Change Your Situation!

Life is full of ups and downs—some big, others small. That’s just life—no need for anxiety! The questions are—how do we manage life in the seemingly dry or difficult times? How do we turn a desert place into a spring? Make a dead place alive? How do I change my situation???

Psalm 84 has the answer,

Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring.

1.      1.  We are blessed when we find our strength in God. Blessed doesn’t mean we won’t have ups and downs—no, it simply means we are never alone or left without solutions in our ups and downs.

Finding our strength in God is a trade—we give Him our weakness in exchange for His incomprehensible strength. Acknowledging our weakness—basically humbling our self—makes way for a flood of God’s grace, strengthening us to get through any situation.

2.       2. We set our heart on eternity—ever looking forward. As long as we focus on this world and all the fulfillment it can bring—we will come up empty. We must set our focus on Jesus, knowing we are on pilgrimage—a journey—always moving forward—constantly drawing nearer.

3.     (Next is the answer to the big question…”How do I change my situation?”)

3. When we pass through a desert place, we determine—resolve in our self to make it a spring.

You can change your situation. How? By calling God into it. As God’s presence fills our heart, soul and life even the driest of times are refreshed.The dead places are made alive by His very life in ours.

I love how verse 6 of Psalm 84 says “they” make it a spring. It’s a choice. We can wallow in the dust of our hard place, whining to God or worse accusing Him of unfaithfulness, or we can choose to make it a spring. Yes it’s hard. But worth it! Remember; the purest gold is wrought from the hottest fire!

Please be encouraged—to determine—to make every dry, dead place in your life a spring.

 

A Heart-Style of Thanksgiving

I love the Thanksgiving holiday, one of my favorite traditions is what my family does after the meal. We go around the table and express what and who we are thankful for.

God in his immeasurable goodness takes thanksgiving to the highest level. It’s not about a meal—it’s about thousands of meals. It’s not about gathering yearly, but gathering daily. Especially, it’s not about telling each other and God how thankful we are once a year, just as we’ve finished an abundant meal. No, life lived in relationship with God is about having a thankful heart—daily—in good times and in bad. Essentially, thanksgiving is a heart-style as well as a lifestyle.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 truthfully tells us,

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Have you ever wondered what God’s will is for your life? Here’s your answer—give thanks.

Why does God want us to give thanks for everything? Why is this heart-style His will?

One attribute I adore about God is His infinite wisdom. God knows everything beginning to end. The reason He wants us to live a life of gratitude is because He knows and understands what thankfulness accomplishes in our heart and life.

The biggest revelation to me about living a heart-style of thanksgiving is the fact that thankfulness in hard times causes our heart to stay soft towards God. When we are thankful, there is no room to blame God.

A few years back my family, to put it mildly, experienced somewhat of a car crisis. I prayed for a newer car for quite a while—expecting God, my provider, to hear and answer my prayer. The answer was long in coming—really long in coming.

God showed me that I must thank Him for not having a car. Thank Him for the season—thank Him for His grace in this season—thank Him for being good and faithful, no matter what I’m going through or what my life looks like.

Prior to learning thankfulness in that season, I found myself questioning Him, whining, grumbling and yes, complaining about my car situation. He showed me was my heart attitude was one of blame towards Him, not only blame but one of unbelief. Ouch, this grieved me!

You see thankfulness causes our heart to be tender and trusting—of faith. Instead of irritably wondering what’s going on—when will God come through and worse why and how could He do such a thing, or allow such suffering in my life—which would be unbelief.

A heart-style of thanksgiving releases us in to the abundant life Jesus came to give us. (John 10:10) Gratitude is in essence putting on rose-colored glasses.

A heart-style of thanksgiving causes praise to abound in and through us, changing our perspective on life. It brings Philippians 4:11-12 to life;

…I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation…

Not only does thanksgiving cause us not to blame God—changing our unbelief to faith, but it releases miracles and brings salvation. Even Jesus Himself gave thanks to God, and every time He did—the miraculous followed. (John 6:11, John11:41, Luke 22:17.19)

The foremost aspect of a heart-style of thanksgiving is the very fact that it brings us into a deeper relationship with God and His Son. In Philippians 4:11-12, Paul says He’s learned the secret of contentment—the secret is not thanksgiving—it’s Jesus. Thanksgiving paves the way to make Jesus what He should be in our lives—the main thing—Lord of all.

Please be encouraged to make thanksgiving your heart-style, therefore causing your heart to overflow with the Love of God—Jesus Himself.

