Well, my son now seems to appreciate going on little errands to the store, or coming in the car when I have to go some place. What a difference a tiny piece of paper called a learner’s permit makes.

We had an interesting  Bible study on Friday, and I am going to share it, but please know that it is hard to lay all the groundwork down.

Basically our pastor was talking about the statements Christ made on the Cross, including the “My God, My God why has thou forsaken me.” He pointed out that in those days a one liner like that would open up a train of thought, and reveal the rest of the Psalm. In this case the 22nd Psalm which revealed all that was happening to Christ on the cross on the day Christ said those words.

He then pointed out that if he said, “The Lord is my Shepherd” we would get many of the images put on the 23rd Psalm.

All of this going to point to the fact that there is no scripture that states that God ever forsook any of his servants who were acting in obedience. Elijah was fed when depresed, Jonah was rescued from the Whale in the midst of rebellion and disobedience, Moses also was taken care of by God. So why would God abandon his servant Jesus on the Cross.

Isaiah 59 Jesus on the cross was not bearing HIS sin, but our sins. Jesus lived a sin-free life on the earth. and Isaiah 59 says God will not depart from His people.

If you look at the Passover, it was the Lamb without spot and blemish that was sacrificed, not the scapegoat which carried away the sins of the people. Jesus was the Lamb, not the goat.

We take our sins as limitations, and feel that because people have committed certain sins they are not able to serve. God rises above that and uses us, as we are covered by the Blood of Jesus.

God delights in us, Isaiah 62: 4, 5, 12
Jeremiah 51:5

It is not too late to change and turn things around 2 Chron 7:14, God will gladly defer punishment if we repent from the depths of our being.

We also must not make the assumption that God has written off the Jew, He hasn’t as Paul pointed out in Romans 11.

Basically the point was that often Christians are bound by satan into believing that because of satan’s accusations God would not count us as worthy to serve Him. But in reality, God longs for us to reach out, accept the forgiveness Christ died to provide for us, and to step out in faith and serve God.

I wanted to share this, but please know that our pastor was talking so fast that getting all the notes down on paper was challenging. He was excited about the topic. If there are any error in theology in this, they are most probably mine.

Heather

Seem to be caught up in little things. Between Holman’s Bible dictionary and some searching on the web, including Calvary Chapel Cheyenne notes and Jon Courson, I have discovered another interesting fact.

Matthew 13:24-30 about the tares and the wheat that the tares was a weed called the Bearded Darnell. It is a plant that looks exactly like wheat, but you can’t tell it isn’t wheat until it matures. The difference between wheat and Bearded Darnell is that Wheat produces fruit. Bearded Darnell produces no fruit.

Will write more later, but had to share this fact!

Heather

Sorry for not responding to your comments today, it was one of those kinds of days. But cool. We went to see Carmen on stage, took our three kids and two of their friends to see the opera which was performed by a Bulgarian opera company. The kids liked it, and one of them decided that he liked Carmen better than La Boheme. The theatre that does the opera only does one opera a year and for one day, so we got these tickets in the summer.

My daughter’s pink eye is improved and she will go back to school tomorrow, tired from getting back late from the opera.

I got to speak with my pastor today, always a blessing, and we covered a few areas of concern for me. He also wants me to teach a Bible study. I was telling him about one I have been working on regarding the Ark of the Covenant. He likes the topic and gave me some more ideas to research. Fortunately I have to put down what I want to teach on paper, give it to him, and he makes sure that it is sound doctrine. I would hate to think that I might teach something that is not accurate.

I will write more tomorrow, and tomorrow is Friday Bible study – yeah!!!!

Good night and bless you all. Will try to visit your sites tomorrow.

Heather

Little irritations

Matthew 13:45

This is the short parable about a pearl of great price. And my pastor was saying that this is a salvation parable. He said that often we think we are irritating to God, and why would God want to save us. So we need to consider pearls. How are they formed, a little bit of sand or food gets into the oyster shell. It is very irritating to the oyster, so the oyster puts layers of aragonite (SP?) and nacur (sp?) around the irritation, layer after layer, to cover the irritating bit. This over time becomes a pearl. Smaller pearls are formed after a few years, but the beautiful pearls grow inside the oyster for 6-7 years.  And that makes for a very valuable pearl. Now six or seven years brings to mind Revelation, too.

