Can vs Should...

Recently a friend was retelling a story where he quoted his wife saying "can and should are two different things." That statement has so resonated with me.

Especially in the area of taking liberties and personal rights.

I'll explain using "desserts" for my example, though you can insert anything into the equation.

I can have desserts any time all the time if I like. But I am walking a journey, a path that really I mostly should not partake of desserts. I don't desire the calories or the sugar. My body does not need it and I am also walking through this by the Lords leading, so you could say at times dessert might even be sin to me. If when I partake I feel I am compromising something in my heart, then yes it is me sinning.

Now that may seem silly to some I mean seriously Kristen it's only chocolate cake. True.

But many days of chocolate cake have lead me to become something I do not want to be, in the past chocolate cake was my way of comfort, was self medicating. Chocolate cake in and of itself has no power at all over me, it is the reason I need or want the chocolate cake I must be absolutely aware of.

So I must ask the Lord what is the truth in my heart about cake? Do I love it that much? No. Do I need it? No. Is it a stumbler for others around me? Maybe, at times yes. Does it taste awesome amazing? yes. Does the Lord desire me to enjoy food? Yes, of course or He would have made us with out taste buds. Haha.

So my conclusion to all these questions, thoughts, heart stirrings: I can have cake but I should not always have cake.

Now personal rights...

Here is where God has landed my heart concerning personal rights. It is not even an issue of liberal verses conservative. It is an issue of laying down our personal rights. As Paul spoke of so many times. If we can take liberties we also don't always have to.

If the Lord has said to me that He has called me to minister and serve in a certain area then with that He has asked me to surrender some personal rights. It is simple. I lay it down not for law sake, but for serving sake. I have the right to make these choices absolutely, but If I feel I need control over those personal rights above the Lord having control over them, the issue is not about "cake" it is something more all together.

What is my great need to exercise this right? What about laying this right down makes me feel threatened or challenged. Shouldn't it be simple? I love the Lord more. He has asked, that settles it correct?

What if someone else asks? My husband? My Pastor? Another I am in ministry with or respect? Are they as important, are they less important than my personal right? These are the thoughts I ponder with the Lord and in the end between the Lord and my heart, He has settled me on this: the relationship is more important than exercising my personal right.

That settles it for me.

When we can get to a place in our hearts, and please know I am still working to get there, but a place where we truly know it is all the Lords anyways? Then it is easier to let go of things like, our time, our money, our sleep(yes that is a huge one for me), our food, our comforts, our style, our preferences, our gifts etc. None of these things are bad, please hear my heart in this- God certainly does bless us with all of these things and more. But keep them in His perspective and lay them down before Him and you will not feel robbed of any personal right, because you know in surrendering it-

God has our back.

He has our hearts in mind always, always.

He may be asking us to lay something down to assure our hearts, we love Him more.

It's good for me to know. He is better. He is way better than chocolate cake! Haha.

No more time lost

I had a moment of grief the other day.
A wave come over me and swallowed my joy, my peace.
Tears welled up.
Why had I lost so my much time?!
I felt the anger too.
Truth is I know I am healed today.
I am strong and vibrant and loving and full of life.
I am a better version of myself.
And I felt indignation over the contrast of my former self.
What had been stolen from me, robbed, destroyed was not only my innocence but for many years the person I would have become had been taken too.
I cried.
I wept over the loss of that person.
And I let myself grieve for the moment.
I let the fullness of the pain seep deep into my soul.
Stillness.
I look up.
A posture to force my inner eyes to look up as well.
He is there, of course he is there waiting.
And my heart lifts as I search the face of Jesus.
And I don't feel but I know somehow that He caresses me.
I know that He takes my heart in His hands and says it is ok.
I know that His dying love for me has let me see what He has done for me today.
And I know it is enough.
I am enough.
I am who He has made me to be today.
I let my heart turn to gratefulness.
I let my grief be shifted by His grace.
I let Him love me.
I love Him.
I am the miracle.
No more time lost.

Curse-ed FEAR!

Not too long ago I literally shouted these words out in tears fist raised to the sky! I had been tossed about in waves of circumstance facilitated by others choices that were absolutely driven from fear.

Its one thing to battle my own fear and I have done so and with great help from the Lord found much victory. But its a totally different animal being caught up in situations that completely and totally fall to another person and the crippling decisions they make handicapped by fear.

Fear is a loose canon and a fickle friend. It can come in many forms. It can appear to be safe preaching the word "caution," it can pretend to be wisdom with it's cohort "worldly advice" and it presumes justice with the falsehood of "community validation." But all of these misguided practices can be dispelled fairly easily when taken to the Word to match against truth.

Many preach that the opposite of fear is faith. But I have come to really believe the opposite of fear is wisdom. As we have studied through the Proverbs as a church this year and seeing wisdom personified my eyes were opened differently to the alternative choices we make that are clearly not wise and surmised that a great deal of those choices are driven by fear. Ignorance at times sure, foolishness at times, a lack of love possibly. But not necessarily a lack of faith. Because we can be fooled to have complete faith in something that is not wisdom at all driven completely out of our own fears and be ruled by it unknowingly.

