God Is In the Details

For some time now, we have been in a "wait on the Lord mode."  I haven't wanted to ask God to do things in my life. Instead, I have just wanted Him to choose and do what ever was in His will.  He has totally supported us, kept us, and led us, 'cause I just had to give up trying to figure out what to do.  It isn't a bad place to be, because in essence we should always be seeking His will anyway, but... I have been dull minded in just not asking God for much of anything, except that He somehow Bless my husband. 

 Well, as blessings have come in, (which in a recession means that you just get the essentials,) I haven't missed much. A lot of things I feared might happen, didn't, and that in itself was a blessing. A lot of things I feared would happen did though, and we have just been adjusting.  But I have gotten out of the habit of doing something with my blessings.  I haven't made many active choices, other than to eat, make myself get dressed and keep some kind of routine. And not stay in the house so much.  Spend time with grand babies.  Take pictures. Learn how to blog, draw and paint a little.  Read up on the techy stuff some.  Find a few favorite TV shows. Move the mess around a little....

It has been a rest of sorts. There is a stirring in me however, that says the Lord is ready to ask me to set a few goals, and see His plan. It's like peeling the potatoes for the stew, knowing that you are about to make a stew. I want to be sure that the Lord is doing the stirring of the pot however. So I am peeling my potatoes kind of slowly. However the Lord has given me - shall we say - carrots too.  So I will obey and for now I will heat the water, and peel the carrots, and let's just see what else will come in for my stew.

 When I was a child I watched a children’s program called  “Captain Kangaroo”, where I became enamored with a story of someone who made "stone soup."  He went about telling everyone they were invited to come to dinner to have some of his stone soup.  As it turned out, everyone brought something that they thought might taste nice in his stone soup.  In the end they had a very tasty pot of soup chock full of delicious things. That is sort of how I feel - Like the Lord gave me the stone and pot, and fire to get the post started, but I am waiting on the rest of the ingredients to make it delicious.  (God to make known the details.) I can smell it cooking now…..
I have even asked a few people to the dinner.  I was pleasantly surprised that they wanted to come. Thank God it's all free, cause I have just about as much to offer as the guy with the stone.
But just maybe, there is a blessing to be had if we listen to the Lord and Obey. 

Lord, as you stir my heart to respond to your urging, I am sure this is one thing you have planned for me to do.  I just don't want to jump ahead of You. Cause if there is one thing I know for sure, it is that You are in the details. And I am waiting on your plan. AMEN

Praise for Answered Prayer

Lately the Lord has seen fit to answer prayer that's been in my heart log for a very long time.  Answers to prayer that come according to God's timing are worthy of praise even more than the quickly answered ones.  I like knowing that in His time he answers the prayers that I sometimes forget. Lately, however, He has answered prayers that I have simply asked that His will be done.  And I have waited on Him to see what His answer would be.  I await the results of His choices in my life with expectation, that these things will work together for my good.  I refuse to manipulate things to fit my desires, and ask that He grant help even in areas where I don't know what to do. 

Much Praise Dear Jesus for the things you are doing in my life.

A true story:
Yesterday, I was in a store. I noticed they had my favorite lip balm, exactly where they ususally stock it. My Husband was paying for something at the counter, so I pulled it from the box and was going to have him pay for it. But he said, "no wait and look around a little, I know you wanted to, and see if you find something else you want to buy." So, since it was a small item, I reached around the corner and placed it back into it's little box.  As I reached around, I over heard a gentleman saying to his friends as he showed them a logo on a package, "this was one of the first pieces of Graphics I ever did."  It caught my attention, and I looked up at him to see if I recognized his face from online graphics companies I had researched. For a fleeting second, I thought, "I wonder just what it took for him to make that first successful Logo." I looked back down at the little box where I place the lip balm into the tiny little slot where it belonged, and as I turned to go back into the store area to browse I looked once more at his face. Then I dropped mine and sheepishly tucked my forfingers into my pockets as I often do to keep my arms close to my body in a crowed place. I was still thinking of what it might be like to actually get a peice of my graphics on a product line, when I realized that I couldn't go in the direction I had planned, so I headed away from the crowd and into the corner to start looking.  There I found some cast Iron skillets similar to what I thought Jimmy might be interested in for cooking cornbread.

