Just a note....these older blog posts have not all been tagged with a "Wimpy Faith Buster" category. I should have that done shortly. I am also hoping to include a search option to aid in finding blogs that deal with a specific passage or subject. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.....

Over the years I have had the same conversation, more than once, with each of my three children. I had it again just last week. The dialogue usually begins when they are grumbling or pouting about something that they don't want to do....or someplace that they don't want to go. 

It goes something like this, "You have to do _______ (fill in the blank with whatever it is they don't want to do) or go to ____________ (fill in the blank with the event/place they don't want to go). But you do have a choice. You can choose to have a bad attitude and be miserable or you can have a good attitude and trust that God has a reason and a purpose for your experience. 

I have said those words with a smile on my face, trying to encourage my kids to make the right choice. But I just hate it when I hear them ringing through my head when I find myself grumbling or pouting about where I find myself.

The last couple of weeks, I have been very blessed. I am in FL in December, enjoying the beautiful weather. I have been spending time with my parents, my brothers and their families, and dear friends. I am very happy and excited to be co-hosting a bridal shower for my best friend's daughter. What in the world do I have to grumble about?! 

Well sometimes, for me, family and friends...plus....holiday stress.....plus, plus, plus.....equals being pulled too many different directions, trying to please everyone. I find myself grumbling and even pouting!

So mid-grumble, I begin to have "the conversation" with myself and a familiar verse hits me between the eyes. 

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, all whose thoughts are fixed on You! (Isaiah 26:3 NLT)

You see, I had been praying for peace, but was allowing all the stress to my heart from being "fixed on" Him. Essentially, I was being controlled by things I could not control and am not responsible to God for.....a big no-no in the finding peace department! (See January 15, 2009 and other "Quiet Heart" posts)

Dear Lord, I'm sorry. Please forgive me for not keeping my thoughts on You, right where they always need to be!

What's the worst gift you have ever received? One year my dad gave my mom a vacuum cleaner. Another year I went on a shopping trip with him and saved her from a horrible muu-mmu type house dress with bat sleeves.

The worst gifts I have received I get every year and are ones that I give to myself. They usually come as a set.....they are stress and guilt. Stress is what I give myself by trying to do everything I can to please everyone. (An impossible task, I might add.) Guilt comes when I fall short of the unrealistic expectations I have placed on myself. Trust me, these are really lousy gifts!

There are times that God gives me a gift that I don't like, things like sickness, financial stress, family strife, or the loss of a loved one. When I receive those "gifts" I really hope God kept the receipt because I want to return it! 

Why would God give me something that I don't want, something that even hurts me? Isn't God good? 

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17 NIV)


This verse is placed near the end of a passage of scripture that begins....."Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds"(vs. 2).... Pure joy when you face trials?!? Between verse 2 and verse 17 James tell us some of the positive results that come from trials and that we will know how to face them by praying for wisdom.

The value of the the hard gifts God gives is sometimes learned while we are still here on this earth (see My Least Favorite Favorite blog post) but often He saves that knowledge for when we get to Heaven. The key is trust. He IS the giver of every good and perfect gift. ALWAYS!

Thank You Lord, for EVERY gift you give me!

I have a confession to make.....I'm not in the Christmas spirit. Maybe its because we don't have any decorations up at home. I'm not a big decorator anyway but this year we are going out of town for Christmas so I didn't see the point. Besides the thought of coming home a week into January and having to pack up Christmas is not appealing!

With the exception of what has been playing in the stores since October, the only Christmas music I have been listening to is one song that is on a CD in my car.

"Its About the Cross" by the group "Go Fish."

