Tyranny of our ideals

Live Life to the Hilt


"There's nothing wrong with admitting there are aspects of life that disappoint. There's nothing wrong with recognizing the way things ought to go as distinct from the way they do. And there's nothing wrong with the impulse within for something like perfection. In fact, there's a lot right about all of these things. But as always, just because something is right doesn't preclude its getting twisted into something hideous. When we let our yearning for perfection, or the ideal, rob us of our joy and ability to find contentment in what's here and now real, at least when what's real is indeed worthy of our love and appreciation, we're not being wise or philosophical. We're being fools, having abdicated most all the joy of which we're capable in this life."

This quote is from a website called the Morris Institute, which  someone on a plane recommended to me. Christ is missing from it as far as I have read, but the human ideas point to the truth of our resting in God's sovereign reign in our lives.  Nothing gives more peace and contentment than the truth of His dying  in our place and rising from the dead in order to make us new creations in His righteousness. I have been in that thought life of wishing with all my heart that I could be perfect or make my family perfect, and Christ has opened my eyes and heart to accept that HE only is perfect, that He wants to make me contented in His righteousness, and that His Joy over me (Nehemiah 8:10) is now my joy and strength. My ideals had become my idols , and I had been straining to obtain those ideals in my own effort, which only brought grief and frustration. By His Grace, I begin again (every day) learning Galatians 2:20---I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me, that I might live no more for myself, and my idols, but by His strength,  live for Him.   I see my own failures every day, my weakness in living wholeheartedly for Him, and my only hope is in His continuing work in sanctifying me.  Hebrews 10:14 is SO ENCOURAGING!  He will finish the work He has begun.

Offerings in our Brunswick county

Live Life to the Hilt

And they came,  everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him,  and brought the  Lord 's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments.  All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the  Lord  had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the  Lord . (Exodus 35:21, 29 ESV)

Freely give because you have received from His abundance of riches!  My heart is stirred and blessed by this story. How often  have I been stingy, because I've come from a base of  " We don't have enough to spread around....it's not like we're wealthy..." From now on, I'm going to share what I have because His riches are my base of operation!

And they came,  everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him,  and brought the  Lord 's contribution.  It all belongs to Him anyway! How can we hold back - is it because we're worried about not having enough? Don't we belong to Him who has all the wealth of the earth in His hands?

Take from among you a contribution to the  Lord .  Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the  Lord 's contribution: gold, silver, and bronze;  And they came,  everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him.

Lord, may Your Spirit MOVE in our hearts! Make us so generous that we can't WAIT to give to You, and we find thrilling Joy in it!

"Take from among you a contribution to the  Lord .  Whoever is of a generous heart.....he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with  skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship..." (Exodus 35:5, 21, 31 ESV)

The X date on Reliv website

http://bcove.me/0dx6bq98     the X date Reliv announcement

"Everyone" has been getting the flu, or bronchitis, or a bad cold.  My husband and I have not had any of it and we are sure that it's the kindness of God, and His allowing us to take Reliv, which has made our immune systems stronger. My daughter, Elisabeth, introduced us to it in 2008 and we've been taking the shakes now for 4 yrs. and 4 months, and have not had more than 2 colds since.   Please watch this on Sat. Jan. 12 at 11 Central time, and you may be surprised.  If anyone is interested in being a customer or a distributor, I'd be happy to tell you more.  Just let me know. The link above is just the announcement to the webcast that will be on tomorrow at 11 Central time on Reliv.com.  You must register first to watch it, so get on the website earlier to make sure you will be able to. It is free.

Crosses to bear

The Reading from Daily Strength for Daily Needs on Dec. 5

"The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." I Peter v.10

"Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted." - Is. 7:4

"How shalt thou bear the cross that now
So dread a weight appears:
Keep quietly to God, and think
Upon the Eternal Years."
                                 ~     F. W. Faber

"God forgive them that raise an ill report upon the sweet cross of Christ; it is but our weak and dim eyes, that look but to the black side, that makes us mistake; those that can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their backs, and fasten it on cannily [archaic Scottish], shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship."                               ~ Samuel Rutherford


"Blessed is any weight, however overwhelming, which God has been so good as to fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders."                                                         ~ F. W. Faber

"We cannot say this or that trouble shall not befall, yet we may, by help of the Spirit, say, nothing that doth befall shall make me do that which is unworthy of a Christian."       ~ R. Sibbes


       In this culture, where everything is "out there" in terms of sharing all our complaints, our woes, our physical ailments, may we learn to carry them to Him, who is our Confidante and our King, who loves to answer prayer.  And if He does not answer in "OUR TIME," He knows when we will have the answer, and we are to walk BY FAITH, not by sight! He is infinitely wiser than we are.  Praise His Holy name for that!