I was suddenly brought back to reality, when the store manager came around behind me, and looking only at my pocket where I still had my forefinger tucked, she said, " what a bright yellow shirt you have on." She looked only once quickly at my face and then back at my pocket where I dropped my hand away from my pocket, and looked only intently at her.  I knew exactly what she was thinking, because I had seen the clerk behind the counter go to her as I left the lipbalm box, and I was sure she told her she thought I stole it.  I never really know quite what to do in that situation, but because I constantly check for my cell phone and keys to still be in my pockets, and I often tuck my fingers into them to walk, I am often suspected of being a theif. 
It really hurts me so badly that I can hardly speak. And the people checking me out, misread my facial expressions for guilt. It happens enough that I just want to stay home and not go anywhere, or shop ever.  I stood there until she was finished eyeing me, and I went to find Jimmy to show him the skillets. She had already cornered him and he was his ususal laughing self, but becoming annoyed at our not being able to look without the interuptions, totally oblivious to the fact that we were being monitored for our activity. I have worked retail and I know the deal. I lost my desire to look around, or buy the lipbalm or even show Jimmy the pans, but I didn't want to look like we were leaving as if guilty.
I got Jimmy away from the manager long enough to show him the pans and we discussed that they were not exactly what he had in mind, and turned to look more in the store, but there she was again. Blocking our way, because we were near the door.  Jimmy still didn't pickup on what was happening, and was annoyed enough that when she finally left us he said so, loud enough to be heard.  By then I just wanted to leave, and he looked at me puzzled and said, "I thought you wanted to look around." He headed to the candy wall looking for something sugar free. I followed him and told him they thought I stole the lip balm, and he just said I was silly.  "I just want to go," I said about to cry. He said, "Well get the lip balm and I'll get this candy and we will go."  I was still trying to figure out if I was choosing my favorite shade, when he joined me there near the register, and he said, "I don't understand why you won't finish looking around." I was holding back tears, now til I could hardly stand there with all the associates looking at us now, so I just tossed the lipbalm on the counter and said, "I'll be outside."

I have been so upset about this because it is a place we frequently go together on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and I will forever be afraid to go back in.  I wondered will I forever be on someone's list as a theif. Will they look at me and think that is someone I should look out for.  I am so far from a thief that any one who loves me knows I would never steal anything. Yet I fit a profile, so I am constantly living in fear of being accused of something I didn't do.

So after almost letting it ruin my day, I asked, "Lord how do you deal with being falsely accused?"  His answer was quick.  "I know you didn't steal it, or have any thought or desire to do such. I know.  I know your heart. So no matter what happens in life, that you cannot control, remember that I am the one who knows the truth."

Joseph in the Bible was falsely accused, and he used the opportunity to tell men in the jail about God.  I pray God doesn't choose to test me in such a way, cause I just am not half the couragous individual that Joseph was. I am crushed when people misjudge me. I don't know why, but I guess I just think people can look at you and know you love God; but it isn't so, is it?

Our character will be tested often in life. We won't always respond in a way that encourages the people judging us to think differently about us. Our only recourse is to know that an Omniscient, Omnipresent, All seeing God  Knows the truth. He is the one that counts.

So now when I look at the lipbalm, I will have to resist the urge to think of what it took to buy it, and say to myself, God knows all things. Maybe God knows I needed a lesson in that premise and this is how he will renew my thinking.

Lord, Help me to look to you, not to my emotions when I think people are misjudging me. Strengthen my ability to act like a person who tries to do the right thing.  But requardless, give me peace in my heart to walk past the fear of what other people might think. AMEN

Picture Framed Prayer

Sometimes I call up a prayer to God out of desperation.  Sometimes I don't attend to the issues in life until they are upon me and I am playing a game of rapid catch up on my prayers. Sometimes I have prayed earnestly for the same thing over and over, wondering, what am I praying wrong.  Silly me. If I have any inkling that I will have a need, or I have knowledge of what I must do for the day or the week or next month, why don't I pray about it up front.  I am a person who looks at things from every angle before I do them. I pre-plan until it is ridiculous sometimes. Almost never is "Pray About This" on the top ten on my list. Oh I pray over the specifics, like - Lord help me be on time...etc. And that is good, but I just plain forget to pray about the big picture up front.

