ApprehendingGrace.com

One day last week I was thinking about what we were to have for lunch and dinner that day. On our menu was rice and beans. Quite frankly, I was getting a little tired of that entrée! We bought ourselves a rice cooker for Christmas last year and we eat a lot of whole grain rice. I like rice and we make it lots of different ways…but we frequently make enough to last several days. Sometimes we make just the rice and doctor it up with other ingredients after it’s cooked, giving lots of opportunity for variety. Other times we dump all the ingredients in the rice cooker and eat the same thing for a couple of days in a row. Somehow we ended up with many meals of rice and beans. It was tasty and nutritious. It had just become boring.

The same thing happens with oatmeal or other whole-grain hot cereals we make in the cooker. So I was probably facing a breakfast of oatmeal and a lunch of rice and beans and a dinner of…something equally unexciting. (I’m not complaining, just reporting what life was like last week.) The truth is that I was bored with the food we were eating. Now don’t feel sorry for us. We cook tasty, heart-healthy meals sometimes, but when we get busy we revert to lots of leftovers. And there are many in this world for whom a daily meal of rice and beans would be a treat.

I remember very specifically walking down the stairs thinking about what we would be having for lunch and God spoke into my mind: “Not every bite needs to be a vacation in your mouth!” Hmmmm….. It got me thinking.

Many of us in America are so blessed – we can buy just about any food we want to eat whenever we want to eat it. As a nation we’ve learned that we like rich foods and really greasy foods, and it’s why our obesity rate is so high. Nearly one third of adults in the US are obese. (Yes, I am among them.) And the prevalence of obesity in adults has more than doubled in the last forty years, most of the increase occurring in the last twenty years.

I like rich, creamy foods. My favorite food (well, dessert actually) is cheese cake. My second favorite food is pizza. With lots of cheese. But God, with his one line instruction, has helped me to begin to think about food differently.

As I meditated on God’s message to me, I began to reflect on my life in general. Newsflash: Not everything I do during the day is a vacation! Instead, I work hard most days of the year so that I can enjoy a relatively few days of vacation every year. Generally, less than five percent of my days are vacation days. I don’t think I’ve ever reached ten percent in a year. Do I think that’s a lifestyle that honors God? Yes. Vacations are good for recharging our batteries, reconnecting with our families and just generally having fun, but God’s Word clearly honors working diligently.

So if about five percent of my life is spent in vacation mode, why should I view food any differently? Why should I think it honors God to eat rich foods at every meal? Why should I think it honors God to even expect “vacations in my mouth” many times a day? Or even once a week for that matter?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that healthy, nutritious meals shouldn’t taste good, but there’s a difference between a healthy-tasty meal and a rich, creamy vacation-tasty meal.

A few days after God spoke to me, I read Proverbs 23:

¹ When you sit to dine with a ruler,
note well what is before you,

² and put a knife to your throat
if you are given to gluttony.

³ Do not crave his delicacies,
for that food is deceptive.
Proverbs 23:1-3

I imagine a king’s table as a buffet with lots of “vacation” bites on it. Perfectly cooked meats in rich sauces. Desserts that fill your mouth before melting away. Maybe a good salad to cleanse the pallet before reaching for another vacation bite.

God says that when you sit to dine with a king, make a note of the food before you and control your eating. He goes on to say “do not crave his delicacies” because the “food is deceptive.” The food is deceptive in that it doesn’t increase our strength, as God designed it to, but it bogs us down and makes us lethargic. What God has created and provided for our health and strength, we have made into delicacies that rob us of both. The food is deceptive.

Lord, forgive me for tasting and craving the delicacies that do not give life. Forgive me for wanting every bite to be a vacation! Help me to discipline my eating habits in a way that brings You honor.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and most of us will indulge in comfort foods from our childhood. I’m looking forward to the stuffing and gravy and pumpkin pie. Enjoy! It is a vacation day! But be mindful on Friday that yesterday was one of your five or ten percent days – the vacation days for your taste buds – and not every bite needs to be a vacation in your mouth!

I love the Lord! This is a super crazy week! A super crazy week. Long, long work hours. It will probably be our busiest week of the year at work. Our community is engaged in a 24/7 prayer watch with community worship every evening. I’m involved in planning a ladies’ retreat that will be this Friday and Saturday. I didn’t get my grocery shopping done last week so we have no milk, bread, bananas (a staple in our house) and a long list of other things. My husband has been fighting a cold and I have felt the fatigue from it, although thankfully not the sinus and chest congestion. It is a super crazy week! And I’ve wondered how I would be able to write a blog (or two!). Writing blogs on a regular basis is a priority for me…but so are lots of other things!

