Weather Face

         

Perhaps you are like me.  I turn on the weather station each morning while getting ready for work to know what the day holds. Then I can better prepare to dress for chilly temperatures, or a warm sunny day.   

Perhaps the forecast predicts it will be overcast, or rain showers will move in during the afternoon. Perhaps you have experienced one of those days that suddenly turned blustery, or unexpected sleet and ice began to fall from the skies. I’ve listened to weather that warned me to pay attention in case of a tornado or hurricane warning that could be posted throughout the day depending on atmospheres or colliding fronts. In fishing communities, those who earn their living on the high seas check to see if there are high wind warnings posted.  These are just some of the weather situations we can experience day today. What do you do to prepare for the weather in your daily routine? 

The question made me ask myself if I was as equally concerned about preparing my face in my daily routine for the weather life or storms of the day?  What was my weather face?  What was my face was reflecting to others on a daily basis; to children, my spouse or co-workers, that particular someone who cuts me off in traffic, or those who are serving me in the retail or restaurant establishments?

 

Although I do not have small children at home now, I am privileged to be around many moms who do an excellent job of wearing a sunny disposition weather face as they encourage, guide, and nurture their children; regardless of the spilt milk, the messy food tray or the gift from a budding artist’s picture on a newly painted wall.  However, it is also fair to ask the question; is there always a storm brewing on your face as you address the challenges of many teachable moments each day to your children?  Does the lack of sleep create a monster storm that shows up on your face with anger and impatience? Or, is your weather face reflecting sunshine and warm breezes that children are one of the greatest joys in life regardless of the gales we moms also endure? 

 

I have a weather face that I carry to work each day. My face is exposed to many people in the community, at church, school or college. I love to visit new restaurants, and I also do my fair share to keep retail stores in business.  But, there are those visits to these establishments where things do not always go as smoothly as one would hope; the food is delivered cold or not cooked properly; my drink needs to be refilled but is ignored.   Perhaps I have tried on dozens of different shoe styles at the mall and have rejected them all.  I finally find the perfect pair of shoes, only to have the sales person report they do not have it in my size!  Hmmm, does my face reflect the blustery clouds of frustration and dissatisfaction or exude the chilly expression of disappointment as I leave in a huff?  Perhaps that sales person needed my weather face to share a moment of warmth as they dealt with losing sales commission that impacted their paycheck.  Checking the conditions, my weather face could restore hope that their day will be one of joy. That one person could experience fair weather actions of kindness, compassion and care for their well-being, all because of a person who intentionally prepared their face for the conditions of the day.

Does our face identify us as a stormy weather person?  I am guilty!  I have caught myself with those harsh frown lines and scowl on my face in my rear view mirror after another driver cuts me off in traffic. Anyone could tell a storm was brewing by the look on my face.

There are days when I am a tornado weather person!  Those days include the need to be focused on a task, but I find myself too overwhelmed by the long, unending “to do” list?  Those are the days my weather face looks strained.  I have pinched lips and appear frazzled. There is persistent pained I dare you - “do not ask me to do one more thing” darkness in my eyes. My tornado weather face reflects that I am too busy!  As a result, I might be pushing people away as a result of the stresses and strains in my personal life that day.  What good can I do if my words are negative to match my foul weather face?

          This morning I looked out my window and saw that is was misting and the temperature was registering about 40 degrees.  I felt myself shiver a little bit with dread as I thought about leaving my warm home to go outside to travel to work in the rain and cold.  Because I was thinking about this topic of my weather face, I considered the fact that I could wear that same dread on my face promoting negativity, gloom and doom, and dread by my face and/or my words.  It provided pause to consider whether the housework, or being a wife, or co-worker, has become a “woe is me” day to day drudgery. Do those responsibilities just depress you or me?  Do other people around us just dread and shiver when we bring our cold weather face self around? Or do express and release God’s joyous plan in the duties we can find as a wife and mother; even when we must let go of our personal plans.  Instead, because of allowing God’s Holy Spirit to guide us, we can chose to turn those foul weather face days into those sunny weather face days as we serve family, our husband and children, or our co-workers. 

My best fair weather face days are the ones I prepare for on a daily basis through morning prayer, reading the Word and spending time in meditation. I am then able to dress appropriately with the armor of God and put on a sunny face and disposition.  In checking the spiritual weather patterns of life, we can receive the peace that surpasses all understanding through Jesus Christ. I hope you catch my weather face reflecting an infilling - tilted toward heaven taking in the “son” while admiring the few wispy clouds; enjoying slight refreshing breezes of the Holy Spirit and the “just right” temperatures of His eternal presence!  What will your weather face be today?

