January 15th, 2016, Isaiah 40:28-31

Isaiah 40:28-31

28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

29 He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted;

31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

God's word is amazing!

Today in the midst of a Master's program, feeling tired, even maybe a bit overwhelmed.

Getting ready to help lead a debate team, nervous, don't want to let anyone down on the team...

I sit an am reminded....

Can you not hear a bit of the scold in that parent's loving voice

"HAVE YOU NOT KNOWN? "

You've see His love before.

You've experienced His care and protection as well!

But you are tired and have forgotten.... AGAIN!

Notice where your strength lies... IN HIM!

Not in your own weak, feeble, frail, mortal being...

But in the Almighty's STRONG, SOLID, UNBREAKABLE, IMMORTAL SELF.

He will give you strength.

But will your life be effortless? Will it be so easy that you never learn like a spoiled child experiencing the real world for the first time?

Think about an eagle. What does the Mother Eagle do?

When the baby is ready to learn to fly what does the mother do?

From the HIGH nests on the tallest tree's the mother PUSHES the baby out.

The mother says it is TIME to learn...

But the entire time the mother is right there and if the baby is to able to fly she doesn't wait until the baby hits the ground but SOARS DOWN AND CATCHES THE BABY ON HER BACK!

WITH THE WINGS OF AN EAGLE HE LIFTS YOU UP!

He will not let you stumble and fall when you are dependent on HIM!

So walk, Run, this journey of Faith knowing that your HOPE and STRENGTH is in the LORD.

Praise God that it isn't in me.

God you are simply amazing!

We give you our lives.

Lord I pray that we will all see that YOU MUST COME FIRST!

Above all else.

Our Job, our family, our friends. YOU MUST COME FIRST.

These earthly things are temporal but your are eternal!

I am so in awe that by giving you my life, my family, and my all that you give it back to me renewed, restored, and thus I am able to enjoy them so much better than I could before!

God I praise you!

With all my breath may I praise you!

Jan. 9th, 2016 1 Peter 1:3-9

1 Peter:1:3-9 (NLT)

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. 5 And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

6 So be truly glad.[a] There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. 7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

8 You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. 9 The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.

I really enjoyed the message version this morning but didn't think it fully captured the GLORY of this verse...

It was so perfect today for me....

1) Because I can not begin to tell you the number of people I have spoke to this very week who are dealing with these 'trials'. Yet as I keep encouraging them, this verses proves that they have something to still rejoice for!

The Trial is now, but it isn't permanent. It may seem like it won't end, that the sorrow doesn't go away, but there is a SALVATION and a HOPE that we can focus on in Jesus' eternal home for us.

2) Because as I was reading it a song was playing on my Spotify list... "Bless the Lord" by Will Reagan. It just repeats on the chorus "Bless the Lord oh my soul and let all that is within me SHOUT OUT!!!"

What if? What if in your sorrow you choose to SHOUT OUT to God with PRAISE?

What if? What if you focused on HIS saving Grace and Hope of eternity and not on your present trail?

If your focus was not inward but OUTWARD would that change your position? Would that change your posture of praise?

There was a time that Mandy and I were experiencing a deep trial in our life. We knew we were on the journey God wanted us on... but it was not easy.

One day someone told us, in fact it might have even been in a sermon... I can't recall... but they challenged us to pray over our past and ask God to show us all the times he SHOWED UP for us!

As we did we began to step through our lives chronologically. We had things like our marriage, our first born etc... but along the way an amazing thing happened...

You see we remembered things that we had forgotten.

As a child I spent some time in the hospital. The doctors had come down to only one possible cause and that was the word "Lukemia". How scary for a young child. I can still see my mother standing next to the dr. crying.

But then I remembered that God healed me. It became something as simple as an allergy to Red Dye #40!

Then we walked down life further and God reminded us of Skylar.

You see our first ultrasound of Skylar we found that her heart was on the wrong side of her body. Now there is a anomaly where all organs etc are reversed but it was only her heart. Thus outside the womb her blood would flow in the wrong direction and she would not survive. It was like this for multiple ultrasounds... BUT GOD showed up and healed her!

HOW DO WE FORGET THESE TIMES WHEN GOD SHOWED UP?

It's like the Israelites who continually SAW GOD but then turned and forgot him or cursed Him.

We are so FICAL as humans...

We get so focused on our CURRENT issues the we MISS how much GOD LOVES US!

What do you need to do today to be reminded about WHO GOD IS and HOW HE HAS SHOWN UP IN YOUR LIVES?

Day 15 of the Journey

Hard to believe that this is day 15!

We arrived at 1:30 am to the hotel this morning. Up at 6:30. Showered, ate and was in Lobby by 8:30. Thank goodness for strong black coffee.

Has to go to Visa an medical office. All in the same building though. We were in and out in less then 45 min's.

They check the kids for all sensory, then did the TB test. Neither kid freaked out or even cried from it!!
They did so well.

Thankful that even though the lack of communicating is tough; our kids are adapted to reading faces an body language and behaved so well. Very patient.

God is always looking out! Praise Him!!!