So mostly, I’ve committed to not worrying (the theme of our retreat, coincidentally) and to do my best to sit back and watch God work it all out…all the while moving with what feels like warp speed from one task to the next. Are those two things possible in the same moment? Can I sit back and watch God work while I’m working and moving at a high rate of speed? Well, watch this space for more on that. There’s bound to be a future blog about it.

But back to loving the Lord. Now that you know the back story, let me tell you how the Lord is surprising me with joy. Sunday was the last day for signing up for our ladies’ retreat. There were at least 50% more people signed up than we expected! Praise God! (Right?) Well, we had planned a retreat that was going to be small and intimate in nature – one in which we sat together and shared what God was teaching us. One with lots of time for laughter and tears. No lecture format. There’s a point at which that format doesn’t work, though, and I’m afraid we’ve passed that point in attendance, so I’ve been wondering how to deal with it. It’s the top item on our prayer list for our next and last retreat planning meeting (which begins in less than two hours).

Yesterday as I mused about the situation (notice I am specifically not using the word “worry” because I am refusing to do so – I was simply wondering what God might do and I was beginning to pray for creativity) – anyway, yesterday as I mused about the situation, God made me laugh! He impressed upon me what His perspective must be of all the little plans we make. We’re almost like children playing grown-up – like the little girl playing “mommy” or the little boy playing “daddy.” He’s not deriding our efforts, in fact, I believe He is blessed and honored by our best efforts to bring Him glory. But we are His children, and I think sometimes He watches us in amusement as we “play” grownup. I’m OK with that. In fact, I am happy to bring my Savior amusement!

Then this morning…Late night, early morning, but I sat at my desk, bowl of oatmeal/12 grain hot cereal in front of me and water at my side, ready to greet the day. I took a deep breath and opened my Bible. I took a deep breath to help me resist the cry of all that was to be done and decided to continue my reading in Isaiah. I made it nine verses. Isaiah 19:9 struck me:

^“Those who work with combed flax will despair,
the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.”

Improbable verse to be struck by, right? Well, what struck me was not some deep spiritual significance or detailed meaning of any of the words…well maybe some of the latter…what struck me was that I read the first line as “those who work with com-bed flax will despair.” What in the world is com-bed flax? What is com-bed? Is it some different kind of flax? (That would be the two syllable kind of flax – you know the com-bed flax!) I must have blinked then because as I was scrunching my brow try to figure out what the word com-bed meant, I finally saw that it was the word “combed” – as in comb your hair which is something I barely did this morning! It made me laugh out loud.

Thank You, Lord, for laughter in the midst of deadlines. Thank You for helping us see that life is not so serious and important that there’s no time or room for expecting  joy and laughter.

Now I’m going to go greet the day with a smile on my face. How about you?

While considering the issue of stopping the misfires of my brain when I’m trying to read God’s Word or enter His presence, God brought to mind several interactions I’ve had with children and young adults over the past few years. I’d like to share them with you.

From the Mouths of Babes…
One young friend came up to me recently and stood looking at me expectantly. When I asked how she was doing, she launched into a long, animated (in my mind, anxiety-producing) discourse about how busy she was. She didn’t say anything wrong, per se, but remembering the conversation hits me like a slap in the face. As I re-hear her words and remember her demeanor I realize that she was reciting her crowded schedule (which included being too busy for breakfast) to impress me and win my approval.

She is not alone. God brought to my mind other interactions in which teens have recited their busy schedules in an attempt to seem more grown-up or to impress the adults in the room. In each case, the things they were doing were good things, but what has come clearly into focus for me is the very high value that has been placed on having a busy schedule, rather than placing the high value on the activities themselves or even lack of activities so that we can spend more time face to face with the eternal God.

…Come the Values of the Adults
Children learn to value what the adults around them value. Our children are learning that busy-ness carries a high value. I wonder if they also see that quietness is a high value. I wonder if they see that sitting at the feet of God is a high value. I think in many cases they do not, because they see the adults around them willing to overload their schedules and adjust their time with God to do any of a number of things, most of which do not rise to the level of interrupting our time with God.

