GROWING SEEDS: "Are You An Orphan or Have You Been Adopted?"

ARE YOU AN ORPHAN
OR
HAVE YOU BEEN ADOPTED?

Growing up, my older brother and I used to regularly tell my sister Debbie that she was adopted because she didn't have the family web toes like we both did.  James and I both inherited our father's web toes on the second and third toes of our right foot and we never missed a chance to remind Debbie she wasn't part of our family since she didn't have web toes too.   She wasn't adopted.....but we loved making her think she was.

But we learn in Ephesians 1:5 that being adopted is a GOOD thing:

"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."

Awwww...the ammunition my sister could have used if she would have known this scripture back then.  It's a privilege....an HONOR....to be adopted. 

Especially by God.

But did you know that not everyone is adopted by God into His family?  There are requirements that must be met before being adopted and being a part of the amazing family of God.  First, you must BELIEVE.....but simple belief in God alone is not enough.  James 2:19 says, "You believe that there is one God.  That's fine!  Even the demons believe that and they tremble with fear."  Belief without repentance...without relationship...without action...is DEAD as a doornail....six feet under...pushing up daisies....hot as Hades.

So often, we Christians think that by simply proclaiming we believe in Christ and yet never getting to know Him, never speaking to Him through our prayers, never telling others about Him, that somehow, that's enough to get us adopted by God. 

Would YOU want to adopt YOU if you were Him?

I have to ask myself that question daily.  Am I living for my life here on earth or am I living for my life in eternity?  How I live my life here on earth will determine WHERE I spend my life in eternity.  God just wants YOU.  And he wants you to want Him. 

That's all.  He wants nothing more than to adopt you into His family and give you the inheritance He has reserved for you.....He doesn't mind if you have a few warts, bad breath or even web toes. 

He just wants YOU.....to want HIM.

GROWING SEEDS: "Let God Pull The Volkswagon"

As I sit here writing this to you, I am preparing to jump on a plane in a few hours and head west to San Jose, CA.  I have been instructed to sit on the right side of the plane, window seat, and look for a cute girl waving at a certain spot on the top of a tall residential building as my plane prepares to land in California.  Sounds crazy, doesn't it?  

This crazy girl would be my cousin, Sheri.  

Sheri has been the voice of endurance to me over these past roller coaster months since my status changed from married to widowed.  She is a nurse...a paramedic....a fire chief, and yet, was forced to watch her own life change before her eyes when her young husband died from a heart attack eight years ago.  She has been a gift from God to me during this time in my life...and she has given me words of hope for what lies ahead.

So I think that's why this particular scripture strikes a deep cord within me:

 "We can REJOICE, too, when we run into problems and trials, 

for we know that they help us develop ENDURANCE."

Romans 5  

Sheri and I didn't grow up knowing each other, but I remember hearing stories passed around the family about how, when she was training to be a fireman, she would attach a pully-device to her tiny waist and pull a Volkswagen down the street as a way of getting stronger and more equipped to handle the load she longed to carry as a fireman.  The pain and strength it took to pull something many times her own weight.  It developed her endurance.

In much the same way, our struggles and trials in this life are our Volkswagons.   We strap on the Love of God to our weary bodies and let Him pull us and our troubles to safety.  He doesn't ask us to do the work of the pulling...He simply asks us to.release the emergency brake so He is able to accomplish this for us.  

And endurance develops strength of character, 

and character strengthens our confident HOPE of salvation."

GROWING SEEDS: 'My Chains Are Gone"

About twelve years ago, while sitting in my favorite chair in the living room reading one morning, I came across a website called "Gently Broken".  As I poured over the contents of this beautifully healing website, I came across the song, "Amazing Grace, My Chains Are Gone".  

At the time, I hadn't been to church in a number of years, so I didn't realize this remake of the Amazing Grace I had known as a child was now a common song in many churches.  And something amazing happened as I heard these words for the first time...

"My chains are gone, I've been set free...

My Savior has ransomed me.  

And like a flood, His mercy rains, 

Unending love, AMAZING GRACE."

These words touched a place inside of me that felt like the finger of God touching my very soul.  It was then that I realized the bondage of legalism I had been living in most of my life.  Much like the earthquake Paul felt while in prison which caused his chains to come unfastened and the cell doors to swing wide open in Acts 16, I felt an earthquake of freedom in Christ I had never felt before.

