The Most Ingenious Evil Plan of All

Busyness.

Do you ever find yourself in the middle of the rest you have told God you so need, only to find yourself thinking that you SURELY have to get up and go do something?

I'm sitting the outside on my deck after an extremely full yesterday. All necessary things to be done that accomplished a lot not just for us but for others in our lives.
But today the birds are tweeting, the breeze is blowing, I'm in the company of someone I love, my heart is whispering words of release and appreciation for the creation around me, and I'm thankful (or so I think) for the answered prayer of rest on this day. Ahhhhhhh yes. 

And then it begins. You know what I mean. I know you do.

The voice in my head starts saying things like “There's still things I need to get done. Look at that dirty patio table. I should so get some rags and clean that. Wouldn't take but a minute or two. And I think there are enough towels to make a fairly good size load. And the kitchen counter is getting pretty piled up again, maybe I’ll just go in and go through all that stuff for a little bit, then I can really relax”… why IS that???

It’s the idea that each and every moment must be filled, then I will be fulfilled.

It’s the idol of busyness.

And to put it bluntly - it’s satan’s agenda.

If he can keep me tired, busy, distracted, feed my selfish need to be patted on the back for getting something accomplished, and push out the voice of my God calling me to just enjoy moments with Him and the people He has gifted my life with – well, then satan wins the day.

I hate it when he wins. So then why do I let my ears be tickled, and my mind be consumed, by his lies, taunting, and prodding? Because I somehow let myself be trained to feel guilty for not doing enough, not being enough, not accomplishing enough. Its really the most ingenious evil plan of all.

As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”
The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”   Luke 10:38-42

I let satan steal my God moments way too often.

God designs moments for me to hear HIM, be with HIM, learn more about HIM, enjoy the gifts HE has given me in people and His blessings. But I tend to blow it listening to every agenda but His.

When I’m present in the gift God has chosen to give me for the day - HE wins my day - and that’s the only time I win too.

Joyful on the Journey
Marisa 

A Monday Morning Challenge

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

How about a challenge for us as we enter this Monday? Something we can sink our teeth into a little. Are we up to it? I think we are :)

The challenge is this: as we begin a new week in a world that is not our home, that we don't act so much as if it is. This week we will remember that our spouse that just doesn't seem to get us even after all this time isn't our enemy. Our stubborn child isn't. That friend that keeps asking for our advice and doing the exact opposite and driving us bananas isn't. The boss that we can't seem to find common ground with isn't. That person at church that maybe we just had another run in with that left us feeling on edge is not the enemy. The one that walks into where we work with a less than gracious attitude isn't.

Our real enemy, satan the liar, can get us so distracted with all his sneaky handiwork that we take back the reins we let go of before. We then find ourselves praying that God would just get a hold of them, change them, and remove 'the thorn' in our side. (Not that sometimes a person  can't be a thorn - a relationship certainly can. But either way this applies)

Let us make a pact with one another today: To not let the real enemy, that prowls around like a roaring lion seeking who he can destroy (1 Peter 5:8), to not let him control our emotions, and shape how we view the world around us.
This week, knowing full well we may fail miserably at moments (grace will fill those spaces), lets vow to pray for our response to those that are like fingernails on chalkboard. Let's pray and ask God to help us. To help us see them as God does. To remember our shortcomings (quite often don't we get angry with someone because we see ourselves, truth be told?), and that God loves us in spite of them and He asks us to reflect that behavior.
Let's decide that we will keep in mind over the next few days that their own journeys may be very very painful right now, and what we may be seeing are results of deep insecurity and hurt, or from whatever their empty spaces are longing for. And don't our own empty spaces make us behave horribly sometimes? Yes, yes they do.
Lets ask God to show us the planks in our own eyes that keep us frustrated - frustrated enough so much at times that we hone in like beacons on the things they do that we allow to make us crazy, sometimes even exaggerating those actions out of proportion.
And if we know this person, lets determine ourselves to find at least two things positive about them - and mean it. And here comes the biggie - lets find a way to share it with them.
I know, I know. But we can do it. I think its what we are called to do in His love.
The truth is that if we can't find those things we simply aren't looking hard enough... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" Genesis 1:27

We battle a realm we don't want to get drug down into. And that's what we do when we let our feelings and emotions beat us, and we begin listening to the goading and lies of the real enemy. We get drug down to satan's level.

