Lay Me Down in Peace

     I love Psam 4:8 which says, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only thou makest me dwell in safety." So many things in this world are promoted to bring inner peace, things such as yoga poses or deep breathing, special perfumes or lotions that help you relax, or fancy spas and massages. These things may give a brief sensation of something, but true peace isn't one of them. This is because true peace only comes from the Lord. "Peace I leave you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 14:27 tells us there are two types of peace - wordly peace, and godly peace. Godly peace is the kind that King David had when he penned that verse in Psalm 4. David was hunted down to be killed by his best friends father, yet he said that he could rest in peace. He could sleep, because God is the only one who allows us to feel truly safe.

     God wants us to strive for peace - peace with man and peace with Him. There are dozens of passages that talk about the importance of the peace that God can give us. The question is, how do we get it? We know that He gives it, but when we're going through those times of heartbreak, frustration, hurt or doubt, how do we just reach up and receive the peace that passeth all understanding?
     Well, first off we have to pursue it.

     1 Peter 3:11 says that we need to be actively seeking and pursuing peace. It's something we often need to strive to have. We can't just expect to automatically have it because we're Christians, but we need to put forth the effort to seek it.
     Isaiah 26:3 says that we will be kept in perfect peace as we keep our minds on God. A lot of times our lives feel like they're in a giant state of upheaval because we've taken our eyes off of the Creator and cast them upon the world. Our minds need to be trained to focus on God, because that's where He takes the circumstances of our lives under His wing and allows us to rest, just like King David.
     1 Corinthians 14:33 says that God isn't the author of confusion but of peace. When your mind becomes plagued by confusion, ask yourself, who's writing your story? The devil, master of confusion, or God, author of peace? When our hearts and minds are not serving or actively seeking the Lord, confusion begins to seep its way into our lives. The more confused we are about various things and circumstances, the less we are worried about our godly testimony. It's so vital in our Christian walk that we put on our Jesus-goggles and see the world that He sees.

     I love that all-encompassing, perfect peace that comes from having a heart that loves the Lord and a strong desire to know Him more. Things are guaranteed to be hard in our Christian lives, it's not an if but a when. The best part about trial and pain is that God promises that through it all, He is there. It's against God's nature to be unfaithful, despite our unfaithfulness. Pursue peace, keep your eyes and heart on God, and allow Him to authorize the details of your life. It's beautiful to know that we are able, just like David, to lay our heads down and be in peace.

Stay excelllent!

Idols of the Heart

     It's easy to look at the Israelites in Exodus 32 and think of them as such fools! How dare they worship other gods after all that the Lord had done for them? We often view them in disgust and think, "I would never do something like that. I'm a GOOD Christian." Well...news flash. Idols aren't just golden statues made out of jewelry, they are anything that you put in the place of God. It's defined as: having a deep, extreme love for something or someone. It's easy still to say, "I don't worship anything or anyone other than God." But do a serious quick-scan of your heart - do you pull your phone out and text while doing your devotions? Do you spend all day with your significant other and forget to spend any time with the person that made them?  Do you work sunrise to sundown without giving the Lord a single thought? Do you desire affection, attention, confirmation or materialistic gain more than you desire a stronger relationship with God? Do you love things more than you love God? All of these things would classify as idolatry. 

     Judging those Israelites who worshiped tangible idols thousands of years ago is much easier than admitting we are also guilty of idol worship. We're inadvertently hypocritical because we don't allow ourselves to see the idols that live within our hearts. It's so important to do a heart check and really diagnose if you have something you're putting before God. Often it's unintentional, and sometimes it's not even a bad thing. Maybe you're working in ministry but you're so busy with the work that you forget for whom you're actually working for. Realizing what your idols are will put you on the road to destroying them, and straightening your priorities. So what do you do? How do you rid yourselves of these idols hidden deep within the heart?

