Department Meeting

Today we had our 1st department meeting for the Welcome & Contact Center. Our team is incredibly faithful & it is a privilege to lead them.

We started exactly on time, at 2:30. When 2 of the team came at 2:32, it was obvious that they were late. hahaha I guess the standard is set. I always hate showing up for meetings on line & waiting for the people who are late.

Profit

I bought a swing for my Grandkids the other day. We hung it from the tree in our back yard. I bought it at an overstock place that was in a cave up in NKC. It was such a great price, that I bought 2, hoping to sell the 2nd one for a profit. Made $5 profit today. :) Funny. That's significant.

Blood

I donated blood this afternoon. I don't like doing it, but it feels so good when you're done to know that maybe you've helped someone.

Wonder how Jesus felt when He gave His blood to help someone out & then they reject it.

Brent Zweigle

Today my nephew Brent went to be with Jesus after a long battle with cancer. He was not offended with God.

We can all learn something from that.

For Men Who Love Women

May 10th was Mother's Day.  At IHOP church the message was about honoring women.  It was the best Mother's Day message I've ever heard & I wanted to share it with a few people who I knew (or who I think) will appreciate it in their relationship with their spouse.

 

Don't feel obligated to listen.  I know everyone is busy.  I've also included the notes, if that is helpful.

 

:)

 

Click here for MP3 for for notes.

FELLOWSHIP Prayer Tool

Some of you have recently asked for some ideas about both WHAT to pray and HOW to organize your prayer needs.  

We love that you asked & we thought that many might have the same questions, but NOT ask. We spend many hours a 

week in the Prayer room. We truly believe that without prayer our actions aren’t as effective, so this is not a casual thing 

for us. We never run out of things to pray about. We regularly use the following prayer model as one of the ways we pray for ourselves & everyone we pray for.  

It’s easy to remember because of the acronym:  FELLOWSHIP.

Fear of God: Father, release the fear of God into my heart that I will live in awe of you. Remind me often that you see EVERYTHING and care about me.

Endurance: Strengthen me with endurance to continue pursuing You and to follow through in my commitments to You, even when it is difficult.

Love: Give more revelation of Your love to me. Teach me to receive Your love so I will overflow with Your love to everyone around me.

Light of Glory: Let me see the light of your glory through Holy Spirit encounters, such as dreams, visions, angelic visitations, etc. just as you gave to those in the Bible.

One thing life focus: Help me live my life with You as the priority & center of every thing. Alert me when I become too busy, guilty or in despair or concerning anything that would distract me from my fervency for You.

Walk without compromise: Lord, I need your grace to walk without compromise. Rescue me from secret sins. Search me & know my heart.

Speech: I set my heart to not sin with my speech. Set a guard over my lips.

Humility: Teach me how to walk in lowliness of heart in my attitudes, speech & actions. Give me wisdom on how to carry my heart in humility.

Intimacy: Pour out insight into who You are, into Your Word & Your ways. Let me know what You think and what You feel.

Peace & Joy: Strengthen my heart with supernatural peace & joy that overpower fear & anxiety.

For more complete notes & scriptures, click here.

God's Model for Love

For easier reading, click here for PDF file:

God's Model for Love
By Loren Fox

I NEED SOMEONE TO LOVE
When we accept the fact that we belong to Father - that we have been bought by blood and are no longer our own, then we go to Him and are filled up with all we need. His supply to us and for us is abundant, complete, satisfying and sufficient. Out of that abundance we give and serve, with Him always being our constant source. Everything we need is found in Him, including our need for love and companionship and our desire for a life partner.

If we approach love out of our own need, instead of out of His abundance, we will inevitably use those we try to love. When we enter relationship out of the selfishness and wounding of our own soul instead of out of the fullness of being loved and accepted by Him, then we will end up hurting the ones we try to love. This defrauds them & does not fill our need either. It also separates us from Father's love, since we displace His love with a cheap counterfeit. This is idolatry, trying to get what only He can provide us, from another source.

JESUS - EXAMPLE OF LOVE
We can see what God intended for relationships in John 15. In vs. 9 Jesus said that He loved us just like the Father loved Him. This is astounding enough before you realize that He did this as a man. He didn't love us this way as God, but as a man who was allowing Father to be His source so He could love like God does. In verse 12 He asked us to do exactly the same thing - to love like He did, which He already told us was like the Father did. Jesus was our picture of how to love and He made a way for us to abide in Fathers love so we could follow His example. Jesus didn't love us because He needed something from us. He loved -- He was filled with the Father's love -- and so He gave. He served. He humbled Himself and He laid His life down. He told us to love each other like that. He told us to be filled with the Fathers love, then give, serve, humble yourself and lay your life down for another. Is that the vision you have when you think about getting married?

