Running After You

"This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God's orders to the letter..." Jonah 3:3 (The Message)

As Richard and I were heading to bed last night, I struck up the conversation again about this calling God has put on my life.  I'm blessed to have a husband that is full of tremendous wisdom and grace.  He has studied me and knows me better than I know myself.  So when it comes time to have hard discussions, he knows exactly when and how to say things.  (The art of communication should never be taken lightly.  How we say things, what we say and when we say them makes or breaks the outcome.)   

I'm still amazed at how well he handled me.  How he poured out wisdom and "food for thought"...He helped me to realize some things I had not thought about.  He focused me on the important things.  He showed me the truth about the sacrifice.  His words were dripping with the love of Christ.  The Holy Spirit used him to shed light...and I walked away with more peace than I've ever had about this particular subject matter.

Things are beginning to seem "doable".  I no longer want to throw up when I think of the calling.  But I still feel myself trying to throw my arms up to stop myself from getting too close.  But those arms are quickly becoming paralyzed from the thought of missing the Lord's call on my life.  The reality of missing the Lord draws more fear than the fear of the calling itself.

I am running...running after you....Lord!

Running

"But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord..."

Jonah 1:3 (NLT)

It's odd...I've never been here before.  This is the first time the Lord has called me into an area of ministry where I've dug my heels in the sand and said, "No way, Jose!"  Well, at least I'm trying to do that, but I'm looking behind me and seeing ruts in the sand where He's dragging me there anyways.  My friend Jenny will read this all and laugh.  My life group leader will read this and chuckle.  My husband will read this and breathe a sigh of relief that I'm finally dealing with it.  Others have simply said, "Yeah, we knew it..."  Well, I feel as though everyone around me knew it...but me.  I suppose it's easier to see a calling on someone else's life than it is to see what is on your own life.

Every single time I try to question why, the Lord always responds with a solid answer.  Each time I try to argue, He reminds me of what He's brought me through and what He's put within me.  Even when I try to bargain with Him, He cautions me about being careful what I "wish' for.  I'm doing all the things that Jonah did...and we all know where he ended up.  No thank you!  I'm not interested in spending even 3 minutes, much less 3 days, in a dark, stinking, lonely place.  Jenny calls my "fight", rebellion...and that's as witchcraft.  Whatever to you, Jenny!  I told her to hush....that I didn't want her truth.  Of course, she laughs at me and I laugh at myself because we both know I carve the truth and the relationship with my Lord.

I do want the will of the Lord for my life.  I don't want to try to carve my way through this world.  I want Him to carve my path.  I want to show up on Judgement Day with empty pockets from giving everything I had before my time was up.  So here I stand at a crossroad.  I know which direction to go but fear hinders my walk.  The thought of the sacrifice shakes me up.  I try one more time to tell my Maker that He didn't make me to do this...



My accountability partner gave me 30 days from May 11th to wave my little white flag in surrender.  I have 19 days left....

When the Lord Uses You

I'm so amazed and honored that the Lord continues to use me to minister to the broken-hearted.  It was only about 10 years ago I was that broken-hearted person.  Now, He gives me a platform to encourage and share His love with others.  Every time I minister, I am grieved by the tremendous amount of sin and hurt that many people carry around.  For some, it's as though that hurt and sin have become a part of them in such a way that they don't realize they could ever live any differently.  Some do not even recognize that it is there.  To others, the sin and hurt have become their best friend.  The sin and hurt never stops being taxing on your life, you just learn how to work with it.  Slaves...that's what we become.  Slaves that feel no hope or need to break free.  Others want it to go away but just don't know how to get away from it.  So they crawl into a cage where the sin and hurt can not reach them.  Only, they too are within the bars of slavery inside that cage.  I had one of those cages too.  It was a great "escape" for a short while.  I was certainly a prisoner no matter where I went or what I did.  My happiest moment was not as happy as it could have been.  My good friend Jenny says that we do not live as free as Jesus died for us to be.  Freedom...how precious.

