ApprehendingGrace.com

I sat down to write a blog about 2 Samuel 24:24, in which King David replies to Araunah’s’ offer of free land to build an altar on and free animals to sacrifice to the Lord “No…I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” What a powerful statement. And I’m so wanting to write it, but first I looked over previous blogs to see if I had already written about this verse.

What I found was a blog I wrote almost two years ago that’s along the same lines of my heart’s meditation over the past few days…I just didn’t remember that I had blogged about it. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the blog, too. It is a blog that grew out of David’s song of praise in 2 Samuel 22. David’s life had many ups and downs – he lived in caves and he lived in palaces – and praised God in both. Our God is worthy of our praises whether we are currently in the cave or on the mountain top. This blog from November 2008 covers the topic so well and I was so blessed to re-read it, I thought you would be too. So today’s blog is a reminder of things past. Tomorrow’s will be about David’s reply to Araunah.

Me & God Today
The truth is that my prayer life has been declining for awhile. Yet God is so good. He graciously continues to speak to me and to protect and love me. Yet slowly, I was allowing the world to grab my attention and it was pulling me away from God. Yet , God is so good – even when I drift farther away, He pursues me.

This morning, after reading my Bible, I began to update my to do list with new things that needed my attention today. While doing so, God prompted me to put three items of prayer on the list. I don’t usually put prayer items on my to do list, but this morning, I recognized God’s prompting and added the three items to the right of the things I needed to do today.

Let me again say that God is very good. I said that “I recognized” God’s prompting, but I don’t mean to take credit for it – all credit belongs to God, even the credit for me recognizing His promptings. His prompting was so strong, that thankfully, I paused while making the list to actually pray for the items! Making a note to pray, or saying that we’ll pray, and actually praying are radically different things. This morning I paused to pray about the items.

One of the three issues I prayed about related to a new endeavor in our business. We were moving ahead and I was beginning to be uncomfortable about the direction we were taking. So I prayed and asked for guidance. About two hours later, a totally new idea came to my mind that makes SO much more sense than the other direction we were headed. It is less expensive, has less risk, doesn’t impact customer service, and if it results in lower quality I won’t have lost anything for having tried the approach.

God is so good! He prompted me to pray, I prayed, and He answered.

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
John 16:24 (Jesus is speaking)

Phil & God Today
I went upstairs to tell my husband about the new direction and the goodness of God. After listening to my story, he had his own to tell. His prayer life has also been declining and this morning he was feeling prompted to pray. He began by opening his Bible t read a few chapters, but found himself in an Old Testament book that is sometimes dry and factual – not a place where we hear from God easily. But he prayed, expressing his desire to continue reading from where he had last left off and his desire for God to speak to him. He read seven verses before God responded to the prayer! God began to speak to him about an area of his life that needs refreshing.

God is so good. He prompted Phil to pray, Phil prayed, God answered.

⁹“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Luke 11:9-10 (Jesus is speaking)

You & God Today?
God is so good! Today He saved Phil & I from ourselves by prompting us to pray – and we couldn’t be happier about it! May we encourage you to take those issues that are on your mind and those areas of your life that need His input and ask God to speak to you? He wants to hear from you, so don’t put it off. We’re really glad we didn’t.

During the worship time of our church service this morning, several young children picked up small streamers and twirled them around. It was such a picture of purity and joy. I couldn’t help but be reminded of a verse God has highlighted to me many times over the years:

³Then he said, “I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. ⁴Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Matthew 18:3-4

Lord, help me to worship You with the uninhibited joy of children.