GOD’S PURPOSE FOR EVE
Adam walked with God & had a sweet companionship with Him. He received what he needed from Father. God in His time saw that a mate would be a good thing for Adam. He gave him someone; not to fill a great soul need that couldn't be supplied by Him, but so that Adam would have someone to share Fathers love with. Because of his fellowship with Father, the first Adam wanted to give out of the Father’s love that was in him, even like Jesus, the second Adam (1Cor 15:45), came for the purpose of showing us what Fathers love was like. He came to serve, not to be served (Mt. 20:28). God gave Adam someone who he could lay his life down for, someone that he could serve. Adam was never intended to take a part of what he had in relationship with Father & replace that in his relationship with Eve. That was not God's plan but it was the enemy's plan.

EVE, ADAM’S IDOL
The enemy wanted to interrupt the communion between God and His man, so he devised a plan. This very idolatry of soul love was an important element in Satan's plan and in Adams fall. Eve was deceived by Satan's lie about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but not Adam (1Tim 2:14). This means that Adam knew it was wrong to eat the fruit & he knew it would bring separation between him and God. So why did he do it? It was because of idolatry. When he saw that Eve had eaten, he had a choice. He knew that the consequence of her sin would be separation from God. He had a choice whether to be separated from God or from her. He believed that if he sinned with her then they could take their punishment together, but that if he refused to compromise, he would be separated from and lose Eve. In that moment he looked at this beautiful creature that God had given him and he decided to try and receive from her something that he had previously gotten only from the Father. He depended on her for something she could not give him. He separated his love for God and his love for Eve and hoped it would work, but no one can have two masters.

A SURE WAY TO BE DISAPPOINTED
Real love can only come from one place. Self-satisfying soul love is not anything like God's love. Soul love is selfishness. It has strong emotions but it is focused on getting what it thinks it wants or needs. Even when soul loves gives, it gives only conditionally. This kind of love will always produce disappointment and failure because a tree can only produce fruit after its own kind, which in this case is selfish. A few people can even appear very self-sacrificing in soul love, but at its very best there is still a reciprocal nature to it. It gets its strength and life from the human relationship itself instead of from the source of life, and so it is always changing and vulnerable. Love is only strong and unchanging when its source is strong and unchanging. The soul of man cannot be the source of this strength & stability. The soul seeks its own good on its own terms. Love gives. Love never fails. Love lays down what it has for the good of another. This is God's model for love.

NEED VS DESIRE
It has often been argued that we need each other and that Adam was even created to need Eve. It is important to rightly understand what the meaning of need is. We are created in Gods image. He has told us to pattern our love and our relationships after Him. He does not need anything or anyone. He does however, deeply desire relationship with us. This desire is intense to such a degree that He gave extravagantly and sacrificially to see this relationship enabled. When we see His desire for us as a need it completely changes our view of His approach to us and makes it look manipulative and self-serving. However, when we understand His great desire for us, in spite of the fact that He needs nothing, then we begin to see accurately the heart of a loving Father, who gives and serves unconditionally, in order to have relationship with us.

SETTING RELATIONSHIPS UP FOR FAILURE
As carriers of His image, we have that same desire for relationship. This desire is not a need. When we wrongly call it need we immediately become confused, and see part of our need as being met outside the Fathers love. This causes us to place an impossible burden on those we relate to, asking them to provide something that they cannot. When looked at this way our relationships are established from the beginning on a shaky and unstable foundation that cannot stand up under the pressure of real life. These relationships were meant to be an overflow of our life with Him, not a source of life themselves. Our needs must be met in the Fathers love in order for us to ever successfully carry out our desire for relationship with others. Unless we find a place of true intimacy with Him we will never experience the intimacy that we were created to want with anyone else.


DEPENDENT OR INTERDEPENDENT
Another place that we can see a confusion of understanding in our terminology is with the picture of the body of Christ. In Eph 4:15-16 we see that we are to grow up and mature by growing in our trust and dependence in Him who is our head or leader. Based on this picture it could be said that as body members we need each other, but on further examination this is emphasizing that our need is to be connected to the head. Although we are made in His image, we are not God. He is dependent on nothing and we are totally dependent on Him. We, as body members, are interdependent on Him as the Head. To say I am dependent on another member of the body is not the same as saying I am interdependent together with them. If I am dependent or have my need met in another member then they can supply me with something independent from any other source. This is not the case.

