365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 75

We have a woman from India that started working with us this week. She is demanding lots of time and attention along with reports of the numbers of things we do. I, thanks be to God, had the patience yesterday as she came to me with questions and than proceeded to stay at my computer screen asking me to scroll this way or that and ask more questions about things that didn’t relate to me so I had to ask my team lead across the room. So, I did this for ten minutes and she finally left. My team lead was at her wit’s end. She said she felt she was being pulled from all angles. I told her she should go talk to our office manager about it even though nothing would come of it, she could at least get her emotions off her chest that were festering and to the right person. I think she felt better after having talked and cried to her. I had to leave for lunch even though I brought my lunch just because I could feel the tension and stress of it all starting to get to me. The sunny day and time to pray gave me a better perspective. So, I am praying today for more patience and the words to help others make peace with each other and the work that has to be done.

James 3:18 Those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

365 Days of Spirt-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 74

We got word last evening that my Aunt-in-law has suffered a stroke. She’s lost all movement on her left side and they are hoping the clot will resolve itself. My heart and mind are with her and the family at this time but in reading some more of Job this morning I found this scripture that really hits the nail on the head when it comes to our prayers and do we feel that God answers them. The answer is not always what we want or may not come as we thought but if our hearts are open and our eyes can see and discern what God is telling us than though the answer may not be what you wanted you will know and feel that God is with you no matter what and have peace.

Job 33:12-14 But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than man. Why do you complain to him that he answers none of man’s words? For God does speak—now one way, now another—though man may not perceive it.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 73

Today I will ponder these words from CS Lewis, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” Without Jesus, we cannot find what we need. We are like a blind man stumbling along in the dark but with Jesus by our side, he can lead us towards all that we need.

Phillipians 4:19 And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 72

I find it interesting in Job that all his friends are giving him advice but it is misguided advice. The latest friend, Eliphaz tells him to submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Unfortunately, although he got the first part right in turning to God, asking forgiveness and being obedient to him, the second half is not always the case, a prime example being Jesus who was the ultimate in righteous and yet was led to and nailed on a cross. His friend thought Job had sin that he was being punished for. There are definitely consequences to sin but they are not there to punish but rather to direct you back to the Almighty. I was thinking the other day of the analogy of the clay and the potter. We are the clay and God is the potter. He is sitting at his potting wheel pouring water over us which keeps us from drying out and is shaping us into something. When God is not at the potter’s wheel because we have turned away from him, the evil one is going to suck the life out of us leaving us a dark formless lump of clay, nothing.  We must ask God to come back and sit at the potter’s wheel, than the Holy Spirit will be poured into us giving us life and light and God will work again at shaping us to work into his plan. Will we be like a vase that stands there and shows the beauty of the picked flowers? Will we be like a pot that is mixing something up that will be for all? Or will we be like a pitcher made to pour out water? We will discover his plan for us as we journey through our faith. Job’s friend had his assumptions wrong. It is not about sin and being repentant and obedient to God so that we will have prosperity. It is about being in relationship with him. Job is angry at God but he is still talking to him. We too must keep talking to God through our struggles, troubles and tribulations and ask him to pour the water over us.

Job 23:16-17 God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 71

At this point in Job’s suffering, he is consumed with self-pity. His friends come and their words do not help him, do not comfort him but rather condemn him. But there is always hope and within all this talk with his friends he grabs back onto his faith for a bit. The truth is right there before him that it is faith that will see him through. He must learn to trust in God’s goodness and know that he is in control. He must put his focus back on God and others and not on himself. Teresa of Avila wrote these words that speak of what will help get a person back on track with God: The best medicine—I do not say for removing the trouble, for I know of none for that, but for enabling the soul to endure it—is to occupy oneself with external affairs and words of charity and to hope in God’s mercy, which never fails those who hope in Him. May he be blessed forever. Amen. We watched a movie last night called Exit Humanity. It was about zombies and honestly after watching some of the previews before the movies I was not anticipating a good message from it but there was one. This man in Civil War times is the main character and he looses his wife and 11 year old son to the zombie plague. He goes crazy in his grief but God gives him a purpose when he reminds him of a conversation with his son about a waterfall he had drawn a picture of. He knows he must take his sons ashes to the waterfall. Along the way, he meets up with Issac and is persuaded to help him free his sister from the clutches of the Rebels who are led by a general from the war who has really lost it. They come to a place where a “witch” lives to get help when he is wounded by a gun shot. They discover that she is not a witch but just a women who has suffered. She confesses to him that she was the one who started this zombie plague in using some ancient scrolls she had found to try to bring back to life her sister who was hanged by the community. He is at a point now where he is able to forgive her and she says to him, “it is never too late to heal the soul.” In the end, he begins to feel hope and life again and says so in his journal he writes in that that is the only cure he knows of is to keep the hope.

Job 19:25 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 70

My son has gone away on a weekend church camp. They gave us what they are to be studying this weekend in the bible, the book of Job. I decided to read it myself to refresh myself of the story but also to look more deeply at it. Job is a righteous man who has been blessed by God in many ways but Satan claims that he wouldn’t be the faithful man he is if all those blessings were taken away. Thus far in my reading he has lost servants and all his children to death and now he is stricken bodily with sores from head to toe. After a week of this he finally pours out his anguish to God. Not cursing God but only asking that question we have all asked, “why?” At this point his peace is gone, he is in turmoil and can find no rest but he does what is right in calling out to God. Despite all the suffering, he has not turned his back on God but embraced him with his anguish. I especially like what Job says in response to his wife who is urging him to curse God. He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” Job 2:10  Trouble will always come and we have to be ready for it by standing firm in our faith and loving God no matter what. Job shows us that we are to take our anguish to God, cry out to God, be angry at God because in doing this, we are still facing him in relationship. Like any relationship, it has it’s bumps in the road but we want to keep on that road and not be steered into a detour because of the trouble that has come upon us.

Job 3:26 “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 69

I know a young lady at my work who is suffering from chronic migraines. She told me she has had them since she was 12 years old. They have gotten worse in the last month and it seems almost anything she eats triggers one. She’s been to doctors and tried acupuncture but so far nothing is helping. As I talked with her about this I wanted her to know that despite the pain she is loved by an awesome God. God lead me to the story of the woman who has been bleeding for many years who came up to him in a crowd just wanting to touch any part of him. She touched the edge of his cloak and was healed. The pain and troubles we go through in life are used by God to mold us, change us and lead us to Him. If it is God’s will my young friend will be healed but in the meantime I have to let God use me to guide her towards him. So, I pray for the fruits of the Spirit to be filled up within me that the hope that is in Christ will be shown to her.

Mark 5:25-34 A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear told him the whold truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”