GROWING SEEDS: "Disappointment"

"The Disappointment that is exhausting and frustrating you? 

It holds the potential for so much good. 

But we'll only see it as good if we trust the heart of the Giver. 

Disappointment can be a gift from God that feels nothing like a gift at all. 

The Giver can seem almost cruel."

Lysa Terkeurst

CRUEL.  That was the exact word I used when speaking to God this time last year as the rains began to fall and the potential to flood was once again upon me. Yes.....I called God cruel...straight to His face.  The calls and texts had started by well-meaning friends.  "How's the water, Liz?  Where is the water level so far, Liz? God's got you in His hand, Liz".  My answer?  Yes...I truly know and believe this.  BUT...knowing this still doesn't stop the anxiety that comes with "What if...".  It's similar to knowing the boat you're on is sinking and you can't do a thing about it.  It's impossible to sit still and whistle with a smile on.  You start to question whether you actually do have the faith needed to endure....and then you remember, "Wait....didn't God tell me I just needed the faith of a mustard seed?"  Then you Google how big is a mustard seed.

The cruel disappointments of this life....we all know a thing or two about them, don't we? 

The friend finding her way through breast cancer or the wife whose husband just keeps repeating a behavior that is ruining their marriage.  Maybe it's the sudden death of a brother, a lost job, an empty bank account, gray hair roots or broken finger nails.  No one is exempt from disappointment. 

God never promised us smooth sailing; but He did promise us a SURE destination....and what God wants for us is not to AVOID the storm, but to ENDURE the storm. 

My unavoidable storm this time last year was necessary.  God knew that.....although I didn't.  And yes, it appeared cruel to this girl whose faith felt smaller than that mustard seed, but her God knew she needed to deal with some issues about storms that were buried so deep in the belly of her sinking ship, that it was necessary to face the dark storm clouds once again. 

Disappointment can be a gift from God that feels nothing like a gift at all. 

And even as I yelled the words, "Cruel and God" in the same sentence, I somehow knew He was gifting me with disappointment.  My mustard-seed faith was big enough to see me through.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you KNOW that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." 

James 1:2

GROWING SEEDS: "We Are Living History - And We Get to Live HIStory"

 

 

Do you hear it?  The keys of the keyboard clicking this week as history is being documented in our lifetime? 

Do you feel it?  The pain of no paycheck....the nest egg you saved up for your entire lifetime so you could one day retire, quickly becoming a shadow of your portfolio?  The pit in your stomach that feels like you ate an entire watermelon and you don't even have the Coronavirus? 

If you think for a second this is about a virus, think again.

This slice of history we've all been "chosen" to walk through was predicted more than two thousand years ago.  Didn't know that?  It's right there...smack dab in the Bible.  Check it out....

I'm not afraid of this virus nor should you.....but what I am afraid of is that many Christians were caught off-guard by it and didn't know they were told to expect pandemic viruses, billions of locusts swarming East Africa, a barrel of oil being worth less than $0 and that an earthquake in Utah could be so strong it could shake the Salt Lake City Temple's iconic spire, causing the golden trumpet to fall from the angel Moroni’s right hand.  And friends, that's just this week. 

If everything's not okay yet, everything's not over yet. 

I fear many don't know these things.....but desperately need to.

This virus is the least of your worries......if you don't know Christ.  Because when your faith is in the One who writes the story - you can always trust the end of the story.

Have we forgotten we know the end of HIStory? 

*Quote by Ann VosKamp

GROWING SEEDS: "God Is Like A Chiropractor"

 

 

"God is like a Chiropractor"

You’re going to need to keep going back for realignment.

I chuckled when I read that line above in a friend's blog the other day.  Maybe because I myself am needing to see the chiropractor for a dislocated elbow that keeps popping in and out of my life and causing me pain....OR...maybe its because I know, since I've walked this road with God many times before, that when He tells me to "Come and get away with Him", he's not saying, "Just once and you will be aligned."  But what He's actually saying is, "Liz, every morning when you get up, come and let me re-align You and help you through the day ahead."  I guess you could say it's like taking vitamins.....you can't just take them for one day.  You must take the vitamins every - single - day in order for them to work. 

Just as we know a chiropractor brings healing by realigning the bones, muscles, and nerves, we also know that if everything is put back into proper order, healing will take place.

So often we consider the time at church on Sunday our God re-alignment.  It's our once-a-week "fix" trip to have ourselves snapped back into place.  But how do you feel on Monday?  Back to feeling a little stressed?   A little different than you did on Sunday?  It's because you need intentional space with God every day....not just Sunday (or Saturday)!  The key word here is "Intentional".  Yes, reading your Bible and studying diligently will bring you closer to God.  But when You have that private consultation with Him to discuss the things that are hurting you...those big rocks in your life you can't seem to climb over...well, that's called Intentional Time and those are the moments God loves spending with You the most.  That is the doctor-patient consultation time. 

