thankful for the opportunity to learn from the experiences, we need to talk to God about them.  We need to pray and lift up these requests to God, to tell Him about what is causing us stress and bringing on fear and anxiety.  But we don’t pray for God’s benefit – He already knows.  We need to pray to remind ourselves that He is in control of our lives.  To remind ourselves that we can’t do it on our own.

We need God.  He is bigger than anything that life throws our way.

Take a look at that long list up there again.  That is my list right now.  I could very easily become so fearful and burdened by anxiety that I wouldn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings.  So overwhelmed by life that I can’t live it.  And that is just a partial list.

But I’m not.

I have chosen to not let those areas be the main focus of my life, because I know where that path leads.  Focusing on all of the areas of worry and causes of stress will only bring depression and fear into my life, and I want no part of those!

Instead I am choosing to focus on the good things that God has brought into my life.  I am choosing to be thankful for the blessings that He has poured out upon me.  Blessings of good friends and a loving church body that lifts and supports our family when we need it.  Blessings of a husband that willingly works at a job that brings with it a huge amount of stress and a high level of demand so he can provide for his family.  The blessing of a God that is bigger than anything that satan chooses to throw my way.

I am choosing to be thankful that God is my strong tower, the fortress that I can run into when I am under attack.

And the most beautiful part is what is promised in verse 7.  “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

God will take those worries and anxieties and stresses and replace them with His peace.  His peace will be the shield that surrounds your heart and mind and life.  And when we trade our worries for His peace, our lives are better.  We don’t get sick as often.  We don’t suffer from anxiety.  High blood pressure isn’t as much of a problem.  We are more healthy.

Yes, it seems to be that time again.  The time that I actually sit and write out a post about the goings-on in our lives.

It’s been busy!

We just returned home from a week-long trip to Colorado to visit family.  Fortunately, it seems that we missed having to endure the icky hot weather here (in the 90′s) while enjoying air conditioning in the hot weather there!  Yay!

All in all it was a nice trip.  We got to be lazy, swim and enjoy time spent with family & friends.  E & I even got a day to ourselves while we were there (gasp!) and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend that time with him.  We bonzai-ed it down there (made it in 22 hours including a stop to sleep, gas & potty breaks and having an actual sit-down lunch!) but took a little more time coming home.  We drove to Salt Lake City, then spent a day playing at Lagoon before heading on home.  It broke it up very nicely, and I think the girls have a new favorite place to go.

While in Salt Lake, I had the chance to catch up with an old college friend that I haven’t seen since her oldest was a couple of months old any my oldest was a couple of months from being born!  Now her youngest is a couple of months old, which made it kind of surreal.  She has 4 beautiful (handsome?) boys, it was a joy to meet them.  Then I raced back north to catch up with the fam at Lagoon.

Other than that, life has just been going on.  The girls finished out school in mid-June (finally!) and we already have a rather full Summer planned with lots of fun activities at church, and lots of time to read and keep up on their math skills.  I have a goal this month to clean out the garage and my office… I see many trips to goodwill in my immediate future!  Trips that may have to wait for the weekends, as MY CAR BROKE!

Yes, my beloved Suby seems to have something wrong with it.  In the engine.  Something that will cost a LOT to fix.  That sucks.  E is considering pulling the engine & fixing it himself (the usual route) but he’s not sure that an engine stand will even work with the type of engine that it is.  Big fun.  Unfortunately, the engine has to be pulled to really get at anything in there, so it added a certain level of difficulty just in that.

So yes, I HAVE TO get the garage cleaned out so there is space to work on the car.

In the mean time, I don’t have wheels.

This could be a blessing in disguise… I can’t go anywhere, I can’t spend money we don’t have (gota fix that engine, remember!) and if I do need to go anywhere close, I have to walk.  And climb The Stairs.  I hate the stairs.  But climbing them is a good thing, since I can’t drive to the gym.

*sigh*

And since I’m stuck here, I can get things cleaned out.  I can sort through the boxes (of junque) that are in the garage and really slim down our “stuff”.

I’m tired of having too much stuff.  I’m tired of being a pack-rat, and I’m tired of carrying around these boxes of stuff that haven’t been opened in waaaaaaaay too many years.  I recently found a box of towels from when we got married! If they have been in a box for 14 years, I’m really not sure we need them.  That goes for a few other things too.  E will be sooo happy!

And the girls need to do the same in their rooms.  Any tips on getting them to part with their stuff are more than welcomed – they are needed!  I have two mini-pack-rats living in this house.  Mini-pack-rats that like to leave their junk everywhere.