Tears flowed from my eyes as I found my hands outstretched in front of me, feeling the weight of the heavy chains of denominational rules falling to the floor.  And the chains were replaced with Grace, Forgiveness and Relationship and the knowledge that there was nothing I could "do" to earn my ticket to Heaven...no amount of "works" or "good deeds" could get me an address in Heaven.  I simply needed to Believe and Love the Lord my God with every fiber of my heart. 

"The jailor called for lights, and rushing in (to the cell), he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas asking, 

'What must I do to be saved?'  

They answered, "BELIEVE on the Lord Jesus, and you will be SAVED."

Acts 16:31

Yes, it was Grace that taught my heart to fear that day....and Grace my fears relieved.  How absolutely precious did that Grace appear....that hour I first believed.

GROWING SEEDS: "My Letter To The Graduate"

Graduation Week  

(Originally posted in May 2017)

Dear Graduate, 

As you cross that long stage in front of your family and friends and eagerly close one chapter and open the next, there are a couple of things this old lady whose tassel was moved from the right to the left a thousand years ago would like for you to know:

Be An Individual.  There is a reason you are alive.  This culture we live in makes it far too easy to look alike, act alike and believe alike.  Discover who YOU are.....and don't be afraid to be different.  That goofy graduation cap on your head is a ticket to life.  You can stand out and you can be the change you wish to see in the world.  Learn to fly solo......

Help Others.  We all have a calling in life.  And if there's one lesson I've learned over all others, it's that we are placed on this earth to help other people.  In the book The Original Human Dilemma (2004), supposedly in hell, they sit around a great pot, all hungry, because the spoons they hold are too long to bring the food to their mouths.  In heaven, people are sitting around the same pot with the same long spoons, but everyone is full. Why?  Because in heaven, everyone uses their long spoons to feed one another.  So learn to feed others.  Discover the lesson of helping others....it will serve you well in this life.

Don't Let Technology Be Your God.  As someone who is writing this to you from her laptop with her cell phone charging as she types with buds in her ears, I know a bit about this subject.  Techno-gadgets are merely distractions.....just look around you....even us old people have made our phones our god.  If you are going to make a difference.....put down the cell, take the buds out and spend less time in front of the screen.  Put Real Life First.

Place God as the Driver of Your Life.  Really hear this....NOTHING else matters if you don't have God as your Driver.  You are traveling down the Highway Of This World at a rapid speed.  GET OFF....NOW.  There are exit ramps along the way and they lead to a narrow, difficult and rarely traveled path.  But this path is unlike the highway that leads to certain death and an eternity in hell....the narrow path leads you HOME.  Yes....you will most likely arrive home sore, scratched and tired from the bumps along the way, but you will LIVE to see Home.  

And be happy......that's exactly what God intended you to be!

Now go....jump into that next chapter with both feet!

GROWING SEEDS: "Don't Waste Your Light"

"He Breathed The Word, 

And All The Stars Were Born."  

Psalm 33:6

Picture this...

God...bigger than life...bigger than earth...bigger than the universe.  And He's blowing His breath straight-up into the heavens and making stars.  Like a sparkler on 4th of July, the bright stars are born by the very breath of God.   Can you just imagine??

When I was a chubby little girl with thick glasses, one of my favorite things to do when it wasn't cricket and grasshopper season, was to lay out in the backyard and stare up into the night sky.  I would daydream about soaring past the bright stars, zipping past the man-in-the-moon and flying straight into the arms of Heaven.  I still, at almost 60, daydream about this on those clear starry nights.

But He didn't just blow life into the stars; He blew life into you and me.  He imagined you first...then He smiled and blew breath into your mother's womb.  He always meant for you to be a light.  And much like the shining stars in the sky above....you were always destined to be a light to others.  You see, God doesn't waste His breath...He breathed you and me into being for a specific reason.  It was no accident...it was no "chance" happening.  There was a plan.  There was always a plan.

This little light of mine

I'm going to let it shine

Just as a star is meant to shine brightly as we lay in the grass looking at it from a trillion miles away, we were meant to be that same light to others.  But our light doesn't have to be seen trillions of miles away; it only has to be seen by the stranger at Brookshires, at Walmart, our friends and family at home, school and work, and yes, even at church.  It's our destiny...our one purpose and reason for being here.  To be the light He made us to be....and to love and trust the One who blew breath-light into you in the first place.

God never wastes His breath...don't waste your light.

Let it shine...Let it shine...Let it shine.