That is when He snaps your dislocated spots back into place.

"Make straight the paths you walk on,

that your halting limbs may not be dislocated,

but healed."

Hebrews 12:13

GROWING SEEDS: "Peace Be With You"

I currently live in a campground.  Walleye Park Campground to be exact.  I sold my house in December to a couple who had spent years of weekends at their cabin in Walleye Park.  We traded houses.  They bought mine....I rented theirs.

And an interesting thing happened last week at Walleye Park.  It had been mostly empty until the world shut down from the virus.  Suddenly, campers started arriving.  Walleye Park started filling up.  Families started living life together and I felt like a bug-on-the-wall of the campers' lives from the view in my cozy rented cabin.  I could see them smiling, laughing, enjoying life with each other in front of their campfires and fishing off the shore.  Life as they knew it may have shut down, but they ignited life once they hit the Park.  It was such a contrast to what I was seeing on Fox News or CNN.

I saw Peace on their faces.

Imagine with me for a minute, will you?  Two-thousand years ago....in a park much like Walleye.  Can you see Jesus' eyes blink open as He lay in the tomb?  A tomb, I might add, that was a "virgin" tomb (a never-before-used tomb)....just like the "virgin" Womb He had been born from.

Pause....and think about that for a minute.

A smile most certainly must have crossed His face as He opened His eyes.  Can you see Him standing up.....maybe even stretching a bit....before moving the stone that blocked the entrance to His tomb in the park?  Do you see Him look up into Heaven as He walked out into the early morning dew?  It was still dark, the Bible says, and the park was quiet...peaceful....as He waited for the world to experience the miracle that had just occurred.  I see a sly grin on His face as He knows what’s coming next.

This, my friends, is the blessing of Easter morning.

If you believe this happened, then you have no fear of the future.  You have no concern of the world imploding or the stock market crashing or even death.  Because death has no sting....if you believe in Jesus.  He took your sting of death from you when He placed it on Himself at the cross.  It was a trade-off, actually.....

He TOOK Your death....He GAVE you His life.

Beginning of story.

“Easter is a time when God turned the
Inevitability of Death....
Into the
Invincibility of Life.”

Craig D. Lounsbrough

GROWING SEEDS: "We're Living A Mary Moment In A Martha World"

My older sister Debbie and I have joked for years that she is the "Martha" of the family and I'm the "Mary".  We're, of course, referring to Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus and best friends to Jesus, in the story found in Luke 10. 

In a nutshell, Jesus, along with His disciples and followers (a lot of people!!) were visiting Martha's home where she lived with her brother Lazarus and sister Mary.  She was feeling the stress of feeding all these unexpected guests, making sure she had enough chairs and toilet paper (kidding), and watching her sister Mary doing nothing; well, except sitting quietly at Jesus' feet....listening to every word He said.  Martha, hands on her aproned hips, complained to Jesus that Mary wasn't helping her in the kitchen.

Debbie is a much better hostess than Liz in our family.  She is the one who organizes our get-together's, determines where they will happen and when.  Liz just plops down a loaf of bread she bought at Brookshires and starts catching up with everyone since the last time we were together.  All the while, Debbie is cooking in the kitchen (usually MY kitchen) and getting the food on the table.  Truly, this is a picture of our family get-together's.

But as the world has come to a screeching halt and been confined to their homes these past few weeks, it dawned on me that maybe God is needing us to use this time as Mary Moments in our Martha World.  God is "allowing" us to SLOW DOWN so we can sit at His feet to listen and  learn....get to know Him....hear His voice in all of this.  Time is short, friends...and perhaps He needed us in "Time Out"; almost like a parent sending their child to their room to “think” about what they did and to come out asking for forgiveness, so we can become “changed” from this time alone with Him.  I pray He whispers in our ears....and then delivers us from ourselves. 

Pull that Bible off the shelf and blow off the dust.  Open it up to the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10.  And don't miss those critical last verses in 41-42,

"Martha, Martha" (Insert your name here), the Lord answered,

"you are worried and upset about many things (Coronavirus, loss of jobs, economy, sickness and death),

but few things are needed - indeed only one thing is needed (time alone with Me).

Mary has chosen what is better, (she chose Me)

and it will not be taken away from her." (a beautiful, forever life with Me)

GROWING SEEDS: "We Weren't Made For This World"

These last few weeks have allowed us to see life in a way we've never seen it before.  We feel emotions that have no name or title because they're brand new never-before-felt feelings.  And when we look at all that's going on around us....most of us from the safety of our homes and the worries of whats next for our families, it’s hard not to take inventory of just how much we allow ourselves to live only for our life on earth.  

"Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? 

There are better things ahead than any we leave behind."
C.S. Lewis

Let's take a break from the unnamed emotions we are feeling these days and go on a trip.  A trip I go on every chance I get.....a daydream trip to Heaven.

Close your eyes and you can see it.  Do you see the angels...one on each side of you....escorting you through the dark skies of space, past the stars and the moon, past Jupiter and Pluto.  You don't even have a single desire to look back at earth getting further away from you.  Then you see the light up ahead.  It's much like the sunrise in the mornings...a slow progression...getting brighter with each second...until it's the only thing you can see.  It's so bright it's hard to look at...but you can't take your eyes off it.  And suddenly, you pass right through the Light...and you know you have arrived Home.  It "feels" like Home.  Like when you've been on a long trip and you pull into the driveway and your entire being exhales "I'm Home".  It's the Home you have traveled your entire life to get to.  It's familiar...yet spectacularly the most beautiful place you've ever not been to.  And there, smiling are all the people you lived life with that knew the Lord.

And before they can hug the daylights out of you, they step aside...and up walks Jesus between them.  Arms outstretched, sandals on His feet, light radiating from Him as He walks straight towards you...as if He’s lived His whole life just for you.  His eyes are sparkling and He has this love on his face when He says, "I thought you'd never get here, (your name)...Welcome Home."

I don't know if that is what it will be like, friends....or anything like it...but what do I know is it will be far greater than even our greatest daydreams.

"If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world

were precisely those who thought most of the next. 

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world
that they have become so ineffective in this one."
Unknown

GROWING SEEDS: "Our Back To Normal LIfe"

Each day for the past few weeks, I have continually heard out of my own mouth as well as others, "I can't wait till this Coronavirus has run its course and things get back to normal".  But what if God's plan ISN'T to get things "back to normal"?  What if.....God's plan is to change us...to open eyes that have been closed....that have become complacent.....that haven't daily been fixed on Him?  What if?

It's hard to see the chaos and fear the Coronavirus is causing the world without also remembering Y2K of 01-01-00 and 09-11-01 and the panic of 2008.  Each of these things changed us...some focused their eyes on God....others blamed God.  In some ways, I feel like the modern-day Children of Israel as we welcome the deliverance from tragedy after tragedy only to take our eyes off the Deliverer a few months later when life gets "back to normal" (Psalm 106:6-13). 

Life was never suppose to be "back to normal" from any of these tragedies....nor were the Children of Israel to return "back to normal" and forget the massive miracle when the Red Sea was parted and they walked on dry ground where the Sea had been just seconds before and arrive safely on the other side.  Yet they did forget.  They did go back to life as "normal":

12 "Then they believed His promises
and sang His praise.
13 But they soon FORGOT what He had done
and did not wait for His plan to unfold."

Psalm 106:12-13

God's ultimate plan for our deliverance from this current shaking of the world is to remind us that we need Him.  That this tragedy is bigger than us....that "back to normal" was never part of His plan.  We need Him....every hour, every minute, every second of every day, and we must not forget He is greater than the tragedy. 

He didn't cause the Coronavirus...but He certainly allowed it as another attempt to open our eyes and to show our need to know and to trust Him.  And one of these days, friends, it will be the final tragedy.  Will our eyes be focused on Him....or on our "back to normal" life? That last tragedy will decide your destiny.

He's the only One that can part the waters, find a cure, and deliver us into the Promised Land.  Get to know Him.

GROWING SEEDS: “Navigator Of My Life”

Most early mornings, I write God a letter on this very computer I'm writing to you on; that is, unless I place my eyes elsewhere first.  Facebook, Amazon or YouTube are the bright and shiny things that distract me on my journey.  I’m not proud to admit that to you.....

This past week, I came across a Prayer Letter I wrote God last year.  It went something like this:

"Father, I fear You will actually do what's best for me instead of what I want You to do for me.

*

There.  I said it."

I laughed when I read what I had written Him exactly a year ago.  Funny how our eyesight is so much clearer when we have walked a year ahead of a problem....stopped....turned around....and seen with 20/20 vision how and why His way was best for us all along.

My God-letter continued.....

"Father, remember that show "Lets Make A Deal" with Monty Hall?  Monty would say to the contestant, "You can choose from what's behind Door 1, Door 2 or Door 3".  The contestant choosing had no idea what was behind any of the doors, but Monty Hall knew.
*
Well, my "Will" is kinda like that show.  I ask myself, "Why would you, Liz, choose any of the doors?"
God is fully aware of what is behind ALL the doors of your life.  If I insisted on opening Door #2 because it was decorated the prettiest,  yet You knew, God, that it had a turkey vulture behind it, and Door #1 and Door #3 each had a car and brand new refrigerator behind them,
why wouldn't I let You pick the door for me?
*

Why do I always choose "MY" way when 100% of the time, YOUR way is the right way?"

