Always

What's your home town?

      When we allow other people’s interactions with us to determine how we feel about God’s purposes for our lives we will become discouraged.

      Jesus could do no miracles in his home town (Mark 6:1-6 NIV). They didn’t respect him or the role God had given him. Sometimes the very people you’ve grown up with are the very people who miss God’s plans in you. One reason this happens is because they don’t allow themselves to see you in a new light. You will always be the same person in their eyes.

     Jesus’ hometown couldn’t see He was anointed by God and they missed the blessings He carried. How much more will people over look your achievements, your changed life, your gifts and talents?

      Have you ever been to a family event where everyone treated you with little to no respect? Or your parent’s see you as a child even though you have children of your own? They can’t see you as anything other than what you were. This can be discouraging especially when God is doing new and unusual things in your life.  

      Maybe people at your job or church show you respect and honor who God has shaped you to be, but over the holidays with family you realize you are still the same old person in your family’s eyes.  This is common for many people, especially those who have experienced drastic transformations. Not everyone is willing or able to shift their view.  If a town couldn’t see the hand of God of Jesus, how much more will our transformations pale in comparison?

    We’d like to think when God is using us that everyone will cheer and make note, but that is not the case.  We will learn early on that God is our pat on the back; God holds our identity, not man. It’s easy to be rattled by someone's opinion of us, but we all have to learn to hold our God given place no matter how people act. Everyone will not see what God is doing in you.

     Your “home town”, whatever that may be for you, may never grow past their first impression of you from decades ago, but that doesn’t take away from God’s transformation in you. He will use you somewhere else, just like He used Jesus.

          If only we could learn to see people for who they are today - in this moment. If only we could learn to see God’s hand on people and let go of our first impressions that are often wrong and full of prejudices -  exposing our own hearts and not the hearts of others. If only Jesus’ home town took another look, if only they let go of what they knew and saw Jesus for whom he was in the moment. How many blessings are missing out on? How many people do we over look? We all do it and we’ve all had it done to us.

     You are who God says you are whether anyone ever knows it. You are who God says you are whether anyone recognizes it or honors it. You are God’s workmanship created with a purpose and bought with a price. Don’t be rattled by the attitudes and judgments of man.

     And let us learn from our own rejections to not miss God’s hand on people because we too refuse to take another look.

The King is Here

Drifter, the anchor holds!

      It’s so easy to drift in the ocean or veer off the road when ones not paying attention. It can happen suddenly, which snaps us back into focus. But more often than not, it happens slowly. We slowly fade. We slowly drift off point and find ourselves miles down the beach, if we slowly drift to sleep while driving we may find ourselves in a ditch. Most people think they are fine, they are in control, but reality hits. We realize we underestimated the ocean’s current and our fragile condition. Maybe we should have spent the night in a hotel. Thankfully, some roads have rumble strips also knows as sleeper lines to alert drivers when they drift from their lane.

     I wish all areas of life had these lines. Imagine it! You start veering into a different gifting or calling and you hear the rumblings. You start becoming friends with the wrong person – rumblings. You approach a restaurant that’s wrong for your diet – rumblings. It would take the guess work and ambiguity from God’s direction at times. Unfortunately, outside of beach markers and highway rumble strips life doesn’t often provide obvious bumpers and signs when we begin to drift. This is why we need the Holy Spirit. He is our rumble strip, he is our bumper. He holds us in place and keeps us in our lane.  

       Without our anchor nothing stays the same, everything moves and drifts a bit. We may try to stay put while standing in the ocean enjoying the waves, but inch by inch we are pushed until we’ve drifted farther than we anticipated. Unless we are grounded, rooted and stabilized we drift.  Are we falling asleep? Are we being pushed by the current?

    When we look at our lives and see our Christian values fading, losing sight of our faith and holy lifestyle there is usually one thing that has happen, we’ve lifted our anchor and lost our hope. Just like a bottle of water we sip on all day long we are emptied and need a refill.

