GROWING SEEDS:: Tell Your Heart To Beat Again

This week just completed the 17th year of 9-11 memories.

 

You're shattered like you've never been before

The life you knew....in a thousand pieces on the floor

And words fall short at times like these

This world drives you to your knees

You think you'll never get back

To the you, you used to be

 

Who of us walked through this week without remembering all the families torn apart by hate 17 years ago?  Hate.  Hate for the lives of Americans.....Hate for what we stand for....Hate for the life we live....Hate.  Pure evil.  Satan-Hate. 

 

Tell your heart to beat again...

Close your eyes and breathe it in

Yesterday is a closing door

You don't live there anymore

 

We all remember exactly where we were....what we were doing....everything about that day....a fear most of us have never felt before in the deepest parts of our gut.  And isn't that what the enemy had hoped for?  Wasn't that their goal?  But that event also turned a lot of people's hearts towards God......unfortunately, for many, it was short lived and temporary.  Sometimes I feel like we Christians aren't much different from the Children of Israel.  Living our lives for ME....and when tragedy happens, we go running back to God.  In no time at all, we forget the reason we ran into His open arms in the first place.  We go back to our old lives .....our old ways....and we pull away from His arms until the next tragedy happens and then we go running back to Him once again.  Isn't that what the Israelites did time after time after time?  Oh how that must grieve His heart.....

 

Loves healing hands have pulled you through

So get back up and take step one

Leave the darkness and feel the sun

Cause your story is far from over

Your journey has just begun*

And if you still have breath in your lungs and a beat in your heart, your story is indeed far from over.  Remember the person you were right after this tragedy and place God first once again.  Make sure He is above your family, above your job, above your house, above your car and yes, above your shopping addiction.  He paid too high a price to be anywhere in your life but first.  

May we all run back into His waiting arms and never let Him go.

*Song, "Tell Your Heart To Beat Again"

GROWING SEEDS:: The Big Deal About Partiality

The Big Deal About Partiality

"There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others."  

James 2:13

Two visiting families walk through the doors of a church at the same time.  One family wearing their Sunday best, pressed and clean...while the other also wearing their Sunday best, but theirs wrinkled and stained, noticeably purchased from the rack at Goodwill.  Be honest.  Which family do we extend our hand to first?  Which family do we give a tour of the church to, and usher to the best seats in the sanctuary?  Which family do we want to be seen sitting next to?  And which family are we most eager to have join our church? 

Why would we favor one family over the other?  We like to say the ground is level at the foot of the cross, but it's not always level in the church, is it?  We tend to favor people with money and influence because we think they can help us reach our goals and make us look better when we stand next to them.  But James kindly reminds us.....

"Hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith?  

Aren't they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom He promised to those who love Him? 

James 2:5

Interestingly enough, when God chooses members of His team, He usually starts with the poor.  

There's a fictional story about a new pastor who arrived at church dressed as a homeless man his first-week preaching.  Since no one had met the new pastor, he could mingle unrecognized with the congregation before the service.  He watched the reaction of his new congregation to him as a dirty, stinky homeless-looking man and saw how, although the church was full, he found himself sitting alone.  He greeted people only to be greeted with stares and dirty looks in return.  The time came for the elders to introduce the new pastor to the church.  The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The new homeless-man-in-disguise pastor, started walking down the aisle.  The clapping stopped with all eyes on him as he walked up to the podium, took the microphone, and quoted James 2:8 to his new congregation, "You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: "Love others as you love yourself."  

Friends, being a Christian is more than something you claim.  It's something you live by and share with others.

GROWING SEEDS: Satan Wants To Neutralize You

"Let me be clear....you, (insert your name here), represent a challenge to Satan's plan.  

You carry something of God within you, something noble and holy, something the world needs 

- wisdom, kindness, mercy, skill."

Max Lucado

Have you ever wondered why Satan would mess with a Christian?  I mean, if we are promised in John 10:28 that "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand", why would Satan waste his time on a Christian?  He knows his time to gather followers here on earth is short, so why would he spend what little time he has on something he can't have...Christians?  

"If Satan can neutralize you, he can mute your influence."

Awww, there it is...thank you, Max Lucado, for pointing out the obvious.  When pain and strife continue to smack you in the face....when darkness falls all around you....when evil is creeping into the crevices of your soul, remember; if Satan can scare, discourage, depress and quiet you, he can STOP your influence. 

It's a clever plan, really.....using shipwrecks in our lives....to stop our voices.  But as Christians, we know its these shipwrecks we have survived, that can be the very life preserver that saves others.  When we make it to the shore after our lives have crashed against the rocks, we are only then able to help resuscitate those in the throes of their own shipwreck. 