Now we are the very valuable pearls that Christ sees, and he has covered us with His blood, bought and redeemd us at a great price.

Another interesting thing about pearls, one thing that will ruin a pearl is human sweat. So if we start getting puffed up about ourselves, feel that we are the ones doing the work, etc, in our own human energy, our own human sweat, then we will ruin the pearl of great price. It is only by letting Christ cover us that we grow in beauty.

Heather

An interesting point I picked up from  Bible study.

Matthew 12:9  Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue.

The interesting point, He went into THEIR synagogue. The synagogue was to worship God, and the son of God should have felt that he was going into HIS synagogue.

So often our traditions, beliefs and ways we worship are our ways, not His ways. I often wonder when God is there, if he feels that we are worshipping Him.

I know that at times I get caught up in my Bible studies, or the things that I want to learn about God, but then realize that I haven’t given Him the quiet attention that He so deserves. It is so easy for things to get unbalanced.

 

My daughter was sent home from school today for pink eye, so now the eyedrops, sigh. Not the end of the world and if you have to be home sick from school it is one of the better ways because you do not feel bad, just a bit of uncomfort, and in 24 hours it is gone.

Have a blessed  night.

Heather

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

I have been hurting very badly the past few days. And I am torn about sharing how much I am hurting. For me, to write things out helps, and part of me is thinking of going to a physical journal. I have been treating this one as a personal/physical journal. And you will notice that sometimes I am more upbeat than other times. Right now I am near tears and have been for several days.

I do not seek to wallow in self-pity, or to just sit and moan, but I will write out what is hurting and why. Just because I am hurting does not mean that I am not also giving out good to others, reaching out to others, seeking God, reading His Word, studying and being a wife and mom. But I can do all that and still hurt, still wonder, still doubt.

I guess the biggest thing for me is that in the midst of this hurt instead of striking out at God, raging at God, running away from God, I am staying with God, asking the hard questions, struggling, seeking. I am also making sure I let God know what I am thankful for, making sure that I am honest with God. Oh, I could say all the right words and fool people, but I couldn’t fool God. So I choose to be honest about feelings, doubts, fears and hurts. That does not mean that I also do not worship God and believe in God for some things.

Last Tues. at Bible study a woman came up to our pastor and asked him to pray for her as she had hurt her back with a misstep on the ice. Our church is spirit-filled and there have been wonderful healings in the church and deliverance as well. Our pastor spent time praying with her and she left the church walking to the Glory of God.

He then spent time talking about healing with us. One point he made is that when you pray for someone to heal you need a point of contact. Jesus would establish points of contact in various ways depending on the situation. Some are so faith-filled that it would be like the Centurian, the faith of the person. Some He touched, or used spittal, or forgave sins, or the woman who touched the edge of his garment. Our pastor said that when you pray with someone you have to find out what they can believe for.

He gave the example of his wife, when she was a new believer and going into surgery, she could not believe for total healing, but she could believe for quick recovery and freedom from pain, so that was what he prayed for and with her. She could grasp that. Today she would have faith for total healing.

Some can believe for instantaneous healing, and you can pray that.

He said that faith develops over time and experience, and after awhile you can transfer faith from one area to another area in your life. Many people have salvation faith, but not instantaneous healing faith. Some have faith for healing of hurt limbs, but not faith for hurt minds. We have to develop that seed of faith that we are given, and stretch it, but the most effective prayer is the prayer of agreement.

Probably this teaching will be lambasted by some. B ut right now I have perservence faith, faith that I will stick with God, faith that I will keep searching and faith that one day there will be an answer. I do not yet have faith to leave all the past behind.

