A Heart Full of Fear

Do not fear, for I am with you;Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' (Is 41:10 NASB)

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
(Ez 36:26 NASB)

I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery! I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret." (Col 2:2-4 MSG)

"You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts—either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind." —William Sloane Coffin

Burning Bushes

The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up." (Ex 3:1-3)

"Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Set A Straight Course

My son, if you aspire to be a servant of the Lord, prepare yourself for testing. Set a straight course, keep to it, and do not be dismayed in the face of adversity. (Ecclesiasticus 2:1-2)

Home Alone … Well, Not Really

My wife and daughter are in New York City with friends and family and Zach and I are bacheloring it. For supper tonight he has already had pizza, spaghetti, 4 small powdered donuts, and 2 strawberry pop tarts. I have some oven baked barbeque wings cooking.

Tomorrow my daughter Rebekah is singing at St Patrick’s Cathedral with the chorus from her last year’s school in Cape Coral, Florida. She was invited to sing with them again this year. Today her and her friends Sarah and Rachel had a birthday party at the American Doll Store and left with more than they went in with. I hear I bought my daughter a small doll for her American Girl Doll. They are doing the open top bus tour tonight.

Zachariah and I are doing well so far. I have stopped up one toilet but should be able to unplug it. He has hid the TV remote for the living room and, so far, has not revealed its hiding place. Hopefully it is not in the garbage. Yes I did look, but did not see it. I also looked under the couches, the tables, in the cabinets, bedrooms, closets, toy bucket, kitchen, drawers, bathrooms, the fridge and even the cat’s litter box.

God Is Also In The Ordinary

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Ro 12:1-2 MSG)

If what God does has to be some big spectacular thing in order for us to recognize it as being His activity, then we will probably miss a lot of what God is doing around us. God is involved in the ordinary everyday living of life and is constantly revealing Himself, His purpose and His ways in ordinary life.

I like it when God shows up and does something incredible, but if that is the only time I am excited about Him or even recognize His activity around me, then I am mostly missing out on God’s involvement in my life and the lives of those around me.

We must live in the now, interacting with God and others in the present moment we are in. Anything other than that and we are disengaged with life, out of balance with its rhythm, and out of sync with God’s Spirit.

Let us cry out to God that we might see Him not only in His extraordinary supernatural dealings, but also in His involvement in the ordinary issues of life.

Wake Up, Pay Attention, And Pray

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, understanding the present time (emphasis mine). The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber (emphasis mine), because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. (Ro 13;8-12)

A few mornings ago the Lord seemed to be saying to me that this is not a time to have our eyes shut, to be not paying attention, or to be slumbering. It is a time to be awake and alert.

Shut eyes, drowsiness, and slumbering indicate a lack of understanding, a lack or ignoring of revelation, and inattentiveness to warning signs or problems.

For it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: "Wake up, O sleeper, (emphasis mine) rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. (Ep 5:14-17) (Emphisis mine)

We need to be paying attention to what is going on around us, what is happening in this country, and what is happening around the world. We need to be awake, alert, and prayerful.

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. (Ep 6:18)

Be Present

Forget about what's happened; don't keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting out! Don't you see it? There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.
(Is 43:19 MSG)

Have you ever had someone start talking to you, and your mind was elsewhere and you neither heard them nor answered them. You will usually end up receiving a rather loud “Helloooooooooo, anybody there?” In that moment we were not living in the present.

When we are obsessed with the past, we are always looking back over our shoulders in time and are frozen in place, never able to move on. Disappointment with our present life and circumstances will result in us discrediting the present and always looking to the future when it is going to happen, what ever it may be, that will result in our being able to enter into our destiny, and again we are unable to move on. Either way we are neither living in the present nor in His presence.

We neither live in the past nor the future. We live in the here and now. If we are not alert and present, we will miss what God is saying and doing right now. Destiny is a journey to be lived out, not a destination to be arrived at. Value the journey, value the sights, value the places, value the people, and value His presence. When we are present, we give value to the things that are important, and we are engaged in the process of living out our destiny.