Skipped Church to go to Church

Feeling on the emotional side I knew the first time the choir sang that it would put an end to what strength I had. Having traveled that road before I recognized the signs. Although my family both inside and outside the church love me I knew I needed to go somewhere alone with God.

The storms of life were moving in so quickly even a qualified weatherman could not keep up with them. Emotions were backing up on to burst through a false wall of strength only to reveal a staggering weakness and a desire to simply collapse.

Where could I go I wondered. Where could I meet God? As I got into the car a road sign attracted my attention. Smith State park it said just 5 miles north of where I was.  Slowly I followed the signs in hope of not getting lost. Finally I arrived at my destination   It's beauty captured my attention right off. God was here before me as he was the one who painted and designed this state park location.

God was here then and God is here again now with me. For each hiker that passes me by with their water bottle and camera in hand I have with me the Creator of water. The one who makes you want to stop and take a picture of such artwork and design.

Breathing a sigh of relief I said to myself why can't Gods presence be so overwhelming in my life. Detecting a touch of pity coming on I reached for my Bible to quench my spiritual thirst before going on.

How dare I not think that His presence is not overwhelming in my life as it is within the rock cliffs at Smith Rock state park. God is my rock in whom I stand upon. A rock bigger and mightier than the ones I was looking at today.

Storms may be rocking my world right now but My Rock, my God will not move away from me. His presence is there I just need to concentrate on it no differently than the hikers concentrating on the narrow trail that leads to the top of their rock where they were climbing.

God has me on a path and I need to concentrate on following Him up it. There is no time for pity I have a trail to climb to keep moving forward.

Stay close to your car the ranger told me at the park. Stay close to God my heart told me in order to ride out the storm. The only Rock in this strong storm is the Rock I stand upon in Christ Jesus. 

Thank you Lord for the oldest church in the world the one created by you. The choir was your birds singing. The message you gave was straight from Your heart to mine. Psalm 61:1,2 hear my cry O God: listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to you, when my heart is overwhelmed and fainting. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, yes a rock that is too high for me. 

Isaiah 26:4 so trust in The Lord ( commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever for The Lord God is an everlasting Rock (the Rock of Ages).

I'm glad I attended. I am glad I came.
Sent from my iPhone

In Udder Words ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~God Is Real

Train your eyes to see evidence of God’s presence instead of looking for confirmation of His absence.  Wayne Corderio

 

In a powerfully inspiring sermon on Sunday our youth minister spoke about making an appointment with God. He challenged the congregation to look for ways to come into the presence of God, to feel Him there, to know in their hearts He is near, that He is real.

 

In other words he was challenging us to train our eyes to see evidence of God’s presence. Too often we are looking for the confirmation of His absence instead of the evidence that He is near. We grumble about the things going on around us and say, “If God was only here. Why did God abandon us?” instead of looking for the evidence He was there all along. All along being our support thru the worse of tragedies.

 

Mary and Martha in the Bible pulled this very thing when their brother Lazarus died. The minute Jesus arrived they jumped on Him for not being there to prevent Lazarus from dying. “If only you were here!” They both said to Him. God didn’t abandon them. He was there all along with His love for them and the plans still in place He had for them.

 

Bad things happen to good people, it’s just the way it is whether we want to accept it or not. God is real, we need to lean in to Him and look for His presence. It’s important to make a daily appointment with God to meet up with Him to mix and mingle with Him. Doing it frequently enough that we get to know Him as He gets to know us. We have no problem doing this with our friends, co-workers, the beauty parlor, the doctor’s office, why not God.

 

Right this very moment God loves us. The very God of the universe, the Creator of the atmosphere, the designer of how the ocean comes and goes loves us. Wow. That doesn’t mean a million dollars in unmarked bills, or the perfect health, or wedded bliss, or everything we ever wanted. It means He cares, we mean something to Him.  He has a plan for us that will take us into eternity with Him. He is preparing a place for us in the highest places of Heaven. We may have to suffer a little on earth but not for all eternity because God has given us a place in which to come in to. A place full of His presence where no appointments are necessary, the place called Heaven.

 

Until that time in which our room is ready we still need to be making appointments to spend time with the Lord. We don’t need bright lights to show He is present with us this very moment, we don’t need angels announcing His arrival, or chariots of fire showing up to take us to Him for the day. What we need is the willingness to take the time to come into God’s presence. We can do that thru the reading of the Bible, prayer, or simply talking to God as if He was sitting right across the table from us. It is from there or any place that we can chat with Him about our frustrations, share our accomplishments and joys, cry over our fears, laugh over our shortcomings and goofy moments in life.