The question is, what is the source of our wisdom, what is compelling our actions?

As a young believer I had the best intentions serving the Lord. We were young and zealous and evangelizing the world. I was however a very wounded young adult, though I really did not know it and I was driven, absolutely driven to performance based serving. Though I could not have recognized it I was actually driven by fear. I had a heart to serve the Lord sure, but I also had a deep underlying fear that if I did not show up, I may be forgotten, I may not look the part, people may see right through me. My actions were not based in truth though they were even righteous actions.

I had right thinking in serving the Lord, but I had the wrong approach for making the decisions for how and what to serve the Lord in. And at the core of my being I was actually trying to fill some other desperate needs other than a pure love for the God I serve. Oh so convoluted are the ways I operate as a human. Ah!

Yet God has been so kind and gentle in breaking these motives down and bringing truth to my wounded soul. He showed me that my constant need to be "needed" was false and not from Him and was being fed by other deeper hurts of rejection, abuse, abandonment. He reassured me that He would never do all of those things to me even if I never worked at the church or in ministry another day of my life. For what He had given me, I did not have to keep earning. He brought such freedom and peace. He began to teach me to make choices from a healthy knowledge of who He is and who I am in Him. Not driven from any un-health or FEAR.

As far as other people's fears that so effect our lives, well that we can only take to the Lord. But there are times when I am hurt or my children are hurt and it is completely the doing of someones fear and it SO frustrates me not for the person, they need healing, but for the weapon of our enemy that fear is.

Fear is the most subtlety destructive tool our enemy yields against us and is one of the most difficult to detect. FEAR is personified - fear is our enemy! And he wants you to believe that your fears are justified, but please let me tell you unless you are talking about the reverent respect of our Lord, fear is not righteous or just.

The bible tells 365 times NOT to fear. I have heard it said that is one for each day of the year. That's a lot of commanding us not to fear. Do you think God knew it would be such a struggle?

When we radically pursuit intimacy with God, He alone dispels fear. His word and truth are like beautiful fear erasers in the ARTIST hands of God, and He wants to paint in our lives vivid healthy colorful patterns that come from His love and from true and right thinking about Him.

Lionel has always asked the question "what would you do if you were not afraid." God gave me a new question, "what things are you doing right now because you are afraid?" It's something to ponder.

Lord, help me not to be motivated by fear and to quickly see through fear and not be ruled by it or act on it. Amen.

Perversion of Justice

As I stepped into the courthouse once again I had a shivering feeling that this was not a place meant for justice and righteousness. Oh it is meant to facilitate the law all right, but one walk through the place and you can feel the oppression dripping all over and see the wearisome evidence on people’s faces.

We were not here for ourselves, this time. But unfortunately there had been several events that had lead to us having to come to that room, face those judges, and hear the law administered to suit someone’s reasoning all be it twisted.

Now don’t get me wrong I myself am a law-abiding citizen.

It just so happens that in this day we are in the law is sort of upside down. Our communities teach family and create programs that are meant to correct and facilitate healthy families, yet the law decides every single day things that destroy families and hurt children. That rip families apart. Our community promotes teen sex, abortion and the right to some pretty evil freedoms for our youth, yet in turn decides evil against them when in the court room are being charged for the very acts the community has promoted. Our community teaches that drugs are wrong, substance abuse is harmful and unhealthy, yet the law passes judgment that actually enables and oppresses those caught up in drugs, rather than work towards true healing and freedom. One friend that actually went through teen challenge to get clean and sober and finally held a job for five years ended up arrested and in jail because the law deemed teen challenge a non-approved treatment program, no matter the evident positive changes. Perversion.

Jon Foreman eloquently sings about the perversion we face:

How miserable I am
I feel like a fruitpicker who arrived here
after the harvest
There's nothing here at all
There's nothin at all here that could placate my hunger
The godly people are all gone
There's not one honest soul left alive here on this planet
We're all murders and theives
Setting traps here for even our brothers
And both of our hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of our hands
Both of our hands
The day of justice comes
And is even now swiftly arriving
Don't trust anyone at all
Not your best friend or even your wife
For the son hates the father
The daughter despises even the mother
Look! Your enemies are right
Right in the room of your very household
And both of their hands are equally skilled
Equally skilled
No, don't gloat over me
For though I fall, though I fall
I will rise again
Though I sit here in darkness
The Lord, the Lord alone
He will be my light

I will be patient as the Lord
Punishes me for the wrongs
I've done against him
After that he'll take my case
Bringing me to light and to justice
For all I have suffered
And both of his hands are equally skilled
At ruining evil
Equally skilled
At judging the judges
Equally skilled
Administring justice
Both of his hands
Both of his hands are equally skilled
At showing them mercy
Equally skilled
At loving the loveless
Equally skilled
Administring justice
Both of his hands
Both of his hands

It is indeed a perverted day in which we live. But we have only to look to the Lord for true justice, and leave the work of administering it to Him.