Jesus IS Enough

To live a lifestyle where Jesus is enough, we have to walk submitted to His will in regard to all things both big and small. We also have to purpose as the Psalmist did, in Psalm 33:22 and 62:5 to put all our hope and expectation in Him alone:

 Let your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in you alone.  Psalm 33:22

My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him. Psalm 62:5

When God started to require me to live in the manner where He is all I need, He introduced the concept of Jesus being enough through my best friend Cathy. Over and over again I would ask her to explain what it means for Jesus to be enough.

Has God ever asked you to do something that you feel totally unqualified for? For me it seems this way quite often, especially during difficulties and suffering. In these times, I find myself saying to the Lord, “I can’t do it… but You can.” This is the essence of Jesus being enough. It’s where we come up short, knowing He will make up the difference and equip us for whatever He asks us to do or walk through.

To better understand the concept of Jesus being enough, visualize a rough wood surface covered with divots, grooves and holes. Now imagine a large putty knife or trowel smoothing spackle over the rough surface. This results in all the unsightly blemishes and empty holes being filled in and smoothed out. In this same manner, Jesus fills us in where we are lacking.

This concept was hard to grasp, mainly because at the time, I was still living primarily in my soul. The “Me” factor did not like the idea of losing its independence and having to become solely dependent on God. My soul found it hard to trust Jesus alone, mainly because I wanted to be in charge of my life and its direction.

For months on end Jesus would ask me, “Am I enough?” My response was “yes” but inside emptiness gnawed at me. The questions continually came: “If I never did another thing for you, am I enough? If your life never got any better than this, am I enough? If you lost everything dear to you, would I be enough?” Again my response was, “Well of course, Lord.” I struggled with letting Him be enough, but I did not want to admit it. I thought that if I committed to letting Him alone fill me then I would not get what I wanted. Finally, I answered Him truthfully, “No Lord, I’m sorry, You are not enough, but I want You to be.” This pivotal moment of truth set my journey for more depth and passion with God into further motion.

A lot of Christians do not even know that Jesus is not enough for them. The reason—we get so busy living and filling our lives with temporal treasures. I personally have found myself in pursuit of the American dream many times. If our primary concerns for ourselves are to acquire money, possessions, self-gratification, praise, status and the like, then we can be sure these things, not Jesus, complete us. Therefore, it would be fair to say Jesus is not enough. Jesus is asking us if He alone is enough, or if we need our health and all our temporal treasures to be complete.

One more way to know if Jesus is enough is to examine your actions when a storm hits or when you’re simply confronted by a rough day. What do you reach for? The phone to call a friend? The internet? Sleep? Pain relievers or antidepressants? Comfort food? Do you escape and watch TV or a movie? Or maybe you just default to your soul and you emotionally act out of stress, taking it out on everyone in your path with a nasty, bad attitude like I used to do. My comfort was also found in sleeping. When life got tough I would close my door, shut my life out and take a nap. This was one way I could avoid the truth. Other times I would look for consolation by calling a friend or escaping with a good love story chick flick.

Now that I am living in the reality of Jesus being enough, I follow a simple self-discipline guideline—I do not allow myself to call a friend unless I first call on Jesus. It’s the same with the movie—no escapism. I first have to check out the greatest love story of all…the Bible! The best news is, I rarely ever feel like shutting life out with a nap anymore. Instead, I shut myself into Jesus as my only comfort.

Jesus is enough where relationships are concerned

If relationships are let go into the hands of God and if we can turn to God as the one who fills us—not people—then we are free.

1. We are free from the emotional roller coaster that some relationships bring.

2. We can let go of all our unhealthy expectations of people.

3. Most important, we are free to just love people without choking the life out of them while trying to extract from them what we need to make us feel complete.

God longs to complete us, He wants to be enough for us where relationships are concerned. Sometimes the people we love just don’t have it in them to meet our needs—nor should they. Only God should have that role in our lives. If we let Jesus be enough then we can have healthier, freer relationships that are not all bound up by human expectations.

God has shown me that as I let Him be my everything, even in relationships, I am free to love without expecting anything in return. My love then is based out of purity and truth instead of manipulation

In the past, I tried so hard to make the people that I love, love me like I thought they should. That is reasonable when it comes to your spouse and parents because there are certain responsibilities that come with these relationships. But not everyone is whole enough to love as they should. This was true for my family. Rejection, betrayal and abandonment brought so much sorrow and pain that I would not have been able to function properly if God had not used this concept to help me love, honor and respect as the Bible requires me to.