It’s not just about the manger Where the baby lay

It’s not all about the angels
Who sang for him that day

It’s not just about the shepherds
Or the bright and shining star
It’s not all about the wisemen
Who travelled from afar

It’s not just about the presents
Underneath the tree
It’s not all about the feeling
That the season brings to me

It’s not just about coming home
To be with those you love
It’s not all about the beauty
In the snow I’m dreaming of

Chorus:
It’s about the cross
It’s about my sin
It’s about how Jesus came to be born once
So that we could be born again

It’s about the stone
That was rolled away
So that you and I could have real life someday

It’s about the cross
It’s about the cross

The beginning of the story is wonderful and great
But it’s the ending that can save you and that’s why we celebrate

It’s about the cross
It’s about my sin
It’s about how Jesus came to be born once
So that we could be born again

It’s about God’s love
Nailed to a tree
It’s about every drop of blood that flowed from Him when it should have been me!

It's about the cross!

There's a lot of things that scream out for our attention this time of year. All the shopping and planning. And then, just when you think you have finished your shopping, someone who you didn't buy a gift for gives you a gift and off you head to the store again!

Even when we manage to keep our focus on the birth of our Savior, I think its important we take time to remember why He came. The prophecies of the Messiah are like a scarlet thread that run throughout the Old Testament. Each generation lived with the anticipation that they would see His coming. So many details of His coming and His life are foretold.

Although some recognized His arrival, most did not. So many of the nations of Israel expected a ruler who would break the oppressive yoke of the Roman empire. But that's not why He came. He came to die. For me. For you. He shed His blood for my sin. He was buried and rose again the third day conquering death. For me. For you.

We celebrate the birth of the Baby. But only because that Baby came to die. Its about the cross.

No one likes to wait, at least not anyone that I know. I admit, if I'm waiting for something that I am really looking forward to it is a little easier than the horrendous task of waiting for something that I am dreading. But either way, I would rather not have to wait. If its good, let me enjoy it now. If its bad, let's get it over with and move on.

But for me the absolute worse kind of waiting is waiting to find out what is going to happen....when you don't know whether to hope for the best or prepare for the worst. That can be plain old torture.

I'm sure most of you have been taught that God always answers prayer, and that His answer takes one of three forms....yes, no, and wait. It seems to me that most of the time the answer seems to be wait!

Sometimes...oh those wonderful, rare sometimes, God gives us a yes or no right away. But most often we pray and then we wait. And even though this waiting without knowing the outcome is something that I do not enjoy, God has been teaching me some things in my waiting that are changing my opinion.

For instance, this week I lost a ring. The ring itself was not highly valuable but my husband bought it when he was twelve years old. I searched everywhere I could think of and finally came to the conclusion that it must have fallen on my lap in the car and when I got out it fell into the snow in the parking lot at my friend's apartment complex. By the time I was able to get back to the parking lot to look for it, a lot more snow had fallen and the snow plow was clearing the lot.

I searched through the snow, praying the whole time, but found nothing. As I drove home, absolutely dreading telling my husband I had lost his ring, I kept trying to silence the question in the back of my mind, "God, You could have very easily let me find that ring...why didn't You?"

That was for Him to know and me to find out! I discovered the first blessing of waiting when I got home and told my husband (as I burst into tears) that I had lost his ring. You know what, he didn't give me angry or disappointed words, he gave me a hug!

Blessing two came on Sunday. A dear couple at my church own a metal detector and volunteered to search for the ring. For those of you who don't live in WNY let me paint the picture....temperatures well below freezing, approximately twenty mile per hour winds and snowing. And yet, not only did they look where I thought it would be, but, on the advice of a lady who lives in the apartment complex, began to look through a huge snow bank that the snowplow had piled up. This they did after sending me home so I didn't have to stand out in the cold!

Guess what...after about an hour of sitting in my warm home, two frozen, but smiling from ear to ear people were knocking on my door to give me the ring!!

God did answer my prayer...as He always does. But if I had found my ring right away I would have missed out on the blessing of my husband's grace and the love I felt from this dear couple! But it gets better....even though I know my friends, Billy and Anna, would have probably rather been in their warm home, they had joy in their service. Several days later I ran into the neighbor lady, who had pointed them in the right direction and knew that they had been successful, and she was still talking about it! Blessing upon blessing! Blessings that I and others would have missed out on if I had found the ring right away.