I'm tired of looking around and suddenly finding myself there.
You?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2 

May God be glorified is us this week!

I would love to hear back about how this week goes for you :)

Joyful on the Journey
Marisa

I Want To Be Sure of You

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”

That's exactly how I feel some times. Some days I just want to be sure. Of those around me that I love, and of their love for me. I will awake with a need to know that they are really IN my life. I  sometimes need to be assured that they see me.

Some days, I feel this way about God too. My heart just needs reassurance He is there. I  will find myself with a desperate desire to know that He's ALL IN, that He is for me, that He loves me, and that He sees me.

Do you ever feel that way? Like you just want to place your hand in some ones and know that yes, you are here, and find comfort like Pooh and Piglet?

Write these verses that mean so much to me on your heart for those days that come...

You are the God who sees me. Genesis 16:13

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. Psalm 139:1

The LORD watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love. Psalm 33:18

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. Psalm 139:18

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. Jeremiah 1:4-5

Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. Isaiah 49:15-16

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:16-21

Rest assured... He knows, He loves, He keeps, He sees!

Joyful on the Journey
Marisa

I Am Crushed Under the Love!

I had a conversation with my friend Leslie on Sunday during one of the services we weren't either attending about a sacred echo in my life right now. Leslie has cancer. She has completed 10 of her 12 treatments so far. She has them every two weeks. So she has a really bad week and a good week. Over and over and over. We were talking about God's favor, His blessings, and His application of love in our lives in those disconcerting times (like cancer, loss of a job, a completely broken relationship with someone you love dearly, or ‘you insert your disconcerting time here’). You know, the times in our lives that don’t always leave us with the warm fuzzies at the moment... at first. And yes, on the surface (and sometimes even quite a a few layers down) these times suck! Can I say that? You’ll forgive me if I offend, but it’s a fact. It sucks.

But as we discussed and shared some things on Sunday morning, like Leslies days of feeling so sore and horrible from her treatments, she also shared a revelation she has come to - that she can now share her faith in such a bolder way than she ever could before and that she is thankful for all this!
Wait a minute, thankful for cancer? Yes, she is now thankful for this fight against the disease in her body. Because Leslie says she is realizing, like I am in my own hard journeys these last 18 months, that even while we're still in the midst of our hard places that’s when we can truly feel loved the most – and began to see and feel the warm fuzzies even before the hard place goes away!
Why? Because these cannot happen without the fact that the Potter is at work in us!

So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. Jeremiah 18:3-4

And here’s the catch and the glory of it all... when the potter is breaking the vessel and beginning to rebuild it, and the wheel is turning, and the clay is being pulled, is being stretched, and is being shaped - HIS HANDS ARE ON THE CLAY!

So here is the echo I keep hearing and learning lately - The life more abundant that Christ came to give us sometimes means an abundant stretching, abundant growth, abundant discipline, and an abundant rescue that seems sometimes to take so long because the fact is that it's just not about us anymore - and it never was. True love ALWAYS builds up, makes us better. And His is an abundant rescuing love. It's about others. It's about Him.

So what I am learning even more now is it's about Him lovingly crushing Leslie, lovingly crushing me, lovingly crushing the one I am alienated from, lovingly crushing someone who is watching me walk this journey, and someone watching Leslie walk her journey – and its about Him lovingly crushing you and someone watching you walk yours. And the truth is that in either way or all the above it doesn’t matter, because it’s all about Him, His revealing, His renown, and that sweet abundant love that changes everything!!