GROWING SEEDS: "We Serve A God Who Allows Hurt"

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a roomful of friends discussing each of our "coming-to-Jesus" stories.  It was a spontaneous conversation...one minute we were talking about our grandchildren and what color to paint the living room and the next, we were talking about how we each individually came to be friends with Jesus.

I love conversations like this.  I visualize Jesus quietly sitting at the table with us, whittling wood into a toothpick or something, and smiling.  Smiling cause He already knows our stories yet, goodness...He loves being a "bug-on-the-wall" listening to us share them with each other. 

The more I listened to the different stories, the more I discovered a common-denominator in each of our roads and relationships with Christ.  The commonality was, as our relationships with Christ grew, so did the difficulties, disappointments, and discouragements in our lives.  It was as though the tighter we held Jesus' hand, the stronger the winds smacked us in the face.  I would be amiss if I weren't honest enough to tell you I have wondered, on rare occasions, if whether the relationship was worth it.  I would imagine you have too at some point in this journey...if you're honest with yourself.  

So why are difficulties and disappointments part of the reality of our journey with God?  

Because in the words of one of my favorite authors, Lysa Terkeurst, "If the enemy (Satan) can isolate you, he can influence you.  His favorite entry point of all is through our disappointments (& difficulties).  But we serve a God who allows hurt.  But we also serve a God who uses hurt for good."  In other words, he wants to CRUSH you, sweet friend, by massively discouraging you!

Some time ago, I had a "friend" march herself over to my house and slam-dunk a hurtful comment straight into my heart.  It was like kerosene being thrown onto my already smoldering heart at the time.  But here's the really cool part of this story: Soon after she left, it was as if "Someone" were standing straight-up in front of me and saying:

"That - Was - Satan, Liz".

Please know I'm not calling my "friend" Satan, but I am saying he used her to discourage me...to disappoint me...to CRUSH me with his oversized foot.  And it worked.  For 5 minutes.  

 

When the winds of Disappointment, Difficulty, and Discouragement threaten to blow you off course, step back and listen for His voice to remind you who your enemy is. You might be surprised by what you hear.

GROWING SEEDS: "The Necessity of the Relationship"

When Chuck died five months ago, several dozen women showed up at a local coffee shop the next day to love and support me.  They placed their strong arms around my burdened shoulders and they mixed their tears with mine  They clinked coffee mugs as they toasted funny stories about Chuck and they stood together while they signed their names to a piece of paper around a long table of girlfriends....a piece of paper with a sign-up sheet to take Liz to the Ark Encounter, a life-size replica of Noah's Ark, in the Spring...to do what she and Chuck had never been able to do.

You see, Chuck and I had tried for three years to get to the Ark...but each time, "life" happened that prevented us from getting there.  As we tried once again to visit the Ark this past October, we found ourselves halfway there...somewhere between Memphis and Nashville...when he became ill for the last time.  We were forced to turn around and head back home.  Two weeks later, he was gone.  

As I've toured this incredible Ark in Kentucky with these 13 amazing friends instead of my husband this week, I have discovered a rare love between women.  Not just for me....but for each other.  It reminds me of the 12 men and Jesus who traveled together for several years learning about the value in the relationship...the necessity of the relationship....much like I have discovered with each of these women.  

I have also discovered as I walked through the doors of this Ark, that Jesus truly has been my Ark.  My place of safety and rescue from the impending storm, just as it was for Noah and his family. He is the invisible force...the place we put our Trust and Faith in when our lifeboat capsizes...when life doesn't turn out like we expected or death knocks on our front door.  

And sometimes it takes a confident step of Faith to walk through the tall open gopher-wood doors of the Ark to find Him standing there, offering you safety from the storms of this life...peace from the chaos of this world...and to hear Him saying...to you and to me, "Blessed are those who have not seen....and yet have come to believe."  

My friend, walk through that large open door to your Ark of safety...Jesus; it's your only protection from the storms that are coming. 

GROWING SEEDS: "There Is A Story That Survives Fire"

"Now is our chance to CHOOSE the right side.

God is holding back to give us that chance.

It won't last forever.

We must take it or leave it."