A little silver ring is not a big deal but if God can use the waiting for an answer on such a minor thing, how much more can He use the waiting on bigger things? The problem I have is that I am usually too busy worrying about the answer, or...dare I say it, grumbling about the fact that He hasn't answered me in MY timing that I miss out on some of the lessons and blessings that He wants me to have. Shame on me.

Hey! There is yet another blessing of waiting for the answer about the ring....it reminded me to trust Him. Trust that He has a purpose in the waiting...in the big things and in the small. My blessings will grow even more if perhaps others will be reminded to trust Him in the waiting as well!

So the Lord must wait for you to come to Him so He can show you His love and compassion. For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for His help. (Isaiah 30:18 NLT)

Joining the ranks of millions of Americans I have spent time this week being thankful. What I am thankful for runs the gamut from big things like health and my family to small things like my heated mattress pad and my dog curled up at my feet as I write this. I thank God for these things and so much more. I'm sure you do too.

Of all of the things that I am grateful for God has graciously kept one thing in the forefront of my heart and mind for the last week or so. The cross. The precious gospel message that God sent His Son Jesus to die a horrible death, not because He deserved it, but because I deserved it. The price for my sin was paid on that cross. A deserved eternity in hell was replaced with an invaluable gift of mercy and grace....an eternity in Heaven with God! 

The shadow of the cross falls across every page in the Bible. Everything before it points forward and all that has happened since looks back. The apostle Paul sums it up nicely.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (I Corinthians 15:3-4 NIV)

First importance Paul says, in other words, the most important thing I have said to you. Paul teaches on many doctrinal truths, but he always goes back to the thing that was most important to him. It is the key to everything! He knew what he used to be, and what he had become as a result of the cross.

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14 NIV)

The cross breaks the bondage of all the things that weigh us down. We are no longer slaves to sin...the cross purchased our freedom. We no longer have to be in bondage to the legalistic mindset of trying to do all the right things and not do the wrong things in an effort to win God's favor.....so that He will love us more. No! The cross shows us in no uncertain terms of God's indescribable love for us. He loves us with a complete and unchanging love. He will not love me more or less based on my works. I live a life of obedience out of gratitude and love, not trying to earn merits....and avoid demerits!

The cross breaks the chain of guilt and condemnation. In a wonderful little book, The Cross Centered Life, C. J. Mahaney puts it this way, "Don't buy the lie that cultivating condemnation and wallowing in your shame is somehow pleasing to God, or that a constant, low-grade guilt will somehow promote holiness and spiritual maturity. It's just the opposite! God is glorified when we believe with all our hearts that those who trust in Christ can never be condemned."

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1 NIV)

What is of "first importance" to us? What are we passionate about?

Christ died for our sins. The gospel. That is what should be flowing through us like our life blood, with every heart beat. Be passionate about the cross, the gospel. Yes, we should be passionate about sharing the gospel, but that is not what I am talking about here. No, what I am talking about is dwelling on the cross, singing about the cross, rejoicing about the cross. The cross should effect how I go about my day, my relationships, my thoughts, my plans, my desires, how I handle the trials that come....everything.

So this week, but not just this week, I am overwhelmingly grateful for the cross of Jesus Christ! I pray I will awake each day with a passionate desire to live my life as a cross centered life!

I love me some football. Oh, I'm not the most educated fan. I don't have a clue what makes a receiver ineligible. I know it's not the same thing as a bachelor being eligible or ineligible, but I don't know the eligibility criteria in football. I could not explain what a tight end is....but I know it doesn't have anything to do with anatomy. 

My main team is the Steelers. Why? I don't know, maybe its because my son likes them. I like the Giants because I think Eli Manning is cute and they beat the Patriots in that amazing Super Bowl a couple of years ago......and I like anybody who beats the Patriots. I like Tampa and Miami because I grew up in FL, but I try really hard to cheer for the Bills since I live in WNY now.....these days that's not easy!