We sing about freedom, honor freedom and cherish freedom when it comes to our country and our rights.  We even focus on freeing a whale name Willie.  But we tend to forget that there is another type of freedom.  Spiritual freedom.  A real freedom.  A freedom that is not dictated by the policies of man.  A freedom that was secured for us on a cross.  A freedom that costs but one person His life...Jesus.  A freedom that we did not have to march down the streets of Heaven and picket or demonstrate outside the throne room of grace to get.  There are no "Free The Sinners" signs and cheers needed.  A freedom that was freely given to us...all we have to do is receive it and walk in it.  THAT freedom is the type of freedom that we are all called to walk in.  Freedom from wickedness, bondage, yoke of sin, curses, hurt, etc.  A freedom that is sweeter than Mississippi sweet tea and state fair cotton candy.  We can fight to keep our guns.  We can fight for the freedom to vote or to choose our own healthcare, but what good are those temporal things if we continue to live in bondage to an enemy that is looking to bankrupt us, steal from us, kill us and throw us into eternal hell?  Paul lived in prison more than any one innocent person should have to...BUT...he lived in complete freedom in his spirit.  His surroundings, circumstances, enemies, etc. did not take away from the fact that Paul was a free man. 

We may continue to have circumstances around us that are painful and pressing.  We may live in surroundings that honor everything and everyone except God.  We may have more enemies that we can count.  However, when we are free from sin and hurt we find strength, peace and grace as we press towards the goal of being men and women of God.  We will be a light in the midst of all that darkness.  We will have peace.  Yes, peace.  A peace that we can't understand in the natural.  A peace that man-dictated freedom can't give us.  Spiritual freedom brings peace.  And as long as I have the peace of God, I can get through anything.

Falling Off the Grace Wagon

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

Romans 5:20 (MSG)

You often hear of people with vices "falling off the wagon" meaning they return back to their vice (such as alcohol) after giving it up for a time. So does "falling off the grace wagon" even make sense?  I mean, grace is certainly not a vice.  Follow me here and let's see if we can make a case for this.  

There have been times in my life that I have given up on the grace of God.  That sounds harsh for someone who loves the Lord and in all honesty, it is harsh.  It's plain ridiculous too. When I say I "gave up" what I mean is, I simply gave it no thought.  I took it for granted.  I acted as though it didn't even exist.  I called Him a liar by acting and talking as though I had no hope.  I would rant and rave, cry and question, worry and give up.  I would wallow in the thoughts of past sins that I had already repented for.  I would assume that He couldn't use me in a mighty way...because of my past.  Pile current sins on top of that and you can imagine what a mess I have been.

I love what Romans 5:20 in The Message says about the "aggressive forgiveness we call grace".  Sin crouches at our door, ready to pounce on us.  It calls to us.  Seduces us from behind a shroud of temporary gratification.  Faithlessness is certainly sin too.  Hopelessness is sin.  A lack of trust in the Lord...is sin.  Those sins come in more like a tsunami.  Overwhelming us.  Sweeping us out to sea.  Drowning us in a wave polluted with hurtful debris.  Isolating us from our source of life.  In both cases, those sins (vices) are all aggressive in seeking us out as their prey/victims.  Yet Romans 5:20 is telling us that God's grace is even more aggressive.  It wins out every time.  It goes beyond the farthest reaching points of our sin.  Sin offers us death.  Grace offers us life through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

This is certainly not a grace that should be taken lightly.  No, taking it for granted is spitting in the face of Jesus.  How precious is the grace that was made possible through the Blood of Jesus.  Kay Arthur, in one of her teachings in the Anointed, Transformed and Redeemed bible study, talks about how grace is previous.  Before the days of the Earth.  Before you and me, God determined that He would send His only Son as the blood sacrifice for my sins.  For your sins.  For our children's sins when they are 10...17...34...even 80.  Yes, before the days of the Earth, He was already showing incredible grace by preparing a way for us to be reconciled with Him.  He knew Adam and Eve would fall to sin.  He knew I would become rebellious, foul-mouthed, cold-hearted, angry, a gossiper, addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol and lustful.  Nothing I did, nothing you've done, surprised him.  He was ready and waiting for us.  He had already started extending grace to us before we ever breathed our first breath.