Nothing explains this better than the story of Job.  Job's friends were the kind of friends we often are if we haven't suffered - they are more interested in explaining his plight to him than sitting with him in it.  They're incapable of the compassion that would demand them to suffer with him.  Because they themselves had not sat in the dirt of despair as Job had.

Don't let a shipwreck moment in your life go to waste.  Use it.  Tell others about it.  Be vulnerable and wrap the life preserver of compassion and understanding around those who find themselves sinking from their own shipwreck.  

You were rescued....to help rescue others.

GROWING SEEDS: JOB-ETTE

"Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil."

Ephesians 6:11

JOB-ETTE

That's the name someone called me a few years ago as I struggled through a battle with Satan and his little minions.  An invisible war...a fight so strong and exhausting, you wonder how you're going to keep your footing as you climb up that steep hill of despair.  Satan had an advantage; he knew my weaknesses.  He had been watching my patterns and me for many years.  If only I had been watching his as much as he had been watching mine.  If only I had a battle plan....

My Dad's favorite book of the Bible is Job.  Seems an odd book to be a favorite of, but you don't know my Dad.  He's had many trials and struggles and Job-moments in his 90 years of life.  He has a right to call that his favorite book.  And if there had been a book titled Job-ette in the Bible, well....that would have been his daughter's favorite book as well.  

"For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, 

but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world....."

As I see it, we could learn a lot from Job, because the story of Job is the story of us.  Catastrophic loss, by definition, precludesrecovery.  It will transform us or it will destroy us, but it will never leave us the same.   God gave us the ability to know the enemy, as well as the enemy, knows us.  He has personally handed us His own tools...His own armor....and given us the strength and WILL to win this battle.  So why do we so often head into combat with Satan without a game-plan?  You can sure bet Satan has a mapped out strategy.

So the next time you feel dirt thrown in your eyes or the words "Give Up" in your ears, head to the War-Room.  Buckle up that belt of truth around your waist and place the impenetrable breastplate of righteousness over your heart.  Pick up that shield of Faith that will protect you when the arrows of Satan's wrath head your way.  Place that helmet of Salvation over your head where nothing can mess with your mind and secure with velcro that sword of the Spirit.....the Word of God....firmly in your hand.

And lose the white flag, for goodness sake...YOU'RE GOING TO WIN THIS BATTLE!

GROWING SEEDS: Heaven .......101

"Has this world been so kind to you 

that you leave with regret?

There are better things ahead 

than any we leave behind."

C.S. Lewis

I love dreaming about Heaven.  Seriously.  I have thought about and visualized what my life in Heaven will be like every-cotton-pickin'-day for the past ten years.  

Heaven.  Do you ever just sit and visualize yourself there?  Can you picture that exact moment when you go from here to there.....when that last breath has left your lungs and you travel past the stars straight into the gates of Heaven?  I picture a reception line of my favorite people who arrived there before me; witnesses to my life cheering me on as I take those last final steps into my forever Home.  And who but Jesus Himself holding His arms out saying, "Welcome Home, Liz"!  

Sometimes I think I can actually feel the skin of His hand as He takes my hand in His and leads me over that finish line.

I worry that most of us are so wrapped up in the journey, we forget to focus on the destination.  Chuck and I used to travel each summer in a motorhome.  We would read and study about where we wanted to go...we would pull out our Good-Sam map and figure out what route we wanted to take....and would feel the excitement as we "anticipated" arriving at this destination we had only dreamed about.  Our main focus was never on how rough the road was going to be or how long it would take to get there.....our eyes were always on the joy of the destination.

And shouldn't we feel the same way about Heaven?  As Billy Graham once wrote, "My home is Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."  Shouldn't we also see Heaven as the goal line?

This world is simply a journey, friends.....it was never meant to be your home.  A new house is nearly ready for you there.  Moving day is coming.  One day soon you will be home  - for the first time.  

 

"For we know that when this earthly tent (body) we live in is taken down 

(that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), 

we will have a house in heaven, 

an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human hands.  

We grow weary in our present bodies 

and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing."  

2 Corinthians 5:1-2

GROWING SEEDS: Do I Go East.....Or Do I Go West

August 5, 2018

"God does not promise to take us out of the 'valley of the shadow of death"; 
He promises to be there with us."
David Littell

We had church in Room 915 of the ICU this past week.   

We clasped hands, just as we do every week in our little church in Mt Vernon, and we each said a prayer of Thanksgiving.....a prayer of Peace......a prayer of Healing....and yes, a prayer of 'Even if He doesn't'.  

When you're at a crossroads......and you must turn left or you must turn right .....go east or go west....and you don't know which direction to go, the only direction to go is to your knees.  And we did just that a week ago today.  

