New Life Design Blog

Have you ever analyzed or studied something to death and had it worked out in your mind as to how you thought it should happen?  Well, I sure did when it came down to the Marathon.  On one of our particular training runs we ran 22 miles and those 22 miles were done at our goal pace which would have put me finishing at 4 hours and 9 minutes!  I was so excited.  That was the fastest I had ever run 22 miles before and I had felt good during the run so I was very optimistic about race day!  Well….as you have seen from the previous posts about the marathon that is not what happened!  I was incredibily discouraged later thinking about it and my thoughts immediatly turned toward my relationship with God. 

Often times we have something worked out in our head and think we know how it should all come about and we pray and pray and pray….yet, things just seem to come apart at the seams!  What do we do when things don’t turn out the way we want them to?  What then?  Maybe we thought we were walking in God’s will – maybe we thought we had heard clear direction from God…..what do we do now?  Have you ever felt that discouragement that comes in these times?  Have you ever felt hurt with God during times like these?  You may not care to admit it out loud but my guess would be that we all have encountered those same old feelings when things just don’t work out the way we planned or hoped that they would. 

One of the reasons why so many Jews in Jesus’ day missed seeing who He really is was that many of them had it built it up in their own minds that He was going to be a present day radicalist and overthrow the Roman Government  which they ovbiously opposed.  We tend to get just a little bit of information about God and then mix it with the influences in our lives and then put our own twist and ideas on it and that becomes our concept of who God is and how God should move and act in the affairs of life and the world.  When we do this we will miss Him by a country mile just as many of the Jews did in the gospel writtings.

I want to share with you some very special verses that I encountered for the very first time when my father passed away in March of 1992.  You may find it interesting to know that the first time I heard these verses it was not from a preacher, teacher or from my own Bible readings but from God himself.  I had been reading the night before and my load of grief blurred my understanding of what I was reading and I found myself in the midst of my own anger over the grief that I felt.  I just did not understand why God would not have chosen to heal my father when he had loved and served Him and we had prayed in faith.  I had several doctor appointments scheduled the next morning while I was still home and the second visit was at the eye doctor’s office.  I knew I would be waiting for awhile and as I began to wait Father invited me into a dialogue with Him.  As I poured out my questions He spoke truth into my heart and peace has been the result ever since.  Part of what He shared with me I later found out was taken straight out of Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thought are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

On this side of eternity we are never going to understand some of the ways in which God moves and some of the decisions that He makes for we think with earthly minds that are finite and our God is so infinite!  He is beyond our understanding and comprehension while we have to function with the limitations of these earthly minds and bodies; but isn’t it wonderful that He still desires relationship with us and loves us unconditionally?  Wow….He amazes me – daily!  Just another reason that shows why He is God and I am not.

Dana

I have recently been asking God to open my eyes to His love.  He is doing just that, a little bit at a time.  This morning I found myself singing a song that I learned a long time ago.  It just popped into my head.  That led me to this scripture, which the song is taken from.  I hope it will encourage you as it did me this morning.  God’s love is forever and constant; it never ends!

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:19-24 (ESV)

 ~Rebecca:-)

God has been growing me in the area of honesty.  (Psalm 62:8)  I have often felt like a “good Christian” should never doubt God or question anything He says.  So, in an effort to appear “good” (because I thought that’s what would earn love and acceptance), I have rarely voiced my doubts or questions, especially to God.  The funny thing is God already knows all my doubts and questions.  Nothing is hidden from Him.  (Hebrews 4:13)  Through a conversation with Him the other day, I saw that my being honest with Him allowed Him to come in and heal me.  The conversation (not audible, but in my heart & mind) went something like this:

Me:  I can’t be good all the time.  I try so hard, but I just can’t.  I’ll never be good enough.

God:  It’s okay.  I love you even when you mess up.

Me:  That doesn’t make any sense!  Other people get mad at me when I mess up.  I get mad at other people when they do something wrong.  How can you love me and not be angry at me when I fail?

God:  I’m not like you.  I love you even when you’re bad.  I can watch you do things wrong and not be mad at you.  I’m just different.  I give you the freedom to fail.

Me:  But, how can you do that?  I don’t deserve to be loved!

God:  I am GOD.  I AM love.  That’s just what I do.

Do you ever think, “I feel so far away from God.  I want to be close to God again.  What do I have to do to get closer to God?”  I have had these same thoughts over and over again.  For many years, I depended on these feelings, and my relationship with God seemed up and down and up and down.  I couldn’t maintain any consistency because I was depending on my efforts/performance (reading my Bible, praying, going to church events & conferences, being Christ-like, attending Bible studies, etc.) to attain closeness with God.  If I missed a quiet time, I felt far away from God.  If I messed up, I thought God was punishing me by being distant.  If I didn’t feel God’s presence, then I thought He didn’t care.  If I didn’t finish all my tasks or do something the right way, then I felt like God was distant and didn’t hear my prayers.  If I didn’t feel close to God when I prayed, then I thought He wasn’t listening. 

Then God opened my eyes to the truth that as a believer, I can’t get any closer to God than I already am.  He’s inside me–how can I get any closer than that?.  I don’t have to do anything to get closer to God.    Do I always feel his presence?  No, but that doesn’t mean He’s not there.  His presence in my life has nothing to do with my Christian performance, but everything to do with the cross of Jesus Christ.  So now, when those feelings of distance come, I have a choice–believe the feelings or believe the truth, the promises of God:

“But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him“  (1 Cor 6:17)

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  (1 Corinthians 6:19)

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,”  (Ephesians 1:13)

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

“for He Himself has said, ‘I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,’” (Hebrews 13:5)

“Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.”  (Psalm 139:7-10)

Rebecca:-)

Yesterday I had to go to the dentist.  That’s not something I enjoy.  In fact, it’s something I dread.  I have TMJ problems, so holding my mouth open for a cleaning is a challenge and quite painful.  I usually have a massive headache afterwards.  Well, yesterday I already had that headache before I even went, so I was especially anxious.  I imagined horrible pain for the rest of the day.  As I sat in the waiting room, I could feel my heartbeat getting faster. 

In the book I was reading, the main character, Mack, was having a conversation with Jesus.  Jesus asked him, “Where do you spend most of your time in your mind, in your imagination, in the present, in the past, or in the future?”  I recognized immediately that I mostly live in the future, looking forward to and planning for what’s next.  I believe this is why I struggle with anxiety a majority of the time.  Later in the conversation, Jesus said, ”Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”  That got me thinking about the “future” that I was currently anxious about.  I was thinking all about the inevitable pain while sitting in the dentist chair and the remainder of the evening, not at all about Jesus being with me.  I thought to myself, “I don’t have to be all anxious about what’s going to happen over the next several hours because Jesus is going to be with me.  I can just sit here and read this book and enjoy Jesus being with me NOW as I read.”  With that change of mindset, the anxiety began to dissipate.  WOW!  God is GREAT!!