Grace is not something you can cover in a blog.  It's so deep...so wide.  I dare not attempt to try and say all that is in my heart towards God's grace.  Our pastor has been teaching on grace and it has been wonderful for me.  We can never fool ourselves into thinking that we have a complete grasp on something as large as God's grace.  Hearing the messages and reading more about it in the Word has heightened my awareness of it.  I'm just so thankful that 11 years ago, I came face-to-face with His grace as He reached down and took my hand, pulling me from the pit I had been living in.  I'm thankful that today, He takes my hand over and over again and pulls me out of the tsunamis of life.  Yes, I have fallen off the grace wagon.  I have taken back up my love of His grace.  I live in it.  I walk in it.  I breathe it.  I enjoy it.  Tell me, have you fallen off the grace wagon or are you still holding out for "something better"? 



He Spoke And Then He Moved

I'm an Amplified Bible kind of girl.  So much so that my life group will not allow me to read our study scriptures out loud for time purposes.  They always say, "Will someone, besides Shannon, read Psalm 37..."  I personally feel they are missing out on the depth of each scripture by reading their "cliff note" versions, but I suppose they have a point about the whole time issue.

Yesterday I was sitting in the "pick up" line at my sons school.  I'm one of those that gets there about 30 - 45 minutes early so that I'm one of the first ones in line.  This gives me time to read, balance my checkbook, knit a blanket, etc.  I've been in a bit of a twirling storm the past few weeks.  The enemy has thrown so many "below the waist" punches at me.  You know what I'm talking about, those low, "I know he did not just go there" punches.  This, of course, all started after I taught on The Heart of a Warrior.  He is certainly angry about the Word that went forth and the lives that were changed from it.  We know that the Word will do what it sets out to do.  So he lost there and thought he would direct his attack to me.  I've been battling.  A lot of days I win.  Some times I get knocked down but praise the Lord for the His strength that enables me to get back up.

I was able to pick up my son from school because I am recovering from a medical procedure that is part of his latest "attempt" on my life.  I was feeling a little weak and knew that I needed some Word for encouragement and strength.  After all, I'm getting ready to deliver the warrior teaching to our youth group next week.  I certainly don't expect him to go down without a fight.  So I opened my bible to Psalm 37.  The words became like a cool drink of water to me.  They were soothing to my soul.

3 Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed.

4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.

6 And He will make your uprightness and right standing with God go forth as the light, and your justice and right as [the shining sun of] the noonday.

7 Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him; fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass.

I was so drawn to these verses.  The Lord began to speak to me so deeply.  I loved, loved, loved the part in verse 3 that says, "and feed surely on His faithfulness".  That very moment I imagined myself feasting at the table of the Lord and getting so full.  You know what I'm talking about.  It's like sitting down at Grandma's Sunday lunch table.  You get so full you have to unbutton your pants...but you hate to stop eating because it's so good and you won't get to eat that way again for another week or so.  I love how His table never runs out.  I can just stay right there and rest in Him and continue to feast.  There's always a place for me at His table.  The sweet aroma of His goodness continues to draw me there.  Yesterday, in that car line...He drew me in with the sweetness of His love and promises.

He continued to speak to me about rolling my cares/load over on Him.  That was huge for me considering the challenges I have faced and continue to eyeball.  At one point He said, "Just lean on me honey."  The word trust continued to jump off the page at me.  As I type this, it is ministering to me.  He just wants us to trust Him.  Why do we keep forgetting or refusing to do that.  He is utterly trustworthy.  Why in the world would I doubt Him?  Why do you doubt Him?  As we wait on Him patiently.  He will certainly move on our behalf.  He will move heaven and earth on our behalf.  Verse 4 reassures us that we can be delighted in Him because He knows our secret petitions and the desires of our hearts.  Even those things we've not uttered to anyone...not even our momma.  He knows them.  When we wait on Him, delight ourselves in Him, put our trust in Him, and commit ourselves to Him...we find that our desires line up with His and He begins to meet those desires...one by one. 

