Forging

I have been learning how to work with metals in a class at an art school in North Carolina.  You remember the old movies where the blacksmith pulls a red hot horseshoe out of the coals and starts hammering like crazy on it with a big hammer, then plops it into a tub of water and it sizzles and steams? Does that describe your life of late? (big smile)

As a creator of art, I think up something that I believe would be beautiful.  The next thing I do is find material that would look like what I have in mind.  And there are thousands upon thousands of different material; metals, paper, steel, copper, brass, silver, wood, rocks, precious gems, plastic, glass, etc., etc., etc.

Once I get the idea in my mind of what I want my end product to look like, I start gathering the material and tools I will need to make this precious item.  And there is a learning curve in this assembly of things.  First I have needed to learn what each tool will accomplish - make holes, make designs, flatten, curve, clip, saw, hold, etc.

Now I have my tools and my material - how do I put it all together?  Rivet, wire, solder, glue, leather strips, you get the idea.

Here comes the forging part.  It is accomplished by heating something up and then hammering like crazy and plopping it into a water bath. ha.  Like a blacksmith of old. The key to reshaping a flat piece of metal is the heat and then the pressure of the hammer causing the metal to respond.  If the metal gets too hard to change its shape somewhat, it needs to be put under the flame again and make it softer and more pliable.  Then the hammer again. ha.

The cool part of this is that the finished product is worth all that time it took for the end result of the artist's idea in the first place.  All creative things take time to become the amazing finished beautiful design first thought up by the artist.

Is that not perhaps similar to God working in our lives,  He being the creative artist with a Divine thought in His mind to produce for Himself and mankind a "One-Of-A-Kind Piece of Work"?

Burning Bush - Exodus 3:1-22

In reading the account of Moses coming upon the burning bush, I saw a process of how God and man can interact together.  In this situation, it seems as though it depended on Moses' reaction to what God was showing him.   Only when Moses, after seeing the burning bush, turned aside, did God call unto him.  God had been watching him gaze upon the burning bush and then make his decision to turn aside to see why the bush was not burning up with the fire.

What came to my mind was that perhaps many of us have had a situation come up that we could/should have pursued further and we did not; we turned away from it, not to it.  Is God also waiting and watching us to see if we would turn aside so that He could then call out to us and tell us what was on His heart?  Have we missed opportunities to have encounters with our Creator because of lack of interest, not really believing God does want to talk to us or have we been distracted by our daily life and routine?

The more time Moses spent with the Lord on this occasion, God continued to give him instructions regarding what He wanted Moses to do to accomplish His will.  This encounter ended up dramatically changing the lives of the Israelites and made a severe impact on the Egyptians, thus allowing God's people to go from slavery to freedom from bondage.

Can we apply this same type of situation to our own lives?  Perhaps we will not see a burning bush or be able to change a nation's standing, but when we keep ourselves close to our Father through the Spirit and been attentive to Him in our everyday life, He will open up doors for us to be used by Him to bring His desire to earth in many different ways and situations.  He alone may only know the outcome of our obedience in different circumstances.  That's alright, because it's not about us, it's about Him being able to do His will on earth as it is in Heaven and we can be part of that coming about.

Be encouraged not to miss any of the times when God does put something before us in our daily lives, giving us an opportunity to help him accomplish His Will here on earth.  What an exciting joint venture; to work with the Creator of the universe.  Are we available to Him for His use or are we too meshed into our own plans and procedures of what we think we should be doing for His Kingdom?  We may need to make changes in our lives.

I challenge you to take time each day for one week and get a pencil/pen, journal/tablet and take time to sit quietly with our motive being not to get anything from God but only to spend time with Him, to get to know Him more.  Just sit quietly and wait.  This simple procedure changed my whole relationship with the Lord.  Take some of your time and give it to Him.  Spend it getting to know Someone who adores you and loves you beyond your wildest imaginations.  He is Love.  He just may be waiting for you to "turn aside" like Moses and He will then call out to you, share His thoughts, love and plans with you.

Do you ever wonder if God is listening

Wow!  Another really exciting thing happened this morning after I had talked to my friend on the phone.  Before she called I was right in the middle of reading "My Utmost For His Highest" for the day, March 28.

What we had discussed was how it seems as though God is really stretching our faith walk and desiring that "WE" let go of  handling situations and trust Him to be our "all in all and that no matter how overwhelming any situation is to us, He is our source, not us.  We can depend on Him to get us through any circumstance.  We just need to trust Him.  We seem to be going through situations that are beyond our capacity to handle and take care of ourselves.  We commented that it's like Jesus is saying to us like He did Peter, "Come" don't be fearful when you see the storm and giant waves, stay focused on Him (Jesus) and truly we, like Peter (as a man), walked on the water.  He wants our faith to get to that level. Like no matter how big or overwhelming any situation is, we can keep our eyes on the Lord, not the circumstances, and be like Peter.  The Lord wants us to walk in a level of faith equivalent to that and beyond I believe.  Come on!  Let's get out of the boat and walk to our Savior.