PLEASE DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD
When we see our interdependence then we realize that both of us are dependent on the Head and can do nothing without Him. We will work better together and in unity, and this is certainly what He intended, but it is He who supplies what we need. If another part becomes broken, I may feel pain or loss and it may even make my job much more difficult, but it is He who will heal the brokeness or supply another way to get the work done. It is He who causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love (vs 16). If two body parts are separated from the head they may function in some limited capacity for a few minutes, but that function will be spastic and meaningless. This is in fact the beginning stage of death and complete death will occur unless the connection with the head can be re-established quickly. This is a picture of soulish love when body members act outside the leadership of the Father. So interdependence and need are not the same thing. When we say we need each other, meaning we recognize the error in our independence, we are right in understanding this, but we are using the term “need” loosely. Our need and our dependence are really in the Head, because that is the only place life and love can come from.

LIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE
So our relationships will reveal what we really believe concerning these things. The call to walk in the Spirit all the time, in every area, is really a call to walk in the impossible. This is impossible to do for us, but not for Him living through us. If we focus on the impossibility of it we will always compromise and settle for less. In the beatitudes Jesus did not teach us about seeing the inadequacy of our own self-sufficiency so we would be discouraged. He did not call our attention to the importance of mourning over our condition so we would stay sorrowful, but so that we would call out in that desperation for Him to come and do in and through us what we can never do.

This call to walk in the Spirit is echoed again and again through out the New Testament and could be in many ways considered to be at the heart of the message that is being spoken in virtually every book. To really know Him and have that be the motivation and the power behind everything we do – to realize we have no capability to do anything that really matters with our own strength and skill – to embrace the cross until it is really only His life coming through us because ours has been crucified -- these truths are behind everything that is written, and nothing that is written can be separated from them.



ONE COMES BEFORE TWO; TWO ALWAYS FOLLOWS ONE
When we try to reconcile this with our pursuit of relationship, the standard does not suddenly change. It has often been taught to pursue relationship but to do it in a godly way. What does that mean? Every human relationship falls under the category of the second commandment, where we are told to love our neighbor. It is vital for us to understand that the second commandment is an overflow of the first, where we are told to love God with all that we have and are (Tm 22:37-40). The second commandment cannot be done any other way, because it’s impossible unless His love is poured out through us. This only happens as we learn to love Him with an undivided heart, giving up the rights to the soul attractions that are in us – the other loves.

LOVING GOD’S WAY NOT MY WAY
Until we have invested ourselves in loving God this way, and in letting Him become our source for everything, then we are not ready for any other relationship, because we will end up loving our way and not His. We must be the kind of people who can and will lay their life down for another and not fall back into the pattern of self gratification and idolatry that soul love is based on. This is something that He must work in us, and He will, but it will only happen in the context of loving Him with all that we are and drawing our life from Him, even as Adam did in the garden before he fell. This is the way that God created us to love and be loved.


OK. That's great, but how to I practically apply these things?

Prioritize Correctly
Wanting to find a spouse is a God given desire, so it is a good thing in His eyes. The moment that it takes priority in your life, however, there is a problem. If you want to serve and obey Him in and through your marriage, then practice now keeping first things first in every thing you do & especially the way you approach relationships.

Do Whatever You Do For the Right Reason
It is much better to do the wrong thing for the right reason than to do the right thing for the wrong reason. When the heart is right God will often even cover our goofs because He so loves our weak effort. This principle alone would answer many of the questions people have about what is OK for them and what is not. If you do everything for Him and out of love for Him then your life will look different.

The selfishness that drives so many of the things we think, do and expect, is easy to justify if the action looks permissible. If it's root is self-serving however, then it is often doing the wrong thing and it is always for the wrong reason. Your relationships will reflect the way you live the rest of your life so if you want to have a serving, God honoring marriage, start living that way now in the details.