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
for anger resides in the lap of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:9

I had planned to spend all day with my mom last Friday. It had been on the schedule for two weeks, but I was having one of those mornings when it seems impossible to get out of the house. I had to go back upstairs several times because I kept forgetting things, then I had to go downstairs in the basement to gather supplies I needed. I was planning to eat my breakfast of toast and tea on the road, but couldn’t find my car tea cup. So after boiling the water for tea, I just threw it away and looked for an alternative beverage. Diet Coke was my second choice, but we didn’t have any cold. So I put ice in a plastic glass and took the can with me. I was also taking lots of other things for various projects we’d be working on – scrapbooking supplies for making some cards, my laptop so I could make some notes about mom’s life for a book we’re working on, a puzzle I bought to put together during some visit, and various other things I’d collected that needed to be taken to mom’s.

In retrospect, I recognize that this morning really wasn’t atypical. The problem was my attitude. It just seemed that each additional trip upstairs or downstairs or each thing that didn’t go exactly as I wanted it to go increased my frustration. Never during those 45 minutes of getting ready did I stop, take a breath and remind myself that life is good. I was letting little things that shouldn’t even rate being considered annoyances get to me.

Finally, after three trips to the car loading various supplies, I grabbed my purse, my glass of ice and my can of pop and headed to the car with my keys in my hand. I was ready to be off for the day (finally! – sigh). I put the glass of ice in the cup holder, then reached over it to put my purse on the passenger’s seat. That’s when my shirt caught on the straw and knocked the glass of ice onto the floor. One would think that I’d have celebrated that there was only ice in the glass, right? Wrong. My “celebration” more like a loud growl-groan – “Aarrrghhhhhhh!”

God’s Interruption
It was in the midst of that aarghh that God spoke to me. Not in an audible voice, but in a distinct thought in my mind that was inconsistent with the emotions I was experiencing. “Sandy, you’re making it harder,” was what I heard, “Sandy, you’re making it harder.” I knew instantly what He meant. My loud growl-groan didn’t do a thing to alleviate my frustration. In fact, it fed it and made it stronger. It was increasing my annoyance with the day in general and moving me closer to throwing in the towel – having my own personal hissy fit, slamming the car doors, throwing the keys in the key-basket and plopping in my chair and saying, “I quit. I can’t go to Mom’s today. I can’t deal with this!” Or maybe my reaction wouldn’t have been quite that bad – maybe I was just being set up for an hour-long drive during which I would rehearse all the miserable things about my life, arriving at Mom’s with a fake smile pasted on my face, and being frustrated at everything that didn’t go right for the next eight hours.

In His grace, God stopped what was happening by whispering into my mind, “Sandy, you’re making it worse.” I immediately realized the truth in the words. I could/should have been considering myself blessed that there was no pop in the glass. I could/should have been spending the morning in anticipation of the blessings of being with Mom all day. I could/should have been using each trip upstairs or downstairs to do any of a number of things other than complain about them. If I hadn’t been expending mental and emotional energy complaining, I probably would have remembered everything I needed on the first trip upstairs…or at least the second one.

There are blessings all around us and we miss them because we get too caught up in the minor things that go wrong (or in some cases, the things that might go wrong – but that’s a different blog).

Blogging about this experience has been on my list for the past week, but when I read the verse in Ecclesiastes this morning, it was moved to the top of the list. “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit.” I was much too quickly provoked last Friday. And all along the way I had a choice to not be provoked. At any point I could have re-directed my thoughts to the good that God has put around me and in my life. Perhaps this sounds to you much like brainwashing or self-delusion. Not so. The truth is that we constantly have a voice inside us that speaks into our minds – either good or bad. That morning, I had chosen to listen to the bad.

My Freight Train of Thought
If I had taken the time to really listen to that bad voice, I know that I would have been hearing things like this: “You’re never going to get out of here on time. You’re always late when you go to your Mom’s. If you don’t get there by 9am you won’t really have time to do much of anything before lunch. Why is it that your Mom always gets the short end of the stick?” Another line of self-talk might have been more like this: “Why is it that you can’t remember three simple things in one trip? If you had laid this stuff out last night you’d be having a better morning today. If you forget something you won’t be able to finish making the cards you want to do with Mom.” And here’s the third track the voices would have taken: “You know it’s going to take you three trips to get all this stuff to the car. And then three more trips to get it all from the car into the nursing home. Not to mention three more trips to get it all back home. What are you going to do with your laptop while you’re working on cards in the lounge? You know you’ll have to leave it in your Mom’s room because you can’t carry your laptop and your scrapbook supplies all at once. Maybe you should leave your laptop in the car and just work on cards, then go out to the car and exchange the scrapbooking supplies for the laptop. Of course, that limits what you can do…”