Now, this is the most awesome part!  After my friend and I had prayed that God would continue to put us in situations so we could stretch our faith to "walk on water", we thanked Him for every  overwhelming situation we had been through and were going through up until today and then we hung up.  I went back to "My Utmost For His Highest" to finish my reading.  My eyes fell to these exact words.  "Faithfulness to Jesus means that I must step out even when and where I can't see anything (and the reference was Mt. 14:29)  Go read that and get your faith built up.  On top of that, I went to my computer to look up something and somehow got sidetracked and saw a "burn folder" on my desktop so I clicked on it to see what was in the folder.   It had 15-20 mp3 files so I just made a "wild guess" and  I clicked on the 8th one, just to see what in that particular folder.  Guess what?  It was a song about trusting God no matter what and that we would never be in any situation alone, He would be with us.  Coincidence!  Shoot no.  God was telling me that He listens to what we say and He loves us so much that He sets up things to confirm to us "we are on track"  and He agrees with what we talked about.  I don't know about you but I am getting blown away by seeing God almost bending over backwards to let us know how special we are to Him and how much He loves us.  What an amazing God we have.  His love is beyond any measurable amount I've ever know.  Thank you Lord.

Condemnation

I was recently involved in a situation where the end result was that I felt extremely condemned, guilty and devastated.  It was something done unintentionally but held devastating results to others and myself.  I was a total mess for days; crying, with feelings of being overwhelmed by the situation.  I had sought forgiveness and received it. But that did not change the facts.

As time passed, I went through a process in my emotions and mind.  Truth:  I had been the cause of severe pain and loss to loved ones.  It was my fault.  I went through feelings of inadequacy, self-debasement, loss of my joy, self-condemnation, fault-finding of myself and as the hours passed, an extreme negativity toward myself and then of almost everything.  I felt dead inside.  One of my friends made a statement to me, "You have shut down your emotions haven't you?"  Of course the answer was, "Yes".  I entertained thoughts of rejection and loss of relationships by my stupidity, etc.  There was a long list of words to describe me in my mind that did not edify me as a person - AT ALL!  But, I believed that I deserved all of the accusations because of my bad behaviour.  

After about three days of this being dead feeling, I asked the Lord not why it happened but what was I supposed to learn out of all this?  One word came to mind - condemnation!
Then I thought of Romans 8:1, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."  Let me give you some definitions of that word: strong censure, reproof, state of being condemned, accusation, blame, denouncement, disapproval, judgment, reproach, reproof, rebuke, reprimand, chastisement, punishment, dressing-down, scolding, tongue-lashing, belittlement, criticism, public or formal expressions of disapproval, unfit for use or service.

If you respond to these words like I did, it really exposed some deep, deep, deep wounds in my heart from past circumstances that had caused me, over the years, to accept those words as a truth of who I was and was not.  That was part of my self-identity.  WRONG!!!  What God was telling me is this:  Learn what I say you are and what I say about you, do not base your opinions of yourself by what your family, teachers, friends, our culture, or even yourself, if they do NOT AGREE with what I say.  Whose truth shall we believe?  His or ourselves or what our enemy tries to lie to us about?  It made me think of the incident in the Garden of Eden where satan said, "Did God really say?........."  My answer to that is,
"Oh yes, He sure did and I am NOT listening to lies anymore about who my Father says I am."  But, first I need to know what He says.  Just read it in His word.  Believe it!!!

This situation taught me that there were areas in my heart that were unredeemed and this horrible incident brought it all to the surface.  I could have chosen to be drowned by it, but I made a choice; I chose to let God be my Source and Believe what He says, not what I think, etc.  It was not easy though.  Because I have for years not thought well of myself.  So, I thank You Lord for showing me where I had unbelief toward You regarding Your love for me and what You think of me and say about me in Your Word.  He showed me again, also, that no matter how horrible a situation is, He does bring us through it (the valley of the shadow of death - Psa. 23) and can bring good out of it in some way for us.  It is amazing.

My point in writing this is not to let you know or to think how godly I am, etc.  No way!  I'm wanting to give my testimony of how awesome God is, how thoroughly redeemed we can be by what Jesus accomplished for us on the Cross and His shed BLOOD and the mighty work of the Holy Spirit placed in us to help us accomplish glorious deeds for our Father.  All three of the Trinity are available to us to become what God has created us to be.   If you have been seduced into believing something other than what our Father says about us, ask Him to forgive you, confess it as a sin and you will be healed.  Yahoo!  Thank You Lord.

A small section of the people 6:15 A.M.

While in Haiti - Oct. 2 - 8, I was privileged to join hundreds of Haitians that walked to the compound where our medical mission trip group stayed.  At 6:00 A.M. every morning (necessary because of the heat later on in the day and their large tent got damaged in a recent 100 mph wind a week before we arrived.  It was glorious, out-of-this-world presence with Our Father.  I did not understand all the words (Creole French) but my Spirit man was jumping up and down in praise and love for My Daddy God.  His presence came and rested on us every morning.  Many tears fell in response to Him loving on us all each early morning. They worshipped from the depths of their hearts.  Not necessarily needing things but a desperation of needing Him.  Whew!  Amazingly powerful.