Practice Obedience
This may seem elementary but understand that you must hear to obey. Most of us listen sporadically and don't hear all that well. You must practice hearing if you intend to practice obedience. Start asking about everything, even when you think you know the answer. Dialogue with the Holy Spirit constantly. We do a lot of things on our own, thinking He will let us know if we are out of bounds. Sometimes we do what seems reasonable or logical because He didn't tell us as quick as we wanted or we aren't sure we heard anything. Both of these scenarios often mean that we aren't very practiced in asking, expecting and hearing an answer. While occasionally God will have a reason to be silent for awhile, He is always wanting to talk to those who are wanting to listen and He will teach us how to hear if we are serious about learning. Instead of practicing hearing and obeying as a way of life, we usually wait for a big decision to ask, and then wonder why we can’t hear more clearly. It’s like being put in to play in the championship game when you never showed up for practice.

Don’t start something you can’t finish
While we call what happens in romantic relationships “love”, it is usually a lot more about selfishness. Selfishness destroys relationship while love builds. Selfish love uses and hurts its partner, even if it doesn’t want to and then it dodges the responsibility for its actions. If you start a relationship based on what you want and like, what looks good to you, what makes you feel good and what you think will meet your need, then how will you ever be able to continue it? These emotion and appetite-based results are hard to sustain long term because emotions and selfishness are unstable and constantly changing. Romantic feelings are a gift from God and there is nothing wrong with enjoying them. Just understand that romance and love are not the same thing and there is a lot more to love than feeling romantic. What will happen when something makes you feel bad or you don’t like what you see? Love is well prepared to handle these situations but selfishness is not. Start your relationship and build it on something that will last – something sustainable. It’s much easier to start right than it is to try and figure out how to make it right when you started out wrong. When you start with real love it is a lot easier to finish what you started.

Look AT Him – not FOR them
When you have a deep desire to be married, it is hard not to be looking constantly for possibilities. This approach rarely produces what you really want. To be looking for them means to take your focus off of your only true source of the very thing you desire. This doesn’t mean you should pretend you don’t have the desire. It does mean you shouldn’t treat your desire like it is an unmet need. Tell Him about what you want and about how you feel, and realize that He is your source to fulfill that desire. Fulfilling it any other way will not work as well and often becomes idolatry. Keep your focus on Him and nothing else. As you do this He will prepare you to be who you need to be to serve Him and to serve someone else well in a marriage relationship. When He brings a person of interest into your life, then ask and seek His counsel first, refusing to let them steal a place in your life that was meant for Him. If you approach it this way then you should realistically expect to find the right partner sooner than you would with any other approach. Trust His leadership and be willing to embrace a season of preparation if necessary. He is good at what He does. He loves you and His timing is perfect.

Don't Lose Your Confidence Concerning Marriage
Many people who are pretty solid on a lot of these principles get confused when they have to apply them to finding a spouse. It's like they expect to wake up and find that God created a partner for them out of one of their ribs because He did that once before. Until He does something equally dramatic for them, then they are fearful to look at anyone as a possible partner, because they want to be SURE of His will. Others are much too lax in their approach and do it their way, on their own terms, thinking that anything else is over spiritualizing.

The principles of God's wisdom and His word work well in this area, just as in all of life. The question is how much do we know about applying them. If you ask for direction and talk to Him about the process, committing your desire to Him, then don't be surprised and freak out when someone who seems well suited for you shows up. We have not been given a spirit of fear. Be prepared to move forward with confidence believing that if you ask He will direct you. It doesn't look the same way every time. Hear and then move instead of the other way around. The key is to ask, listen and obey throughout all of it. You should expect a good result as long as you really want truth and are willing to stay in obedience.

What is right or wrong with dating or courting
The terms dating and courtship are thrown around so much, it is hard to tell what they may mean to the individual. Dating, as most people know it is built on a worldly model that is hard to reconcile with a healthy approach to relationship. Biblical guidelines are not just another set of rules to keep you from having something good, but rather a protection from the probability of a lot of unnecessary pain and wounding.

Dating is built on a try and see mentality. For Christian couples who are committed to physical purity, this doesn't seem so bad and it can be a lot of fun.....at least in the beginning. The truth is that there are more problems with dating than just the challenge of not compromising physically.

As we enter into dating relationships, we begin to let our heart go out to another and emotional bonding begins to happen very quickly. When we move forward, even while asking God to show us His plans for our future, we are getting ahead of ourselves in our capability to keep things in a healthy order. The moment our emotions are involved, our ability to hear God also becomes more distracted. Many dating relationships end in a NO from God and don’t move forward into marriage. Even when the relationship is only a few weeks old, at the point of separation there is an emotional tearing that must take place. This can be extremely difficult and painful. Many sincere people waste significant time just trying to get their emotions back into line with what they believe in their spirit is obedience. The emotional divorce that must take place when they break up establishes a pattern that has massive negative implications for both parties in their future. Most people in a dating culture have experienced multiple emotional divorces long before they are ever married.

