but can He calm MY storm?

Mark 4:39He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.40He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

The disciples walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, lived with Jesus and yet still had trouble understanding just exactly who Jesus was. They certainly didn't understand what having Jesus in their daily lives meant to them.  How He could provide and comfort and....

And we forget too.  

Even now, after having the Holy Spirit to help us as we study the Word to learn who He is, we still forget, and/or fail to have faith that having Jesus in our lives can beautifully effect our daily lives.  That He can also calm the storms in our life as we call on Him.

A few years ago there was a popular Christian song that said, "sometimes He calms the storm, and sometimes He calms the child".  That's my prayer in my life as I face storms...

Jesus, either calm this storm, or calm me...

and for anyone who reads this today, I pray this for you.

So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you. Deut. 31:6

So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. psalm 46:2

How do I live this life?

I grabbed my coffee, my devotional book, my bible, and I sat down on the couch, closed my eyes and with quiet desperation asked...

 "How do I live this life?"

My own negative thoughts rose up within me and answered my own question with these words,

 "not very well."

I had been up since 3:37am EST.  Worried about everything.  I don't typically wake up worried, but due to some current life circumstances, that's where i found myself this morning.  Worried.

I opened up my devotional book (currently reading Jesus Calling by Sarah Young) and read this line...

"Peace is my continual gift to you..."


In the stillness of the moment and with my unsettled brain still stirring, I thought,

"You, Lord, offer peace, and yet I choose worry...why is that?"


My brain processed the things that had kept me up and stirring this morning. Mostly worried about how my decisions I'm making today will affect my/our future.  Not necessarily bad space to be thinking through, but what i was primarily worried about was...

the future...


I continued reading my devotion....

"Peace flows abundantly from my throne of grace.  Just as the Israelites could not store up manna for the future but had to gather it daily, so it is with My peace.  The day to day collecting of manna kept My people aware of their dependence on Me.  Similarly, I give you sufficient Peace for the present, when you come to me by prayer and petition with thanksgiving.  If I gave you permanent Peace, independent of My presence, you might fall into the trap of self-sufficiency.  May that never be!  I have designed you to need Me moment by moment."


When the Israelites were in the desert, God gave them enough food (manna) for each day.  They had to depend/trust Him to give it again the next day.  And so it is with peace.  I don't have peace for future days yet because those days aren't here yet.  So, I accept His peace for today, I trust Him for today, and I know that I can trust Him for tomorrow, and therein lies my peace.

Perhaps worry is a struggle for you too, robbing you of peace.

Trust Him for today.  Accept His peace for today.  And then do it again tomorrow.

Matthew 6:34 (MSG)
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

So Long World

No, I'm not ending it all.  How could I?  For even if my body dies, I would live on somewhere.  Heaven or Hell.

If I'm going to spend eternity with HIM, then I want to know Him.  I want to know who I will be spending the rest of all time with.  Yes, I know Him now.  But I want to know Him even better!

Which is exactly why I'm saying "so long world". At least for a time. The most important time. My quiet time.

You see, I love techno gadgets.  I have a tablet, a 11.6 in cute 'lil laptop (that I love!), and my droid.  And I love my Bible app.  For a while now I have been doing quiet time with my Bible app, and I love it.  I love the ease of looking things up and taking notes and all the things the app offers.  The bad part of it is, when I use that, the Lord never has my full attention.  If an email comes in, I check it.  Or I'm tempted to go on Facebook and see what you all are doing.  Or i respond to a text message, or FB chat, or one of the other millions of things out there via the world wide web, that are able to gain my attention.

So, it's back to the basics for me.  My Coffee. My devotional book.  My Bible.  My Jesus.

I will kiss the rest of the world goodbye for this precious quiet time in order to fully embrace the One I love more than any other.

The One who gets me through this life, and hopefully not just enduring it, but living it to the full abundance that He promises when He says, "I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly."

^{John 10:10} The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

How about you?  Does He have your full attention?  Ever? Those are questions I've been asking myself lately, and am vowing to spend some one on one time with just Jesus and no  one else.

So from now on, for my quiet time, it's so long world, Hello Jesus.

Scriptures for Trusting God from Romans 4

I'm learning, once again, from Abraham as I read through the scriptures this morning, and I'm so thankful that I don't have to try to put God's plan for my life in place by my own actions and efforts, but can trust God to fulfill His plan for my life.  As I've heard Sheila Walsh say, it is the Shepherds job to lead me home, it is my job to follow the shepherd.


The following passages are all from Romans 4:

That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed.

Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing.

When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples.

Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right."

The Child He Embraces, He Also Corrects

Often times when I think of "discipline", I think of punishment.  When in fact, most often, discipline is "training".  Whether we are disciplining our children, or God is disciplining us.  It's teaching, instructing, training us up so we know how to live right and well and abundantly.

Hebrews 12:4-11 MSG

In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through-all that bloodshed! So don't feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either. It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

In The Silence

This morning, in my quiet time, I read a devotion that reminded me of what a jealous God our God is.  How He wants us to put Him first above everyone and everything else.  How He longs to spend time with us. 

After reading it, and the Bible verse that came along with it, I closed my Bible, along with my eyes, and began to pray.

I prayed for a little while, and then my praying stopped.  Eyes still closed, I listened to the silence.

Complete silence.

I sat in the stillness for what seemed to be a long time...and then this verse came to mind:

Silence is praise to you, Zion-dwelling God, And also obedience.  You hear the prayer in it all. Psalm 65:1,2 The Message

Tears streamed down my face as I felt the nearness of God in that moment.

Under my tears I muttered to Him, "I understand why silence is praise to You."

That we would be willing to shut everyone, and everything else off, to find solitude with Jesus.

 "Only in much solitude can ye begin to sift away the chaff and come at last to the golden grains of truth"

"Silence will speak more to thee in a day than a world of voices can teach thee in a life time" from Frances J. Roberts, Come Away My Beloved

I loved the silence this morning, and how God met me there.  Can't wait for my next opportunity to find solitude.

How 'bout you?  When is the last time you shut everything off to talk to God?

1 Silence is praise to you, Zion-dwelling God, And also obedience. 2 You hear the prayer in it all. We all arrive at your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt, 3 Our sins too much for us - but you get rid of them once and for all. 4 Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest at home in your place! We expect our fill of good things in your house, your heavenly manse. 5 All your salvation wonders are on display in your trophy room. Earth-Tamer, Ocean-Pourer, 6 Mountain-Maker, Hill-Dresser, 7 Muzzler of sea storm and wave crash, of mobs in noisy riot - 8 Far and wide they'll come to a stop, they'll stare in awe, in wonder. Dawn and dusk take turns calling, "Come and worship."
Psalm 65 The Message

He WILL help you.

Reading through the Word this morning and found so many good and comforting things in this passage of scripture. Sometimes I just like to let the Word speak for itself, knowing that it is alive and active and will not return void.  So, here ya go:

Matthew 6:25-34

The Message (MSG)

 ^25-26"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.


 ^27-29"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.


 ^30-33"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.


 ³⁴"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.