This needs to change.

So, that’s what my Summer looks like.  Clean out junk, have fun, stay smart and de-clutter life!

What plans do you have for the Summer?

Being a parent is a roller coaster ride – it has it’s high’s and low’s, it’s moments of thrilling joy – and terror.

But it’s a roller coaster that I am so thankful that I get to go on.

I have learned more about God through being a Mommy than I had ever thought possible.  And with two completely opposite girls, well, I am learning a bit about myself too.

We have one child who truly has a servant’s heart.  She will clear the table without being asked, she will share just about annything she has with others, and her goal in life seems to be to make others happy.  And we have one who has a master’s heart.  She wants to be served, to make all of her own decisions, and she only wants people on her terms.  Like a 9:30 at night when she is supposed to have been asleep for an hour – yep, that’s when she wants to have deep, meaningful conversations.

Don’t get me wrong, she has amazing qualities of her own.  She cares deeply, she is very artistic and creative, and she is the friend that will defend you to the end (or the mortal enemy that will fight until the end!)  The struggle of parenting her though is much more of a struggle.

So, knowing that I have a child with a low self-worth, who expects to have everything go her way and then decides that the world hates her when it doesn’t, and knowing that it’s apparently not something we did as parents that made her this way, what advice would you give?

Well, I finally figured something out this weekend.  I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about this very topic, and was advised to figure out how to make her think that she is the one making the choices in her life.  The majority of our battles come from her being told to do something, and her not wanting to be told what to do.  However, when you are a child, well, let’s just say that a family isn’t a democracy, nor is it anarchy.  At least it shouldn’t be.  A family is a monarchy – ruled from the head down.

When you are living in a monarchy, it’s not very typical to see the peasant’s making the decisions instead of the king, correct?  But what about the daughter of the king?

Ah, there’s the rub.

The daughter of the king wants to have a little pull, to flex a little decision-making muscle.  After all, if her Daddy is the king, she should have some power, right?

It could just work.

I decided to try a new tactic this weekend – almost by accident.  When it comes to things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things I’ve decided that I’m not going to fight it.  I’m not going to force my will upon her.  I’m not going to suck the air out of the room and scream & yell (not that I do that!) and force her to bend to my will.  Nope… I’m just not going to care.

And somehow, it worked.

On the non-essentials I. Don’t. Care.

I don’t care if she refuses to dress up for church (I used to – biiiiig family battles as I was walking out the door to lead worship and leaving her Daddy to clean up the emotional mess and get her dressed – usually in what I had said no to).  I don’t care if she folds her socks & underwear nicely before taking them to her room.  I don’t care that she loads the dishwasher in a way that totally drives me bonkers (well, at least I try not to let her see it!) and it seems to be working!  She gets to choose how she does these things and they are getting done without a fight.

This morning she didn’t want to get out of bed on time.  She wanted to stay home and get a couple more hours of sleep and then “miraculously” feel better around 10 am.  The problem with that today – beyond missing the beginning of school and letting her practice laziness and hone her skills at manipulation – is that I don’t have a car.  I have no way of getting her to school if she doesn’t ride the bus.  Ah, so she’s sure she can get her way.  She’s figuring that she can get a couple more hours of sleep, get up around 10 or so, and watch movies, play Wii, etc.

That won’t be happening.

I told her once she had eaten breakfast and was pretty much ready for school we would talk about it.  As I walked out of her room to send her sister off to school I told her that she would be spending the day in her room – ALL day – but that it was her choice. After all, she could always spend it cleaning her room.

As I was watching her sister walk down the hill towards the bus stop this morning I heard a mad scramble to grab the already-prepared lunch box and shove it into her book bag as she slipped on some shoes.  She chose to go to school.

And because I didn’t care, she didn’t feel that she was being forced to do it.  She looked at the choices before her and decided that school was the better one.

There was no battle of wills, there was no fight.  And I now get to have a peaceful day of work instead of a day of constant struggle against her wanting to do what I said she couldn’t do.  And she gets to go to school and learn.

It’s like a win-win.

I know that some reading this might have a problem with allowing kids to make more choices and “get their way,” but I can assure you that on the issues that matter there is no choice.  On the issues that matter they are given the “choice” between doing what they need to do and punishment.  But on the little things that don’t matter we are letting them learn to make decisions for themselves so that as they grow up and have to make those bigger choices, well, hopefully they will have learned enough about making choices that whey will make the right ones.