 

The evidence is there that God is present, just look, feel, and absorb. However, is there proof on the other side where can God say the same about us? Does He see evidence of our presence with Him in spirit, in our choices, in our attitudes, and every day living? If not we need to do something about that, its time to show up to our own appointment with God. The appointment book works both ways.

 

God is real. God is present. God is there. He has a personality that we really need to get to know. Did you make your appointment with Him today? Do it now.

 

 

© 2013 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing       In Udder Words Tuesday

 

 

 

Via the Voice of God

“God whispers to us in our pleasure, but He shouts to us in our pain.” C.S. Lewis quoted in a Daily Hope Devotion by Rick Warren titled “Turning in to God”.

Reading this quote from Rick Warren reminds me of a story in the Bible, The story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11. God told Elijah to go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord and wait for the Lord to pass by. As Elijah stood there a great and powerful wind came but God wasn’t in the wind. Then an earthquake shook the ground but God wasn’t in the earthquake. After that a fire came but He wasn’t in the fire either. After the fire along came a gentle whisper in which the voice of the Lord was in.

If Elijah hadn’t been paying attention he would have missed God altogether thinking once the gentle whisper showed up that must have been it but it wasn’t over. Too often that is what we do. God doesn’t show up in the fashion we think He should so before He even has a chance to get there we’ve walked away and we miss out on His presence.

In our flawed logic we figure God isn’t present because pain is. After all, if God was such a loving God then I wouldn’t be in this pain in the first place so He must not be around. From there the only shouting we hear in our pain is the groaning of our own complaining heart. The sounds of pity parties being thrown, “why me” lists being checked off. We get overwhelmed with the noises we are making to the point we miss the voice of the Lord.

We think He’s shouting at us alright! Yelling at us and punishing us for some reason as being the source of our pain. Boy do we have it all wrong. In our pleasure we can be heard celebrating and gloating over all that we have done and the whisper of God’s voice goes by unnoticed. On the other extreme in the midst of pain we continue to try to “out voice” Him by complaining about our hard times.

God is shouting to us to get us to hang on, to reach out to Him, to learn and to grow from our experiences. Constantly He’s doing all He can to get us to find right paths down narrow roads. He’s shouting to us to get us to follow His voice home. He’s not shouting, “You no good fool, you made your bed now lie in it.” He’s shouting, “Take up your mat and follow me.”

Whisper or shout it doesn’t matter God’s voice is there and we need to be like Elijah and stand there waiting for it to pass by. If it passes by unnoticed that’s our fault. We need to be listening and stop demanding it come packaged in the wrapping of our choice.

Silence! God is speaking and all we have to do is listen. You can’t get any simpler than that, via the voice of God.


© 2010 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

We Are Not Alone

“Rather than turn from loneliness, what if we turned toward it? Could it be that loneliness is not a curse but a gift? A gift from God? Max Lucado, Traveling Light: The Promise of Psalm 23


Loneliness can be a very interesting emotion. It is something that can be very devastating that can be felt even in the company of many others. It has driven many people towards things they should have stayed away from. Things they thought for certain were the sure fire cure from their feeling of isolation and solitude.

On our way to finding the solution to our downward state we bypass the true resolution or definitive answer, our Shepherd. In Psalm 23 we find a promise that is repeated multiple times throughout the Bible, “for Thou art WITH me.” The presence of the Lord is something we should never doubt in spite of the feelings we are feeling inside.

In Exodus 33 I don’t think Moses was feeling “lonely” but he was seeking answers from God and God’s reply to him was “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” This is a promise that is later repeated to Joshua in Joshua 1:17 “God will be with you as He was with Moses.” Joshua 3:7 “As I was with Moses I will be with You.” God was with David, with Jonah, with Noah, Ruth, Abraham, Elijah, Enoch, and the list goes on and on.

Our name is on that list too. We too can be made exceedingly glad with the joy of God’s presence. We don’t ever have to feel alone. There are times when this emotion is going to try and get the best of us. It is during these times when we are at our weakest that we need to turn to the Lord and rejoice over the joy of His presence. Snuggle up to Jesus, lay your head on His shoulder and remind yourself that you are not alone. When we do this what started out a curse turns into a gift. What Satan intended for evil God turns into a blessing.