I debated about including that last paragraph in this blog for many reasons. It’s very revealing of my personal thought life. Yes, I think these kinds of thoughts, more often than I’d like to admit. This is the kind of self-talk that creeps into my head, trying to suck the life out of me and get me to take the easier path of just giving up and doing nothing. Can you relate to that? It’s not just a “train of thought” – it’s more like a freight train of thought, because it hits you with such impact and it’s full of the baggage of life. But it’s baggage that we’re not called to carry. These thoughts reside just under the surface of my life waiting to pop up at the least provocation. Who can sustain a positive attitude with that flood of negative thoughts vying for attention?

God’s Better Plan
Part of the wonderful package of becoming a follower and disciple of Christ, though, is learning to replace those thoughts with His thoughts. What were God’s thoughts during this time? If I could have silenced the darts the enemy was throwing, I would have been able to recognize how blessed I am to be able to take a day off to spend with Mom. How wonderful it is to have a house with three floors, and the health to be able to climb all those stairs, and the finances to buy scrapbooking supplies and a puzzle and a laptop computer! Was I angsting over what to wear this morning? (Yes!) What a blessing to have such choices in clothing! Was I complaining about tromping upstairs so many times? (Yes!) What good exercise on a day when I would spend most of it sitting! Beyond those blessings that relate directly to what was frustrating me, I have the overriding blessings of a God who is just wild about me, a husband who loves me just about as much as God does, and other family and friends who help make life precious. I also have the physical and mental ability to work and play in the beautiful and abundantly varied world that God has created for me. And I have a warm, dry, and comfortable bed to sleep in each night as I thank God for His goodness.

Being easily provoked last week was all a matter of focusing on the wrong things, and dealing with them in a fleshly way. As God said, my reaction to each incident was just making it worse. The greatest blessing? That God mercifully spoke to me to remind me that I have a choice about letting these little things provoke me to frustration and anger. What a great God we serve!

Lord, as we face the coming week, will you help each reader hear Your voice and not be easily provoked by the darts the enemy throws their way.

If you want to stretch your brain a bit today, read this article by John Parsons posted at http://www.hebrew4christian.org/. The website teaches biblical Hebrew so that the reader can better understand Scriptures “from a Hebraic point of view.” This article is a commentary on the weekly Scripture reading.

To help you understand the article, let me give you a little background.

• What we call the Pentateuch, that is the first five books of the Bible, the Jews call the Torah, or the Law.
• The Talmud is a collection of interpretations and applications of the Law (or Torah).
• The oral portion of the Law is called the Mishnah.
• If you were to go through the first five books of the Old Testament (the Law or the Torah), you would find that there are more than 10 commandments. In fact, there are 613.
• The parashah is the scheduled weekly Torah reading, similar to a lectionary.
• Shabbat is the Jewish word for Sabbath.

Wow, that sounds like a lot to know just to read an article. Actually, you can understand the message of the article without knowing these things, but not knowing them bothered me as I read it. So I looked them up using the website’s dictionary and am providing them to you. Oh, by the way, chaverim means “friends.”

So, chaverim, I pray you enjoy this short but challenging article as much as I did. Shalom.