If we would require of ourselves that we ask and hear God before emotional bonding occurs, then none of this would have to happen. This will require us to trust His leadership enough to actually give Him the important affairs and decisions of our life, instead of thinking that we can do it better. Entering into any kind of relationship without hearing what He has to say about it first is to trust in self-sufficiency and logic more than we do Him. We harvest much pain from doing this.


Courting means different things to different people, but often it is just a little more serious and cleaned up version of what we understand dating to be. Whatever you believe it to be, if it doesn't address the issue of hearing God before emotional bonding occurs, then the result can be just as devastating as dating. God planned something better for us if we are willing to do things His way.

The purpose of marriage
If you start looking for a spouse thinking that they will meet your need, then you have already paved the way for failure. Marriage is an opportunity to serve, to lay your life down for someone else. Unless your needs are met in your heavenly Father’s love, then you will not have the strength to do this. As much as you may want it to be true and as much as romantic feelings make it seem like it should be true, your soul is not capable of really serving anybody very well.

Life on earth is a purification process. It is not an end in itself but instead it is about preparing to live in another age. We will be perfected, refined and prepared to the same degree that we say “yes” to this preparation. This will require waging war against everything in us that is selfish and self-seeking. It will demand refusal of anything that is trying to meet its own need and fight for its own rights. Marriage is a part of this process, not separate from it. When you join lives with someone, the purifying fire becomes hotter and more impurities are exposed faster. More humility is required. There are many wonderful things about having a life partner to walk with. The things that are most wonderful about it are the by-products of embracing the purification. Marriage is a way of turning up the heat, not a way of soothing your soul. If this is done with the right partner who is committed to being purified also, then the bonding of a spirit-to-spirit relationship can produce something amazing. God will even use it to meet many needs, but it is Him who will meet them. Marriage entered into with wrong expectations and a mismatched partner doesn’t change the fact that God will use marriage to refine you. It does however make that refining a lot more painful than it would otherwise be.

For questions or comments, email: lorenfox@ihop.org

Reflection

All we were ever meant to be was a reflection.  If I learn to do this well, then when people look at me they will see His reflection instead.  I was reminded vividly of this the other night as I looked out at the lake.  We had a weekend away for our anniversary and so had a rare opportunity to enjoy some scenic wonders far from the urban jungle.  The place we stayed had huge windows overlooking a beautiful lake so I would spend time each evening looking out across the water and talking with my Father.

The first night I spent time watching the reflections as I looked across the lake.  The many cottages and homes miles away on the other side, sent speckles of light dancing out across the water.  Each light, though small in size, created a spectacular reflection that far overpowered its initial glow.  These reflections reached all the way across a large expansive lake causing their light to be multiplied many times over.  I tried to calculate without success, how high was the multiplication factor.  If you were skipping a rock you could count, but this light skipping time after time seemed like it would never stop as long as there was something to reflect it. I spent some time enjoying the beautiful picture but marveling at the power of reflection.

As evening approached the next day I was anticipating another time of lake watching.  The scene was however starkly different.  When I walked to the windows the absence of the reflections was almost startling.  Not one reflection of light was anywhere to be seen on the panorama in front of me.  I couldn’t believe it after seeing the scene the night before.  I then realized that there was more wind than the previous day.  As the waves were whipped up by the wind they lost all of their ability to reflect light.  The lake couldn’t help it.  A law of nature was at work and there would be no reflections bouncing across the lake tonight.

While the water in the lake couldn’t chose how to respond to the wind, I realized that when the wind blows where I live that I do have a choice.  There is a peace available to me that is beyond natural law and understanding, and it was designed specifically to work well in a storm.  In fact, while peace when there is no storm is a very good thing, it is not necessarily beyond understanding.  God’s peace was always meant for the storm.  The calm before the storm is nothing compared to the calm in the storm.  This kind of calm requires looking at things differently.  It requires you to look straight past the problem and look at Him.  It is a sensible response when we see the situation like He does – when we reflect what we see in His eyes.  

There is always a choice of what to respond to.  If what I see in His face is different than what I see in the storm, then they will not incite the same response. It is impossible to react to the wind and respond to the light in His face simultaneously.  We were created to reflect Him, not the storm.  When the waves start kicking up, we lose our ability to reflect His light across the dark water. There must be calm for reflection to happen.  