As I recall these conversations, I’m convicted about the part I’ve played in reinforcing the value of a busy schedule for these young followers of God. I’ve reinforced it by the way I’ve responded to them and by the example that I’ve set. I’ve communicated that having a busy schedule carries a high value. Perhaps more to the point, I’m convicted about what my over-busy schedule says about me.

What Does Your Over-Busy Schedule Say About You?
Our over-busy schedules may say a variety of things about us:

• We need to be busy and involved in many things to feel important.
• We need to fill every moment of every day so that we don’t have time to deal with the hurt that’s inside.
• We don’t know how to identify those things God has called us to so we jump into everything without first attempting to discern how God wants us to spend our time.
• We know what God has called us to, but we don’t know how to say “no” to those things He hasn’t put on our plate.
• We have a large appetite for activity – we enjoy many things – but we haven’t disciplined ourselves to make only the best choices.
• We are unwilling to trust the results to anyone else, including God.

The list surely isn’t comprehensive, but I get stuck on that last one.

Is God All Sufficient or Isn’t He?
An over-busy schedule sometimes denies the sufficiency of God. Too often I realize that my schedule becomes over-busy because I feel like I have to do it all myself. If I don’t do this, who will? If I don’t work on Sunday, who will put food on the table or how will everything else get done? If I don’t plan this church event, who will? If I don’t take the kids to this ball game, how will they get there? The answers may very well be:

• God will provide it or maybe I need to do with less food, things, or activities!
• Someone will step up or the event won’t take place (and that’s OK)! (If no one wants to plan the event, perhaps it’s just another activity that increases our over-busy schedules instead of bringing us closer to the peace of God.)
• Another child’s mom or dad will take the kids to the event or maybe they shouldn’t go! (We begin teaching our children about wise schedule choices when we choose wisely between activities, not attend all events.)

I like most of the things in my schedule. They are there because they have value. But sometimes the value of God is eclipsed by the clutter in my life. And when my highest value is blocked by the clutter, my life gets scrambled and the misfires in my brain increase exponentially.

God Has a Solution
God woke me up early one day last week while and I found myself with a whole extra hour and a half before I had to leave the house. I spent it with Him. It changed the course of my day. I confess that when I got out of bed, I was afraid that getting up so early would cause me to collapse before the day was over, but I consciously trusted God to carry me through the day. I was fine all day. God is speaking to me and demonstrating to me the value of an uncluttered life. It allows me to REST in His sufficiency. It allows me to walk in peace through stressful situations because the responsibility isn’t really on my shoulders.

I’m certain this is the beginning of many blogs about de-cluttering our lives and trusting God with what we can’t do –because we can’t do it all and still keep an uncluttered life. Peace eludes us when we rush franticly from one activity to the next. At least it eludes me. You can’t chase after peace, you must wait for it.

I invite you to join me in this journey toward God’s peace. I’m not sure where it’s leading, but I know that God has grace to carry us through.

And an Assignment
De-clutter assignment for this week: Pick a day during which you will purposefully set aside everything that screams to be done and everything else that you want to do, and sit before the Lord for longer than you would typically spend in devotions. Be sure it’s a place and time that is quiet. Trust God to handle all that needs to be done while you rest with Him for awhile. Read a little more Scripture than you normally would. Listen to the quiet. Breathe in the quiet. Whisper prayers to God. Seek His peace. If you like, play soft worship music in the background (that puts me to sleep, so I don’t do it). Don’t come with a long prayer list. Don’t spend the whole time reading Scripture. Just rest with God. This is a time for you to be restored and refreshed by the peacefulness of God’s presence. Resist the temptation to leave God’s presence too soon. Your goal (for those goal-setters out there) is to experience the peace God can bring into a cluttered life if you push away the clutter to focus on Him.

You might not accomplish your goal! If you’re new at pushing away the clutter, it might be difficult for you to rest in quiet with the Lord. That’s OK. Try it again next week. Spiritual formation is a process. You will get better at it if you commit to it. You will begin to experience the peace God can bring and that peace will do two things:

1. Enable you to face the cluttered life with more purpose and peace.
2. Cause you to desire a less-cluttered life so that you can more easily find God’s peace regularly.

Those are things I want in my life. They outshine the having a brain that misfires because it’s going in too many directions at once. They come with a price – a weeding out of the clutter in our lives. Is it worth the price? You bet!

Grace & peace, friends.