1. Recognize the greatness of God. 

Of course we all know that we have a really cool God. That's not a secret. But it's so important to try and grasp how GOOD God is in scope of how small and minuscule we really are. I love Hebrews 12:29 that says, "For our God is a consuming fire." When we put God on the back burner, we are telling the God of the universe, the God who created all people and all things, that He's not worth our time. We need to put God on the pedestal that He deserves. Realizing His greatness will help us worship Him above all else. 

2. Pray. 

Having constant communication with God helps us to remember that He's here. We obviously can't see God so sometimes in the business of our day, we just forget about Him. Just like a relationship with a significant other, you talk to them multiple times a day, let them know they're on your mind, tell them things that matter to you. That's how it should be with God. Talk to Him and treat Him like the most important thing in your life, because that's what He deserves to be. 

3. Have purposeful & passionate quiet time. 

We should go into our quiet time with God with a purpose. We shouldn't pull out our Bible because it's habit or routine, we pull out our Bible to sit down and read something that will help us in our godly life and walk with the Lord. The first half of Matthew 6 talks a lot about how we should talk to God and have our quiet time. It should be a private moment every day where you purposely make time to read God's love letter to you - that's how He communicates. Texting or checking your email can wait, God is far more important than anything that can be happening on our devices. We should be craving the word of God - just like we rely on food and water to live a healthy physical life, we need the Bible to give us nutrients too. Just food and water won't suffice. So don't read a quick devotional as your walking out the door and count that as your quiet time - set a time out in your day to get to know your First Love. 

     Of course, these things are hard. We constantly have a battle between our flesh and the Spirit. The flesh can't stop sinning and the Spirit can't sin at all. Satan WANTS us to have idols. If we are Christians, Satan doesn't want us to further the Kingdom, so he desperately wants us to put other things ahead of God so we can waste time instead of leading others to Christ. Jesus Christ gave His all for us, for each of our sins. He deserves our whole heart and our whole soul. These idols of the heart that can't be seen have the ability to break our fellowship with Christ and desperately harm our testimonies. Make it your goal to burn those idols and destroy them, and worship the one TRUE God.

                                                                                                                          Stay excellent!

Get in the Wheelbarrow

"Blondin's greatest fame came in June of 1859 when he attempted to become the first person to cross a tightrope stretched over a quarter of a mile across the mighty Niagara Falls.

He walked across 160 feet above falls several times, each time with a different daring feat - once in a sack, on stilts, on a bicycle, in the dark, and once he even carried a stove and cooked an omelet!

On one occasion though, he asked for the participation of a volunteer.
A large crowd gathered and a buzz of excitement ran along both sides of the river bank. The crowd “Oooohed!” and “Aaaaahed!” as Blondin carefully walked across one dangerous step after another -- blindfolded and pushing a wheelbarrow.
Upon reaching the other side, the crowd's applause was louder than the roar of the falls! Blondin suddenly stopped and addressed his audience: "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?" The crowd enthusiastically shouted, "Yes, yes, yes. You are the greatest tightrope walker in the world. You can do anything!"
"Okay," said Blondin, "Get in the wheelbarrow....."
The Blondin story goes that no one did!" (Story taken from http://www.creativebiblestudy.com/Blondin-story.html)

This is a story that really makes us think about our faith. How often do we ask God to do something, looking up and knowing He has the ability, but when we're asked to put our trust in that we run the other way? We say we believe, but our actions show that we don't. God asks us to follow Him with our WHOLE heart, trusting without borders. In Joshua 14 we read about Caleb, and in verses 8,9, and 14, it says that He "wholly followed the Lord." Caleb was blessed throughout His life beause He gave God all of Him every step of the way. Each step we take, each decision we make, everywhere we go, we should be holding the hand of God.

Just like nobody wanted to get in the Blondin's wheelbarrow, we get too scared to put our whole lives in God's hands. We'll let Him have control over some areas of our lives, but we try to hold on to a few of them, as if we had the power to do a better job than God can. That's where things get dangerous, because when we try to walk that tight rope alone, we will plunge toward our death. Why wouldn't we get in the wheelbarrow of the One who cannot fall?