For those who do not know much about what I am dealing with I want to say that I am not seeking the past, but the feelings and memories are becoming linked together, and I am feeling what I never felt back then. It is incredibly painful to go through that, and yet I think that the end result will be good. As a kid to show a feeling would have literally cost me my life, and so I pushed all feelings down. I could be beaten, raped, or hurt and did not feel emotions about it at all. The emotions would have torn me apart. My pastor said that God is now allowing the feelings to come up because I am saved and in a safe place to deal with them. I cannot keep them down, and I think it would not be wise to just push them aside and say they are the past. I think if I do not deal with them, they will keep coming up and up and up.

Now the difference is that in the midst of all of this I am seeking God. Before I never gave God the time of day. During a Beth Moore Bible study, I was asked to write a letter to God about what do I want. I wrote a letter, and a while ago shared it. I have brought the letter forward now to remind myself of what I wrote, and to share it. Please know that I am trying to get through this stuff quickly, I do not plan to camp out in this valley forever, but I do feel that I have to go through it. And for the time being I will keep writing here.

 

Dear Jesus,

What do you want? Beth says to write you a letter detailing what I want to you. I guess the first thing I want to know is if that is the truth, that you desire to give each and everyone our wants. I could see you giving us our needs, but we as humans seem to be insatiable in our wants. Would that not spoil us as children?

I want a loving family. The teenage years are shaking that veneer of love. My two sons are like boxers in a ring, hating each other, trying to provoke the other one in anger. I am constantly trying to sort things out. Every now and then they do something foolish and I have to deal with it with my friends and acquaintances. At times it just isn’t fun to be a mother. And Jim, at times, does not take the role of responsible father, so I am always coming across as the heavy, hated by all for doing what a loving parent has to do. Just once I would like peace to reign in our house for a season. A calm between the storms. I want them to recognize that I act out of love and bend over backwards to give them the loving home I never had.

I want to know the real purpose behind the past that I had. How much did you allow and why? I really resent having so much pain and hurt. Why couldn’t I have been brought up in a loving Godly home? Did you hate me so very much? Why didn’t you answer my first real despairing prayer to you? How could you not stop him from hurting me? It is well and good that this wretched past is put to good use, and I see that people like Beth Moore used their painful pasts to help others but there is a little girl inside of me that wants to ask you, “Don’t you love me?” Because frankly, if you really loved me you would have stopped them from hurting me so badly.

I want to see just where you were in my past. I truthfully cannot find you there. Of course, I shut you out from the age of eight on because you didn’t take care of me. But you are supposedly an all-powerful God. Didn’t you care that the walls were really being built up so high? It would have been easier to tear them down early on. It is hard to see that there seems to be a pattern of abuse and neglect by even one I am supposed to call abba Father. What kind of father abandons a child he loves? Who doesn’t stand up and protect her? What kind of God?

I wish I could get over this anger at you but there is a sense of betrayal. I see so many hurts from the sins I committed that trace their origins to this betrayal. Oh , I can’t excuse my actions and choices by pinning them on my past, but when my innocence was destroyed it made me wonder if there was any good in me at all.

I want to know why my parents did not love me. Was it something in me that is innately unlovable? So if they couldn’t love me, how can I even believe you could love me? Maybe you could muster up some pity and affection for a freak, but do I deserve real love from you or anyone?

God, you have given me life. I exist because of you, but I do not live life to its fullest. Life is something I never embraced. I went through life trying not to be noticed, hiding, and quite frankly a good portion of my life I spent trying not to live, to kill myself. Even to this day I see life as existence, not something to be fully embraced and enjoyed. Is there meant to be joy for me in this life?

I look at so many around me who seem to have genuine relationships with you. Who bask in the glow of your love, claim to freely go to you with problems. See you as so real and vital to their lives. I see myself as spiritually autistic. I do not fully reach out to you. I am afraid of you, yet long for your love. Your abandonment of me as a child (or at least my perception of your abandonment) makes me doubt my relationship with you. I don’t know if you will really be there if I reach out to you. I am afraid to test you to see if you will be there. I am paralyzed with fear.

Inside me is a little child that never had a chance to live. A part of me wants you to come and nurture that child, grow her up, give her security and peace. But frankly, I fight to keep her safe. To reach out to you and have you not answer would kill that child. Would you answer if I reached out? I want to know for sure.