He Never Gives Up on Me!

      

              I have begun the New Year joining many churches and their members on a journey of a 21 day fast.  Today I was considering the question a favorite author/musician asks her listeners in one of her songs, “Have you languished long enough that you have learned the dance of hope?  Have you sat in silence long enough that you can delight in His quiet delay?  And, have you suffered long enough that you have found the riches of His unending mercy?  And, have you waited long enough to discover you have wings to soar?” (Kathi Wilson, 2009, Sweet Surrender) 

 

                As I was listening to the questions of the artist’s song, I began to think about Isaiah 40:31 “But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (NKJV).  How awesome it is to rest in the palm of the Father’s hands and from that position in the Spirit, discover that He gives us wings to soar and experience the real joy and satisfaction of knowing and trusting Him.  It is crossing over from my darkness and weaknesses into His world of light, freedom, truth and love!

                As with the artist above, I have asked the Lord some hard questions to begin this  new year – and He has asked of me to “settle it” within my own Spirit.  As I have answered questions based on His love of me, I am slowly learning the dance of hope.  I have sat in delay of words spoken over me regarding a call in my life – and yet already through this fast, I have found peace, not quite delight yet, but peace in the silence I experience.  And I have found the riches of His unending mercy wrapping me up in the palm of His hand, regardless of whether I yet have the answer or not.  He has me!

                So today, I bask in knowing that when I was yet unloved, HE loved me.  I John 4:19. 

HE chose me before I chose Him.  Ephesians 1:4

Last night I stood together with others in my own church sanctuary as we sang the words that remain - God’s love never fails, never gives up and never runs on me… It goes on and on and on – overwhelms and satisfies my soul…(Jesus Culture – One Thing Remains).  I was but one who became satisfied in my soul and overwhelmed in the magnitude of His love as I basked in His loving presence that moved into the sanctuary.  How thankful I am on this day # 2 of this fast, to experience that there is a God who is moved when I am moved, who loves when I love, who hears when I call upon His name – there is nothing that will separate my heart from Him and His great love.

I am excited to be reminded that even before earth was created…as the Creator, the Word hovered in darkness and brooded – He was thinking of me – and designed me and made me to do good works in Christ…the works that were prepared before the making of the world (Ephesians 2:10).  It is only day two of the 21 day fast, but I am excited to draw closer to Elohim.  But, this I know today… God made each of us in His good pleasure; He chooses us; God is always with us and never fails; He has named us and calls us by name; He has called you and me; He has saved us! 

From this very source and understanding, I find my center, my joy, my strength in choosing the joy of the Lord – it is my Voice – to share with others.  How awesome is His truth.  How awesome is it to be overwhelmed by the Lover of my Soul.  I look forward to being lit up with the love and hope of Jesus Christ during this 21 day fast as I seek and draw near. I know it will transform me and overflow me, so that others might also benefit from that extravagance.  How about you?  How’s your journey in drawing closer and obtaining a deeper awakening to His great love and being overwhelmed by it?

Lioness Arising - Lisa Bevere

Author Lisa Bevere has written a book that is full of encouragement.  What woman can resist the charge to "Wake Up and Change Your World." 

Excellent Read!  Let me know what you think after you have read the book.

Gift of Healing-Asking Voice

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit – 1 Corinthians 14:1

So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church – 1 Corinthians 14:12.

4-11 God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues.
All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. (The Message Bible.)

I love these verses and their promise to create fullness and wholeness in my own life. Just as importantly, I can be used in wholeness by the Triune to function where ever he calls me to “Go. Make disciples. Heal the sick. Cast out demons.”

I have been giving thought to the belief that some hold to that they can only have 1 gift from God to function in. I am not sure that is the truth God would have me believe. For instance, many have said to me, you have a gift of wisdom, or wise counsel. I have an ability at times to make the complex simple and clearer in understanding. As I mentor and coach, many have a found they can give me simple trust as together, they are guided on their personal journeys with Jesus Christ. I have seen and participated in the miraculous acts of people being saved; seen people freed from demonic oppression and have discerned spirits – both good and evil. I have both spoken in tongues, and I have interpreted tongues. I have prayed for healings, both spiritual in nature and physical in nature; and have seen some healed and some that were not healed both spiritually and in the natural. These are all the gifts. Some of these I walk more strongly in, but I have been given the privilege of functioning in all of them at one time or the other.