Unlike the water in the lake, I can look away from the wind and chose another focus.  I can actually practice the peace and stability that comes from setting my eyes on the Rock.  Paul said that this rock was the anchor for our soul(Heb 6:19).  It is what holds us in place when our mind and emotions (soul) are going crazy.  I can chose to look into His eyes and respond to what I see there instead of being tossed around by everything else.  That sounds good to me without even talking about what it does for reflection.  First we get the perfect peace that comes from setting our gaze on Him (Is 26:3)– then we get the added bonus of being in a position to reflect His light. 

Peace and reflection go together.

If I was meant to be a reflection then I guess I must have 

been created for peace, no matter what the wind does.

Heat or Rain?

As the seasons have been changing, we have turned our thermostat from ‘off; to ‘heat’.  It’s wonderful to walk in from a chilly, windy KC day to a comfortable home.  In the night, however, the heat has brought some confusion to me.  I wake up & hear what I think is rain, thinking, ‘oh, it’s going to be not only cold, but wet tomorrow.’  The thought stays logged in my sub-conscious somewhere so that when I wake up in the dark & dress for the day, I plan accordingly.  Grabbing my rain jacket, I head to the car.  (Some of our mornings get us out of the house before light.)   Yet as soon as I’m outside, it’s as if I’ve been tricked.  The ground isn’t wet and as the dawn is beginning to breakthrough, I can see that it looks like it will be a clearday.  Though it took me a couple of nights to figure it out, the noise I was perceiving as rain, was really heat. 

In a spiritual sense, we need to be aware of the season we are living in.   What we might initially think is one thing, may actually be another.  At the time I am writing this, the November elections have not taken place.  The ferocity of the battle is intense.  The economy is at the forefront of everyone’s attention.   Violence escalates everywhere.

Is this God’s mercy to grab our attention as a nation & make us aware of our idols of money & power & things?

Is this God’s judgment because our nation worships so many other gods?  (Rom 1)

Our intercession has been that we would, as a nation, choose to agree with God.  What a foolish and arrogant thought to set ourselves in opposition to the King and Judge of this world.   Lord, have mercy.

Benefits of being silent

Our small group has been studying a book by Bob Sorge called, "Secrets of the Secret Place".  Tonight's lesson was about LISTENING.  As we spent about 10 minutes, just being quiet and listening to hear God speak to our spirits, I had a picture of 2 things.

First, since I have a little bit of a hearing deficit, eating out with a large group of people at a restaurant is challenging.  I can't hear the conversation very well.  It seems like many times everyone is talking at the same time.  If you are talking, you may even feel like no one is listening (which is probably actually true many times).  lol

Anyway, in this type of situation, if you catch the eye of someone & you know they are listening to the story YOU are telling, you focus right back at them.  You are attentive to them.

2nd.  I pictured the globe from the perspective of heaven (not that I can really do this, but I imagined what it might be like).  God was looking and listening to all the blah-blah-blah that was going on.  Then He saw me.  I was silent and listening for His voice.  Oh, He smiled at me and I had His full attention.  He was pleased and so was I.  

"Lord, teach me to listen always.  I want to hear no one more than YOU.  I want Your attention."

How to get hungry.

How to get hungry??????? 

Actually, most of the time I AM hungry, I don't have to create it.  I want to eat first thing in the morning, mid-morning, lunch, a couple of times in the afternoon before dinner and then maybe a couple times before bedtime.  I enjoy eating.  The more I eat, the more I like it.

Someone in our Prayer Team the other day threw out the question, "How do we get hungry for spiritual things?"  Loren quickly answered with, "Eat."  He sometimes has a sense of humor that many people don't get, so everyone looked at him like, 'what are you up to this time?"  

He smiled and said it again, "If you want to be hungry, Eat."  He went on to explain that when he eats sugary foods, his appetite for sugar increases.  When he eats more fruits and veggies, his appetite for those things increases.  

The same applies for our spiritual lives.   We too often starve ourselves .... 

• not eating the Word of God or 
• not eating of worship or 
• not eating of fellowship with passionate Christians.  
  

Then we say, "oh, I just don't FEEL like reading the Word or going to church.  I don't feel like God loves me" and one it goes.   We haven't had the priority to EAT at His table.

"Lord, I want to hunger for You so I choose to EAT of the things You've set on the table for me.  Thank you for such a feast."

