"Let the wife see...."

"However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." Ephesians 5:33 This is an equal command to man to give his wife what's the hardest for him to give and for the woman to give what's the hardest for her to give. When married to the perfect person, it comes easier, but knowing so few of us are perfect, God gives us each a duty. Women love easily, but we tend to try to be 'holy spirits' to our men. That's not respecting them. That's trying to renew them. It's not our job to renew them and it's also not respecting God. Like our relationships with our fathers are reflected in our relationships with our husbands (our heads) are reflected in our relationships with Christ. If we aren't respecting our earthly headships, we most likely have a problem respecting our heavenly Lord, too. Christ is easier to respect because He is perfect and earned it, but God's command isn't to men to earn our respect. It is to women to give the respect to at least the position if you can't respect the man. But if you show respect to your husband, you're giving him the freedom to become respectable. You're releasing him to respond to the work God is doing in him, for God to mold him into a man of God - the man of God you also want him to be. Or do you? Women do like to be in control and we have a responsibility to control our homes. But that is to control them under our husband's leadership. We must not contradict his wishes, unless they go against God. But we can control our homes within our husbands leadership and preferences. That's one way we respect them. I love the Proverbs 31 verse that says "the heart of her husband trusts in her...she does him good, and not harm.." (vs. 11, 12) That's respecting his wishes, preferences, position and person. As we trust God and entrust our man to God, we can respect our husbands and be the complement he needs. We will no doubt be loved in return. The commands go hand in hand, as should we.

...may have the strength to comprehend...

"...being rooted & grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth..." Ephesians 3:17b-18 I find it interesting that the ESV chose "strength" to comprehend. Why not use "be able"? How great is God's love that we need strength to comprehend it? Just what is the breadth, length, height and depth of God's love, the love in which we are to be rooted and grounded? This is agape love-unconditional-that can only be from God Who is love. So we are to be rooted and grounded in God. Yes, we need strength to see all the depth of His sacrifice, the length of everlasting eternity of His love, the height and depth of His endless grace and mercy. It's mind-boggling! We put limits on things. We box in our love with conditions, but God has no limits and no conditions to His love or to Himself. God is eternal, all powerful, all-sufficient, all knowing and His love is everlasting. Yes, oh Lord, give us the strength to comprehend the vastness of this glorious love!

The Lord will fight for you...

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." Exodus 14:14 I always love the drive to visit my sister because it's hours in the car and I can think with so few interruptions. So I've begun to journal to verses in my diary. This is the one I wrote Sunday. That's tough to be so full of faith that we let God do all the fighting for us. Will He really do all the work? Don't I need to fight too and let Him help me? But that's not what this verse promises. God says we need only to be still. The ESV says to be "silent". Relax. Don't say a word. The Lord promises to fight for you. Pray about it, express your fears and concerns, but praise Him too for what He's about to do. For what He is doing! Be still, that's your part. The Lord Almighty is doing His!

There is none holy as the Lord....

"There is none holy as the Lord; for there is none beside thee; neither is there any rock like our God." 1 Samuel 2:2 God is faithful and unchanging. He is our secure rock foundation that can't be moved. It's such a relaxing feeling knowing His constancy. That we rest in, but His holiness is too often set aside. He is our only God and there is none beside Him. But I think if we really knew His holiness we would come before Him with much more reverence and much less of a Christmas list. Sometimes that's all I come to Him with, or so it seems. But here lately, I'm glad to be able to say that my heart has naturally been praising Him - and that we should! Praise Him for His many attributes and praise Him for His holiness, too. Learn to rest in that as well.

The path of life.....