I was challenged with this illustration because I know that sometimes I am content just watching God work, but really I should be 100% inside of His will. He doesn't want a relationship where we sit back from a distance and watch, He wants us to get in that wheelbarrow and experience the journey with Him. Let this encourage us to WHOLLY follow the Lord, get in the wheelbarrow, and trust the tightrope walker.

Stay excelent!

Don't Pray for a Lighter Load, but a Stronger Back

     "Pray not for a lighter burden, but a stronger back." This old Proverb is so applicable to us today, seeing as how so many of us want things to get done but don't want to do the work it takes to see it through. As Christians we know that we're supposed to work for the Lord, but how often do we stop when the job gets difficult, or when it goes outside of our comfort zone? Maybe we don't want to do the work because we are lazy, or because we know someone else will step in and do it if we don't. We see so many examples of Christians who served God to the fullness of their potential and didn't stop when it got rough or scary - we see this in the lives of  Abraham, Noah, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Paul, Joseph, Mary, and SO many others. They didn't stop when the work was tiring or heavy, but they pushed through and reaped so many positive results because of that.
     I found this cartoon on the Internet and I think it perfectly sums up the importance of enduring the burdens that God asks us to carry, for we need them in the end.

     We are guaranteed hardships in this life, and there are crosses that we're going to have to carry. Each of us have to go through struggles in different ways at different times, but God lets us go through that process so that we can grow. Working for the Lord may get tiring and hard to bear at some points, but we will be able to use that trial to get through what God needs us to get through. This cartoon man kept begging for a lighter load, when he really should have been praying for stronger shoulders. We need the struggles and pains in this life to help us grow and achieve great things for God. When we pray for a lighter cross, sometimes God answers that prayer, and it may seem good at the time. We see this guy with the little music notes over his head - he's a happy camper. But then we see that he needed that cross, he needed that burden in the end, so he could make it through the real danger. Just like that little cartoon guy, we need our cross to get through the battles. So don't pray for a lighter cross, but pray that God would give you the strength you need to carry it until the end. 

 Stay excellent!

The Weight of your Words

     The phrase "actions speak louder than words" may be true, but it doesn't mean that words don't matter. Words can make a colossal impact both positively and negatively in the lives of others, and it's up to us how we want to control our tongues. 

      Often times, people speak without even thinking, and that can cause a lot of damage. We spout things off when we're tired, angry or grumpy, and those things can really hurt someone. At the same time, we have the power to completely change someone's day and maybe even their life, by letting them know that they're loved, special or important. 

     The Bible refers to our tongues as a razor in Psalm 52. If I really thought of that each time I opened my mouth, I'm 99.9% different I wouldn't say half of the things that I say. It would be easy to sit and count the times people have said (or didn't say) things that have really hurt me. At the same time, I could turn around and realize that I have probably said just as many things to people that have hurt them. Our words carry so much more weight than we could even realize, and it starts with you as an individual making the difference.

Proverbs 12:18 - There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health. 

There are two types of people according to this verse - those who's words pierce other's like a sword, and those who are wise. The question is, which tongue do you have - the piercing tongue, or the wise one?

Proverbs 18:21 - The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Do you love the negative power that your harsh words can deliver? The Bible says right here that it has the power of life and death. There are thousands of stories where someone has committed suicide and the turning point were the words that someone said, while there are also thousands of stories where someone didn't commit suicide because someone stepped in and let them know their lives were valuable. 

Matthew 15:18 - But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

Our mouths reflect what's in our heart. If what we say is nasty and mean, all it does is show everyone that the heart is infested with bitterness and anger. We should be a sensitive and caring people, sharing the love and kindness of Jesus, not infected with the disease of meanness. 

Things that we say could be stamped on someone's heart forever. What if each word we said was permanently inked on our skin? How much more careful would we be with what we say? Make sure that you think of the weight of your words, and may all we say bring a smile to our Heavenly Father's face. 

Stay excellent!