Okay, okay...I'll get to the point. The other night during the game a commercial came on that I"m sure most of you have seen. It's a bunch of guys playing football on a muddy field....a bunch of guys, and Betty White. At least that's who it looks like until "Betty" is given a Snickers bar. The next shot reveals that "Betty" is really just another one of the guys. The shot cuts to Snickers advertising slogan...."You're not yourself when you're hungry."

For some reason, even though I've seen that ad many times before, this time the slogan just stuck in my head. (Good job advertising company!) I know some people, I'm sure you do too, that are just plain miserable to be around when they are hungry. If your are around them, you just have to go into survival mode and do everything you can to get them something to eat! After they get some food in their belly they transform back into themselves.

I know the Snickers people did not intend for this to be a spiritual issue, but that's how I started to look at it. The thing is....when I am spiritually hungry, when I have not taken the time to feed myself with His Word in the Bible.....I AM myself. Just plain, ole miserable me. The me who seems to make everyone around me go into survival mode and run for cover. I need to feed on His Word.....everyday, usually more than once. 

Some of the foods we eat, we choose more because they are good for us than because they taste good. Oatmeal would definitely fall in this category for me! Sometimes what I read in His Word is unpleasant for me at first. It shines the light on the sins I thought I had hidden, exposing them. I don't particularly like that, but oh, do I need it! By the strength I find in His Word I can sweep out the dark corners of my heart. Diligently obeying the difficult passages allows me to intensely enjoy the sweetness of His love letter to me...and all believers.

How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:103 NIV)

Dear Lord, I don't want to be myself without the life-changing filling of Your Word. Give me a holy appetite, one that hungers and thirsts after You! I love you, I have tasted and found that You and You alone are good!

There is a simple beauty to the absolute truth of mathematics. There are hard and fast rules in math that cannot be changed without affecting your results. Rules like....you can change the order of the numbers when you add and multiply but not when you subtract or divide. No ifs, ands, or buts...that is just the way it is. Follow the rules and you get the right answer. Two plus three plus six is eleven.....so is three plus six plus two. No matter what order you put them in the result is always the same.

Some of us think of God this way. If I do the right things, He will make me happy. If I do the wrong things, He will make me sad. If I do more good than bad then He will make sure I'm more happy than sad. Just like math, put the right things in the equation and you will get the right results.

If God was only interested in having trained creatures then that is probably how it would work. It works with my dog. I tell him to sit, he sits, he gets a treat. He's the dog, I'm the master. And yes, the Bible does talk about God as master....but He is also Emmanuel, God with us. He is also Abba, the English equivalent would be Daddy.

He desires not trained creatures, but loving children who desire an intimate relationship with Him. Many people have pets that they love, but no one in their right mind would sacrifice their only child for a trained pet. God sacrificed His only Son for us....so that we can come into an intimate and loving relationship with Him.

The equation idea is not totally false, God does bless obedience and He punishes disobedience.But the blessings come in the context of the relationship. The punishment does too. He punishes, a better word is disciplines, us when we disobey.....like a good father disciplines his child, with the intent to correct bad behavior that the father knows is harmful to his child. It is always in the context of relationship.

This idea of God's love being the result of an equation is not new. It is seen way back in the old testament. In the book of Hosea, after several chapters predicting doom for the nation of Israel, the people respond, and it sounds pretty good on the surface.

“Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us. He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds. In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence. Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.” (Hosea 6:1-3 NLT)

But look closely at the wording. Let's return, He has torn us to pieces....but now He'll heal us. He injured us, but now He'll bandage our wounds. In a SHORT time He'll restore us. Where is the repentance, the turning from sin. It's not there. What you see is, if we do this, He will do that...and He'll do it quickly.

It's an equation, not an acknowledgment that their sin was against the very God who created them and loved them. There was no concern that their sin had damaged an intimate relationship. They didn't value a relationship, they only wanted the equation. How does God respond to that?

