internal conversations

It’s important to consider / take an inventory of the thoughts that we allow to run around in our minds.  Such thoughts can have a significant impact on our decisions & behaviors.  For example, there have been many occassions where I’ve been in situations that were way beyond my skill set & I was in way over my head (sometimes in various leadership roles, sometimes in athletic competitions & often in my role as a mom).  There have also been situations where I’ve felt entirely confident, secure & proficient, to the point of being over-confident, cocky & even arrogant.

What we think in our minds is extremely important & I was reminded of this lesson from reading about the woman with the issue of blood in Matthew 9:21. In this verse it says, “. . . . ‘she said in herself, if I can touch the hem of His garment, I will be healed.'”  The outcome of the story is that she was healed, but her mindset was an important ingredient for her healing.  Some take aways from her internal conversation:

• keep your eyes on Jesus more than fear, inabilty or even talent
• nothing is impossible with Jesus
• don’t quit / give up 🙂

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

look up

I was recently in Ethiopia & on a drive into the countryside, we took a pause to get out & stretch our legs.  As I was enjoying the nice weather, beautiful surroundings, listening to new bird sounds and taking in some nice fresh air, I quickly became alert that I needed to watch where I was stepping because of some conveniently deposited refuse from nearby wildlife (translation:  cow pies).  Nimble is a word that comes to mind as I write this 🙂

Sometimes we can get really focused in on our daily living and endeavoring the various “cow pies” that can unexpectedly jump onto our path.  Of course we must be careful where & how we walk (making wise & spiritual choices), but let’s also lift up our eyes & look up.  It’s really tempting to go through life looking for ways to avoid cow pies, but that’s never as rewarding as going through life with our eyes on Jesus, our Good Shepherd 🙂

X-ray Vision

I’ve always thought it was cool how superman could see through stuff like walls, metal chests & more. He could see through things that had substance.
In a similar way, I’d like to see through the immediate to the ultimate. Sometimes I get fixated on the temporal: budgets, pressure, bad grades, trying to get in shape & more. I’ve found it immensely helpful to look beyond the immediate struggles & keep my eyes on Jesus my ultimate passion. Yes, there are deadlines, struggles, pressures, disappointments & more. But if we ask God to help us see through the immediate to the ultimate, then the immediate can receive the proper perspective adjustment & become less overwhelming 🙂

staying power

Holy Cow!  That was Jeroboam’s solution to help him stay in power as the king of Israel, even though God had obviously put him in this position.  I was reading this morning (1 Kings 7) about how God spoke to Jeroboam through a prophet & told him that he was going to be the king of Israel.  When Jeroboam became the king, he got really jittery about keeping his power & decided that his kingdom needed it’s own set of gods, festival days, worship routines, etc that would exclude anything from the Temple in Jerusalem or the worship of the true God, as outlined by Moses.

Jeroboam was put in the position of king by God’s power but he didn’t stay long because he decided to trust in his own methods & efforts rather than trusting in God.  In my thinking, there’s no staying power of any lasting value that doesn’t include trusting in our Triune God 🙂

optical illusions

 

One of my favorite guys who did amazing illusion work was Escher.  Whenever I look at his work, it always takes me some time to pause and think about what I’m seeing or not seeing.  This idea about considering what we are looking at is really important, particularly when we look at people.  Jesus was really good at seeing people beyond any optical illusions – He sees directly into our hearts and knows us for who we really are & continues to love us deeply & wholly.  Let’s endeavor to see people beyond any optical illusions, filters, false pretensions or misconceptions.  Let’s see people through the lense of genuine love 🙂

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone

I took my son to the eye doctor today to see what corrections he may need & guess what?!  His eyes have changed – ALOT!  Basically, his long distance vision is blurry at best & more often non-existent.  Thankfully, the eye doctor is extremely good & very patient, as my son can be kind of engergetic.  He’ll get some glasses in the next week or so and will probably be really amazed at the significant improvement that he’ll see.

I think that sometimes our walk with God can be a little bit like our natural vision: we can be near-sighted or sometimes far-sighted.  But no matter where we focus best, we can be totally certain that God is always with us regardless of what we see or where we focus 🙂

People are beautiful

I like to watch people in lots of different places – starbucks, airports, grocery stores, etc. Sometimes when I watch people I’m awestruck at how beautiful & magnificent each person is. Some people have beautiful eyes or beautiful hair. Some people have rustic beauty & others are beautiful because of their regal stature. But people are beautiful – made in the image of our Creator & everywhere, they are beautiful, way beyond being broken 🙂

faith doesn’t always require sight

 For whatever reason, I woke up feeling very perky at 4am today.  Obviously it was still dark when I came downstairs to get the morning coffee brewing.  And as I sat on the couch with the lights off, I looked up at the window & noticed the bright & beautiful half moon. I started thinking about the moon & how I could only see half, but knowing that  the moon merely reflects different amounts of the sun – a sliver, quarter, half, 3/4, whole.  Nevertheless, no matter how much of the moon we see, we absolutely know that it’s a whole object & not only the part that we see.  Furthermore, the longer I sat & observed, the moon was soon blocked by our house as the earth rotates toward the sunrise.

So from my early morning observations of the moon, here are a few take-aways:

• just because we only see parts & slivers of God’s work doesn’t mean that God isn’t wholly working & doing things throughout our lives – even in the seasons when we can’t see any direct evidence
• sometimes situations “block” our ability to see God & in these instances, we can trust that God loves us & is continuing to shine & work in our lives 🙂

what are your options?

 I recently read about when the Jews left their slavery in Egypt & I came across an interesting verse, when they were being chased by Pharoah.  At the end of Ex 14:12, the Jews are complaining to Moses & they say something like, “It would have been better to stay as slaves in Egypt than to die here in the wilderness.”  I started thinking about this & it really hit me that they only saw 2 options: slavery or death.

Unfortunately, I think we make the same mistake when we exclude God from His involvement in our lives. Truly, without God’s participation & involvement in our lives, we face the same kinds of options that the Jewish people saw at that time.  In contrast, it seems to me that the more we involve God in our lives, the greater the adventures, miracles, shock and awe!! So let’s make sure to include God more & more in our lives 🙂

Visual Clarity

I’ve been thinking alot about having clear vision – maybe this has been on my mind because I’ve been looking for one of my kids’ glasses 🙂
Nevertheless, seeing things clearly is extremely important. The clearest & most truthful vision is when we see as God sees, from His point of view. With this in mind, I’m praying Prov 20:12 for this year – that God let’s me see & hear as He sees & hears. Human perspective is fuzzy, unclear & opaque at best, but God knows & sees the truth and I want to see as He sees for 2012 & beyond 🙂