 This last blog in the “Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS) summarizes all the characteristics I’ve written about. You can find the articles about each characteristic here. Much of this series has been revolutionary to my walk with Christ. I hope it’s impacted you as well. Today’s blog hits the two things that have impacted me more than all the other things put together. Read on…

The Heart of a Worshipper

For almost three months we’ve studied the heart of a worshipper. We’ve seen a progression of the worshipper’s heart as he or she pursues God more diligently. Let’s review all 7 qualities:

• A hungry heart – one that desires to know God more intimately.
  • A pursuing heart – one that follows hard after Jesus. It is the action that results from having a hungry heart.
    •  A transparent or unveiled heart – one that allows the Light of Life (Jesus) to shine through it so that He can reveal to us what is hidden in it’s most private corners.
      • A vulnerable heart – the heart that suppresses our “fight or flight” response as we sit at Jesus’ feet and allow Him to change us. It is the logical extension of the transparent heart.
        • A willing heart – one that is predisposed to say “Yes, Lord.” It is also the obedient heart.
          • A free heart – the heart that is unencumbered by sin, condemnation and fear.
            • A secure heart – the heart that is confidently established in the knowledge of Christ’s love.

Where are you in this progression?

• Are you satisfying your hungry heart by pursuing God diligently?
• Are you remaining transparent and vulnerable before God and His people?
• Are you obedient and increasing in your victory over sin?
• Do you reject condemnation and fear?
• Has that lead you to a place of steadfastness in Christ, a place of calm and joy despite life’s circumstances?

I wish I could say that I’m always at that steadfast place, but I’m not. In this final article, I’d like to share two teachings that have helped me to become a greater worshipper of God.

Developing Childlikeness

He [Jesus] called a little child and had him stand among them. And he [Jesus] said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ”
          Matthew 18:2-4

While reading this a dozen or so years ago, I was struck by the word “change.” That means that being childlike doesn’t come naturally, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. From a very young age, children are trying to be older than they are. And while we try madly to reverse the process once we reach a certain age, we still don’t want to be considered childlike. Children are unsophisticated. They’re annoyingly spontaneous. They’re immature. I want to be sophisticated, in control and mature. Yet Scripture says I should change and become like a little child.

So I began to focus on children and the qualities they possess that I lack. And then I worked at changing to become more childlike. This was a step of obedience. Being willing to be childlike regardless of what others thought was a HUGE step for me. I’ve always had an overactive “what will people think” response. But I wanted to be more concerned about what God thinks, so I began to change. Here are some of the childlike behaviors that I saw and began to imitate.

Humility and trust – Verse 4 specifically says that God values humility. I see humility in children as trust without understanding. Children trust. Period. They don’t have to understand how it works or why it works, they simply trust what they’ve been told. I often require understanding before I give my trust. When I examine that attitude under a microscope, I find that at the root of it is pride. I am essentially saying, “Unless you explain it to me in such a way that I understand it and agree with it, I’m not going to trust you.” Or maybe I’m saying, “I don’t trust you to do what’s best for me. I only trust myself. Therefore, I must understand before I extend my trust to you.” Either way, there’s too much pride in the attitude. Scripture teaches by word and example that God is more loving than I can ever imagine, that He loves me more than I can imagine, and that He desires good things for me. I believe that. (Lord, help my unbelief!) The action that’s required on my part is that I place my trust in Him. Lack of trust shows up in adults in many ways: The need to control situations, the unwillingness to fully submit to God’s will in one or many areas, and the attitude of rebellion are just a few.

Spontaneity and joy – The two seem to go together in children. Children are discovering God’s world for the first time and they find great delight in it. (I’ve seen more spiders than I care to see, so I no longer take much delight in them.) By nature, I’m serious and reserved. When I look at my personal history, though, I can see that part of that nature developed as a defense against being hurt or judged negatively. So I’ve made a decision. I’ve decided that God wants me to take delight in His creation. I need to see it through the eyes of a child and be willing to respond to it like a child. That means being willing to be thought a fool for laughing aloud or skipping in the rain or showing awe when it’s appropriate. My adult response is to suppress the laughter, carry an umbrella, and act nonchalant toward new things. God wants me to be childlike. And I’ve found that life is more enjoyable this way. It continues to be a struggle for me, something I must repeatedly remind myself about, but when I’m successful at it I enjoy life more, and I’m confident that it pleases God.