I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know memore than I want burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6 NLT)

God desires love, He wants them to know Him....intimately, in a relationship. The obedience will flow out of the love and an ever-growing knowledge of Him! Jesus commended the scribe who utters these words in the book of Mark:

And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.” (Mark 12:33 NLT)

The hardest part of math is learning the rules. Once you know the rules, you can get the right answers. There is a part of us that likes to operate that way. We like to just have someone tells us the rules and what will happen if we obey them and what will happen if we don't. And there are "rules" in any relationship. But the relationship is primary....not the rules.

Our obedience to the "rules" springs from our intimate love relationship and our desire to please our Abba. If we get it backwards, we are always trying to please our Master, or earn His love by our obedience. That is not the way He designed it....we are utterly unable to earn anything but His wrath without the relationship.

There is nothing more vitally important than having a right relationship with God. It cannot be earned, we will fail every time. It cannot be purchased because it's priceless. The relationship is a gift, a gift that only could be purchased by the blood that Jesus shed as He died on the cross for me...so that I can have an intimate relationship with His Abba.

So if you are still trying to earn it or thinking that you can somehow earn enough "credit" to purchase it, just stop. Stop making excuses, call your sin what it is and turn from it....turn from it and to Jesus. Accept the priceless gift He purchased. Come into an intimate relationship with God...He desires to be your Abba, Daddy. 

And if you are already His child but have fallen into the trap of believing that you can work your way into blessings, stop. Our sole desire should be to know and love Him more each day. To glorify Him with our lives. Not because He'll bless us if we do, but because He loves us and sacrificed His only Son so that we could have a relationship with Him. A relationship that will last through all eternity.

I love you my Abba, my Daddy!

Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose firm!
Dare to make it known.

This chorus has been my companion, spinning around over and over in my head as I have immersed myself in the book of Daniel this week. In some ways it has been like visiting an old friend. Years of Sunday School flannel-graph lessons come flooding back as I read the familiar stories of Daniel and his three friends refusing to eat the king's food, opting instead for vegetables and water. (Something that, as a child, I prayed God would not ask me to do!) Or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the fiery furnace with Jesus. And of course, Daniel, thrown in the lion's den because of those mean, nasty men plotting against him!

When I think of Daniel's faith the first word that comes to my mind is fortitude. Fortitude is defined as: mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty,adversity, danger or temptation courageously. Daniel not only had mental and emotional strength, he had spiritual strength, spiritual fortitude. Where did this come from? Daniel was a man of the Word and a man of prayer.

Nothing hindered Daniel from spending time in prayer. Not the threat of being thrown in the lion's den...not even spending a night with those hungry, yet God ordered dieting lions! Chapter 10 begins with Daniel in mourning over a vision he had been given. Verse 12 tells us that he had spent the time praying. Look at what the angel said to him.

Then he said, "Don't be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in Heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer." (NLT)


How often do I pray for understanding? How often do I think rightly of myself in humility and rightly of God in worship when I pray? What a joy to see that Daniel's prayers were heard from the first day. God didn't send the answer then....but they were heard. God's timing is always perfect. There is always a purpose in the waiting....and just as sure is that God hears our prayers. Do we wait in humility, praying for understanding? (I have some changes to make in my prayer life!)

I love happy endings and I love the way the book of Daniel ends. The Message version puts it beautifully.

"And you? Go about your business without fretting or worrying. Relax. When it's all over, you will be on your feet to receive your reward." (12:13 The Message)

That goes for us too. When this world spins wildly out of control, and when the things of God seem to be mocked and desecrated all around us. God's message is not to band together and beat up our enemies. No, its to go about our business. Don't worry or fret. Because in the end....and it will end, we'll be the ones left standing, ready to receive our reward.

So what does "going about our business" look like? It looks like walking in faith and obedience to God's Word....day by day, minute by minute. It looks like we dare to be like Daniel, people of the Word and people of prayer. People with spiritual fortitude.