Bubbles

At IHOP, people will talk about the 'bubble' that exists in this community.  Because it is a campus of now about 2,000 passionate Christians, we can have quite a bit of interaction without ever stepping out of the 'bubble', though there is a LOT of taking the gospel outside of this mission base.

I was thinking about the other 'bubbles' that I have lived in.  

• Realtors.  I don't know how many meetings I was at when there was nothing that mattered but what happened in the real estate arena.
• EcoQuest.  This was a business opportunity that I was involved with for several years.  God used it in many ways in my life, but when I got out of the 'bubble' I realized how consumed I was with things that matter very little.
• Baseball.  When our kids were in little league, we lived for baseball.  It was a very positive time of our lives that I wouldn't trade, but it was a 'bubble'.

Bubbles I see other people in:

• Club & bar scene
• Work .... wherever that is
• Sports fans

The list is endless.   The one difference I see with my bubble now is that it has a purpose that is eternal.  

"Lord, as we all live in our 'bubbles' of life, give me understanding for others and keep me focused on what will matter FOREVER, not just for a few years."

Jealous to be Healthy!

I have 2 close friends that I love a lot.  Both of these women are very disciplined about working out .... they even ENJOY working out.  Also, they are conscious about eating healthy  .... they even ENJOY eating healthy!  Though I don't know all of their motivation behind their good habits, I appreciate the fact that they ENJOY it and it shows in the way they look.

All that being said, I admit that when I'm being lazy and undisciplined with my exercise and/or eating habits, I am more aware of it when I am with them.  Though they NEVER have implied that I'm a mess-up because I don't do things like they do, I feel a little jealous and sometimes feel despair that I won't ever get 'there'.

I've seen this parallel in spiritual things.  When I'm around someone who is pressing in hard after God, running a disciplined race to reach the goal that HE has set before them .... sometimes I feel jealousy.  I want what they have, but wonder if I have what it takes to be so diligent.

I've been on the opposite of this equation also.  When I'm the most passionate in my pursuit of God, is it my imagination or do others seem to avoid me or be annoyed being around me?  

"Lord, as I set my heart daily to eat spiritually healthy 'food' and to keep spiritually 'fit', may I walk in humility.  Let others be drawn to You & release the fullness of the truth of your love that draws them to Yourself."

The High Cost of Fuel!

“Drivers putting less gas in tank, then running out”  

“High Gas Prices Have More Drivers Running on Empty”

These type of headlines are in the news everyday.  I had to fill up our car with gas today!  Ouch .... $3.99 a gallon !  It takes a lot of money to get from one place to the other these days.

I was thinking about how true this is in a spiritual sense also.  It's costly to stay FULL spiritually.   It requires that I go to the 'pump' regularly so that I don't run out of gas between the places that I go.  So often, we've not even looked at our spiritual 'gas gauge', naively thinking that if we don't acknowledge our depravity, we can get by with it, yet we run out of gas.  We end up hopeless, angry & irritated.  Not only can't we get anywhere, we can't take anyone with us.

"Lord, I choose today and tomorrow & the next day & the next, to come to You who alone can fill me up so that I can go somewhere both now & for eternity ....  & take others with me."

Play Ball!

Our family went to the Royal's/Cardinal's game earlier today. Cooper (20 months old), was sitting beside me & as he squirmed and wiggled trying to stand up on the seat, it folded up on him. His leg went down between the seat and the back. He pushed on the seat with his hands to try to free himself, but of course, this just squeezed his leg & hurt. He started to cry until I wrapped my arms around him & told him, "It will be OK. Papa will get you out."

Cooper, in his young wisdom did what many of us struggle to do at times. He listened, he believed me and he rested, patiently waiting for me to do what I had said I would do. The fact that he rested in what I said & quit struggling made it a lot easier for me to get him out. It happened quicker & with much less pain than if he had continued to insist on doing it his way.

"Lord, help me to listen and believe & trust you like that. My self reliance has never gotten me what I really wanted, so show me how to rest in what you are doing & how to move in sync with you."

The Stare Game

I was in the prayer room earlier today & finding it difficult to be still in my heart & mind.  A picture came to my mind.  

I was sitting as a child on the lap of Jesus & we were playing the 'stare' game.  You know...  when you look someone straight in the eyes and the 1st one to blink or turn away loses.  

Well, naturally, Jesus always won at this game.  But each time I would look away, He'd smile at me & say, "Let's play again".  I would gaze into His face once again, watching as He smiled at me.  Never able to out last His gaze or His smile, I would always look away.  Yet, in the process of playing this game, I noticed that He was always smiling at me..... when I was looking at Him and when I fidgeted & looked away.  He said to me, "I love it that you keep coming back to gaze at me again.  You smile & it stirs My heart."  WOW!  Now I want to gaze at Him more & more.

"Lord, thank you for teaching me profound truths in simple ways that I can understand."

Making the Bed

It was 7 AM & I was making the bed before going to meet my prayer team in the Prayer Room at 7:30 AM.  I knew we would be gone essentially all day and the thought crossed my mind, 'Why bother making your bed?  No one will see that it's not made.  Loren will not care and you'll just climb back into it tonight.'

Immediately, I sensed the Holy Spirit speak to me saying, "I want you to clean up the things that no one can or will ever see.  I not looking for everything to just look good on the outside, with the yard all manicured, but I want a place that I can come & rest .... inside, where no one sees."  Of course, He was not speaking about my house, but my heart.  

"Lord, I choose to pay attention to the things that NO ONE but you can see:  my attitudes & thoughts & motives.  Change my heart."

Mono-vision

It's been awhile since I've posted.  We kept our Grandson, Cooper last week so he could have a vacation.  Since his parents didn't know what they would do without him, they decided to go on vacation with some friends to Florida.  We all had a great time.  Cooper is absolutely GRAND!  However, that explains why I didn't have any time to post my thoughts. 

Yesterday I had to go to the eye doctor.  I had recently gotten a new subscription for my contacts.  Though I've worn mono vision lenses for several years (one eye does the distance while the other eye does the up close), my new subscription wasn't right.  My reading was greatly improved, but I couldn't see road signs very well when I was driving.   I wanted BOTH.  I wanted to see what was FAR off and what was NEAR, not choose one or the other.

I realized how often we settle for what is NEAR, the short term vision in life.  I want the ice cream, so I forget about the long-term goal of my health & weight and eat it.  I want to justify being irritated because things didn't go the way I expected, so I forget about the goal of 'doing all things without complaining".  I want to be angry about the way someone cut me off in traffic, so I forget about following Jesus' example of laying down His life and choosing humility.

Lord, clear my vision.  I want to see 20/20.  I want to see near AND far.  I want to see not just the temporary things of this life, but the eternal things of the Kingdom of God.

Comfortable to Uncomfortable

This morning I had to get tags for our pickup.  The KS tags were expiring & the process of becoming a legal Missouri resident could not be avoided any longer. 

The process at the Dept of Revenue is always interesting.  Will I have all the detailed information they need?  How long will the line be?  How much money will it cost?  Today I went in totally prepared.  Though I was # 29 in line, when I finally got to the front of the line, I had all I needed.  (now THAT is a miracle).  

As I waited in line & reflected, I was keenly aware how dramatically my life has changed in the past few months.  Not long ago, I was living in my dream home, living very 'comfortably'.  

What drove us to de-value 'comfortable' and go to uncomfortable?  Many don't understand why we chose this dramatic lifestyle change.  It all comes down to this:  I want it to be about loving & obeying God, not about comfort.  When I choose obedience, the uncomfortable can become preferable.  That's the way the Kingdom of God works.  It's upside-down & I love it.

"Lord, thank you for being able to absolutely enjoy living in a place that is uncomfortable.  I choose to obey You today."

Energy comes from exhaustion

Over the past week, we had 3 different group events at our home with about 45 people coming & going between them.  By the end of the weekend, I was pretty tired.

Before the night was over, however, we got a phone call from a couple who had been through earlier in the week with one of the groups.  They asked, "Can we come over & talk to you about our marriage?"  All of a sudden, there was some energy & anticipation back into my body.  This is why we are here, why we open up our home, why we stay up too late for our age, why we clean up the house before and after, why we serve!  

We know that God has and IS doing some miraculous things in our lives and in our marriage.  We are so grateful for the opportunities to be able to share His life & hope with others.  The group activities may be fun & relational, but our motivation for having them is for the purpose of ministry.  Ministry happens most effectively from relationship.  

So as this week starts, I am asking God to guide us DAILY to people.  I believe that my purpose is to connect people.  This may happen through a cook-out to establish relationship.  But I want them to connect to Jesus.  When we are living out the 1st commandment to love God with all we are, the 2nd commandment to love others will be a natural overflow.  

Lord, thank you for the life and hope you have restored in me.  Keep coming & changing me so that I will love you more.  It's from this place of love that I know I will be able to love others best.