It’s important that on our way to the solution we don’t pass by the cure. How many times have you started to turn to go somewhere and you run into someone. Startled to see them there we blurt out, “Oh I didn’t see you there” and on we go. Frequently we do this to God. We turn towards where we think we need to go and we run into God who was standing there all along. Our first reaction is, “Oh I didn’t see You there” and on we go.

No, stop and take the time to use these moments of weakness to find strength in the presence of God. With the Lord we never have to feel lonely again. Satan will try to convince us we are but it’s during those moments that we are to draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

We need to use our feeling of solitude as our clue to snuggle up to Jesus before we give ourselves permission to seek for solutions in all the wrong places. Our loneliness will never bring back the parent we just lost, the friend that is no longer there, the child we miss so much but it can bring us closer to God. We don’t have to be victims of our circumstances when there is victory in Jesus to be found in the gift of His presence. The choice is ours to take the time to look for the confirmation of His presence instead of the evidence of His absence. Proof that is abundant, evidence that is true that indeed God is WITH us, we are not alone thanks to Jesus.

© 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Flee To, Not From

“But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa,where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.” Jonah 1:3


Jonah, Jonah, Jonah what was he thinking! God tells him to go one place and he turns tail and runs the opposite direction. How preposterous is that! What a ninny. Whoever would have thought of such a thing that absurd? Well my dear, have you looked in the closest mirror lately. Not the one that shows your wild hair day but the one that shows your heart and the condition of your spirit.

Once examined through the mirror of our hearts its apparent we all have a little bit of Jonah in us. The other day on my birthday my dad recalled from memory the words of the doctor that glorious day. Coming out of the delivery room he told dad his baby was a girl and that she had his mark on her. High in the upper part of the ear lobe I had the same tiny hole he did as if we had them pierced with a needle but only in opposite ears. That wouldn’t be the only feature of dad’s I picked up but it was one that was very apparent.

Just as obvious is the trait of Jonah in all of us. God gives us instructions in His Bible to follow and we turn tail and run the other direction. He maps out plans for our lives and we hand Him the blueprints to our “plan B.” We run from our spouses, we run from our parents, we run from our employer and other responsibilities but yet we can’t seem to run far enough away from God no matter how hard we try.

As Jonah soon found as he spent a few days in the “Big Fish Motel” that came with its own swimming pool and spa we find out for ourselves the truth of the words found in Psalm 139:7-10, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me. And your right hand shall hold me.”

Knowing the truth of those words should give joy to our hearts instead of fear and frustration. Often what we do with them instead of embrace them and find comfort in them we get angry and wonder, “If God is here then why did this or that happen!” We need to realize that God’s presence doesn’t guarantee a smooth ride and the answers to all our wishes. He’s there to see us through to the end, to strength our faith, to mold and guide us to the destination resort of our choice Heaven or Hell. No where does it promise us we won’t have flat tires along the way, run out of gas, or have engine troubles just because He’s present with us.

Jeremiah echoed what was written in Psalm in his book Jeremiah 23:23,24 “Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places. So I shall not see him?” says the Lord. “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord.”

When reading these verses in Jeremiah you almost expect the statement to go on to say, “Well can you?” The answer of course is, “no.” No, we can’t hide ourselves in a secret place good enough that God won’t see where we are at. We can shut out His presence in our hearts but He’s still there. We haven’t accomplished anything but to harden our hearts and call it our right to privacy.

I’ll never be able to fill the hole in my ear lobe to cover up that feature but everyone can fill in the hole of their hearts that causes them to turn and run in the opposite direction of God. Filling it in with trust and faith in the One in charge and that is God not us. We may stumble and stop along the way but it’s our choice to take ourselves from being Psalm 139:7-10 people in our hearts to Psalm 95:2 people. People who instead of flee from His presence go before the presence of God with thanksgiving shouting joyfully to Him with psalms of praise.

Oh what a blessing it is to be in the presence of God. We hold the key in our attitude, actions, and acceptance that opens the door for that to happen. We can either use it to unlock the door and open it wide with thanksgiving and praise or lock it only to ask “Where’s God?” Where He is, is awaiting our call. Don’t leave home without Him. Flee to Him not from Him you’ll never regret it.

Today the host with the most is Miriam so flee…..no, run over to her site at Miriam Pauline’s Monologue and join in on the fun.