I am the Bride of Christ
In addition to beginning to understand what it means to be childlike, I’ve begun to have a greater understanding of my position in Christ and before God: Scriptures teaches that I am the Bride of Christ. Not only does God love me, but Jesus is “in love” with me. The Bible says He “delights” in me. When I began to understand how totally, unconditionally and passionately Jesus is in love with me it changed my heart and increased my passion for Him. It also gave me the confidence to be transparent with Him and the courage to be childlike in His presence. It revolutionized my worship of Him and my desire to draw near to Him.

The Transformed Heart
While I have loved the Lord for thirty years, I have only been “in love” with Him for about fifteen. It was about fifteen years ago when I began to study childlikeness and Bride of Christ teachings. That led to studying the topic of worship and pursuing God through worship. The result is that my life has been transformed from the inside out.

In the first article of this series I included a definition of worship by William Temple, the archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 to 1944. It’s somewhat long but it explains how worship transforms the worshipper. I’d like to close the series with the same quote. If you find yourself fitting the description Temple gives in the first sentence, please ask God to help you make worship a priority. It will undoubtedly change your life.

“Both for perplexity and for dulled conscience the remedy is the same; sincere and spiritual worship. For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is:
     the quickening of our conscience ………………………. by His holiness;
     the nourishment of mind ………………………………….. with His truth;
     the purifying of imagination ……………………………… by His beauty;
     the opening of the heart …………………………………… to His love;
     the surrender of will ………………………………………… to His purpose
– and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

Yes – worship in spirit and truth is the way to the solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin.”

Lord, help me to be one who worships you in spirit and truth.

Every so often my perspective gets out of whack. I begin to forget how blessed I am. Maybe a better way to put it is that I have a hard time remembering that I am blessed, or why or how I’m blessed. You know those times. Life pushes in hard, and you really want to stand firm and you want to continue in the joy of the Lord, but you just can’t seem to remember how you are blessed. You know that God’s Word says you’re blessed and you have set your mind to believe it, but there’s just too much junk in front of your eyes to see the blessings.

Let me take you to a simple verse: 

Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.
          Romans 4:8

Hallelujah! No matter how bad your day is going, if you have asked God to forgive you and trust in Christ as your Savior, your sins are forgiven and the Lord will never count them against you. We deserve God’s wrath, but instead, He chooses to give us His love. What a phenomenal exchange!

I am blessed. And during those times when I can’t think of any other reason that I might say I’m blessed, this one is overwhelmingly enough.

Today is my husband’s birthday. The day his mom struggled then knew the joy of having her fourth (and last) child. The day he cried his first audible (to humans) cry. More likely than not, the day I was conceived. Since I was born 9 months to the day after Phil was born, we often say that God created me especially for him as a gift to him on his true birth day.

I think it would more accurately be said (from my perspective) that the Lord who knew me even before I was conceived was working, even before I was conceived, to create the perfect husband for me.

 I wrote this tribute in 2008, but was reluctant to publish it in my blog because it seemed so self serving. This year, I am rejecting that notion for several reasons.

• Phil has been a fantastic example of a godly husband throughout our marriage. If reading this helps any man become a better husband to his wife, that is a worthwhile use of this space.
• Our culture is awash with women who do not choose to honor their husbands. If this blog encourages a single wife to honor her husband today, it is a worthwhile use of this space.
• This tribute gives a glimpse of a life lived for Christ and a marriage committed to Christ. There will always be difficult times to work through and doing so together is one of the joys of marriage.

With that being said, here is my tribute to the greatest man on earth!

Phil –

Thank you for loving me. For seeing in me more than I could ever see in myself. For showing me God’s unconditional love. It seems that no matter how much I fall short, you love me. And without heaping negativity on me in any form, you urge me to become better than I am.