As for believers He already took our case, and because of what has been accomplished on the cross, we are justified. Amen.

So much can change in a day!

Over the past several years this has been a re-occurring theme in my life.

The Lord impressed on my husbands heart some years back the story in 2 Kings 7. The children of Israel where surrounded by the Aramean army and trapped in their city for weeks. Food was scarce and they feared death but Elisha heard from the Lord, this time tomorrow the prices of food would go down dramatically, there would be abundance. This seemed impossible. People questioned that even God could do such a thing. They did not know however nor could they see that God would confuse the army causing them to flee. And four leapers would discover the provision from the Lord. In one single day their entire circumstances changed.

The thing is we were going through some difficult times financially and personally. And there were many days when fear could have swallowed us whole. No jobs, very little income if any and no resources whatsoever. But the Lord kept reminding us that He was our Father, that He was provider and that He would not fail us. This story became a great reminder and symbolic as we would remind each other over and over, so much can change in a day!

And it often did. God brought provision out of nowhere, He made ways and opened doors that seemed impossible. $400 dollars left at our door step, $1000 brought to the church for us, bills paid, groceries, a weekend get a way, a car, a washing machine, a missions trip for my son and so much more. We had not even told anyone, we only prayed. He was allowing us to go through some difficult times to teach us who He is, His name PROVIDER.

He was teaching us to trust Him even when we can not see the way ourselves. There were days when I could not even breathe because the basic elements of food and shelter seemed out of reach for us or at the very least threatened. Yet God would speak to me to rest in Him and wait on Him. It is impossible to rest when you are consumed with worry. I would ask the Lord, how? How do I rest and wait? And He answered simply, by My Spirit. A new discipline began to develop in my life. I would sit with Jesus until the fear passed. He would not let me go in my quiet time for the day and His peace washed over me. Some days this took minutes and other days hours. Praise the Lord it always came, His peace and rest would enter my soul and fear subsided and I could just wait on Him.

I can not say I would want to go through this season of testing again. But I am so grateful for the greater perspective of God I learned and growing in relationship with Him truly made it worth all the heart ache.

Many days sense then I have faced troubling circumstances and God has given me the grace and peace to say, so much can change in the next day, I will let it roll off on Him that is able to make it change.

this do in rememberance of Me

The Healing arts: Communion

I am always amazed at the different ways I find God knows me, really knows me.

As I walk through this path of letting God heal my heart and life, there are these moments, I call them milestones, that God uses to set apart a truth, lesson, victory, or even correction. These milestones are like burned images in mind, tattoos so to speak, they are permanent.

This past week the bread and the cup have become just that. As I have been walking with Jesus through my day and really stumbling more than walking, but trying to keep my aligned "upward" balance with focus on Him, I heard the Lord ask me to pause and consider the bread and the cup.

Stop what you are doing right now Kristen. Don't miss this because I have something big for you.

My ears and spiritual eyes WIDE, I took stock of my actions and my thoughts, heart, posture towards God as I was about to partake of the elements. And then I was reminded of a principle I heard just the day before riding in the car, the speaker said we need tangible actions to match a spiritual directive in our life.

Hmm, intersting, the dots began to connect, hang in here with me, they will for you too.

Backing up a little, see I have purposed to all day everyday walk moment by moment with Jesus, living by His permission. Even for the simplest things. Because I have learned, I can not do this life even fifteen minutes of it on my own, or at least I don't want to because I tend to make a mess of things, then I am running to Jesus crying my eyes out asking Him to fix things. But instead my desire is to rely more and more on Him to keep me from those messes and mistakes.

So back to the bread and the cup. I clued in to what God was showing me. Every time I go to partake of the elements I truly ackowledge Jesus, I genuinely asses my sin, my motives, my heart, my attitudes. I wouldn't dare go forward drink the juice, eat the bread, pray the prayer with out having my heart rightly aligned with Him.

Ok, really getting it now Jesus.

And He in all His glorious knowledge of me, knew that I would need this tangible illustration to show me what He is asking me to do every day, on a moment by moment basis, genuinely before Him, keep the open heart and spirit, not allowing sin, temptations, busyness, life get in the way of that and thus allow my heart to shut down from Him.

It is the same action as if I were all day long going to partake of the bread and the cup, I am partaking of Jesus, over and over again spiritually, remembering to...remember Him in every aspect of my day. Keeping short accounts, taking every thought captive, letting Him guide me to do the God things rather than just good things. My dear friend Cindy calls this her dance with Jesus, or the fifteen minute plan, and I have to say she is the one who has inspired this in my life.

To practice the discipline of allowing my heart to be held captive by His Love, rather than be taken captive by anything else, is just truly walking free.

I am asking Jesus, to help me walk free, He is showing me how to do just that.