Even little children with their baby bottles walked and
paced in prayer as did the adults.  Musical voices sang
out with sounds I have never heard before.  Like angelic voices that penetrated all the wounds and pain of your life and caressed them, healed them and then just held you in His arms at the same time.

Still on milk Praising God with the Big Guys

We were able to minister to over 500 people medically and people were saved and left with big grins on their faces.  They are a beautiful people.  The children are exceptionally gorgeous - but that's just my opinion.  What do you think?

 

This last little guy took my breath away.  I have him as my screen saver.  Oh God bless the children and the people in Haiti.  Pray for the people.  I believe that the group of people that I prayed with those days will be instrumental in bringing God's presence and rule and reign into the nation of Haiti.  I am asking for the Nation of Haiti to be His - not voodoo or witchcraft ruled.  Blessings to you all.  

By faith - I will be going on a mission trip in July to Nairobi, Kenya.  Please be praying.

Third Entry-5/14/10

Yesterday, my friend Sharon and I drove around the neighborhood to take pictures of flowers. We found a bed of beautiful Yellow-beard Irises.

I want to show you one special flower I "tweaked", (used my computer software to make changes) ha.  It went from a very pretty flower to a - well you let me know what you think.  When I woke up this morning, the Lord was talking to me about the flower.  What a message!

The yellow flowerer is, of course, the original.  The white flower is the "tweaked" one.

What the Lord said, in a few words, is that His original creation is very exquisite and beautiful in itself - (the yellow flower) like how He made each of us as unique beings.  BUT, if we allow Him to do a deeper work in our soul (mind, will and emotions) with His help He can bring us to a place where He has designed for us from the beginnings of time. Meaning, there is much more available for us right now on earth.  We see people as the yellow flower and He is wanting to help us get to a place where we see others as He does - like the white flower.  He looks at the yellow but sees the white one.  Same flower, it just had some deep work done on it.  As we allow Him to do this deep work in us, we also, can view others as He does - and see them as the white flower.  Our perceptions will change to come into alignment with His.  We will see as He sees.  We will hear as He hears.  It's a good, better or BEST choice for all of us to make.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with the yellow flower BUT.  If you are like me, a friend of mine said of me, "You are like a pioneer and I am like a settler".  I know there is much more available for us in Him.  I want to go exploring and experience all He has for me in this life.  He says in the Bible that we cannot even imagine what He has in store for us.  Whoa!  Well, I want to try to see as much as I can here on earth in this mortal body as He will allow me.  So, if it takes some "Tweaking" - Tweak away I say.  I want to not only go for the gold, but I want to hit the Mother Load so to speak.  HIM.

Second Entry

I woke up at 6:30, got some coffee and went outside to sit on my patio.  It was barely light enough to see but the weather was beautiful with a slight wind in the leaves above me.  I took my pen and journal with me to "Sit with the Lord" and if He gave me anything, I would write it down.  I closed my eyes and just thought about God.  I instantly saw a vision with me at the bottom of a page and above there were layers of things and above all the layers was God.  I started looking at the layers and felt a pressing sensation - pressing through that layer (family things, trip out of town, learning to blog, working on my photography, church, friends, etc)  Layers with those names on them, basically, things going on in my life at the time.  None of them were bad in themselves but somehow I had not incorporated my time with the Lord into them at the degree necessary to keep that Oneness that He desires with me and that I want also.  It was as though I had to flex my spiritual muscles to push through the layers and all of the sudden, there was an almost physical sensation of freedom that flowed out of me - like a volcano exploded and shot upward and outward.  It surprised me.

The Lord started giving me a story of a mountain climber whose goal had been to climb Mt. Everest.  He had spend many hours in training for this goal, much money for equipment, traveling, etc. but He now was within a days climb to the top.  As he lay in his tent the night before his ascent, he began thinking how tired he was, felt half frozen, was mentally exhausted and really missing his family.  All those thoughts became his main focus during that night. When he awoke the next morning, he dressed, made a fire, drank his coffee and looked toward the summit and then he looked down the mountain where all his thoughts and emotions had been directed the night before.  He packed up his gear, ready to go, paused, and chose to go back down the mountain.  Little did he know that five men had been observing his ascent by satellite and had made an agreement that when he made it to the top, they were all going to put one million dollars in an account for him.  He missed the reward.

I'm not saying that God is going to give you one million dollars, but I believe what the Lord is showing me is that there is so much more awaiting us in the spirit realm if and when we press forward into His Kingdom.  It takes an effort amid daily life to keep pressed into Him at the same time, but He can and will show us how to accomplish this feat.  We do it to be close to Him and He, because of His love and kindness toward us, will reward us in ways we could not image.

One specific thing He is showing me is that I can have a peace in me in the midst of all that is going on in the world, in the news, in my family, in my own personal situations - I can have peace.  I have never realized how divine a feeling that is.  He will give us tastes of things available to us but we should not  be seeking the "taste" but Him.  That taste is Him.  We are getting to taste Him.  We will sense His peace, we will sense His joy, we will get to taste His love. It's not even our own peace but it's parts of who He is.  Press on and press into Him.  He will show you how.  Don't go back down the mountain.  We are so close to the summit.  Don't give up.