Chuck hadn't been feeling well.....thought it was a cold....maybe allergies...maybe an MS attack.  But when he passed out and his color wasn't right and his skin was ice-cold and his already weak body was weaker, we found ourselves at that crossroad.  Do we go east to the closest hospital 30 minutes away.....or do we go west to his doctors in Dallas two hours away.  And that's when my knees hit the floor of the closet.  "Which direction Lord", I remember praying.  

The phone rang almost immediately.  It was a nurse at UTSW in Dallas.  "Go west", she said.  

And so we did.  We drove two hours to the Emergency Room at UTSW in Dallas where, after many tests, it was discovered this man I married 21 years ago had a very large blood clot in his heart.  IN his heart.  Our cardiology team said they had never witnessed the exact moment caught on a scan of a blood clot "in transit" through the heart..... and time was critical.  They needed to dissolve it immediately or it could mean sudden death.  They rushed him to ICU where they started a procedure called TPA - Tissue Plasminogen Activator - to dissolve this large clot before it could leave the heart and leave my husband dead. 

A team of 20 cardiologists and pulmonologists, as well as his MS neurologists, quickly conferred together.  They watched as the blood clot dissolved through the TPA procedure.  They saw his color return.....and they admitted; they witnessed a miracle.

The miracles were flying faster than we could keep up with them.....what if we had gone East to Mt. Pleasant instead of West to Dallas?  We would be planning his funeral today.  What if the doctors hadn't realized he had existing aortic valve stenosis and not done that echo cardiogram which discovered the unexpected blood clot?  We would be planning his funeral today.  That's the reality of it. The cardiologist said we had maybe hours at the most before this would have taken his life.  Most likely our East Texas hospital would not have done an echo cardiogram on Chuck and never known about the blood clot.

But yesterday, a week later, we came Home.  He's not out of danger just yet.....still has a large 8" blood clot in his leg and several small ones in his lungs....but today, as I type this to you, I'm listening to my husband breathe as he naps in front of me...his tired body grateful for more time.  His wife grateful for more time.....however long that might be.

And all the while......God proved Himself present with us through the valley of the shadow of death.  

"If God wants to perform a small miracle, He places us in difficult situations.

If He wants to perform a MIGHTY miracle, 

He places us in impossible circumstances."

Unknown

GROWING SEEDS: Life Is Lived Forward, But Understood Backward

"Life Is Lived Forward, 

But Understood Backward."

Have you ever felt completely and totally alone?  You could be standing in a roomful of people, yet you didn't exist....no one saw you...you felt invisible.  This was a description of me in the 6th grade.  My teacher at the Christian school I attended had her favorites....of which I was not one.  I was awkward, shy and felt the sting of being an outsider.  

And I couldn't see past 6th grade.  

I've found in the many years since 6th grade that it's not until we've traveled down the road a bit and stood on that tall mountain we just painfully climbed, that we can look back over the valley and appreciate the reason for the rugged terrain we just walked.  These roller coaster, yellow-brick-road life experiences we survive are all part of God's plan.

"In those days you were living apart from Christ.  

You were EXCLUDED from citizenship.....

you lived in this world without God and without hope.  

But God, Himself has brought PEACE to us."  

Ephesians 2:12-14

He saw our loneliness...our exclusion...our need for a Savior...and what did He do?  He adopted us as His own.  He rescued us from 6th grade. He stared into your lonely eyes and said, "You are now part of my family, sweet child of Mine. You no longer are alone."

I look back on that horrible year....and I recall the emptiness, the rejection I felt.  Little did I know that a year later, having survived the rough terrain of 6th grade, I would accept Jesus as my Father, be baptized in front of those who ridiculed me, and have a part of God gently placed inside me.   He placed His Holy Spirit as a permanent stamp of ownership, a promise really, into my soul that day a year after 6th grade.

I was rescued.....and handed the adoption gift of Peace. 

So friend, whenever you feel unloved, unimportant, or unnoticed, remember to whom you belong to. And remember that life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.

GROWING SEEDS: My Adoption

"Even before he made the world, 

God loved us and CHOSE us in Christ to be holy 

and without fault in his eyes."

Ephesians 1:4

What hope and peace this gives me as a CHOSEN adopted daughter of Gods.  He chose me......why....I'll never know.  I'm weak, have a hot temper, impatient nature, and I take my eyes off Him when Satan distracts me.  Why in the world would He want Liz Etheridge? There are so many better choices out there for Him.....

 

"God DECIDED in ADVANCE to adopt us into his own family

by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.  

This is what he wanted to do, 

and it gave him great pleasure."