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.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:2 (NIV)

I love the way Paul starts his letters. Most of my letters (e-mails, really, since I haven’t written a real letter in many years) start with “How are you?” I think I’m being friendly – asking about them before I launch into my own news is the polite thing to do.

Besides, how weird would people think I am if I started my letters “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”?

I’ve been wracking my brain for a similar phrase that might be appropriate today. I haven’t found one. I checked other translations. NLT and The Message are the most likely candidates, but they didn’t do it for me either:

May grace and peace be yours, sent to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ephesians 1:2, New Living Translation

I greet you with the grace and peace poured into our lives by God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:2, The Message

The problem is that all the translations properly translate the greeting, offering grace and peace to the reader from “God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.” We live in a world in which it is no longer fashionable, or even acceptable in many venues, to offer such a greeting. We’ve become so much a part of that world that we no longer offer greetings that bless the hearer or reader with two of the greatest blessings God can give, outside of salvation: grace and peace. (See my blog “Grace, The Double-Powered Prayer; Peace, Restored to Oneness” for more on these words of blessing by Paul.)

There’s a fine line between acting in such a way that the world doesn’t dismiss us as a fool and living a life that blesses others and makes them thirsty for the One who makes you different. Well, maybe it’s not such a fine line. Maybe I’ve just convinced myself it is so that I don’t have to be so different in society.

I don’t know. I usually try to end blogs by embracing an action based on the content of the blog. But I don’t know what that action is in this case – because I haven’t figured it out yet. I do know, though, that I miss many, many, many opportunities to bless others and to praise God because my language reflects the culture of the world more than the culture of faith. I want to be willing to be different if that’s the right answer. I don’t want to be dismissed, for the sake of the Gospel, if there is an updated approach that carries the same message. I’m old school enough to believe the message must be carried in words, not just actions. Actions are greatly important because the words are meaningless without them; but words have power and I’m looking for a way to include the verbal blessing without losing my audience.

On the other hand, maybe I need to not be concerned about God’s reputation (and my own) and just make the blessing a natural part of my routine.

So this blog has gone around the block a few times, but here’s the deal:

Our challenge: To offer God’s blessings of grace and peace as we go through our daily lives.

The problem: Doing so in such a way that the message doesn’t alienate the hearer.

If you have any ideas, let me know. I welcome your input as I wrestle with this issue.

In the meantime…

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’m considering beginning an online verse-by-verse Bible study of Ephesians that will begin next week. If you would like to participate, please e-mail me at Sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com or by leaving a comment to this blog.

I attend a business networking meeting weekly. This week, the conference room in which we meet was decorated in a fun, tiki-island theme for a children’s program that was to begin shortly after we left. I arrived early to find strings of shells serving as a curtain at the doorway, a tiki-bar just past the shell curtain (used as a registration booth, no doubt), lots of netting, and colorful posters and table cloths. Arriving early also afforded me the opportunity to watch as others arrived. Reactions varied considerably from “How fun!” to “What the…..?” There was the woman who saw the theme and started dancing and the man whose sour expression showed his disapproval. (I wonder – was his disapproval at the foolishness of the decorations, at our use of the room while it was decorated for the children’s program, or something I wouldn’t imagine. Or perhaps his expression was simply revealing his insecurity at walking into the transformed room and I interpreted it as disapproval. Perhaps I should have asked him.)

It was fascinating to watch each person arrive at the meeting, and God used it to reinforce a theme he seems to be hammering into me lately: It’s all about our perspective, and our perspective is affected by and affects our attitude.

Perspective has a lot to do with what lens through which we’re viewing life.

Most of the time I need to use the super-wide angle lens. When looking through this lens, I can see the bigger picture and I often ask the question “in light of eternity, what does it matter?” Most of life’s little annoyances melt into the background when eternity is in the foreground.

When things get really tough, I have to switch to the more focused lens – the one that allows me to see only one thing, and that Thing must be Jesus. If I focus on the issues at hand, my world dissolves into chaos of one sort or another – questions that begin with “how” and “when” and “who” and “why,” and statements that begin with “if” can quickly turn my mind and emotions into a chaotic jungle of twisted vines and branches. That’s when the single lens is needed – the one that looks at the single, true Vine.