Over the years, I found that I was very impacted by my youngest brother’s death at the age of 19 in an automobile accident. Of course I prayed that he would come out of the coma he had been in, and not have brain damage due to the severe trauma he had suffered. We saw many young people come to the Lord during the wait in the hospital through prayer. We experienced an outpouring of love through prayers of our church body over the course of 3 days while waiting within the hospital walls. My mother saw an angelic couple that offered her words of strength and courage to sustain her loss of her youngest child as she made the decision to turn off all life support after he was declared brain dead. The greatest impact however of his death, was in the resultant loss of belief and faith in healing, and my decision to withhold the gift of healing by my laying hands on someone and asking for their healing…adding faith together to come into agreement. My smoke screen for this belief? I must not have the “gift” of healing since my brother died.  All the good that was manifested in so many gifts we experienced that few days in the hospital, but I reverted to the negative – God did not answer prayer for healing and restoration of life for my brother – where was He? Why?

Now do not get me wrong – I know it is not ME that heals. It is only by the ONE whose stripes we appropriate to be healed, as a result of the finished work on the Cross, which makes it possible. But, the requirement is that I am invited and am seated in the heavenlies, with ALL authority that has been given to me as a Believer; whose identification is Christ in me; I have the responsibility and privilege to lay hands on the sick – whether physical or spiritual in nature – and ASK for healing – because of HE who is in me. It is the model He gave to me, stating, “AND you will do greater things than these.”

I am supposed to be eager for the spiritual gifts manifesting in my life and eager for gifts that build up the body. So, where do we get mixed up thinking that we can limit what God is doing, when He does it, the way He wants to do it? I want to be very careful not to limit God with His limitless potential in my life. I want all the gifts He wants for me to have. And that “all” may be that in HIS fullness, I walk with more than 1 or 2 or 3 gifts. But I function in them when God activates and provides what is necessary for any situation, circumstance or opportunity I find myself in while ministering.

What I found recently in examining my brother’s death so long ago, was that I had a root of fear that made me question stepping out and praying for healing…because maybe my prayers would not be heard, or the person would not be healed and per chance…I would have egg on my face because “I” failed – and my fallback experience was that my brother died after I and so many others had prayed for him. That one experience was trying to negate the other years of seeing so many others who have had cancer, be healed. Heart problems that were healed and surgeries were not necessary because of prayer. Demonic oppression was healed – because I asked in “HIS NAME.”

My point as I write this blog is this – the enemy has tried to kill, steal and destroy VOICE. This reluctance to speak aloud a prayer of healing for emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental or in the realm of healing sickness – is another way the enemy wants to limit God’s potential – the VOICE He has released and gifted within us. The enemy wants to limit the “when two or more are agreed in His name by VOICING and requesting the will of heaven to be released upon this earth – those possibilities! And He wants us to ask, regardless of what we may believe the outcome. I have come to understand that when requesting healing for a believer – they WILL BE healed, in Jesus name, either on this earthly side of heaven or when they enter the Promised Land to be healed for eternity. Praying for healing is one of the best win-win situations I have ever had the blessing to lend my VOICE to be part of.

Andrew Murray, a great man of God has written for our edification: “The Lord Jesus, who in His love is to unspeakably near us, is the Almighty One with whom nothing is impossible.” God says, “For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.”
2 Corinthians 1:20 (NRSV).

Healing is included in that YES. And it is given to me as a gifting. It becomes more precious and priceless as I respond with VOICE to ask for healing in His Name.

Contagious Joy

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. Thank you John Wesley, Theologian. You remind us that God is issuing you and me an invitation to celebrate - whether in the midst of challenges in the valley, or walking up the mountain to see it from His perspective.

Celebrate today's blessings - the ones that are right in front of you....your husband, children, parents, people you work with, those who serve you this time of the year in retail and restaurants who are doing their best while being overwhelmed!

Be contagious in your celebration, in your joy - it is your salvation...and your example could make the joy of salvation someone else's also.

Truly - make it a Merry Christmas through the presence, contentment, gratitude, joy and thankfulness that is within!

