reminder to trust

Today, I was reading in Genesis and reminded of something God had spoken about last year. In a blog i posted, God had stirred some truths on "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" So, I needed to revisit and remember these truths...

Genesis 18 vs. 12-14 "So she laughed silently to herself and said, "How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master - my husband - is also so old?" Then the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say, 'Can an old woman like me have a baby?' IS ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LORD? I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son."

God loves to work in the realm of the impossible. He loves to break through at the final hour. Satan, the enemy, enjoys working in the realm of what seems possible...what seems realistic. Faith, which connects us to God, is activated in the impossible. To have nothing that is defined by impossible in my life is to have no need for faith. The enemy's desire is to keep everything in my life within the realm of possibilities. To keep me within what I can figure out. To keep me in what I can arrange and manipulate.

In our Western culture of planning ahead, cushioning against hardship, creating safety and security - we have arranged for life to be "possible". So we have planned ourselves out of needing God. Faith has been sidelined. There is no real need for it.Then God steps in and calls us to do something impossible. It rattles us. It shakes us. It throws our plans and life into a tailspin. Suddenly, our plans and possibilities are thwarted. Securities are taken away. This doesn't feel right. This is not what I had planned. And we laugh - just like Sarah laughed. The laughter is a mix of fear and unbelief. You know, the dry laughter that seems disconnected and distorted.

And God shows up with a question: Is anything too hard for the Lord? My laughter turns to mourning over my own distrust and disbelief. So, today, how will I answer this question. My life will answer this question with a resounding "yes" or "no". Can a 90 year old woman have a baby? Is anything too hard for the Lord? So, I choose today to walk in faith, to embrace the impossible. Instead of finding comfort in my self-made possibilities, I choose the life of faith. God, breakthrough in my life today.

"Moore" Marriage Truths

God has used Beth Moore to minister to Melody (and me) over the years. She is a bible teacher and a passionately humble follower of Christ. Recently, this appeared on her blog...powerful words as she celebrated 29 years of marriage...

[begin quote]
"Some of the things God has taught Keith and me are not for public consumption. Others are meant to be shared. These are a handful of things God has helped us practice along the way that led up to this particular day:
*We try more often to live by the law of kindness. In the old days, we'd figure out one another's weakness then aim that direction with arrows of harsh words on purpose. Most of the time these days, we avoid the targets that we know good and well are the other's Achilles' heel. We just don't like to be mean much anymore.

*We snuggle a lot. We have a big, long couch in our den but a whole lot of times we sit in the leather chair that's almost not big enough for one hind end. Let alone two. Or three when Beanie gets jealous.

*We still talk a lot - over coffee, walking dogs, or bubble baths - and try to be interested in the other one's world even when we don't get it one iota. When you have a mix like Beth the Librarian and Keith the Barbarian, you have to try extra hard.

*We've had to choose to put stuff behind us. We have had no few problems, no few differences, and no few conflicts and, if we wanted to keep a record of wrongs, we could have a list long enough to trip over for the rest of our lives. Neither one of us thinks highly of letting the other run all over us nor is either of us likely to keep an opinion to ourselves. We still fight. But then we get on with living and make a choice not keep punishing each other with yesterday's stuff. Life's too short and a house too small. You have to forgive - and be forgiven - a ton.

*We just keep going. This isn't going to sound profound but it's actually one of the biggest things God has used to turn a rocky start into twenty-nine years. We just kept getting through the night till the sun would come up and we'd made it another day. Before we knew it, the next anniversary rolled around. And we'd be so glad. And little by little, we just got happier and happier. Hard times have always come calling but so have good times. God just gave us the wherewithal not to quit before the next sweet season came. Oh, that He'd continue to.

I am so tender to those of you who have endured the pain of divorce and I plead with you not to let this entry invite you to destructive feelings of condemnation or failure. I know how hard marriage can be. I know what a miracle it takes at times and how willing both parties have to be to receive it. But, with your blessing and your security in Christ, I also need to be able to say to those who may be on the edge of giving up, please, I beg you, don't. Just make it through the night and see the sun come up tomorrow morning from your knees. Fight your battles ferociously with your face to the floor. Give God time and room. Wives, quit being the husband. Fire yourself. Let God take it over. Get counseling if you need it - even if your man won't - but don't quit. Even if you don't love him...or like him. Even if you hate him. God can soften a heart of granite if you'll let Him. Wait it out a little longer. Laugh a little harder. Snuggle a little tighter. Love by faith. Not just by sight. As the Apostle Paul says, all that matters is faith expressing itself through love." [end quote]

Merry Christmas from the Hemphills

What an amazing year...2007. Around this time last year, God stirred in our hearts that 2007 would be the "year of movement". And it certainly proved to be that. God moved us to Birmingham this summer to help develop Encounter as a freedom movement and birth MarriageEncouter to fight for couples' hearts. And God stills moves as we reach out to couples for the purpose of building dangerous families for the Kingdom. In recent days, God has stirred another word about 2008...the "year of restoration". He repeatedly took us to Joel chapter 2 and confirmed that He would "restore what the locusts had eaten". Lots of ways that He may choose to do this. No matter what...this coming year is destined to be one filled with adventure, battle, victory, brokenness, healing, and RESTORATION. Get ready!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for standing with us and fighting for us...
Randy, Melody, Caleb, and Brennan

Full-Length Mirror

"One of the best wedding gifts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse. Had there been a card attached, it would have said, "Here's to helping you discover what you're really like!"
--Gary and Betsy Ricucci

Mannequins

What if, most of who I am today, is a loosely bound package of manufactured selves? Crafted over the years to hide my pain and wipe away my tears. This glued-together self has gotten me stuck in a self-destructive cycle. To the point that the image I convey is a mannequin with lungs. The capacity to breathe...but not to live. Fixated on building the plastic image in the window, I only exist for the gaze of the shopper passing by. See me. Buy me. Value me.

Today, I face the mannequin in the window. As I press my face against the window, I fall through into the arms of myself...my mannequin. It tumbles to the ground and falls to pieces. I am surrounded by plastic arms, legs, torso, head, and clothes. Is this really me?? All that I've been working on comes down to this...scattered, plastic limbs and high-dollar clothes. Is this all that my grasping/living has come to??

Do I pick up the limbs and start all over again? Brush off the clothes and dress up the plastic image? Prop it up in front of the window. Makes me weary just thinking about it. Pieced together...posing forever. The window beckons me...come, pose, be seen, be valued. The shoppers need you. You need you.

Broken, shattered, laying on the floor...in need of restoration. I call out to You. God, deliver me from myself. Take the mannequin I've manufactured and burn it up, destroy it. Pull me from the prostituting window of posing and press me deeply into the wonder of Your love and acceptance.

Being present in the present

A word from a present-day sage, Brennan Manning...
"The music of what is happening can be heard only in the present moment, right now, right here. Now/here spells nowhere. To be fully present to whoever or whatever is immediately before us is to pitch a tent in the wilderness of Nowhere. It is an act of radical trust--trust that God can be encountered at no other time and in no other place than the present moment. Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life.
More often than not, I do not hear the music of what is happening now because my mind ricochets between the past and the future."
(quoted from Ruthless Trust)

To be fully alive is to be fully present in the present. Amazing, how much i focus on the past and have anxiety toward the future. In doing so, I miss out on the moments before me. I miss out on opportunities to receive compassion and extend compassion. Manning says that the primary fruit of living in the present is compassion. Wow, what a strong word. Present-tense living gives me the perspective to extend compassion to myself and then to others.

So, today I face a choice. Past-tense. Future-tense. Present-tense. What tense will my life speak in today?

Marriage: a safe harbor??

Follow the quote below...

"We must never be naive enough to think of marriage as a safe harbor from the Fall...The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the Fall: marriage."
--Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III

So, there is a battle taking place today for the heart of our marriages. There is someone who does not want your family and marriage to make it. Satan, the enemy who masquerades as an angel of light, is deceptively working to take us out. He does not care about us or our families...He wants what we have...we are image-bearers.

Reflecting the image of God in our marriages is one of the greatest ways to bring God glory. So, what exactly does it mean to reflect the image of God in a marriage?? something to think on...