Pursue, Predicaments, and Panting!

I awake this morning hungry for truth from God. Usually I am hungry for fruit and exercise. I have wandered from my first love in order to deal~ oblivious to the world crumbling around me. I spent the evening with my in-laws as we explained to them our eminent financial disaster. Watching my husband humble himself and seek wisdom spurred something in me that I hadn't felt in a while: HOPE!

I have run across several things in the last days as I wrestled with my self-image and berating thoughts. Praise God for a Lord that pursues me as I flee. Like this quote: "I am here. Seek not to know the future. Mercifully I veil it from you. Faith is too priceless a possession to be sacrificed in order purchase knowledge. Intimate knowledge of Me will teach you all things and be the very foundation of your faith." Have no idea who to credit it to, a friend emailed it to me-it was on her thought for the day calendar and well it was meant for me :)

Here is one that I cringe when I hear: "The man who cannot endure to have his errors and shortcoming brought to the surface and made known, but tries to hide them, is unfit to walk the highway of truth." James Allen Who was he? But, my father-in-law read it last night on my refrigerator and was like wow that's something--and inside I was cringing like "I know" I need to get fit.
Here's a link: http://jamesallen.wwwhubs.com/


Below are two articles that I came across looking for the writer of the first quote about knowledge. Again, for me! Being that you ladies are my "for-life" friends and you have no alternative but to be my friend (wink-wink) I am asking for prayer.

I do not want to live daily cringing and waiting for the next blow from the enemy-I do not want to hide in fear hoping I can make myself small enough that no one will notice (especially satan) I do not want to retreat into the darkness because I feel like a failure in the light--I know God would not have me feel this way--I could write a thousand words on why I shouldn't live this way--if it were any of you I would speak with boldness and proclaim God's sovereignty and truth. and then there is me feeling like "it" is not meant for me.

So as I lift me head to see over my predicaments and I hold out my hand to ask my Father for some living water I see and feel a glimmer of who I once was or maybe more who I thought I was. Good old Psalm 40 is beating in my heart-blood is entering my face so I feel a smile when I think of my Lord--it is hard to explain but lately it has been like I am trying to lift up this big God as I am so weary and weak~~ but I believe Him to have the answers! I believe he has a plan! I know that his ways are not my ways! but instead of LIVING IT I held Him up like a shield protecting me--i don't know if that makes any sense but it does to me.

Okay, so this is getting long and I do want to workout-smile-BUT KNOW THIS! I am grateful to have sisters to go through life with, I am so unbelievably thankful that I have friends that are closer than sisters, I am in awe at the parallels in our lives at times-BUT MOSTLY I just want you all to know that I love you. Pray for me and my family-the enemy surely wants to destroy us all. Let us band together for truth-I don't want to be a weak link in our circle of love--bare with me and speak truth over me. loving you all!

Love me


PREDICAMENTS
by Charles R. Swindoll

Romans 8

Ah, those predicaments . . . life is full of them. Often they are of our own making. Other times they just seem to happen mysteriously to us. Occasionally, predicaments are comical or borderline crazy. Sometimes they can be irritating and troublesome. But one thing is for sure: Predicaments are unpredictable. And embarrassing. And confusing. And really weird.

Like the time I was leading a Bible study at a church I’d never attended before. Shortly after getting underway, I noticed two people (latecomers) standing at the door, reluctant to join us. The woman was much older than the man, so I paused, looked in their direction, and welcomed them to join our group, saying, “Why don’t you and your mother pull up a chair and join us?” Well, you could’ve heard a pin drop. Too late I realized my mistake. She was his wife! Throughout the first part of the session (which seemed like an eternity), I felt like dead meat, and they glared at me like a couple of circling buzzards. When we took a coffee break, they were out of there.

At times like this, I find a measure of relief in knowing that Scripture records one predicament after another. Can you imagine how Peter felt immediately after he had deliberately denied the Lord for the third time . . . then heard that ominous cock crowing in the distance? Talk about embarrassing.

And what about Daniel, who refused to obey the injunction of King Darius. Though Daniel continued to obey God, he wound up spending the night in a den of lions. Talk about confusing!

And who can forget David’s inexplicable actions when he fled from Saul and found himself in enemy territory and “disguised his sanity . . . and acted insanely in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva run down into his beard” (1 Sam. 21:13). Talk about weird!

I’m comforted when I realize that God is in sovereign control of all of life. He not only knows the times and the seasons; He is also Lord of the unexpected and the unpredictable. Our times and our trials are in His hands. Even when we feel embarrassed or confused or do something really weird.

Whether we’re on cloud nine, enjoying His blessings, or caught in the thicket of some tangled predicament, He hasn’t let us go. By His grace, He remains “for us”
(Rom. 8:31).

Remember, He is the God of your soaring spirits as well as
your perplexing predicaments.
Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, Day by Day with Charles Swindoll (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000). Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

LINK: http://www.insight.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8433&news_iv_ctrl=1781



BEING HOLY
by Charles R. Swindoll

Psalm 42

Our fast-lane living these days does not lend itself to the traits we have traditionally attached to godliness. Remember the old hymn we sang in church years ago? “Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord; abide in Him always and feed on His Word. . . . Take time to be holy, the world rushes on.”

We read those words, believe them, and would even defend them, but we sigh as we confess that more often than not we are strangers to them. The idea of taking the kind of time “to be holy” that our grandparents once did is rather dated.

Does this mean, then, that we cannot be holy? Does an urban lifestyle force us to forfeit godliness? Must we return to the “little house on the prairie” in order to be godly?

Obviously, the answer is no. If godliness were linked to a certain culture or a horse-and-buggy era, then most of us would be out of luck! As much as we might enjoy a slower and less pressured lifestyle, God has not called everyone to such a role or place.

Which brings us to a bottom-line question I seldom hear addressed these days: What exactly does it mean to be holy . . . to be godly?

Godliness cannot be confused with how a person looks (hard as it is for us to get beyond that) or what a person drives or owns. As tough as it is for us to be free of envy and critical thoughts, it is imperative that we remind ourselves that “God looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7); therefore, whatever we may say godliness is, it is not skin deep.

Godliness is something below the surface of a life, deep down in the realm of attitude
. . . an attitude toward God Himself.

The longer I think about this, the more I believe that a person who is godly is one whose heart is sensitive toward God, one who takes God seriously. This evidences itself in one very obvious mannerism: The godly individual hungers and thirsts after God. In the words of the psalmist, the godly person has a soul that “pants” for the living God
(Ps. 42:1-2). What matters is the individual’s inner craving to know God, listen to Him, and walk humbly with Him.

Godly people possess an attitude of willing submission to God’s will and ways. Whatever He says, goes. And whatever it takes to carry it out is the very thing the godly desire to do.

The godly soul “pants” and “thirsts” for God.

The godly take God seriously.

Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, Day by Day with Charles Swindoll (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000). Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission