I haven’t written very much on the “Hungry Women” site during these summer months. I guess I have given myself permission to take a sort of “soul sabbatical,” where I am intentionally trying to be still and allow God to restore and replenish me. I want to saturate my heart and mind with the truth of His word so that when the school year begins and ministries resume I will be operating out of an overflow instead of a deficit. I confess that it has been a bit hard for me to not write on a regular basis (I am a creature of routine), but it has been good for me too. I fear that without this time I would run the risk of trying so hard to come up with things to write about that I would simply be sharing my own thoughts and opinions instead of conveying what I sense God is impressing on me – and trust me, my own thoughts and opinions are not nourishment for others. So please pray for me, that I would draw near to God and find true satisfaction in Him as I continue this “soul sabbatical” and that in His grace, He would make me more like Jesus.
Posted in Everday Life | Tagged God's Word, rest, soul nourishment | Leave a Comment »
Verse of the Week: “The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives.” (Psalm 37:23NLT)
Truth of the Week: I am currently reading a book by Francis Chan called The Forgotten God. (Like his previous book, Crazy Love, this book is easy to read and hard to live out…I would highly recommend them both.) In the book, Chan makes the point that we often want to know God’s will for our lives, rather than seeking His leading for today – or even for the next ten minutes. Although God may place dreams on our hearts and give us a vision of what He has in store for us, He is not in the habit of laying out the whole course of action at one time. If He were to do so in my own life, I am certain that I would either shrink back in fear, overwhelmed by what the future held, or would step forth in pride, trying to accomplish God’s plans in my own puny strength. Instead, God calls us to walk day by day, moment by moment, listening to the leading and depending on the enabling of His Holy Spirit, whom He has placed within us. Walking with God in this manner helps us to develop the intimacy with Him and gain the reliance on Him that we were created to experience. Our lives are meant to be lived one step at a time, confidently believing that God delights to direct those steps.
Quote of the Week: “It is easy to use the phrase ‘God’s will for my life’ as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. It’s much less demanding to think about God’s will for your future than it is to ask Him what He wants you to do in the next ten minutes. It’s safer to commit to following Him someday instead of this day.” (Francis Chan, The Forgotten God)
Posted in Truth of the Week | Tagged being led by the Spirit, francis chan, God's will for my life | Leave a Comment »
I was reading in Jeremiah 21 this morning. The scene is this: God’s people have forsaken Him and have turned to other gods to serve them and worship them. They have repeatedly ignored His pleas to return to Him, and now He is bringing against them a strong nation to conquer them in order to show them the futility of their idolatry. God sets before them two choices – resist what He is doing and face the deadly consequences, or surrender and live. Resist or surrender…this same choice is constantly set before each one of us as we live out our days upon this earth. Will we rebel against God and insist on our own will and our own way, or will we submit to His plans and His purposes for us? Although the world would tell us otherwise, we must choose to believe God when He says that surrender leads to freedom and to life.
Posted in Reflections | Tagged surrender to God, submitting to God, freedom in life | Leave a Comment »
Verse of the Week: “I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.” (Jeremiah 10:23)
Truth of the Week: As we go about our day to day living, it is so easy to slip into the trap of making our own plans and pursuing our own agendas without actually consulting God. We ask God to be with us wherever we are going, and to bless us in whatever we are doing, without truly asking Him where He would have us go and what He would have us do. This is something that God has been convicting me of in my own life lately. Instead of saying, “God, would You please be with me today,” I feel as if He has been prompting me to say, “God, would You please help me to be with You today.” He has already promised to always be with me; I want to learn to always be with Him. Instead of asking Him to join me on whatever journey seems pleasing to me, I want to ask Him to direct my steps along the path that He has chosen. I am the sheep, not the shepherd, and my job is not to lead but to follow wherever He leads.
Quote of the Week: “The shepherd and not the sheep chooses the pasture.” (Thomas Manton, taken from Voices from the Past by Richard Rushing)
Posted in Truth of the Week | Tagged following God, Gof will direct your steps, we are sheep not shepherds | Leave a Comment »
Verse of the Week: “But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King.” (Jeremiah 10:10)
Truth of the Week: This week’s “truth of the week” is really a trio of truths that we need to impress on our souls:
1) The LORD is the true God. All day, every day, false gods will clamor for our attention and try to steal our affection, making endless promises that they are powerless to keep. They tell us lies, claiming that they can bring us security and freedom and purpose and fulfillment. But there is one true God, in whom there is no falsehood. Every promise that He makes, He keeps. He will always be who He says He will be, and will always do what He says He will do.
2) The LORD is the living God. Our God is not lifeless; on the contrary, in Him fullness of life is found. He is the source and the sustainer of all life. He is not a figment of our imagination, nor is He a fabricated being in a fairy tale. He is alive and active. He sees and hears and feels and thinks and speaks and acts. He is not just the God who did great and amazing things in the past, He is the God who works wonders in our lives today.
3) The LORD is the everlasting King. There has never been a time, and there will never be a time, when God will abandon His throne. He rules forever. All of His purposes come to pass, and none of His plans can be thwarted. Nothing escapes His attention, and nothing is beyond is intervention. In His sovereignty, He is free to do as He pleases, and what pleases Him is always right.
The LORD is true. The LORD is living. The LORD is King forever. May these three truths lead us to praise the name of our great and awesome God.
Quote of the Week: In the words of the late, great Rich Mullins – “Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With wisdom, power, and love – our God is an awesome God!”
Posted in Truth of the Week | Tagged awesome God, God is alive, God is King, God is truth, God never lies | Leave a Comment »
Verse of the Week: “Be to me a rock of refuge; to which I may continually come.” (Psalm 71:3a)
Truth of the Week: On school mornings, the kids and I leave the house at about the same time each day and travel the same twenty five minute route to get to our destination. As the year has gone on, we have come to recognize familiar vehicles that we see on a regular basis – usually identifiable by their decals or their license tags. One SUV always captures our attention as its license plate reads: 2BUSY4U. When we see this car, we can’t help but try and come up with clever come-backs, but we also can’t help but feeling a bit sorry for the driver. 2BUSY4U does not sound like a nice place to live.
Thankfully, this is not something that we will ever hear God say to us. On the contrary, because Jesus has made reconciliation possible, we can come to God anytime, anywhere, and talk to Him about anything. In fact, God assures us that He is always available, and that we will never wear out our welcome. The Almighty One desires fellowship with us, and is never too busy for us.
God always has time for us, but do we always have time for Him? I wonder if when God looks at our lives if it sometimes seems as though we are sporting our own little vanity tags that read the same as the car we pass on school mornings. Is the message that we are sending God – 2BUSY4U? Are we so over-booked, over-scheduled, over-loaded and overwhelmed that we have over-looked our desperate need to be still and draw near to our God? We were made to know and enjoy our Creator, and we will never be satisfied if we neglect being with Him.
Quote of the Week: “They never think themselves so happy as when, having retired from the world, and gotten free from the noise and hurry of affairs, and silenced all their clamorous passions, those troublesome guests within, they have placed themselves in the presence of God, and entertain fellowship and communion with him; they delight to adore his perfections and recount his favours, and to protest their affection to him, and tell him a thousand times that they love him, to lay out their troubles or wants before him, and disburden their hearts in his bosom.” (Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man)
Posted in Truth of the Week | Tagged drawing near to God, God cares about our hearts, time with God | Leave a Comment »
Verse of the Week: “They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.” (Psalm 112:7 NLT)
Truth of the Week: Let’s be honest – life isn’t always easy, is it? Throughout the course of our lives we are sure to encounter a good deal of bad news. We know that this is so even while we wish that it were not true. We can look at our past and easily recall hard times that we have experienced. Probably, we can look at our present and see difficult circumstances that we are in the midst of. But perhaps the hardest “bad news” to handle is that which hasn’t even taken place yet. The “what if’s” of future fears constantly try to take captive our thoughts and end up poisoning our peace.
The weight of trying to carry tomorrow’s troubles today can be paralyzing. What if my child is in an accident? What if my husband loses his job? What if the cancer comes back?…the list is endless. I can be driving down the road, singing along with a song on the radio, when out of the blue an imaginary tragedy is taking place in my mind. Before I know it, I am entertaining anxious thoughts over things that are unlikely to ever occur. And even when I dwell on fears that seem to be more well-founded, the grace to walk in them will not be given in advance.
So, what are we to do with the worries that bombard us? It may sound too simplistic for our sophisticated tastes, but the best way to battle fear is to cultivate confidence in God. We must fill our minds with the truth (until it penetrates to our hearts) that God will take care of His children, no matter what. There is nothing we will ever encounter that is too hard for Him. He will never run out of the resources required to meet our every need. Again, it may sound simplistic, but to grow deeper in our trust, we must spend quality and quantity time with God – for we will not trust a God that we do not know and we will not know a God that we keep at a distance
Will bad things happen in our lives? Certainly. But when they do, we will always find our faithful God waiting to give us the grace that we need.
Quote of the Week: “It has been said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength.” (Charles Spurgeon)
Posted in Truth of the Week | Tagged not fearing the future, trusting God | Leave a Comment »
Verse of the Week: “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And there he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.”
Truth of the Week: The transfiguration was an undeniably amazing event. Can you imagine being invited by Jesus to come away with Him and witness this? What would it have felt like to not only behold such glory, but to hear the very voice of God proclaiming, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased: listen to him.” Can you imagine seeing Moses and Elijah appear and listening to them have a conversation with Jesus? How I would love to know what words were spoken in that encounter!
While the transfiguration was truly an incredible event, what is equally incredible to me is that we have a God who invites us to enjoy such intimacy with Himself. Jesus desired His disciples to be with Him to see His glory. He wanted them to experience this very personal encounter alongside Him. Rather than removing Himself from them and keeping them at a distance, He brought them near and revealed Himself to them.
It blesses me beyond words to know that our God does not merely desire a master-servant relationship with us, although we do belong to Him. Nor is He content with a teacher-student manner of relating, although we have everything in the world to learn from Him. Instead, He uses the most intimate relationships that we can conceive of to express the level of closeness that we were created to enjoy with Him, calling Himself our Husband, our Father, and our Friend.
We do not have a distant deity. The God who made the heavens and the earth and who calls every star by name invites us to draw near and to know Him intimately. He gave up His very life that we might experience a rich and genuine relationship with Him. He created us that we might be close to Him. May we not neglect such an incredible invitation!
Quote of the Week: “What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we have in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? To know God. What is the best thing in life? To know God. What in humans gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of Himself.” (J.I. Packer)
Posted in Truth of the Week | Tagged having a close relationship with God, intimacy with God, knowing God, nearness to God | Leave a Comment »
This morning I read the passage in Matthew 14 where Jesus feeds the hungry crowd with such meager resources. He nourishes more than five thousand people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and they all leave satisfied. Really, it doesn’t matter what the food was or how much of it they started with, does it? What matters is that it was ALL placed in Jesus’ hands to bless, to break, and to do with as He pleased. This always encourages me since when I look at myself I don’t feel like I have much to offer, yet I can take comfort knowing that if I place myself entirely in my Saviors hands (knowing that He will both bless me and lovingly break me) He will use me to nourish others.
Several years ago, as I was meditating on this same passage, song lyrics came to me which I now pass along to you:
“Broken Bread and Poured Out Wine”
I place myself in Your hands
Do with me as You please
Oh, close to You, there’s no other place I’d rather be.
And I give You all I am
Though meager may it be
Surrendered ‘til I find at least that I’m finally free
And all I ever want to be…
Is broken bread and poured out wine
A longing heart that’s cleansed of pride
A vessel where Your glory shines
Is all I want to be…
A witness to Your faithfulness
Where You increase as I grow less
Oh, poured out wine and broken bread
Is all I want to be…it’s all I want to be
Until my journey here is done
Won’t You help me seek Your face?
I come to You, and I’m so hungry for a deeper taste
Of Your mercy and Your love
Of Your goodness and Your grace
Lord, take my life and let it overflow with endless praise
And may I be for all my days…
Broken bread and poured out wine
A longing heart that’s cleansed of pride
A vessel where Your glory shines
That’s all I want to be…
A witness to Your faithfulness
Where You increase as I grow less
Poured out wine and broken bread
It’s all I want to be…It’s all I ever want to be…
Posted in lyrics | Tagged broken bread, five loaves and two fish, jesus feeds five thousand | 3 Comments »