Please know that I am being honest. I mean you no disrespect, but am honestly sharing my fears. A relationship has to be based on honesty. I do respect you and am so thankful that you saved me from my sins. I guess I want more though. Oh how I long to feel the realness of your presence, a sense that you would be there for me, on my side, fighting my battles.

I also want to know what you want me to do with the rest of my life. I feel so much was squandered by my rebellion and the 40 years in the wilderness. Do you hate me for all that rebellion? Can it be put to use?

Dear Jesus, I guess this all could be summed up in the word love. I want to learn to love you, and to feel that you love me. I need to have the damage repaired inside to make this even remotely feasible. And from a childish point of view, I want to know, do you love me? can you love me? I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t see anything worth loving and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t love me. I sure spent many years hating you. Jesus, please just let me now where I stand with you. If there is any hope or should I cash my chips in now.

I am hurting right now. Maybe this is not the time to write this letter. No matter what, I have grown to learn to love you and I pray that you love me.

Heather

 

Still reading The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning, my Revelation study has taken lots of time and has made it tough to get other reading in. This week in the study we are comparing passages in Deuteronomy with Ezekiel and Daniel passages about the scattering of Israel.

Manning quotes:

p. 68 “One of the greatest paradoxes of the Gospel is that surrender is victory. “The man who loses his life finds it.” What makes surrender difficult is our lack of faith, our fears and insecurities, our need to manage our own lives and those of others, our little plans to which we cling so tightly.”

p. 74 “You will trust God only as much as you love Him. And you will love Him not because you have studied Him; you will love Him because you have touched Him–in response to His touch. Even then your troubles are not over. You may still wrangle with God. You may cry out with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Only if you love will you make the final leap into darkness; “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.”

Well, this pretty much defines my failing. It has taken me a long time to be able to say “I love you to God.” I respect you, I like you, I honor you, but when you give out love, it is scary because what if it isn’t returned. I am wrangling with God big time. Even Peter could not say he agape’d Jesus, he liked him.

I do not think that wrangling with God is always due to a need of deliverance. I think of Jacob who wrestled with God, and did not let Him go, and God gave Him a new name, Israel. Then God would address Jacob/Israel by the name that best fit the action, if it was a Godly action, Israel, not part of God’s plan, Jacob. Pretty good for a heel snatcher, one who stole an inheritance.

I spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, ignoring God. So right now we are talking, I am wrangling, trying to sort out things. If it didn’t matter, I would have done what I did for 40 years, I would just walk away, not talk with God, and write God off. I haven’t done that. I need the answers, and to just make that leap of faith is not something I can do. With my track record, I would leap and end up falling and hurting my spirituality. As it is I think the term spiritual autism kind of describes what I am dealing with. The hurt is so great, that unless God intervenes in a big way (something he hasn’t done to date), I don’t think I will recover inside.

Please do not be angry that this is hard for me, you have no idea how hard it is to not run away. And I am not running, just backing away slowly. I am note even strong enough to just stay standing.

Hope you have a goood Sunday. Today the boys are selling candy bars, I get so tired of fundraising for various troops and things, but I know it is necessary.

Glad to have so much support in my wrangling days.

Heather

Sometimes the message of youth drowns out the message of truth.

This struck home so much yesterday in Bible study. When one is hurt terribly, it colors your view of God, and makes trust so difficult. No matter how many times you tell yourself it just ain’t so, you still find yourself wondering about God, trying to figure out if you can trust God.

I wish I could get beyond this impasse’ but it is not as easy as just turning your back on the problem and moving forward. I wish I could quiet the questions in my mind, but the questions outweigh the trust in God.

God could stop time, heal the sick, raise the dead, throw hailstones with great accuracy, strike down tons of people, send one angel to defeat an army. Seems like God intervened when He wanted to, so why not in my situation?

I know people say that God is sovereign, but others say that He wants relationship. Relationship comes from trust, and when you are left in the midst of a situation alone, it does not do much to build trust.

