Time Better Spent

Short Christian rant to follow, proceed with caution...

I've been hearing some people lately talking about moves of God and the way God moves and how some people are flaky, how they could be over dramatizing how God is moving in their lives, etc. It breaks my heart to hear such passion (misdirected passion) about how people respond to the presence of God. Who are we to say how a person should react to the presence of God? If people run, jump, dance, fall over, shake...etc...who are we to judge that? We haven't lived their lives...we don't know what God is doing in their hearts...

Perhaps it may seem strange, but all of those "strange" or "ridiculous" reactions to the presence of God occurred in the Bible. So God can't do it again??? A few that come to mind right away are...

Saul was knocked off his horse and struck blind...
David danced like an idiot...
Elijah was translated by God and found himself running beside a chariot...
On the day of Pentecost they spoke with tongues and people thought they were drunk...
many in the bible fell on their faces in worship...

Don't get me wrong, I don't think God always moves in those ways, but...Why don't we focus more on what God wants for us and what we can receive from His presence rather than watching how others do or don't respond to Him? I'm sure it is time much better spent...

Follow Your Heart?

I have always been one to say that I follow my heart. I guess what I was thinking is that my heart was really another word for my spirit. I have recently figured out that that isn't true. Jeremiah 17:9 NIV says that "the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure..." What!? That threw me for a loop. I don't know why I never thought of it before because don't we say "I love you with all my heart?" Also we tend to say things like "I feel like the Lord spoke to my heart about..." These are contradictory as the Lord speaks to our spirit and we love people with our emotions - we are clearly dealing with two different things here. So after further study I began to realize that our heart is another name for our soul (our mind, will and emotions). I don't want to exhaust you with scriptural references but I'll give you one example of each so you know how I came to this conclusion...

Mind: Luke 2:19.... people ponder in their heart (think or meditate)

Will: 2Ch 6:7.... the heart that decides

Emotions: Jos 5:1...the fearful heart and Dt 6:5...the loving heart

The study of the heart, what it is and how we renew it is way too vast to cover in this blog post but maybe this tiny nugget of truth about what our heart really is will whet your appetite for more... here are a few more scripture references to get you started...

Ps 51:10 Create in me a pure heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Prov 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Mark 7:21-22 (too long to type but it talks about the types of wickedness lodged in our hearts)

Ezekiel 11:19-20 ...I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

To Be Continued...

This is a draft I found that I was too emotional to finish at the time... I originally wrote it in January and have added the last few sentences today to finish it... I think it's important to post in case anyone is discouraged in their faith as they believe God for the healing of a loved one...it happens to all of us... but we can't lose if we don't quit!!!! No matter what our emotions tell us...

Funny how I was catching up on the blogs I missed during the last week and one of my friends blogged about healing... It's what's on my mind, too.

For those of you who don't know, my dad has been battling Hep C, diabetes, kidney failure and liver failure for about 11 yrs. It's a loooong story but suffice it to say that it's been one rough ride for this daddy's girl. He waited (and suffered for 10 yrs) waiting for the transplantS he needed (both kidney and liver) and then on July 5, 2008 he got the call. The relief that this would finally be over for him was overwhelming as was the anxiety about the procedure itself. Everything went well, Praise God... we were all so happy....until... well, he started getting sick on a regular basis and was put through inumerable procedures, tests, biopsies, drains...blah blah blah...

I found myself feeling very hopeless the other night when mom called and told me he was in crisis and his blood pressure was 70/44 and his pulse was also 44... rapid response was in the room working on him and couldn't get it to come back up. That's the team that comes in because they anticipate that you could crash and have to have a full code blue called (when your heart stops).

I felt like I got hit in the stomach... I would like to say that faith rose up and I immediately went to battle and I KNEW everything was gonna be ok, but I didn't. This is a situation I have prayed so much about and believed God for for so long that I guess my tank of faith was empty. I kind of felt numb... Thank God for the wisdom to at least keep my mouth shut! So I did what I always do when my faith is low... I called (or texted) my 3 closest friends and told them to pray.

Dad pulled through (Thank you, Jesus...) but I was left with a huge feeling of guilt and failure because I hadn't responded the way I would have liked to. It gets hard to watch someone you love suffer so much after so many years... I guess I let it get to me. I don't understand why this has happened the way it has or why God hasn't manifested the answers to my prayers yet...

It is puzzling and sometimes very discouraging HOWEVER I know my God well enough to know that according to Heb 10:23...(NIV) "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." If I hold on to God's promises, they will come to pass as God is unable to fail.

One day I will be posting the miraculous testimony of how God saved my dad from death and the wonderful ways dad is declaring the works of the Lord in his life. TO BE CONTINUED...