     We are perfectly capable of refilling ourselves. I get filled daily! We live best when we live in an overflow state. When we allow ourselves to be drained and emptied we begin to drift. Thankfully the Holy Spirit begins to alert us that we are low and need to refill - rumblings.

    Our anchor is faithful! Our anchor holds! As long as we stay connected to The Anchor we will not drift off our marks. He holds, He’s steadfast and faithful.

       Drifter, the anchor holds!

Worthy of it all

Perfect Fairy tale

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

    I was watching a dating show on a popular station last night. I find it fascinating to hear and see other people’s thought processes. The contestants had been looking for love year after year but were coming up empty handed. They finally surrender their love life over to someone else in hopes they could match them with the right person. In the contestant’s interviews they said things like, “I’m looking for my perfect match” or “I’m looking for the fairy tale ending.”  The words perfect and fairy tale were red flags. There is no perfect match and there is no fairy tale.

     Some of the other contestants said, “I want someone with no baggage.” No matter who you date or marry they’ll have baggage - you’ll have to deal with someone’s mess. There’s no escaping this fact. When you commit your life to someone there will be junk to deal with - your junk and their junk. We all have junk! It’s just the way it is and it’s beautiful in its own way and in its own time.  

     I guess I wasn’t tempted by fairy tale ideas because my hubby and I were best friends for almost 11 years before we got married. We knew each other well and there weren’t any surprises, honestly. That doesn’t mean everything is smooth and easy. Merging two lives comes with complications, none of which can be described as perfect or a fairy tale.

      Sometimes I think the idea of finding the perfect match has more to do with the worship of ourselves. We want someone who complements our personality style, someone who makes us look good, someone who gratifies us, someone who promotes our rank in society, someone who appeals to our senses and someone who makes our lives easier. It’s all centered on a ME mentality.

        Marriage done right makes us holy. It smooths off our rough edges and forces us to grow in ways we can’t even imagine before experiencing it first-hand. I often wonder if people have missed out on their person because they have too many deal breakers, to many self-worship ideas on their list. Of course this is not true for everyone. But it makes me wonder when I see dating shows where people are listing all their “must-haves” in a spouse. Most of these “must-haves” are based on self-worship.

     What if your person looks different than you imagined? What if they don’t have a degree?  What if they live a few states over? What if their personality is not the one statistics says you’re most compatible with? What’s on your must-have list? Sometimes we miss God’s greatest gifts because they come packaged differently than we wanted. They aren’t God, they are human. You can encourage your spouse to get a degree; you can move to the same state; you can learn to celebrate your different personalities. None of these are deal breakers. How many of our deal breakers have easy solutions that would actually help us grow as a person if we embraced?

      If our relationship is based on perfection and a fairy tale what happens when problems arise? We will abandon ship! We won’t have the staying power and resolve. What happens when the butterflies leave? Will you be able to invest in your marriage long term cultivating more butterflies?

         What about those couples that seems to have it all? The ones that make us want a fairy tale? If it’s based on a movie, book or other fictional outlet, than it’s just that, fictional. If it’s a real couple you admire, it’s probably a couple who has learned to be grateful and see the best in everything. It’s amazing how we can create our own perfect and our own fairy tale by simply believing the best and cultivating a grateful heart. This doesn’t mean circumstances are perfect or fairy tale like. Other times when a couple seems to have it all it’s simply us catching a glimpse of their soon fading fire, like a shooting star. We see the beauty and wish it was ours only to realize how fast it burns out. We shouldn’t compare and envy others relationships because we don’t see it within context. It may be as fleeting as a shooting star.

      The best way to pick a spouse is not with a wish list, but with prayer and common sense. We can live (make it work) with many people, but the key is to find someone you can’t live without. Once you find someone you can’t live without, you’ll have to spend the rest of your life working at the relationship.

         Lifelong relationships take a lifetime of work. If you’re lazy, selfish, and only want someone who meets your “self-worship” list than finding a lifelong partner may not be for you and that’s OKAY.

       As a Christian I believe that couples are supposed to become one. As we grow we actually form a oneness that transcends just our bodies. It’s spiritual.