Privacy

Being Quiet

I read this yesterday in Daily Strength for Daily Needs, a collection by Mary W. Tileston, for every day of the year, of Scriptures and excellent quotes.  This spoke to me, because I have a tendency to want to tell too many of the details of physical troubles, OR Heart troubles.  

"Every day deny yourself some satisfaction; bearing all the inconveniences of life (for the love of God), cold, hunger, restless nights, ill health, unwelcome news, the faults of servants [!], contempt, ingratitude of friends, malice of enemies, calumnies, our own failings, lowness of spirits, the struggle in overcoming our corruptions;--bearing all these with patience and resignation to the will of God.  Do all this as unto God, with the greatest privacy."              ~Bishop Wilson

"When thou hast thanked thy God
For every blessing sent,
What time will then remain
For murmurs or lament?"
             ~ R. C. Trench

Conviction~~enough said!

MY one book---- Pilipinto's Happiness--Price change!

I am going to republish my book for children, ages 5 to 11, approximately, about my jungle childhood, called PILIPINTO'S HAPPINESS.

There are short chapters about my mother's and my life with the Waorani Indians
 and it has lovely watercolor illustrations done by my Uncle, James N Howard.

 I appreciate more people wanting them but there are not enough now to send out.  Please be patient, and I do hope in this coming year 2017 and 2018 it will be available again!

 Valerie Shepard

Sulking

Here's what I read yesterday in Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest:

"The little 'I am' always sulks when God says DO.  Let the little 'I am' be shrivelled up in God's indignation--'I AM THAT I AM HATH SENT THEE.'  He must dominate.  Is it not penetrating to realize that God knows where we live, and the kennels we crawl into!  He will hunt us up like a lightning flash.  No human being knows human beings as God does."

I know I sulk when I don't get my own way.  My own self wants to do what I want to do, and not what might be necessary, or asked of me.  This morning, my husband and I had to pack up the hundreds of books which had been sitting in an office that a kind man had offered him to use for free.  We really have no place for them in our house, so we had to put them in boxes and just stack them up in our garage.  I had some notions of "getting things done" for my business, as well as preparing for company tomorrow.  But these books needed to be packed and at first I "sulked."  But as we got the job done, a sweeter spirit came over me, and of course, that had to be the Lord. I'm so glad that 'God knows where we live and hunts us up like a lightning flash', just as he did with Elijah when he left after he proved the Baal prophets had "no leg to stand on."  Or, with Jonah, who sat under a nice shady vine, while he watched what God would do with Nineveh, and when God made the vine shrivel (as our little 'I ams' need to!) he sulked because of the heat and discomfort.  He also sulked because God was merciful to Nineveh and he wanted God to punish them even though they had repented!

Oh, may my heart be alert to my sulks....as O. Chambers said for today's reading: "The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization--I am my own god."  May I be convicted quickly by His Spirit, when I want to be my own god, and not submit to the Great I AM!

One of my very favorite quotes comes from a woman named Janet Erskine Stuart, who wrote, "If we get our own way, we nurse a hideous idol called self, but if we give up our own way, we get God."  May we all say to Him, "Here I am, send me" no matter how small the task, or how menial, or how many other things we think we must do that are "more important."

Suffering is to Trust!

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2012/09/12/freed-from-the-prison-of-why/

I used to read a little book to my children called A Hole is to Dig and we'd laugh over the simplicity of the truth of the illustrations and words.  What fun it was to dig holes in the sand, in the dirt, in the bread dough, and even yesterday I had fun digging a hole for a new rose bush with lovely peach blooms.  Today, a friend sent me this and I was blessed, as she has been through a terrible trial in her life and is still living it.  She said she's analytic so she's always asking the why question.  I was hoping I could encourage her to simply focus on who God is, and she asked another- why is He good in this situation?  And all I could say was , "Well, He wants us to love Him because He's holy, and He's always good, and it's better to focus on that then on the past and what you think you did wrong!"  I have had so little suffering compared to what she's going through, but even in my "little trials" I've asked why and struggled with how I could fix the problem, and prayed that the other person would change, and been frustrated, and then tried to give a "talk" which turned into a lecture! Oh, how I know in my intellect that He wants me to trust Him, to be quiet, and let Him work, and believe that all things work together for the good of those who are called by His name.  So, suffering is for trust, and He will do what is best for us, in conforming us to the image of Christ. As I trust, He will make that habit dynamic and real in my heart so that it's practicable for life.