C.S. Lewis

When the steeple finally fell from a burning Notre Dame this Holy Week, it was like 3:00 pm, two-thousand-years-ago on Good Friday once again.  I could almost hear the words, "It Is Finished" as it fell in slow motion and the skies grew dark from the heavy smoke and eerie sadness.  The choir of voices from behind the police barricades...in one of the least spiritual cities in the world...could be heard singing the words to Ava Maria.  At the same time, my atheist friend sends me an email, "Say a prayer for me when you attend Easter service, Liz."  But to "who" I ask... if you don't believe in God?

The Friday He died...the day that changed the world...when the curtain in the temple was miraculously and lovingly ripped from top to bottom and opened the door to Salvation for you and I, oh, to have lived in that time and witnessed what happened that day!  Where would I have been in that crowd, I ask myself?   

Would I have been one of those in the group that yelled "Crucify Him", or would I have been one who bowed my head when I heard Jesus cry out, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing?

Would I have denied Him like Peter or would I have run and hidden like the other disciples? 

 

So where would you have been in that crowd?  Would you have had your arm around Mary as she watched her Son being stripped and beaten, then forced to carry his own heavy cross?  Would you have stared...or looked away...as the nails were hammered into His wrists and feet?   

It's a fear of mine...not knowing where I would have stood in the crowd that Friday.

And today is Easter....a day we remember to stay rooted in His story...because His-story has to become OUR story.  And the words that should burn through our soul every-single-day should be "How am I spending His blood?"  

GROWING SEEDS: Jesus, Have Mercy On Me

Time is ticking...one more week before the curtain is torn...the sky grows dark...and our Savior cries, "It Is Finished".  

It was about this time some 2000 years ago that Jesus and His followers were approaching the city of Jericho just before heading to Jerusalem for the final time.  As they walked along the dirt road with the city in sight ahead of them, they passed a discouraged, but hopeful, blind man.  He yelled out over the noise of the crowd, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

People scolded him for being so loud and annoying....disregarding him as not being important enough to speak to Jesus.  But through the many voices talking, Jesus heard his cries.  He stopped, asked to have the blind man brought to Him, and proceeded to ask him a "Well, duh" question.  "What do you want Me to do for you?" Jesus asks him.

"Lord, I want to see," was his reply.  And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has healed you."

"Of course he wants to see", we say as we sit in our armchairs reading this story.  Why would Jesus ask him such an obvious question?  Could it be that Jesus just needed him to be specific?  Maybe.  But it's hard for me to read this story without wondering what my answer would be if Jesus asked this question of me.  "Liz, what do you want Me to do for you?".  Whoa....suddenly the question becomes less obvious.

I "hope" my answer would be the same as the blind mans.  "Lord, I want to SEE".  Not through the lens of my eyes, but through the lens of my heart and soul.  And I hope Jesus' response would be, "Receive your sight, Liz; your faith has healed you."

You see, Jesus is constantly asking this question of each of us.  "What do you want Me to do for you, (place your name here)?"

How will you respond?

GROWING SEEDS: Grace Covers Sin

April 7, 2019

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. 

But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 

1 John 2:1

For two hours most every Sunday afternoon since January, I have spent it sitting next to a cute little pre-teen in our church's Confirmation Class (i.e., Baptismal-type class for those who aren't Methodist).  They are learning about the importance of Relationship between God and us...who God is (and isn't)....and how Grace covers Sin.

This past Sunday, they were asked to write out the word "SIN" in their own unique way all over a page in their study book..  I watched as my little mentee used squiggly lines to write out in her own artistic way, "SIN", all over her page with a light-colored pen.  They were then instructed to use a dark colored pen and write the word "Grace" on top of and to cover the sin words.  

As I watched her creative mind and hand working together to complete this project, it reminded me of an example I heard by Guest Speaker, Josh Hood, at our last week's Wednesday night service of The Stand.  He explained Sin and Grace this way:

Imagine you are sitting at a kitchen table with a filthy dirty plate in front of you.  The filth on the plate is your sins, your transgressions, your wrong-doings.  Now, imagine God sitting directly across the table from you with a clean white plate in front of Him.  This spotless plate represents His grace.  When we ask God to forgive us of our sins, it's as if He replaces His squeaky clean plate with our dirty filthy plate.  He swaps them right there in front of you on the table.  He takes your soiled and unclean plate full of sins and, in return, hands you His immaculately dirt-free plate.   

It was a beautiful visual of how undeserving I am that he would switch my sins for His forgiveness.  I've heard Grace explained as God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves.  That would describe you and me.

May the grace He has given you today, yesterday and tomorrow, be the grace you share with others.

Amazing Grace!  How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!