So my God-Letter this morning is to have the same Will as God.  That what He wants....I want.  He knows when I reach the fork in the road, which way I need to go....even when its not the prettiest road.  I pray I hear His whispers in my ear on whether to turn right or left, and not ignore His constant "Make A Safe And Legal U-Turn, Liz"  when I choose the wrong road. 

I am the driver of my journey...He is my Navigator, and I am grateful He maps out the right roads on this trip to my eternal Home.

GROWING SEEDS: "Wounds and Wells"

Every Saturday morning when I was a kid, our family of five would pile into Mom's Buick and head down Central Expressway to a nondescript beige brick building for church.  One Saturday after church, instead of heading north towards home, Dad pointed the Buick south towards Oak Cliff.  At the time, Oak Cliff was a place you avoided at all costs.  But here was Dad.....driving his young family straight into the "danger zone". 

He turned the car through a neighborhood of falling-down houses, unpaved roads and a woman chasing a chicken through her yard with a hatchet.  It was Dad’s unique way of showing us kids “the other side”.

I was reminded of this family adventure when I read John 4 this week....the story of the Woman at the Well.

"He HAD to go through Samaria on the way”, it said.

I always just figured Jesus literally had to go through Samaria to get from Judea to Galilee....kind of like going from downtown Dallas through Oak Cliff to get to Duncanville.  But it turns out that most Jews in Jesus' day went out of their way to avoid Samaria because they considered any contact with Samaritans as contamination.  They were scum to the Jews.  (I'm guessing they hadn't heard the story of the Good Samaritan just yet.  Just sayin'....)

And then it dawned on me:  Jesus HAD to go to the Samaritans because......they wouldn't come to Him!

You and me....WE are the Samaritans.

The Jews turned their backs on Him, so He came to us....unworthy and filthy as we are....He came to us!  And like the Woman at the Well, it didn't matter that she had been married 5 or 50 times.....or that she was living a life of sin at that very moment.  He offered her His living water.....and she accepted.

Have you, like the Woman at the Well, during the hardest parts of your life, found yourself in the wilderness alone with all your junk, running in a very dark and lonely place?  Ya, me too.  Do you feel unworthy and too far away from God to accept that drink of refreshing living water?

At the very moment she accepted, broken pieces of her life and her heart were washed clean by the love of that refreshing living water....water that washes away OUR sin.  Jesus knew every blemish, but loved her (us) anyway.

As for me, I can confidently tell you that during the darkest times of my life when I felt so alone, He found me there...in an ugly, rolled-up-in-a-ball mess...and offered me His living water of peace. 

You simply need to accept it.

GROWING SEEDS: "I Know The Way Out"

"A man was walking down the street when he fell into a hole.  The walls were so steep he couldn't get out.  The man in the hole began to cry out for help.  Soon, a doctor walked by, heard the man's cries for help, wrote him a prescription, tossed it down the hole, and walked away.  Before long, a priest walked by and heard the man calling out, "Father, can you help me?"  The priest wrote a prayer, threw it in the hole, and walked away.  Finally, a friend came along.  And the man asked the friend for help.  The friend then made a bold, brave move:  He jumped into the hole.  The man who had been trapped was shocked.  "Are you stupid?  Now we're both stuck down here."  But the friend said, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."

This is the gospel, folks.  God stood at the edge of a hole, and He heard people crying for help.  But He didn't write us a prescription and throw it down the hole.  He didn't pray and then walk away.  He jumped into the hole.  Jesus gave up heaven, put on skin and lived on the inside of every hole, every mess, every valley you could imagine.

He lived your life here on earth.  He knows what its like to be you.  He knows its impossible for you to get out of that hole without His help...and He hears your cries.  He WANTS to jump into that hole you're in and help you find your way out. 

JESUS IS THE LADDER. 

And He uses us, the Church, to be Hole-Hunters....Cry-Hearers....Jumper-in-ers.  And if you've ever been in a hole and are standing on the street, it means you know the way out.  Right now, all of us are in one of two places; we are either stuck in a hole.....or we're walking along the street, seeing holes all around and hearing only cries for help.

I don't know where you're at today.  Whether you're inside the hole begging for help out with a pile of prescriptions and prayers at your feet.....or whether you're on the street safe, free and rescued.  All I do know is that Jesus wants to rescue you....He wants a RELATIONSHIP with you....whether its building a ladder side-by-side or jumping down into that hole together.....

It's just that simple. 





*Thanks to Jennifer Dukes Lee for the story above