I gave my testimony last night at the Festival of Life our church held last night. I thought I'd post it here too in case it helps anyone. I was raised in a church and learned a lot about the Bible and God, but never knew God. I learned all the right things to do and did them if they didn't cramp my style too much. I spent most of my time doing what I wanted to do and pushing the limits just enough to not get caught. I lived most of my life that way. As a young adult I was cautiously promiscuous and drank heavily and often. I did that until I started waking up not knowing how I got home. That scared me into quiting that. At age 21 I married my first husband. After about four years it wasn't going like I wanted and thought for sure God wouldn't want me miserable all my life, so I divorced him. At 25 I married who I thought was perfect. We were a lot alike and about four years later, he didn't want to be married anymore and we divorced. I was devastated. I had made a real mess of my life doing things my way. I thought if I got back into church God would like me again and have good things happen so I joined the closest church I could find. They had a policy of making sure their members knew God personally, so they sent a couple of people to visit me. They asked me if I died tonight did I know for sure if I would go to heaven or not. That threw me for a loop because I didn't think about that a lot. So I thought about it and hoped that my bad things I knew I did didn't outweigh the good things I had done. I told them I didn't know. So they talked with me and I came to realize that I had been living all my life to please myself and to satisfy my will. I knew I had made myself and people I loved miserable. I decided then that I would accept Jesus as my Savior and live my life following God's will and plan for my life. There's a Bible verse that says if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins AND cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's what He did for me that night. He cleansed me and I felt a great burden lifted off of me and all the guilt I'd carried for years fell away. I felt renewed and knew I was different. That's been almost 30 years ago. Since then I have remarried to a wonderful Christian man and have 3 wonderful grown children. I'd like to say it's been all fun and games but it hasn't. Life keeps happening. We've had our share of marital problems, parenting problems, financial problems and health problems. But the difference is how I've handled these situations. This time I saw life from God's perspective and handled things God's way. Now in life I have God's wisdom, and Word, strength, peace and joy to face each situation. Psalm 16:11 describes my life in God now: "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

Aslan is on the move!

For those of you who don't know who Aslan is, he's God in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. It was winter forever it seemed and never Christmas. But when Aslan began to move, Christmas came followed soon after by Spring. Well, we've started a new ministry program at our church called "The Titus 2 Discipleship Ministry." The idea came from Susan Hunt who spoke at the recent Nancy Leigh DeMoss conference in October. When we began putting the program together, we ordered 24 books to be used in the year long program hoping to have enough people to use them all. The response was so great that we've almost doubled that with 46 women wanting to take part! The theme is to teach the older women how to mentor the younger and to teach the younger why this is important. The goal is to build relationships. What surprised me is that this is a small but spiritually mature church. I didn't think that many women really needed it. People seem close already, but apparently my assumptions were wrong. Most of the ladies in our church are apparently just as hungry as I am to learn to reach out and minister to her sisters. It's beautiful to see so many sisters yearning to be living out God's will by learning to fulfill this mandate given us in Titus 2. Not only that, but the men got "jealous"! They have asked for their own teaching to reach each other in our church and how to help them spiritually grow in the Lord, too. It's just so exciting to be a part of the Spirit moving in our midst! I can't wait to see the results at the end of this year long commitment. If I thought this was a close, loving, giving group before, I know I will be abundantly blessed through out the year to see the unfolding results of all of us living out this calling. It's soul stirring to see "Aslan" on the move here at home and nothing short of glorious!

What a difference a word makes....

Work has been much better with the new year. I have prayed and prayed to let me think of my work as being for the Lord and not worrying about whether you feel appreciated or not. I have a hard time doing that except for the quality I try to give. I do try very hard to do my best to God in any job however good or poor it may appear to others. All I can do to give my best. Well, it doesn't go unnoticed. With all the correction I may get at times, my boss really does notice. She doesn't take me for granted. She showed me monetarily at the end of the year, but she told me from the heart today too. I made every effort to be there during a snow/ice storm every day. I didn't enjoy going, but I knew no one else would. I went through moments of pity-pottying, but I did feel good being dependable. I know now that I am appreciated. God may always notice, but it's also nice when the people around you take note and bother to show appreciation. Never hold back a word of encouragement if it's yours to give. There's never enough of them. No matter how small or insignificant it may seem to you to say, it means the world to the hearer! May I learn to speak words of life to others.

"Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body."

Proverbs 16:24