Father, help remind me that in the hard places YOUR HAND is lovingly upon me. Even in the sweet crushing. Thank you for the grandeur of your love, a love so all consuming that you allow in my life not only what I sometimes need to change me into the person you created me to be, but that you also give me in it all the honor of knowing you desire to use me to show your faithfulness to others and in the end to show the world what YOU can do anything! Amen and Amen

If you, like me and Leslie, find yourself on the Potter’s wheel today, thank him for His Hand. For the crushing. Thank Him for His rescuing love that is already taking place – we will be beautiful!

Joyful on the Journey,
Marisa

America - Home of Who?

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship.” ~ Patrick Henry

As much as we want to only wave the banner of the first part of this statement, the love compassion and freedom demonstrated in the second half IS the tangible way we can reach others with that gospel. I think we miss the mark in our enthusiasm, so we miss making the most of the opportunities for sharing His love the way He intends us to. The same Divine Love that saved me is for anyone, the same freedoms afforded me by living here in America is for everyone as well, as it was meant to be.

1 Peter 3:8 "To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;"

Ephesians 5:15-17  "So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.

and 

Acts 17:26-27 "From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us."

Amen

Joyful on the Journey

Marisa

Drawing Circles in the Sand

Before I get to far into reading the new selection for the Chick Chat Book Club for August (Unglued by Lysa TerKeurst) I wanted to touch on last month’s challenging book – “The Circle Maker” by Mark Batterson – and encourage you to read it if you haven’t yet. 

“The Circle Maker” begins with the story of Honi, a religious sage in first century BC. Honi was a man who was known by the folks in the village where he lived to have a special and close relationship with God, a knowledge they themselves didn’t really grasp. He had “made” it rain before, and now after a year of drought they were seeking Honi’s help again.
They needed LOTS of rain.
So Honi stood up in front of that village and literally drew a circle in the sand and out loud promised God that “I will not move from this circle until you have shown mercy upon your children.” It wasn’t a challenge to God, it was a vow of faith to stand on a promise of his God to take care of them. He turned several times with his staff making that circle over and over, then inside that circle he stayed.
And it soon began to rain.
The thing is, Honi didn’t know how long it would take. It didn’t matter. He believed God would come to his aid. He knew that He would. Honi knew God well enough to trust He would. Honi wanted others to have that faith too.
The book is full of great stories from modern day ‘circle makers’ Mark Batterson has met, and also his own accounts of drawing and walking circles (think battle of Jericho) are inspiring and challenging. Stories of the miraculous kind – of people drawing circles around some things that others would have long given up on, or maybe not even dared dreamed at all. These made me take a long look at my own dreams, the lack there of in some cases, complacency, procrastination, lack of faith, and weariness I had allowed to set in regarding some things.

I was convicted in my prayer life and fasting. I’m considering the intensity with which I seek Gods answers. And the specificity of my prayers – how often do I actually think completely through what I’m praying for and not give Him a somewhat vague request because I have prayed for it so many times before.
Do I want God to vaguely answer my prayers??
One of the quotes from the book that truly was an eye opener for me was "Our prayers are prophecies, and God Almighty seals them until their designated time."  What if the Israelites had only marched around Jericho six times instead of seven because they got tired and gave up? Imagine being one march away/one prayer away from that audacious answer coming to fruition but you quit just shy of it all – aauurrgghh!!!
So, that’s where you'll find me now, drawing circles. I am standing in two already.  Around someone I love dearly, and a dream I have that I think God has placed in my heart. Things I NEED HIM for. I hope I have what it takes. I know I do because the promises have already been made. The flesh is so weak sometimes though. I am praying for endurance too.
I encourage you to read “The Circle Maker” if you haven’t already – it will change the way you pray, when you pray, how long you pray - both at each time you pray, and sometimes over a long season that may in some cases be years… but if it’s important enough to ask God for, isn’t it important enough to keep praying about it until He answers? To find the promise in it and stand on it? How long are we willing to stand, to pray, if it will show the world that He is a God who loves keeping His promises?!

Joyful on the Journey
Marisa