Plans

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.—Jeremiah 29:11

This week I visited a friend and her daughter in the hospice care room for her husband.  We talked a lot about the process of dying and how watching a loved one slowly decline and shut down makes for a very different grieving process.  She and her daughter are saying goodbye hour by hour, it seems, so the grieving has begun well before their husband and father has left this world.  

My friend spoke about knowing her husband can hear her even though he doesn’t always visibly respond when she speaks.  She felt a strong need to tell him, as she watched his struggle for breath at times, to just let go.  She felt he was worried for her and their daughter about how they were going to make it and who was going to take care of them.  She assured him that they would be okay, that he needn’t worry, that they would be fine.  

Jeremiah 29:11 assures us this is true.  I think God sometimes whispers in our ear, knowing we hear Him even though we might not visibly respond, to just let go.  We hang on to our own plans, our own desires, and definitely our own worries.  But God has a plan—a plan to prosper us, a plan for a good life!  He’s simply waiting for us to let go of our own agendas and let Him put His plan into action.  And when we do, we can stop worrying and struggling, resting assured that things will be okay.

Wings

But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. —Isaiah 40:31

I’ve spent quite a number of days contemplating this verse.  It’s a familiar verse, so I didn’t want to just gloss over it and assume I knew what God was trying to say to me through it.  That’s the awesome thing about God’s Word.  He may use the very same verse one has read many times over to say something completely different.  

Also, in the midst of a very busy two weeks of sporting events with my family, sitting down to write seemed like an extravagance.  My head was full of to-do list items, and I couldn’t seem to focus enough to sit down and put words to paper.  So, as this piece of the Word, ironically teaching about waiting on God, drifted in and out of my consciousness, I knew the best thing was to wait….wait until the meaning was unmistakably clear to write anything down.

Several thousand feet above the ground while traveling with my family to a gym meet, I was looking out my plane window admiring the view.  See, I’m not at all bothered by heights.  In fact, I enjoy the birds-eye view of the world so far below me.  It always makes me wish I could fly, not in a plane but like a bird, soaring about with the wind swishing past me.  That’s when it hit me.  

God knows my desires.  He knows what scares me, what excites me, and He knows my struggles.  He promises me that if I wait on His guidance, His leading, that I won’t have to struggle or be afraid.  He’ll give me the energy and the strength to do the task He has for me.  Then I will soar about, flying high on the blessings He gives through my obedience.  And not flying like a little robin, but like an eagle, majestic and bold through His power.  What a rush! 

In our hurry-up world, we tend to rush things just to mark them off a list or just to get what we want.  Let’s pray that God will work on our patience to wait so that we can do His will, follow His lead, and earn our eagle wings.

Vain

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.  —Proverbs 31:30

I had lots of tasks to accomplish yesterday.  First and foremost on the list was to get my driver’s license renewed since it would expire at the end of the day!  After that would be a visit to a bookstore during their closing sale.  A family member works there, and through her I’ve gotten to know the owner over the years.  The visit would be shopping plus a social call.  Next would be lunch with a friend whom I don’t see as often as in previous years.  Finally, I would head to my shop.  There, it was a night full of visitors.  

After closing, my oldest daughter looked at me and asked if I was okay.  Wondering what prompted that, I answered yes and gave her a questioning look.  She told me that I looked pale and maybe even a little sick.  Since I felt fine, I was a bit taken aback by her assessment.  She took a closer look at my face and then asked, “Mom, did you forget to put makeup on today???”  Now I don’t wear much, only some eyeliner and mascara, but I do that every single morning of every single day so of course I wouldn’t forget….would I?

As I felt my eyelashes to find them clean and bare, I couldn’t believe she was right!  Was I becoming senile at such a **cough** young age?  When I thought back to my morning routine to figure out how I had forgotten, I remembered thinking about my driver’s license photo.  I had to make sure my hair was just so and sprayed down well to keep the static from making me look like a crazy person.  I also had to pick out just the right shirt because, hello, this photo stays with you for four whole years!  I can’t be looking out of style on my ID before it expires.  

There was the problem.  I let vanity take over my morning.  I let my appearance be my main concern for the day.  The funny thing is, upon discovering my error, I actually sent a message to two of the women with whom I had spent time explaining why I might have looked odd.  You know what?  Both of them said they didn’t even notice.  

Now, this is no testament to my natural beauty (again, **cough**).  It’s more a confession of my shallow concerns.  My friends didn’t care about my face.  My friends cared about catching up, about sharing our lives with each other, and about laughing together.  They care about me enough to not notice the outside.  

If my friends can offer me this kind of grace, imagine how much more grace Jesus offers us.  He looks past the outside appearance, past the vanity, past the wrinkles and the scars.  He sees the heart instead and all the possibilities for good that He can bring forth.  He sees someone with whom He shares life and for whom He gave his own life.  He sees perfection despite the flaws, made possible by His grace, no makeup necessary.  