I guess the other way to look at it is that God created the earth, he gave us Jesus, what more do we want.

At 8 was when I gave up on God, and never gave Him the time of day for more years than I care to think about. I remember once writing a story about a little boy who was playing in a sandbox. His parents came out and said, “That is great Johnny, but this one is too close to the sun, this planet too far away. Only one planet could sustain life.” Johnny came in to eat dinner and washed his hands. He never looked back.

At 10 I wrote the above story, and even a bit of philosophy comparing God to an industrial clock. People were the dots that showed the minutes, the sweep hand was life passing by quickly, and the arrow at the small part of the sweep hand (for seconds) was God, who never ever touched the people. God was not someone I had a relationship with. For what it is worth, the pagan gods did nothing either.

I know the parables of the tares and the wheat. The ones that God lets the good grow with the bad. I know about free will, but that is lopsided because the victims don’t have the free will.

I keep grinding my wheels in this circle of sorting out the questions. For awhile one of our cars was stuck in the snow and no amount of reving the engine could free the wheels. I am stuck here. There are good answers, but a lot of the answers sound like excuses for God.

You know people say, God is love and God is good (I believe that), so why the bad.

Well satan does the bad (ok) but then how do you explain Job (still a book of the Bible that is tough). God let this stuff happen to his faithful servent.

Well God had a purpose (so we are pawns?)

No, God gives us free will. Not always.

When questioned, God pointed out the miracles of creation and pointed out that we could not do anything to affect creation. So that is all he said.

So God planned our lives from before the earth was created – did he hate some of us so?

No God loves you, (funny kind of love).

Then people say that these questions are examples of needing deliverance, put in my mind by satan.

Sometimes I think it is just a matter of giving up, doing the best good you can, living day by day and hoping for the best.

Sorry for being so glum, but I won’t lie and pretend to be what I am not, and right now I am glum.

Thanks for listening,

Heather

Friday Bible study was on how we can walk in confidence and security in the unconditional love of God, I am so glad that my pastor is back, and he seems somehow to cover a few of the topics I am dealing with.

He started out saying that we have a great need for the assurance of Daddy (God). I am a sinner BUT I still have security in God. We don’t go forward with a lot of God ideas because we remember our individual sins and shortcomings and it causes us to question God’s secuity. We remember our sins, but God forgives us when we repent, and he will bless us no matter how much we mess up.

Psalm 37: 23-25 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, but it is important to know that God upholds us when we fall down.

**** [boy can I relate to the following]   ***Sometimes the messages of our youth drown out the messages of God’s truth. We buy into the negative statements made by parents, teachers, peers, and do not realize that really we are beloved of God.

Our righteousness is not based on what we do, it is based on the act of Jesus and the Cross, and our faith in his act. These verses are not an excuse to sin, for to sin deliberately is presumptuous and does not honor God. If we have been forgiven, we choose to try not to sin for the love we have for God, not that we won’t make mistakes, but that we do not deliberately choose wrong.

Only a heart repentence is what God looks for. We want our lives to be such that immediately when we do something sinful, we are aware of what we have done and can repent immediately. Often, we speak or do something and it does not dawn on us until hours later that what we did was not godly, words spoken unthinkingly, etc.

That our day to day sins do not affect our salvation if we die before we repent, but they do affect the quality of our daily walk with God. That Jesus died for our sins, past, present and future. 

Romans 10:6-10

Righteousness of faith, the word in the heart. We must express our belief in God in our hearts, head knowledge doesn’t do it.

Numbers 13 -  eight of the 10 spies to the promised land, came back with a yes, but comment, that the land was what was promised, but they felt like grasshoppers. Only two came with a true confession. Often we get what we speak, so when the 8 spies and the people said that they would rather have died in Israel, and stated that God would not protect them, God gave them their wishes and they wandered for 40 years and died in the wilderness, never reaching the promised land.

In the Bible there is no set method for deliverance, many ways deliverance happened (fasting, praying, healing, military intervention, etc), it has nothing to do with methodology, it is a heart issue.