Thank you for being my cheerleader, loving me the way God created me and encouraging me to  be me when others have said “no, you can’t.”

Thank you for making up for my weaknesses (like not cooking or cleaning much), covering them with your actions, demonstrating your love for me.

Thank you for putting our future ahead of our past and our present. For always knowing that God had more for us, even when I slid toward doubt.

Thank you for introducing me to God. For your tenacious faith in the midst of my anti-faith. For your patience and perseverance until the Holy Spirit to change my heart.

Thank you for pursuing God in good times and bad. For all you’ve taught me as we study together or prepare to teach others together. What a blessing to be a study partner with you! You enrich my relationship with God.

Thank you for encouraging and guiding my walk with God. For recommending books you think I should read. For asking me how my spiritual life is going. For praying for and with me.

Thank you for your tender heart and willingness to take risks. What a risk I was 32 years ago! (And maybe still am today!) Thanks for seeing the payoff, even before I did.

Thank you for being my business partner for 21 years and my life partner for 31. What a life! God has been so very good to me!

Thank you for holding me together in the hard times, for celebrating with me in the great times and for making the in-between times more fun that they ought to have been! Thank you for being the fun that balances my seriousness.

Thank you for loving me.

I love you…more than you can ever know, more than I can ever say.

Happy birthday, love.

Note: you can purchase each of the books discussed in this blog simply by clicking on the name of the book.

Having graduated with my masters a few weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot about “what’s next?” I want to pursue more speaking and writing, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture and I don’t have many answers to that question. I am, comfortable resting in God as He unfolds things before me, yet “what’s next?” keeps reverberating in my mind. It’s created in me a more watchful state about opportunities that might appear on the horizon (at right in front of my nose).

It’s also had me thinking very specifically about what I’d like my life to be. I am regularly and eagerly praying “Lord, Your will, not mine – where can You best use me in Your kingdom,” but I am also thinking through what I would like to do in this next phase of my life and asking God to fulfill those dreams.

With that as a backdrop and having been released from “required reading,” I’ve read three fiction books in the past month (!). Interestingly, each has lent its perspective to the process and has made a strong impression on me. Curiously, I didn’t choose any of these books:

• My husband, Phil, picked the first book – one that had been sitting in our library for quite some time and neither of us had read yet. It didn’t appeal to me at first, so I laid beside my bed and it stayed there several days – until I was leaving for an appointment and wanted to something to read should I have to wait. I quickly grabbed the book and was out the door.
• A few days after finishing that book, I picked up another book at the retreat house I stayed at for a couple of nights. Having read Scripture and a devotional book, meditated, prayed and worshipped, I felt ready for something lighter and found a basket of books. I picked up the one by an author I had read a book by almost thirty years ago.
• Finally, two weeks ago, Phil stopped at a discount store and for only $1.99 they had a copy of the first book in a six-book series by my favorite fiction authors. Who could resist such a bargain! Being side-lined a bit after my knee surgery, I’ve had plenty of time to read it.

I’ve provided this detail because it’s so interesting to me that I truly had little to do with choosing the books I read, and each has challenged me in the same way, while weaving stories across three continents and sixty years.

Can you say “God speaks?” One of the way God speaks to us is by the repetition of a theme – it comes up in a conversation with a friend, then we read an article that touches on the same topic, then our Scripture reading that day reinforces the message…or perhaps we just read three books in a row with the same message. Clearly, God is speaking.

Each of these books has made me very aware of the blessed life I lead and even more aware of how warped my definitions of a “blessed life” and “success” are. But I’ll get to that. First, a little about the books I’ve read:

Safely Home, by Randy Alcorn, was the first book I read. It is a story about a Chinese man, educated in the United States and on the fast track to becoming a professor and famous thinker of his time. He is also a Christian and upon returning home, he finds all opportunities closed to him…except that of a lock maker. He becomes the best lock maker, living a life that challenges the reader to make sense of the world in which we live and the purposes of God in one man’s life. “Is this the day I die?” the lead character asks every day as he lives for eternity instead of for himself.