Train UP

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.  —Proverbs 22:6

I would say this verse is one of the most challenging verses that a parent could read.  

My two girls are as different as night and day.  The oldest is Type A, perfectionistic, head strong, a rule follower, and stubborn.  She’s very rooted, sentimental, and resistant to change.  In other words, she’s a lot like her mother.  The youngest is Type B, laid-back, a rule-bender, an adventurer, has wings instead of roots, and is sentimental about nothing.  Because she & I are so different, I struggle with understanding her and, therefore, with correcting her.  Because the two are opposites, the same discipline doesn’t work on both of them.  What finds the hurt, so to speak, in one doesn’t even phase the other.  

How, then, do we accomplish the difficult job of successful parenting?  I think the key can be found in the second word of the verse—up.  It’s my prayer that my girls will leave our home someday not just with the knowledge of how to be a good adult, but with the knowledge of how to be a follower of Jesus—to focus their eyes ‘up’ on His ways, His leading, and His mission for their lives.  That means Jamie & I have to exhibit the same behavior, showing them what it looks like to submit to God’s leading.  If we can accomplish that, the rest will fall into place as a result.  Not an easy task as we are far from perfect, but one for which we must strive.

Forever

A friend loves at all times.  —Proverbs 17:17

My youngest daughter spent her first year of life in a Chinese Social Welfare Institute.  Without the fancy name, that translates to an orphanage.  Before she came home to her forever family, she lived with anywhere from forty to eighty of her ‘sisters’, playing in a common area together, and looking at each other through bumped-together crib rails, sometimes reaching through to grasp a sister’s fingers.  

One might assume that no memory would remain of her first home since she left there at age one.  However, one only has to watch her interact with the group of sisters that came home together to know this simply isn’t true.  

In the first year of being home, all the families got them together often, usually once a month.  Then, schedules being the way they are for most, the visits tapered off until almost three years passed without the girls seeing one another.  It seemed they had lost touch.  

A reunion was planned for the summer at my home.  Since so long had passed, the girls were all a little nervous that they wouldn’t remember each other, or that they wouldn’t have anything to say.  As the girls all began to arrive, though, those thoughts quickly disappeared.  Within five minutes, they were giggling and talking like time had stood still, exhibiting a bond that only God could have formed given the dire circumstances from which they came.  

To understand today’s verse, one only has to watch these girls now each time they’re together.  We parents have determined to make better efforts to allow them to see each other.  Still yet, every time goodbyes must be said until the next visit, the girls don’t want to let each other go.  You see, they have loved each other when there was no one else to love them.  They have known what it was like to only have each other, so they will love each other at all times.  I believe that will last their whole lives.  

Amazing as it may sound, God loves us even more than that.  He loves us at all times no matter how unloveable we may act.  He will never leave us or abandon us.  He wants to be our forever family.  We need only to accept and let Him wrap His arms around us like I did with my daughter the day she became mine forever.  

Path

In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.  —Proverbs 3:6 (NASB)

Have you ever navigated an aerial ropes course?  Think obstacle course elevated a couple of stories, then add in wiggling.  Typically, a course consists of elements such as swinging bridges, tightropes, cargo nets and the occasional zip line.  The safety harness and belay system keep one from falling to certain injury, but the adrenaline rush remains whether one has a fear of heights or not.  

The course I traversed today had multiples paths, some zigzagging, some going uphill and down.  I had to carefully evaluate which way to go.  Did I want a challenge?  Did I want the quickest way to the zipline?  Some were easy, and some made my legs a little shaky.  One conquered me, forcing me to find an alternative way through until I could tiredly hoist my way to a platform.

I can see a parallel here.  When faced with a decision, I have to evaluate the options.  God tells me in today’s verse that if I let Him lead, He will direct me to the straight path, the one without obstacles, the one that won’t make my legs shake, the one that won’t conquer me.  He has my back and won’t let me fall.  And I find that watching His plan play out, and when He makes His involvement so obvious, that it gives me a rush, a desire to see what He’ll do next. 

Trust

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  —Proverbs 3:5

I’ve often told my girls, “Trust me” when they’ve struggled with various things.  During the years we homeschooled, often I would have to convince one of them that I was explaining how to do a particular piece of homework correctly.  When they learned to ride bikes, they knew I would eventually let go of the seat as I was helping balance, but I would have to remind them to trust me to let it go when the time was right.  When I’ve offered advice, I have to remind them to trust that I understand their feelings because I’ve been through the same teen or tween problems.  