Ps. 37:28, 34-40, We look at sinners and think that they are getting away with stuff, but we always reap what we sow. Often the sinners who have things in abundance do not have peace or joy.

Sometimes our prayers fail because of false beliefs like, I am not worhty, the faith stuff doesn’t work, or we aren’t in a position to accept the blessing because of unconfessed sin.

Psalm 34:17 God hears and delivers. If we ask God for A, God wants not only to deliver us from A, but also B, C, and D, and whatever. Sometimes we do not ask fully what we need, so we look for the answer to our prayer, but it is not happening because there is more to do.

Not only must we repent of our act (getting caught so we repent) but the repentence must also reach our hearts.

Deut. 31: 6, 8 God’s promises for us. He may not remove all the rocks from our path, but he will walk among the rocks with us.

Joshua 1: 5, 9, 10-11 Moses (a murderer, liar, coward – and yet God used him). God called Moses into his ministry in his 80th year, so do not ever feel that God will not use you. He had to get Moses ready for his future job.

1 Samuel 12:22 God does not have to do it for ME, he does it FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE. So when God blesses us it is not because we are stellar individuals, He blesses us for His name’s sake.

The older you get in the Lord, the faster you repent.

God is always looking for the ram in the bush that he hid there.

1 Kings 6:13,    1 Kings 8: 57-58, Blessings for us and for the rest of Israel.

1 Chron. 28:20

Our pastor talked about how generational blessings and curses are passed down, and said that those who never knew God or had Godly people in their pasts are 1st generational believers (SUCH AS ME), and that we start out with a clean slate.

Nehemiah 9: 30-31

Psalms 27: 5, 8-10

Ps. 94: 14-15

God has taken us as His inheritance

Is. 41:17-20, 21-22 We need God not only in the dry river valleys but also in the desolate heights.

V. 21-22 prophesy to God and present your case to God and prophesy your future.

IS 42: 16

great promise PS 9:9-12

 

Sorry for all the scriptures with not all the comments. Some of these things are things you have shared in answer to my questions. I am thinking on these things and trying to learn to trust in them, but it is hard. Hopefully God is patient. Our pastor was speaking so fast that it was hard to take proper notes, we were kept busy turning Bible pages, and it was so awesome hearing this message.

I do have a few questions though,

I am going to have to work hard to accept some of this, but I do realize that it is tough for me to accept God’s love, for all the same reasons I have spoken of before. I understand that God can redeem our pasts, but how. I still wish God was there in a way I could recognize in my past, and realize I am guilty of trying to sort out where God was, with a definite vision of what I hoped God would do. One of the passages shared above is that “though mother and father forsake you,” that God is there to fill the void. Only I didn’t feel God there, and the void is still there.

Driving home today from errands I realized that maybe I need to ask God where he was and to help me sort out that. But I am not holding my breath for an answer. Much to talk about with my pastor when I get to see him on Thursday.

Hope my hastily scrawled notes give some ideas for you.

I told snowberryoxycream to write the answer to the riddle. So if you read her comments in my Feb. 11′th post below, you will find the answer to the riddle.

Heather

More on that worm, what an awesome fact, and adds to my third day stuff.

Searched my Bible margin notes and found it. The red was used in the Holy of Holies, the curtain of the tabernacle, and also in priest’s garments.  We did an extensive study of how the tabernacle was a perfect picture of Christ, and all the colors relate to aspects of Christ’s life.

If you want a fun fact sometimes, find the passage that talks about where the tribes were to stand when they travelled carrying the tabernacle, and count up the numbers in each of the tribes, and put those numbers on a rough sketch of the tabernacle and see what shape emerges. Helps you to see what Balaam saw when he was told by God not to curse the Israelites.

The worm’s name:  TOLAITH

It is a scarlet worm, and the worm was ground up to dye the cloth.

When the worm reproduces it climbs onto the limb of a tree, reproduces and dies in the process. It leaves a red spot on the limb of the tree and after three (3) days the red spot dries and turns white as snow.

Some things in the Bible are just so awesome. Is that not a picture of Christ.