If you’re Resting at the River’s Edge with us, you read the following verses this week:

          ¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
                    2 Corinthians 4:16-18

What a wonderful passage! “Therefore, we do not lose heart!” It can be easy to lose heart when we focus on the world around us. Paul gives the secret for not losing heart – “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Lord, help me to see the unseen, to capture it in my spirit, and to let it serve always as the lens through which I walk through life. Yes, I maybe wasting away inwardly, whether from the stresses of life or simply from growing older, but let me always be renewed day by day as I focus on You and not on the circumstances of my life.

I want to be one of the people who walks through the door and says “How fun!” I want to be one of the people who sees the unexpected changes in my surroundings and enjoys them! I want to experience my life as part of the great adventure God has for me here on earth. That is the perspective, the lens, through which I want to see and live life. Will you join me?

 I hope you’re enjoying this “Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS). We’re about half way through the series, so this blog begins with a review. You can click on any of the topics to go to the blog on that topic.

A Willing Heart

Time for review. When this series is completed, I’ll have written about seven characteristics of the heart of a worshipper. We’ve covered four so far. How many of them can you remember? Can you name them? Let me help. Reading about them interspersed with “life” can make it difficult to see the natural progression, so let’s review the first four.

• A hungry heart - one that desires to know God more intimately. There are many scriptures we could look at that express this sentiment, but I like these two:

“Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you.
          Isaiah 26:8-9

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”
          Psalm 42:1-2

• A pursuing heart – one that follows hard after Jesus. Proverbs 16:26 says: “The laborer’s appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on.” So it is with God. Our desire for Him drives us to get to know Him better – the hungry heart becomes the pursuing heart. 
    
  In His book The God Chasers, Tommy Tenney explains his title like this: “A God Chaser is a person whose hunger for God exceeds his grasp…whose passion for God’s presence presses him to chase the impossible, in hopes that the Uncatchable might catch him.”
    
  And the wonderful thing about our God is that He promises to allow us to catch Him! Review these scriptures if you have any doubts: Deuteronomy 4:29, Jeremiah 29:13-14, Matthew 7:7-8, and Proverbs 8:17. (There are lots more, but these should give you a good start!)
      
• 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 deepest, darkest corners. When our heart is transparent, we can say with David “All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.” (Psalm 38:9) Having a transparent heart allows God to reveal our sin to us.
      
• A vulnerable heart is the logical extension of the transparent heart – it’s the heart that suppresses our “fight or flight” response as we sit at Jesus’ feet and allow Him to change us. It moves from allowing God to reveal our sin to allowing Him to transform us into the image of Christ. It also means total dependence on God – trusting Him to make the right choices for you. It means giving God the right to make the rules and put the ball in play. And it means giving up our right to say “No, I don’t want to be like that,” or “I don’t like those rules.”

A Willing Heart – The Second Half of the Equation 
A key phrase in the last paragraph is “put the ball in play.” In other words, having a vulnerable heart that allows God to change us is only the first half of the equation…we must also have a willing heart that allows God to use us.

Chapter 6 in Isaiah is a fascinating illustration of the vulnerable and willing heart of Isaiah. Let me do a quick outline of verses 1 through 11 for you

Verses 1 – 4: Isaiah is given a glimpse of the throne room of heaven

…I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs…And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty…” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

Verse 5-7: Isaiah experiences conviction for his sin

Woe to me!…I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…

Verses 6 and 7: God demonstrates that Isaiah’s sin has been forgiven by having an angel take a coal from the altar and touch his lips with it

With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Verse 8: God makes a request and Isaiah enthusiastically responds

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Verse 9-10: God elaborates on the assignment, revealing that it won’t be a pleasant one

“Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes…”

Verse 11: Isaiah remains committed to carry out his task

Then I said, “For how long, O Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged…”

There are no words in scripture to give us an idea of what inflection to put into Isaiah’s response, but we do know that the last thing he said was spoken with enthusiasm or passion: “Here I am! Send me!” It seems reasonable, then, that the next line would continue in a similar emotion. So even though the Lord has told him to go do this seemingly miserable task, his response is “For how long, Lord?”

 I don’t think Isaiah was dragging his feet and saying “Oh man, how long do I have to do this?” I think He was saying with eagerness “How long can I do this for you Lord?” or “I’m happy to do it as long as you want me to, Lord. How long?”

Isaiah sees worship in heaven and his first response reveals his transparent heart “Woe is me, I am undone.” His second response reveals his willing heart: “Here I am. Send me.”