This is so parallel to the way we are with God.  He knows all our struggles, all our doubts, all the things that tempt us to do something we shouldn’t.  He’s dealt with all these things Himself.  Yet we still question.  We still wonder if we should just solve our problems our own way on our own time.  We still turn around to see if He’s holding onto the bike seat, so to speak.  

God is saying to us, “Just trust me!”  He doesn’t expect us to understand His ways.  Scripture tells us His ways are not our ways.  Just like we don’t always expect our children to understand our reasoning, we may not always know why God is telling us to do something.  He simply expects us to listen and obey, much like we expect of our kids. 

Let’s pray for better trust, and not just with the little things, but with all our heart.  That means every area of our lives, the major and the minor.  He cares about all of it. 

Order

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.  —Psalm 91:11

I’ve struggled with this verse for over a day now.  I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to take from this one.  I decided to look it up in a few different translations to see if that helped me grasp onto it a little more.  Here’s the one I liked best:

“For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.” (NLT)

I like the use of the word ‘order’ in this version.  When I think of someone giving an order, I envision an authority figure.  And order as a noun sounds pretty important, doesn’t it?  God, in His supreme power, has authority over everything, so He is definitely qualified to give an order.  It should make us feel very loved and safe to know that God finds us important enough to instruct his angels, with that supreme authority, to protect us.  

In a world where safe places are becoming more and more scarce, cling to this verse.  When things feel uncertain, know that the angels, under the command of God Most Powerful, are watching over you and protecting you.

Still

Be still and know that I am God.  —Psalm 46:10

Sometimes it’s really hard for me to be still.  I’m a person who likes to be busy.  I’m not much of a procrastinator about most things (except really yucky stuff like cleaning toilets), and I tend to feel pressure until my task list is complete.  As a stay-home mom, I’ve often dealt with feeling the need to justify my occupation.  Therefore, I often have to remind myself that it’s ok to be still.  In fact, God clearly tells me so in today’s verse.

While I’m running around like a headless chicken checking things off my list, God is waiting for me to make time for Him.  He doesn’t want to be a part of my multi-tasking mania.  He wants me all to Himself for just a little while.  After all, surely I can carve out a few minutes for the very One who made me, right?  

Look at some of the other times the same instruction appears in scripture:

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. —Exodus 14:14

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…—Psalm 37:7

Notice how in each verse, there is a result given for stillness.  What I take from this is that God doesn’t need my busyness to help Him with His task list.  What He needs is my obedience, my willingness to listen to His plan so that I am most effective.  

What can you do to make some time for God today?

Dwell

January 5

…I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  —Psalm 23:6

Dwell is not a word I use very often.  Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition to see if there were any old uses.  The current use is defined as “to live or stay as a permanent resident”.  This is the meaning I expected, but the word choices really livened up today’s verse for me.  Let’s rephrase using the definition…

“I will live as a permanent resident in the house of the Lord forever.”

Doesn’t that just give you cold chills?  God has prepared a place for his children to live as permanent residents!  No moving, no relocating, no getting kicked out.  Our home…permanently.  Isn’t that comforting?   

I grew up in a church that didn’t focus on the forever part.  It was fear, not faith, that kept me on the straight and narrow.  I feared that if I made a mistake, God would reconsider my eternal address.  

When I found my own church as a college student, I also found my own faith.  I learned that once I said yes to Jesus, the deal was sealed.  No more worrying about getting ‘kicked out’.  Of course I’ll make mistakes.  God knows that because He knows I’m not perfect.  And He loves me still…enough to let me dwell in His house forever.

Fear

January 4

I will fear no evil; for you are with me…Psalm 23:4

Fear can be a crippling emotion.  I have an intense fear of water.  Maybe you didn’t know this about me, but if you think about it, I bet you can’t recall hanging out in the pool with me or going to the lake with me.  There are even very few hot tubs in which I have been able to relax comfortably.

Everyone always asks, “Why can’t you swim?” usually followed by an assurance that they could teach me.  Here’s the thing.  I don’t want to learn.  I’m too afraid of the water to even want to learn or to care if I don’t.  Water terrifies me.  It takes my breath away to the point of gasping at about a chest-deep level.  Sure, I can walk in the surf of the ocean, or sit near the side of the pool (ok, not TOO near), but that’s where the fun ends.  Ironically, I wasn’t bothered by being on a cruise ship.  I’ve always said I don’t mind being ON the water, just not IN it.  

I know that my fear is backed by stubbornness.  Today’s verse says that God is with me.  There are numerous times in scripture that “Fear not” appears.  God knows we all have fears and He knows we need to be reminded that He is with us even when we’re afraid.  If my faith were stronger, perhaps I could focus on that and ditch my phobia.

I’m not sure I’m ready to pray that God will help me overcome my fear of water, but I am praying that He will strengthen my faith, help me to increase my trust that He is with me, and that He will teach me to overcome my stubbornness.  That could certainly involve a lot.  