Workmanship

“How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable!” Psalm 139:17 NLT

You and I are so desperately loved by God. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ, HIS personal treasure of great value, as payment for our life. How deep is the love of God the Father! Regardless of our enmity and rejection, God still sought you and I, relentlessly pursuing us, through His eyes of grace, mercy and compassion for each of us.


In Genesis 1, notice Elohim in His creative ability, and then He breaks into poetry about His crowning achievement: “So God created man in his own image, In the image of God he created him; Male and female he created them.”

Paul states in Ephesians 2:10, “We are God’s workmanship.” The Greek word for workmanship used by Paul was the same source of the English word poem. Humanity – man and woman together – were God’s master poem – created by the poetry master himself with precious thoughts for our purposes and our destinies; plans to give us hope and a future!


Psalms 139:6 (TLB) states, “This is too glorious, too wonderful to believe! I can never be lost to your Spirit. I can never get away from my God!


Because of God’s precious thoughts about us, that we can never, ever be lost or get away from Him, we can have confidence in His mercies. Even if we think He is a long way from us, He is faithfully quite near.


He has set His glory in and above the heavens. We see His glory as flames from the sun and stars. He is the center and soul of every sphere, of which we are included. Because of His loving heart, our God is always near. Yes, how precious are His thoughts for each of us. We can only love Him, because He has first loved us. I John 4:19 (KJV).

Love this question…What is God’s absolute principle that should guide all our thinking concerning gender reconciliation between men and women? It is equality – absolute equality.

Pondering today what is modeled for us in the Godhead between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – Equality – with no hierarchy in the Trinity, only absolute equality states Vinson Synan from “Women in Ministry” Ministries Today (January/February, 1993), 46.

What was laid down in the Garden of Eden when God, Elohim-a plural unity – created man and woman in His image? Equality. Elohim spoke out of the darkness that He hovered in…and spoke creation into existence – including man and then woman. It was voiced they were both to have dominion, to be fruitful and multiply – both were necessary and valuable to the process of the ability to create life, and have voice!

What absolute is never contradicted in Scripture? Equality.

In early history, from the book of Genesis, people decided to build a tower. There are towers built every day today, but our towers are more subtle than the Tower of Babel for instance. Our modern towers are hierarchies, pyramid charts, and structures that appear to give some people more value than others. Our hierarchical structures begin in pride and self-assertion, not in God or His Word, and then end in injustices based on religion – not Christianity.

Even in Satan’s original temptation to man and women in Genesis 3 – “you will be like God” – suggested that they should assert and elevate themselves. Refuse this temptation! We all have equal value, even though we have unique personalities and different giftings, callings and functions. God created each of these. His integrity determines value and place within the Kingdom. I am reminded often of the Parable of the Talents…will I, as a woman, be a good and faithful servant of all that God has called me to, anointed me to – that I may give a good response when standing before Him being judged as to why I did or did not, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit – regardless of those who have differing views on a volatile subject matter dealing with women and their role in ministry in this 21st century.

God set up a human judicial system in Exodus 18 out of necessity. He gave certain people control over others based on need for order in a sinful, imperfect world. He set authority in earth, whether parents to lead families or leaders for the church or leaders for government, because we have practical need of them to function. HOWEVER, we should not confuse function with value or permission to set limitations.
Each of us is valued before God – and I for one want to walk copying the loving, humble pattern given by the Trinity and backed up by the Word of God. Jesus taught me to wash other’s feet and to serve others. This principle should rule in the Body of Christ and ultimately in every society and every nation: the absolute equality of male and female to serve others as they Go – Preach the Gospel, making disciples where God takes them. Humanity - made in the image of God. Jesus payed the supreme price on the cross for male and female – souls that He deemed are valuable in all kingdom work – so that all might do His will and follow the same call.

…Considering that as the righteous remnant brings their lives into line with what God shows, modeling truth as salt, and teaching others His light through love of equality – the World will respond to the love. More and more individual’s lives will be transformed as the church. Then the nation and world, become more influenced by laying down their opinions, and raising the banner of truth – truth that sets us free – as society grows in grace and knowledge, attaining peace, freedom and prosperity for all. This is God’s absolute for us all.

I for one must respond toward God's purposes, and not quenching or grieving the Holy Spirit at work...but responding in God's truth and not always what the majority of people might believe.

God, YOUR grace still amazes me. Your love is so pure.

Reference:
Cunningham, L. & Hamilton, D. (2000). Why Not Women? Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing