Using Eye Contact and Body Language to engage the congregation

Genie in a Bottle

For a while now I've been thinking a lot about prayer.  I've been trying to understand how prayer works and what God truly intends for our prayers to be.  There's the age old question of "I asked God for ___________ (fill in the blank with whatever applies to you), and why he didn't answer?"  We ask God for protection and we get hurt anyways.  We are out of a job and get turned away from every interview.  We want desperately for our loved one to be healed and they remain sick.  How do we reconcile that God loves us but seems to be ignoring my requests?  Lately for me the bigger question has become, when did God become my wish granter?


I don't think I did this intentionally, but have I strayed from what God really intended prayer to be.  It's not wrong to take everything to God in prayer but maybe the way we have been doing it is not really what He hoped it would be.  God desires to be in deep relationship with us.  He wants me to share my hurts and my fears.  He also will provide my every need.  Do I trust God to know my needs more than I know them?  Do I desire God's will in my life to the point that I don't need to ask for things but I'm ready to relinquish control.  I get the feeling that prayer goes so much deeper and is on such a level that we cannot fully understand how it works.  But in the context of relationship.  Do I only go to the people I love when I want or need something from them?  God wants my love and my friendship.  He calls me his daughter.  So then how do I pray.  


Lord may my prayers glorify you.  May your will be done in my life and may I be willing to allow your will to work in my life.  Forgive me when I mess up and hurt you and help me to forgive others.  Provide my needs today and help me to be satisfied.  Not to wanting more.   May your kingdom come and may I get to help make that happen.


I love You!   

Separated

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.    (Romans 8:38-39)


So how come then do we feel like we're separated from Christ.  There are times when God feels so far away and that he's left me alone to deal with this life.   Those are the times when I've let my circumstances blind me from the truth that nothing can ever separate us.  Jesus didn't provide salvation for us to take us out of this earth.  He came to make living here bearable.  This life is hard.  We all make choices that we wish we could take back and sometimes we have no control over what happens to us or the people we love.  None of that can ever change the fact that God doesn't stop loving us.  He hurts with us, he grieves with us, he cries with us, but he also laughs with us and rejoices with us.  When I feel furthest away from the love of God is when I need to do everything I can to open my eyes and my heart to his love.  That when everything seems darkest I need to quiet my life to hear him saying "keep your eyes on me.  Don't get distracted.  I love you and will get you through."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPxxzxBK_Eg

Love

When my children were younger James, their father, would help them memorize the Shema.  The Shema says this:   "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)  These commandments are to be on my heart.  To Love God with everything I am.  Then I am to talk about it at home,  when I am out and around town, when I am about to go to sleep and when I am getting ready for the day.  This morning when I was getting ready I thought about what I was going to do with my hair and hoping that my husband had cleaned the kitchen last night.  When I am at Starbucks with a girlfriend we rarely are discussing loving the Lord.  The One who has given us so much hope and peace to live this life really doesn't come up much in conversation.  I really want this to change in my life.  So that the love of Jesus oozes out of me.  That it just overflows from what God is doing in my life. I guess it comes down to taking Jesus into my everyday life.  Living out the normal moments of my life with the glorious understanding and awe of my Savior along for the ride!  

Do we get more than we can handle?

God will not give us more than we can bear.  We hear that a lot.  Often people use it as a way to get through a difficult situation.  Or to give us hope that when life is really crappy we are going to be able to handle it.  I get a verse of the day sent to my email.  Today was this:

No temptation has overtaken you 

except what is common to mankind. 

          And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted 

      beyond what you can bear.                    

But when you are tempted, 

he will also provide a way out 

           so that you can endure it.               

               1 Cor 10:13

So what we really should be saying is that God will never let us be tempted beyond what we can bear.  Even better is that when we are in a situation which is going to lead us to sin, God will provide us with a way out.

What I really was struck with though is that we may be given situations in life that are too big for us to handle.  That overwhelm us and make us feel like we can't take another step.  What is amazing is that we all go through tough times.  We all have moments when we wonder how we will make it.  God is asking to help us.  He's asking us to hold on and he will be there for us.  The promise isn't that we'll never have a problem or situation that is too big for us to handle.  The promise is that when life is more than we can bear Christ will carry us through until we are able to walk again on our own.

Reflecting

We are God's glory revealed.  What a thought.  My life is a reflection of God's glory.  So is my life really reflecting God's glory?  Am I living in a way that shows others who God is?  Last week I heard something that has stuck with me.  It's a simple saying but really holds a lot of meaning.  "Don't just say the good news, be the good news."  I'm committed to my life being the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every action, word, and deed to be a reflection.  Of course I'm going to screw up.  I'm human.  I make mistakes.  A lot of them.  But my heart, my motivation is to be God's glory revealed.  A reflection of his love, his compassion, his goodness, and mercy.  This is so much beyond what I can do on my own.  It's way out of my comfort zone because the reality is this means I'm patient when everything around me is ticking me off.  It means I hold my tongue when that crazy driver cuts me off in traffic.  When I really want my way I'm willing to put that aside for the needs of someone else.   It's in the day to day stuff that this really becomes challenging.  Reflecting the glory of God in my attitude and my reactions.  I don't want to just talk about the gospel of Jesus.  I want to be the gospel of Jesus.

New Year

It's the second day for 2011.  Sunday is my busiest day of the week and it was one of those days where everything worked against me.  My usual response to stuff like this is to freak out.  I'm a stress factory.  I've always been someone who wears my emotions on my sleeve so when things aren't going my way everyone knows about it.  A friend of mine this morning told me not to worry and to just take a deep breath.  It's funny but for some reason God decided to use that one statement to change me.  "Take a deep breath". Calm down.  Slow down.  I can't change what's happening but I can change how I handle it.  Seriously why do I freak out.  This is not the person I want to be.  I want to be the woman who can handle anything.  Who is cool and calm and when the world comes at her she's ready.  More than that,  freaking out is totally opposite to who God has called me to be.  Patient, kind, gentle.....so 2011 for me is going to be focused on not stressing out.  As James said it's the year of Timon and Pumba.   Hakuna Matata!