Mothering

Thursday, August 23, 2012
Mothering
Now that my "official" mothering days are over (I'll always be a mother, but the children are now gone from my daily service), I am thankful to say that God blessed me with 8 unusual, unique, funny, challenging, and rewarding gifts.  I will not feel sorry for myself, I now have others to give more time to, and I am so grateful for the 35 years of being able to be at home with my "bairns" (as my maternal grandmother called them). At least one of them, maybe 2 will be home next summer  because they're in college now, but it will be a different dynamic here at 3693 Sable Palm Lane. I want to encourage younger moms to stay at home as much as possible because it's the "being there" whenever they need you that makes a huge difference to them.  My uncle Tom Howard said that his mother was always "there" and that brought great comfort and security to him and his 5 siblings.  I sometimes left for a few days to speak somewhere, and was kindly allowed by my husband to do that, because he was usually able to stay with the kids, as well as have the older ones helping.  But when I came home, I was always aware of how much I was missed, and I felt guilty for leaving at all.  The preparation and the coming home were the hardest parts of leaving to speak.  While I was at the speaking engagement (sometimes a retreat, and sometimes just an evening), I knew the Lord was my helper and gave me joy in the retelling of my story, and joy in encouraging and meeting other women whose lives were so similar in needs as mine.  We were mothers trying to be perfect, and God was showing us, and still does that He is the only Perfect One, and we are to rest in His righteousness, not our accomplishments.

This article is excellent (http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/motherhood-as-a-mission-field), which I  found on Kirk Cameron's website, and was happy to see that he's a follower of John Piper.  My mother also taught me that doing the "little things" for God without being noticed by anyone, was my life laid down for the family, as well as my life given to His will.  I'm so thankful that she spoke of "faithfulness in little things" and it has been a life-long lesson for me to persevere in taking care of the little things that most people take for granted.  I have a natural tendency to want to ignore the everyday maintenance of those little things, and it is only by the Holy Spirit's still small voice that I am reminded that I should not ignore those things.  And, "Do the next thing" was my mother's motto also.  I often hear in my mind a quiet reasoning or argument that I must go do that thing, and my natural self is giving a reason why I should do it later, and not NOW.  If I don't do it then,  I later realize that if I had done it when I heard the small voice, it would have been exactly the right time.  I praise Him that He is in the process of conforming me to the image of Christ, and I often see how unnecessary it is for me to argue in my mind or to procrastinate, when it's in the little things that He is giving me to practice laying down my life.

Let your your mind  dwell on His holiness and His sacrifice for you , and you will be helped to live sacrificially for others.  Take one day at a time and let the day's trouble be SUFFICIENT for the day. Don't add on the work or the worries of tomorrow.  Those are in God's hands!

Worship

This is an excerpt from a short article by Matt Redman about his song, "Blessed be Your Name" and it helped me.   God is always Good, no matter how we feel, and He wants us to lift up our hearts and focus on Him, rather than on ourselves!

(Taken from www.mattredman.com.3/1/2005)

In his book "Magnify", Fred J. Heumann explains:
"To bless the Lord no matter what, consider these things:
Worship is about obedience in the midst of reality, not about emotional hype. Emotions can come and should be allowed to flow, but they shouldn't dictate our worship response.
If Job can say this, and face his circumstance and see God in the midst, so can we. This song speaks of the victory that can come in the midst.
The lyric to this song flies in the face of those who say we should only sing "up" songs in worship. We need songs that reflect all of life. The fact is, God is with us in our circumstances, and we can't fool Him about what's going on. We can, however, strive to be obedient and speak to ourselves as the Psalmist did-"Bless the Lord, O my soul!" and see the results that come when we praise our Lord in the midst of tough times."