Ephesians 1:5

I visualize Him coming to the orphanage (this earth).  You and me, abandoned and orphaned children, are standing in a line as He looks us over, deciding which is worthy enough to come live at His house.  I see a coy smile spreading across His face....a  "I-know-something-you-don't-know" kind of smile, and as He looks into each of our desperate eyes, He announces, "I pick you all.  I'm closing down the orphanage and you all are coming to live with Me in my mansion up the hill!  You can call me Abba.....Father.....and you are now my forever child."

 

"He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding....

Ephesians 1:7

He picked us all.....rescued us from a life of abandonment and despair.  But did we, as orphans, also pick Him?  

"If anybody understands God's order for his children, 

it's someone who has rescued an orphan from despair, 

for that is what God has done for us.  

God has adopted you.  

God sought you, found you, signed the papers 

and took you home."  

Max Lucado

GROWING SEEDS: Short Dude, Weird Name, Noticed By God

"Long before Zacchaeus couldn't see Jesus,

the sycamore tree was already

planted to meet his need."

I wish I could remember where I first heard the quote above.  It's been rolling around in my head for years......picturing this Danny DeVito short dude with a weird name in the back of the crowd as Jesus walked by.  Do you see him jumping as high as his squatty little legs would allow, only to see the backs of everyone's head?  

He suddenly remembers the Sycamore tree up ahead and runs to it...climbs up into it as fast as he can.....just in the nick of time to see Jesus coming down the street with the whole town surrounding Him....a town of people that despised this short little crook with the weird name.  He just wanted a glimpse....didn't actually expect Jesus to notice him......after all, he was the guy in town who cheated people....made a life out of using his IRS badge to take their money fraudulently.  But as Jesus approached the corner of Main and Cheater Streets that day, He stopped, looked straight up into the eyes of Zacchaeus and said, "Get on down from there, Zacchaeus....I'm staying at YOUR house tonight."

It always make me smile as I hit the "Play" button of my imagination on this story in Luke and thinking about the part of this cool story we never give much thought to.  That tree.   Imagine what God was thinking as He created that Sycamore tree so many years earlier, knowing full well what it would be famous for one day.  Imagine that without that tree, this story would look much different.

I fast-forward to the present.  I think about all the things God put into place long before I was even born so they would meet the needs on my path now.  He put them there just for me....and did the same for you.  For some it may be a tree to climb to allow eye-contact with Him, or maybe a person stepping into your life story at just the right time.....or for others, it might be moving you from the noise of the city to the quiet of the country where you can hear His voice for the first time.  

God plans these Salvation moments with precision timing......He patiently waits for that day when you will climb that tree he planted so many years ago for such a time as this, look Him in the eye, and hear these words, 

"Today, salvation has come to this house.  

For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost 

(i.e., Lost = You and Me!)." 

Luke 19:9.

GROWING SEEDS: Everything You've Ever Wanted Is Sitting On The Other Side of Fear

"Help, God - the bottom has fallen out of my life!

Master, hear my cry for help!

Listen hard!  Open your ears!

Listen to my cries for mercy."

Psalm 130:1

Can you hear the Fear in the Psalmist voice above?  Goodness...I sure can!  I believe I've said those exact words a thousand times to God.  

So, what do you Fear the most?  As for me, I fear grasshoppers, skin cancer and the possibility of floods.  I fear ignorant neighbors who shoot their fireworks inadvertently at my house on 4th of July and I fear not loving the Lord enough.  

Fear is a big deal in the story of us and God. The commandment repeated the most in the Bible is "Fear Not".  I read somewhere that someone once added them all up, and apparently there are 366 “fear nots” in the Bible — one “fear not” for every day of the year — including Leap Year.  Like a parent, daily, telling their child "Don't do that"...... God is constantly, daily, rolling His eyes, shaking His head and reminding us, yet again, that Fear is the opposite of Him.  

Remember; Fear is the "go-to" tool of Satan.....a tool Satan pulls out DAILY and drops on our path.  It's one of his most powerful tools....and it has the power to kill, discourage, destroy, and crush any thread of confidence we have left.  It grips us by the throat and chokes the very breath out of us.  

So what do we do when Fear gets thrown on our path?  What do we have in our tool bag that is bigger and stronger and will overcome Satan's most powerful tool?  Our tool is called Jesus.  Fear trembles in the presence of Jesus.  It's equal to a good soldier fighting with a silver bullet against an enemy using rubber bands.  

And no matter how fearful we may become, we have the promise....the glorious promise.....that nothing in this world lasts forever (my Dad's favorite saying).   Our time on this earth is a minute-in-time compared to the lifetime of eternity in Heaven.  We have nothing to fear......we have the promise of forever as we head for Home, and Home is right around the corner, Friends.  

Lock-and-load Jesus in your life....and the tool of Fear will be rendered useless.