Oh, that I might be as enthusiastic when I receive assignments from God. I’m tempted to pray here, “Lord, make my heart and spirit cry with enthusiasm, ‘Here I am, Lord, send me,’ even when Your assignments mean obscurity or unpopularity or drudgery.” And that would be a good thing…but you know, sometimes my heart isn’t really there!

It’s at those times that I am tempted to feel condemnation because I think my heart should be always willing, no matter what the circumstances or assignment. So I try to get my heart to the right place…yeah, right!

One thing I’ve learned is that I can’t manufacture a change in my heart any more than I could manufacture the heart itself! I cannot rely on myself for such things. Charles Spurgeon made this point well in a book called All of Grace.

If we trust to ourselves for our holding on [i.e., continuing in Christ] we shall not hold on. Even though we rest in Jesus for a part of our salvation, we shall fail if we trust to self for anything…Beware of mixing even a little of self with the mortar with which you build, or you will make it untempered mortar, and the stones will not hold together. If you look to Christ for your beginnings, beware of looking to yourself for your endings. He is Alpha. See to it that you make Him Omega also. If you begin in the Spirit you must not hope to be made perfect by the flesh. Begin as you mean to go on, and go on as you began…

In other words, don’t look to yourself, look to God.  Don’t trust yourself, trust God. 

Returning to our passage in Isaiah, we see that he didn’t work up his own obedience – it was a natural response to having seen the glory of God. So perhaps my prayer shouldn’t be “Lord, make my heart and spirit cry ‘Yes Lord’ with enthusiasm;” perhaps the secret lies in sitting at Jesus’ feet in worship and praying “Lord, give me a glimpse of Your glory as you gave to Isaiah.” And that brings us full circle – it all starts with having that heart which is hungry for God and it leads to the wonderful privilege of being used by Him.

If your response to God isn’t as whole-hearted as you’d like it to be or you’re feeling condemnation from the enemy for lacking enthusiasm for the things of God, let me encourage you to take time to sit at Jesus’ feet in worship. Just for a while, stop doing things for God and simply spend time with God. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you in a new way. He delights to do so!

I recently watched one of the videos from Beth Moore’s series on Esther. I was arrested by this quote:

“If you’re called upon to die in such a way that requires great courage, that is part of your destiny.”

In my notes I added a similar quote:

“If you’re called upon to live in such a way that requires great courage, that is part of your destiny.”

I immediately thought about my mom who has been called upon to live with great courage in the face of significant paralysis for more than a decade. What an honor she has to live out her destiny and how well she does it!

If I have to make a choice, I want to live God’s destiny for me, not my dreams for me. Yes, they are often one and the same, but they are not always the same. It was never mom’s dream to live a life dependent on others. And yet, what a blessing she has been to so many staff and residents of the nursing homes she’s lived in, not to mention doctors and nurses and EMT staff who have assisted her. I don’t think mom sees herself as living out her destiny, but that is what she is doing. Again I say: What an honor she has to live out her destiny!

Lord, may I follow in my mother’s footsteps, to live out the destiny you have for me with humility and grace.

¹⁸Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.¹⁹When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.” This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. ²⁰The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.
          Deuteronomy 29:18-21

Whew! I read this passage and my first thought was “I need to write a blog about this.” My second thought was…”what in the world would I say?”

You see my first thought came from a place of understanding that many slide backwards in their faith from time to time and the condemnation they feel as they try to come back to the Lord can be great. Let me say here as at the begining, as strongly as I can: If you are on your way back to the Lord, any condemnation you feel is not from the Lord and is totally inappropriate. The Lord is not the author of condemnation, Satan is. The Lord is the author of conviction – that is, bringing about a heartfelt sorrow for our sins that is accompanied by a desire to turn away from those sins and by taking steps to do so. That’s from the Lord. Condemnation, on the other hand, tends to immobilize us in guilt and keep us from taking steps toward reconciliation with God and others. Conviction motivates us to change. Condemnation immobilizes us, keeping us from change.

Yet we read here in Deuteronomy 29 that God will bring disaster on those who have turned away from Him and go their own way to the extent that “the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.” Where is there room for repentence and reconciliation with God? Where is there room for a renewal in our relationship with God if we have fallen away?

That was my dilemma as I considered blogging about this passage. My goal for ApprehendingGrace.com is to help each of us apprehend – grab hold of – what God has done for us and what He wants to do in us and for us. Where is that message in this chapter? To use King Solomon’s phrase from Ecclesiastes, is my whole purpose just “a chasing after the wind?”