Secret Believers: What Happens when Muslims Believe in Christ, by Brother Andrew and Al Janssen, is the fictionalized account of real people who live in Muslim countries and come to faith in Christ. How are the people in the story to fulfill their calling to strengthen the Church when it is illegal for the Church to exist? It is a story about how believers live, struggle, and glorify God when the place to which they are called is hostile toward them and their faith.
    
    

Jerusalem Vigil, by Bodie & Brock Thoene. The Thoenes are masterful authors of historical Christian fiction. Jerusalem Vigil is the first book in the Zion Legacy series and begins with the creation of Israel is a nation. Jews and Christians attempt to make their home in the war-torn city of Jerusalem as neighbors on all side seek to destroy the nation before it has a chance to live. It is a gripping novel about the lives of those transplanted from safety to a place requiring all they have to give and more – all the compassion, all the strength, all the love, and most importantly all the faith.

In all cases, the main characters lived with great fear and sadness. In all cases, the main characters redefined for me the phrase “blessed life” and the concept of “success.” Both have little to do with circumstances and everything to do with perspective. I am blessed to serve God in my circumstances. Success is a life lived for God with integrity and purpose…regardless of whether that life is lived out in a place my “dreams” would never take me, or exactly in the place my dreams would take me.

I’m reminded of what Paul said:

²⁰For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame, but that I will always be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past, and that my life will always honor Christ, whether I live or I die. ²¹For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better.
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NLT)

²⁰I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NIV)

As I recall, there is also that phrase in the Bible about sharing in Christ’s sufferings:

¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
          Romans 8:17 (NIV)

Wow…we are His children IF we share in His sufferings. And sharing in those sufferings is living for Christ, seeing Him exalted in our bodies. Somehow I think that message gets lost in American Christianity. Lord, forgive us.

Can you pray this simple prayer with me?

Lord, continue to shape and mold my understanding of success and blessing. I submit to Your will for my life…where ever it leads.

On Monday, a blog about destiny…..hmmm, I see a theme here!

¹Clap your hands, all you nations;
shout to God with cries of joy.²How awesome is the LORD Most High,
the great King over all the earth!

Woohoo! Woohoo! Shout for JOY! Hallelujah!
How GREAT, how AWESOME is the Lord most high!

³He subdued nations under us,
Peoples under our feet.

He had made us victorious. It’s not our own strength that has won victories in our lives – it’s been Him, preparing the way for us, running interference for us, and winning battles for us. Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord.

⁴He chose our inheritance for us,
the pride of Jacob, whom he loved.
          Selah

What an honor – to be recognized as one who inherits from the King of Kings!
He has adopted us into His Own family!

⁵God has ascended amid shouts of joy,
the LORD amid the sounding of trumpets.

Picture it in your mind – God, the Lord, ascending to the heavens among great shouts of Lord and the sounding of trumpets. Fanfare beyond our wildest imaginations…both formal – as in a majestic procession – and informal – as in the largest crowd you’ve ever seen shouting for JOY!

⁶Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.

⁷For God is the King of all the earth;
sing to him a psalm of praise.

Sing praises to our God and our King. Praises of all kinds – the Hallelujah chorus and the simple phrase “I love you Lord.” Sing to praises to Him throughout your day. Do it NOW!

⁸God reigns over the nations;
God is seated on his holy throne.

⁹The nobles of the nations assemble
as the people of the God of Abraham,
for the kings of the earth belong to God;
he is greatly exalted.

God reigns! Over all of it! He is greatly exalted! But he doesn’t usurp the authority to rule our lives. Let Him rule your heart today. He is great and awesome and indescribably good! Hallelujah! Verses 1 and 2 are worth repeating:

¹Clap your hands, all you nations;
shout to God with cries of joy.

²How awesome is the LORD Most High,
the great King over all the earth!