Restore

January 3

He restores my soul… Psalm 23:3

God is in the restoration business.  Not like with old furniture, but in restoring hearts and souls.  I suppose there are some similarities to restoring furniture.  An antique family heirloom might show years of wear and use.  A yard sale find may need lots of scrapes and scratches covered.  We are like that sometimes, aren’t we?

We need our scrapes with sin covered.  We need our years of resisting God’s direction wiped away.  God is willing to do that for us.  In fact, He sent His Son to do the work.  Jesus took all our mistakes, all our scrapes, all our wear and tear and wiped them away.  His grace and mercy cover us with a shiny new finish, fully restored to a right relationship with God and with a place in heaven secured.  

I believe God also knows that our bodies need restoration.  He built a rest day into our week.  Sometimes we use that day like any other, cramming in all we can to maximize our time.  Make yourself rest instead.  Restore your energy so that you are better equipped to do the work God has for you the next day.  He needs you to be ready!

Shepherd

January 2

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Psalm 23:1

Just this evening, I had a discussion with someone who raises sheep.  I had no idea that this would be tonight’s verse, so that in itself is evidence of God at work.  

The sheep owner talked of how verses in the Bible teach that sheep know the voice of their shepherd.  They respond to the shepherd’s instruction because they recognize and trust his voice.  The owner had also watched a video online showing a large herd of sheep that split into two groups led simply by each shepherd whistling.  The sheep recognized merely a whistle and knew which man to follow.  The owner and his wife had been excited to see this happen with their own sheep but were unsuccessful.  After some research, they learned the sheep have to be trained to do this.

Likewise with us.  We must train ourselves to hear the voice of our shepherd.  By reading and studying the Bible and engaging in conversation with God, we will recognize His voice and be comfortable in following His leading.  Without training, though, like my friend’s sheep, we will ignore the shepherd’s voice.  

Today’s verse tells us that God will make sure our needs are met, that we will want for nothing.  We simply have to trust Him enough to follow his leading.  What an assurance!  God, help me to hear you more clearly, to train my ear to differentiate your voice from all the other things clamoring for attention.  Thank you for providing for my every need!

Beginning

January 1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

-John 1:1, NRSV

The beginning.  Just two little words hold such promise.  The visual for me is a clean white board.  Or that blank page in the book just before chapter 1 begins.  Turning that blank page always causes a ripple of excitement for this avid reader, excitement to start the story, to dive into a pleasurable pastime.  

In the beginning, the world was like that blank whiteboard, clean and waiting to be filled.  For God, maybe it was like the blank page in a book.  Maybe He was excited to breathe into existence  the story that would fill the pages.  

Human sin, however, caused the story to take a different turn, and God sent His son to give us a new beginning, a fresh start.  He erased everything on the white board and made it clean again.  His hope and love for the world caused Him not to give up on us, but to give us a second chance.   This gives ME hope!  Hope because I know God loves me that much, because I know that my acceptance of Him has secured a place in His family, because I know my mistakes are wiped clean, because my story is still being written.

On this first day of the year, let’s focus on that.  Focus on the story to be written over the next twelve months.  Let’s fill the pages with hope, with good, with love, with praise for the giver of new beginnings.  

Something New

During the Christmas season, a long-time friend of mine asked me to participate with her in an Advent project.  A faith-based magazine had published a list of words, one for each day of Advent, and asked readers to choose a photo that best illustrated each word.  I agreed and hoped I could stay committed to the project.

I started out with my first photo and simply a few words to caption it.  As the days went on, I found myself wanting to discover how the word of the day was connected to Advent.  Why was the word chosen?  What was I supposed to take from it?  And how would I find a photo subject to show my thoughts?

I began to research a bit, dig a little deeper, and then began to pray each day that God would show me the connection.  My posts often happened late at night so that I could allow God the whole day to show me.  There were many days that His promptings were subtle, and there were some days that His leading hit me over the head like a frying pan.  A few days I felt like I was scrambling to write.  I would sit with my hands poised over the keyboard with nothing, but then the words would just come.
What started as simply a fun photography project developed into one of the most meaningful Bible study projects I have done.  I learned and grew so much that I didn't want it to end with Christmas Day, so I decided to keep going.

I purchased a verse-a-day notepad to direct me.  While I don't have a list of single words, I do have a list of verses.  I'll look for a keyword in each verse to focus on during each day.  And instead of posting on Facebook, I decided to start this blog to keep my ponderings better organized in one place.

If you have chosen to ponder along with me, welcome!  Please feel free to share in the comments section any musings that day's verse or word has created for you.  I'd love to see how God's Word speaks differently to each of us.  Some days I may include a photo, some days maybe just words.  We'll see what God presents!