It can’t be. I know that God accepts the prodigal. I know that He watches for the prodigal’s return. Yet somehow it’s not satisfying enough for me to simply explain away this Deuteronomy 29 passage with the often used phrase of “we’re under the New Covenant, the covenant of grace.” Yes, we are under the New Covenant, in which God promises salvation to all who would come to Him in humility and sincerity and ask for His forgiveness of their sins and Lordship in their lives. Still, God’s Word remains true and this passage sure doesn’t seem to provide much wiggle room for anyone who has backslidden.

So you understand my conundrum. My approach was to set all that aside and keep reading. (When in doubt, keep reading. Pause to pray, but keep reading.) Am I glad I did! You see, Deuteronomy 30 is a continuation of Deuteronomy 29. Our chapter divisions weren’t in the original writing and they don’t always seem to make sense. They make it possible to refer to specific portions of Scripture, but we shouldn’t allow verse or chapter divisions interrupt the train of thought of the original writers. Read with me portions of Deuteronomy 30:

¹When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, ²and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, ³then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. ⁴Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back… ⁶The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live….⁹…The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, ¹⁰if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
          Deuteronomy 30:1-10

If we turn from God, as described in Deuteronomy 29, God will surely bring those disasters upon us. But when we return to the Lord, He will restore us. It really is as simple as that…and yet it’s not just that simple. It’s really much better than that!

I love so many verses in this passage: “Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.” No matter how far we have strayed from God, now matter how badly we have been conquered by our enemies, God will meet us in that place and will gather us in His arms and bring us back. Wow! He will bring us back. I play a role, of course – I have to determine in my heart to love God and obey Him. But having done that, He will bring me back. He will do the heavy lifting. He will conquer the foes who have conquered me during my time of disobedience. Hallelujah! What a gracious God we serve.

Not only will He bring me back, He will circumcise my heart so that I am able to love Him all the more. Further, He will take delight in me. The word translated “take delight” is literally “rejoice over” or “take great joy because of.” It totally blows me away that the Creator of all things we see (and don’t see) around us and of every distant galaxy and star, the King above all kings, the One who holds the universe together, will be delighted in me. He will take great joy because of my love for Him. If we could truly grab hold of just this last point, our lives would be revolutionized. Why should I care what opinions others hold of me? Why should I become discouraged because I can’t do all that I’d like to do? Why should I…? I shouldn’t. The King of Glory delights in me simply because I love Him.

Oh, Lord, may all who read this know that they know that they know how much you love them. And may You circumcise our hearts that we may love You more.

As our church prepares to participate corporately in an extended fast, several things have been rattling around in my brain:

As we sample from the buffet of life, the more we eat of those things that have no nutritional value, the less room we have for the things that will nourish us.

Of course this applies to real eating – the more ice cream and cake I eat the less room I have for veggies & fruit. But it also applies to all of life’s activities. The more mindless TV I watch, the less time I have for reading or exercising. Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with ice cream and cake or even mindless TV. I’m just saying a steady diet of them makes us fat and weak, both physically and spiritually. And if we partake of those things FIRST, we close the door to those other things that can bring us great joy. Lord, help me to make good choices.

    “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.
     “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
               Matthew 6:31-34 (NLT)

If we focus on what we’re giving up instead of what we’re gaining we’ll never be happy.

Which would you rather have – a life of contentment or a life of lack? You can have either life from the same circumstances. Again, I’m not saying that there isn’t real lack in some of our lives. But for most of us, we have a house in which to live, enough food to eat and people who love us. I want my focus to be on those blessings, not on what I lack. As we look toward the fast, I can look at things I might be giving up and feel bad about that, or I can look at what I hope to gain and be excited for things to come. Our culture is so acclimated to looking at what we don’t have and wanting bigger, better and more. Lord, help me to be content with You and not long for all those other things.

for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
              Philippians 4:11b-12

One of the purposes of fasting is to strip away all the things that grab our attention and turn it away from God – to help us realize that He is the source of every good and perfect gift and to be content.

Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven’s lights. Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows. In his goodness he chose to make us his own children by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his choice possession.
               James 1:17-18

This morning I’ve been humming a song we sang in worship yesterday…

I will wait…I will wait for the Lord. How good is the Lord, to those whose hope is in Him.
I will wait…and let God be God. I will wait, I will wait for the Lord.

(Thanks, Pastor Larry, for writing it.)

Be blessed, all!