In one of the most pressing times in my life I wanted to give up on my marriage. I knew it was not God’s plan that I give up and in a very dark season God turned to me and asked me some serious questions. “If your marriage never got any better, would you still love Me? Could I be enough for you? Could I be your husband? Would you allow Me to love you where he can’t? Could you love your husband for Me? Could you lay down your life as a bridge to him? Could you bridge his path to Me with your life and allow Me to be enough for you?”

I never could have done any of this without first giving my life up to Jesus and clinging to Him. Yes, it was agonizing and painful but by the grace of God I chose to let Jesus be enough for me.

I encourage you to be found in Him alone and to let Him fill in all the blanks in your life. Jesus undoubtedly is enough

When Life Rages

Sometimes life just seems to rage and difficult situations arise one right after the other. Do you ever feel as if life is hard? Do you ever wonder if it’ll get easier? I used to have this false belief about life, that at some point you get to the other side of hard times. As time has passed, soberness has sunk in relaying the truth that opposition is part of life.

I have to be honest—my life is far from picture perfect. (Shocker right?) Although wouldn’t it be nice to Photoshop life? Just edit out bits and parts?

It’s a fact, trials happen.

With that in mind, what are we to do? Truthfully, I’ve tried a few options but the one choice that I’ve landed on, is to rely on God’s faithfulness.

Psalm 91:4 says,
Under His wings shall you trust and find refuge; His truth and His faithfulness are a shield and a buckler.

• Worrying doesn’t help—the Bible instructs us not to worry. (Matthew 6:25-34)
• Being fearful is torturous—the Bible says God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
• Taking matters into our own hands never ends well—the Bible counsels us not to lean on our own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)
• Giving up does no good—the Bible tells us not to harden our heart. (Psalm 95:8)
• Ignoring problems will not make them go away and only leads to bigger crisis—the Bible admonishes us to be diligent. (2 Timothy 2:15)
• Telling God what I want Him to do about my situation is foolishness, we are not God, we only see in part. We do not know what He should do for us—the Bible is clear—it’s not my will be done but Your [God’s] will be done. (Matthew 6:10)

So you see, when life rages, relying on God’s faithfulness is not only the best option, but the only option.

How do we rely on God’s faithfulness?

Questions such as this one used to overwhelm me. I’m a doer, I like to know how to practically do what God wants me to do. When I get a directive from the Bible or from God Himself I always have to say “Okay, but how?” How do I, in my everyday life actually walk out your directives?

Below are a few ways I have learned to rely on God’s faithfulness.

First things first, we have to stop handling trials in our usual manner. (Such as the list above, that I gave.) One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. At some point we have to realize our ways aren’t God’s ways—then adopt His ways.

Relying on God’s faithfulness is a matter of trusting.

This next part is for those who have a hard time trusting God:
Because of various situations from my past, I used to have a hard time trusting God. Not that He did anything to cause me not to trust Him, but I was stuck in the lie of thinking that God was equal to people. I knew God was able to help me but I didn’t think He was willing. I knew He loved me. I read, prayed and believed scriptures about His faithfulness but still doubted He would help me. I went through healing and deliverance from my past, which helped me tremendously, yet I was terrified of being hurt again so trusting did not come easily.

Finally I realized it was a matter of the will. I had to will myself out of the sin of not believing God and His Word. By God’s grace I made an exchange—my unbelief and untrusting heart for faith in God. I also had to will myself to stop self-protecting my heart and rest in God’s faithfulness.

Once our will is in order—our mind and emotions can be as well. Our heart will follow our soul (mind, will and emotions) that’s why it’s so important to get our soul into submission to God’s Word.

Our heart was created to be God’s home, therefore it is very content to trust and believe in God’s faithfulness. This is one reason why we can’t find peace when our heart and soul are out of alignment.

To stay focused and believing in God’s faithfulness we must:

• Guard our will from becoming bent the wrong way
• Protect our heart from becoming hard
• Remember, our heart is to be God’s home
• Watch over our mind—keep it from doubt, negativity and from believing the enemy’s accusations against God.
• Control our emotions instead of them controlling us
• Read the Bible, pray and worship
• Be thankful and give God praise
• Take up a shield of faith
• Learn from each trial and look at it as another chance to trust God
• Know that God causes all things to work together for our good

When life rages you do not have to be afraid, but can find your peace, rest and trust in God. Please be encouraged to will yourself to rely on His faithfulness—He will never disappoint you!

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust! For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. Psalm 91:1-3