He was speaking to me greatly yesterday through these passages.  He was speaking encouragement for what had already happened and strength/delight in what was about to happen.  He spoke to me...and then He moved.  Within hours of Him speaking through these verses, He began opening doors to the desires of my heart (one of those great big desires that you're not sure will ever really happen).  It just came out of the blue.  It's a bit overwhelming.  Unexpected.  It is something we must approach with faith and wisdom....and absolute humility.  But I know that I can lean on Him, trust Him to work it all out because my Daddy took the time to speak to me before He moved.  Just another testament to His faithfulness. 

Hey Daddy, Watch This!

I know a lot of really cool people.  Honestly, I think I have some of the greatest people to walk the earth entrenched in my life.  These people come in all shapes, sizes, ages, personalities and backgrounds.  I feel very 1-dimensional when I'm with them.  I'm really not, but surely some of you know what it's like to have at least one person in your life that is just so well-rounded that you take a look in the mirror and say, "Self...you're boring."  Or maybe not.  Maybe I'm the only one out here talking to myself in the mirror.

I know God has brought every single person to me for a very specific purpose.  Every one of them has true value to add to my life.  There are no accidents when you live in Christ.  Every little intricate detail of your life is planned out before the days of the Earth.  I love that about Him. 

There is one person in particular that has been standing out to me lately.  Great things come in small packages, right ladies? :)  Well, the Lord has brought me a very beautiful and very unique gift in a very small package.  She is wonderful.  She is sweet.  She is beautiful.  She is wise WAY beyond her years.  She is full of Christ.  She is a servant.  She walks in boldness and humility.  She is well-spoken.  She is well-educated.  She loves me and that makes me smile.  The moment I met her, she nestled her way into my heart.  She has brought me much joy.  We have had great talks that have enlightened me.  She smiles at me and hugs me a lot.  You get the picture...

Well my memory verse for the next two weeks is 1 Peter 3:12 (amp) "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their prayers.  But the face of the Lord is against those who practice evil."  This verse came alive to me today because the Lord corresponded it with an encouraging word He had me deliver to this sweet friend of mine over the weekend.  He used the love I have for her to minister to me about how much He loves me...how He is saying the same to me.  He loves me us so much that He constantly watches us.  He looks for us when we wake up in the morning.  His gaze follows us all day.  It's not just any gaze.  It's that deep, loving gaze that is protective like a lion and as loving as a lamb.  The depth of His gaze is far too deep for us to ever understand.  It is hot with passion.  It is a jealous stare that says, "Go ahead Satan...make my day.  Touch her and I'll crush you again."

Remember when you were a kid and you wanted so much for your Daddy to pay attention to you.  "Hey Dad, watch this!"  Then you do some "amazing" trick. :)  As children we long for our parents to watch us and listen to us every moment of the day.  I have a son that would love nothing more than to have my full attention 24/7.  As an earthly parent, that can be exhausting and totally impossible.  But it's not a problem for our Heavenly Father.  He constantly watches us and "His ears are attentive to our prayers."  He listens to every word.  He doesn't miss anything.  He listens when I praise Him.  He pays attention when I attempt to blame Him.  He intently tunes in to my requests.  I'm convinced He laughs at my jokes when no one else does.  He loves it when I quote His Word back to Him.  He is moved when I weep at His feet. 

I picture this precious friend of mine, as she lives her life pure and holy before the Lord...I see her twirling around, arms reached out towards Heaven, with a beautiful smile on her face and a sweet giggle in her voice saying, "Hey Daddy, watch this!"  He's watching her.  He's been watching her.  He's so pleased with her.  She is His delight.  I know He is absolutely in love with her.  I know this because He had me tell her.  Then His gentle yet firm voice says to me, "And I love you too..."  Those words fill me with great joy and overwhelming strength.  As long as my Daddy is watching me and listening to me...all things are possible.