In my mind, I can imagine a place for the big picture kind of prayers. With significance.  I thought, if something is important enough to make plans for it, why not sort of put a mental frame about it and feature it in my prayers rather than doing a post it note on the corkboard kind of praying.  The place where I lose the notes I post. Prayer is made of both.  The kind of prayer that I quickly pray and then forget about it until one day I am cleaning the cork board and say, oh that is where I put that number. I just couldn't see it for the clutter.

Or there is the kind of prayer that like your grandchildren, you really wish you had a frame and a place to put each and every picture. If I had my way, I would have one of those revolving picture shows with every picture I have of my children and grandchildren, going on a big screen, all the time. That is how I would like my prayers to be sometimes. Featured, easy access, and always right in front of me. For my sake of course, not God's. Give it to him one time and it's done.  He isn't any more impressed with my multiple returns to pray over the same thing than he would be about letting Jesus die for my sins over and over again.  Not going to happen.  He does help me see how to pray with faith when I return over and over again sometimes. And delightfully, I can see when my prayer is answered when I return to it, quite often. Hopefully, at some point, I come with faith as well as my prayer, 'cause sometimes I forget that bringing faith is an act not a feeling.  Faith is something you have - not do, but acting upon it is something you do. So praying should include at least the mental attitude if not the outright statement, "I pray this believing that God can and will be involved in answering this prayer."  Notice I didn't say: "God will make it happen."

So often we all fall into the rut of praying - Please God make this happen or that happen. Please God give us this or give us that.  Nothing wrong with asking God to give us good things. Even gifts. It's just not good to get into a rut with that being all prayer is about to us.

When the Lord taught the disciples to pray, the first thing he did was to direct their thinking to who God is: Father -Hallowed be thy name. To hallow according to Webster’s is "to make holy, consecrate." The past tense (ed) means it is already made Holy, and consecrated. I still am not sure what it means though, do you?  Consecrate according to Webster’s is "to make or declare sacred, to dedicate (to God), to devote." The past tense means "sacred or dedicated." Dedicated in Webster’s means: "to give wholly or earnestly up to, to set apart, to inscribe or address a work to, set aside for a purpose,"  and as in a book - it's something written to honor a person in the Prefix of the book. Modern day terms - To feature with honor, before you proceed, then do it with all your heart. Like a favorite picture you would frame. To place it before you in a prominent spot, for all the reasons that it is precious to you. Each time you go again, it is already there, past tense, as if framed and hung in a place of prominence.   
The only sad thing about my daughter giving me pictures of the grandchildren is that there isn't enough money to buy the frames. I put them into books as I can, or into this nifty picture box with drawers. But I most often go to the computer 'cause I love to put them in a slide show and let them play over and over. My favorite reason to go to the Lord again and again with my prayers is because we stay in touch, I can see how the Lord actually interacts with me through answered prayer and that He delights in answering prayer.  I can see the "yes" answers and the "no" answers and can see why the "no" answers were no sometimes. But, while the little things I pray about play over and over in my head, what I want most is to place God in a place of honor in everything I do, and see him in the Big Picture in my life as the feature of my prayer, that I admire, honor, love with all my heart.
This mental picture kind of helps me understand why some cultures and religions have statues, icons and images to go to. God doesn't want us to fixate on an image, but rather a meeting place. He also doesn't want us to frame Him, but rather frame the prayer.  It is the value we place on the communication with Him, (whom we revere,) that God craves.  Prayer is Precious to God, not just to us. Not placing the prayer in a status of worship, but as an element of worship. A tool. A place. A reminder, a mental link.  A way to See God in the Big Picture.
Can you see in your prayers. Visualize him as if he were with you answering requests as he did when he walked the earth in flesh.  See Him in your big picture.
I certainly intend to try to do it more.

Lord, I so love that you are involved in the Big Picture in my life, even when I can't "picture" it. Help me look at life as a portrait, one You painted showing you already provided what I will need. I am looking to a place where I can see you right in the middle of my life. Help me remember to come to you before I step into my plans, and help me See my plans in your hands. Like the preface, or dedication of a book, I want to place you first in the story of my life. Like a favored picture in a frame, I consider my prayer worth a place of dedication to You. Amen