Saturday, December 8, 2012

Goodness

Our Daily Bread
So I have a silly joke with my friends since I am not always a patient person.  I say jokingly "I am tapping my foot patiently"!  If you think about it, you really can't tap your foot patiently.  It is only my feeble attempt to be patient about something.  Heavy sigh...

Some people think that God "taps his foot patiently" with us, always on us the second we screw up.  Personally, I don't believe that.  I think that God lets us do the things we do, then we enjoy the blessings of being obedient or the wages of our sins.  That is not the case all the time, like in the case of Job.  God let Satan do what he would to Job because God was so confident in Job's faith.  God sometimes allows things to happen to us to test our faith. Notice that I said "allows" and not "causes".  That is an important distinction.

During this holiday season, emotions can run high and amplify the good and the bad.  Trust God always.  Remember Christ IS the reason for the season!

Lord, thank you for your goodness and patience with us.  Please help us follow your will as best we can.

Simply Saturday
Giving up or Letting go?
There are times in our lives that we just get tired.  We get tired of certain situations that we seem powerless to deal with or to change.  Like I said above, emotions can run high during the holiday season.  Those additional feelings aside, how do you know when you are giving up or letting go?

Have you ever had a situation in your life that you were soooooo very sure of that you kept having faith and believing in what you thought was God's promise?  You believed even though friends thought you were stupid for trusting and believing so much.  Ministers judged you for being things you were not (like a little crazy).  Being judged is not fun at any level.

I am feeling like I should be letting go now.  I have been pretty good about using my stubbornness for believing in God and having faith in his promises.  I have to admit that I did not discern the situation correctly.    I have to admit that I need to deal with the feelings and wages of my sin.  So, as always, I will focus on the positive.  I will let go.  It is not giving up.

Here is a song that means a lot to me.  I hope you enjoy the lyrics as well.

Healing Begins by Tenth Avenue North

So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you're good
And you can't believe it's not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside

So let 'em fall down
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Afraid to let your secrets out
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide but you find
That the shame won't disappear
[ From: http://www.elyrics.net ]

So let it fall down
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now
We're here now, oh

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight
This coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark


************************
We are far from perfect, but despite our mistakes and our sins, we will never abandon the Lord and he will never abandon us - adapted from a statement about Abraham from the EfM Training Guide

No comments:

Post a Comment