Cheese and Crackers

 This story is a repeat from my Teen challenge group by the lead Facilitator:

 Once there was an old man, who wanted to go on a cruise before he died. So, he spent 4 years saving up and afterward bought his ticket. Since this man had very little money  he could not afford to buy the fancy dinners on the cruise, so he packed his suitcase full of cheese and crackers. During the cruise, while everyone else sat inside eating luxurious dinners of steak, seafood,and many other delicacies..the old man ate his cheese and crackers. 


On the last night of the cruise, as the old man sat eating his crackers..a man walked out to see him from the dining room. 


The man asked the old man why he would not come eat with the everyone else. He exclaimed "I haven't enough money"


The man then said "The meal was a part of the ticket price..you were supposed to eat with everyone"












How often do we just sit outside being settled with eating our "cheese and crackers" instead of entering into the fullness of Christ? He paid our ransom from sin and we are okay with just floating along. 


Instead let us seek his fullness no matter what it may cost.

Our lives? 


HE IS NO FOOL THAT GIVES WHAT HE CANNOT KEEP TO GAIN WHAT HE CANNOT LOSE
-Jim Elliot 




Our reputation?




He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.


ISAIAH 53:3 








Family?


If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple.


Luke 14:26






When we follow Him and enter into His fullness, he adds to us: His Life, His reputation, and His family which are all eternal. 


Lets not be satified with even the place we are now with God, but go FURTHER UP AND FURTHER IN!

Is it about you or Him?

I just got done dumping my disappointments on God. I've wanted to go on a "missions" trip for a while now. It really feels like a burning inside my heart to touch people in other countries. To feel their pain and be changed into a more caring person.

But then comes reality. 

Every time I start saving...something comes up. Right in my face. It may be a need in the house I live in to help out, a friend who needs support, or God wants to lavish on someone and he chose me as the vessel. 

After all that, I end up spending all that I'd saved. Though I don't want to fool you, I do plenty of self pampering as well with my savings. (I'm learning that no matter what I have, it never seems enough! Black hole syndrome ) 

Anyways....

I asked God why this was happening and He really answered! This was no way in my mind.

He asked : Are you wanting it for you or me?

Big question. I just know I'll look back at this post on a later date and feel like it was for then as well.

If it was God I should be able to wait. If it is just me wanting to say that I did something, it will most likely never happen.  

One question for all my readers. 

Are you living your life for Him? Or is it wrapped up in the affairs of the world? 

Do you feel like God has spoke now YOU need to make it happen? 

If so, it may not be God after all. Though that is just from my experience. God works differently  with different people. But please consider the answer.

Don't ever rush Him. You will ALWAYS miss opportunities that he gives along the way.

Remember the words of Paul: "To live is Christ and to die is gain." 

Becoming Needy

 How often do you think that everything in  your life is going how you would like it? You feel God is in control right? That you are in perfect peace with The Creator?

Or

Does it seem that your entire life seems to be on the verge of crashing down on you? That your good intentions seem to cause pain to others, and sometimes end up causing an inhibition of growth in your friends and family?


I tend to like the first option. To feel like you are always in God's will, always encouraging people, and you feel good about yourself. I mean, who doesn't like to be liked, have joy all the time, and to be full of life?

It makes you love to be a Christian.

But as we look at the life of Christ's disciples, we see that no one who follows the Father ever seem to have any life in this world. Peter went from being a fisherman to a "fisher of men (which wasn't a popular job as we can see in Acts)" and also denied the very one he swore under oath to protect, Paul became so hated that he was flogged multiple times, shipwrecked, and killed for his faith. Doesn't seem like a very fulfilling life, now does it?

Then there is God. He used Peter's experience in denying Him to cause Peter to learn to deny his own strength in himself. How often do I deny my own self and not know if I do love Christ and can only answer
Him  "only you know." That is when we feel the power of His love, when we are weak in ourselves.

He is our strength and help in hard times.

God  used Paul's experience before he ever  knew Christ. He made a way for Paul to really fear himself. He caused a major stir in everyone when he became one of the very people he persecuted. Paul mentioned later to people that were trying to become perfected in the flesh that he was. I mean, he did have everything before he became a disciple of the Way. He was highly respected by Romans and many Jews alike. He was good in the eyes of man. He'd  be the guy who thinks that he is doing God's work, zealous to do what he thinks is of God.....

Then, FLASH!

 The very person he thinks that he is serving he finds out that he is persecuting. I just wrote this  paragraph and automatically flashed back to my past. I was a "zealous" servant of God, looked good in many people's eyes(LOL),and went through an experience that I  thought made me a good person who God was proud of. Then, one day, I woke up to find that all of my zeal was gone, my love for others "mysteriously" disappeared, and I saw a little of the person who I was. He then chose to spread his cloak of Love over me.

The feeling of him is like no other thing. There is no human word to explain it. Now outside of Him, there is no life.

He should be our focus everyday.

I over heard a good friend say to someone the other day, "Don't ask if God will let you do something, ask if it would be pleasing to Him."

Thank you so much Shammah.

 I hope that that would be true of all of us. 

Wow moment

I just started my first class at University of Tennessee(Selmer branch) tonight. I really could not believe I was there to tell you the truth. Nothing in me should have had the nerve to go through with enrolling. I truly know that it was God that helped me to be able to get everything together for my registration. I mean, I was within a week of not being able to go  because I would have missed the deadline. But, since a friend (Amy Pennington) told me that school started January 19th vs. my thought of sometime in March, I made it. My class tonight was Visual Art,which is amazing in it's self, but not half as much as having a friend in that class with me! I got to see Ken S. in my class tonight, so I knew God was backing me up. I am very happy that I am able to do things with God's people. If tomorrow brings me losing my grant or anything else God may send, I feel that it would be his will. For the moment, I really enjoy having this opportunity to expand my knowledge and to hopefully become clay in the Potter's hands with my direction towards a medical field.

I really hope that I can pass this experience on to others. God wants to use us for his purpose, but he needs us to give up hope that we can do it for him and to know that the only way God uses us is if we allow ourselves to be directed by him. He allows us to be a tool in his work, for he is the hands we need to move at all! Just like Mother Theresa stated " I am only a pencil in the hand of Christ." I  hope to remember that for years to come. For it is not what we can do for Christ, but what he does through us and in us that matters most in his kingdom.That's my thoughts for tonight, I hope it didn't sound too lofty....because God really shows the fruit the day we least expect the test."POP QUIZ!" LOL...I hope that helped lighten it up a little!:-)

Empty

I am not sure what to write in this post....Normally God hits a certain subject in my life that gives me an idea. I would really like to blog at least once a week, so I will have to seek God on what to write each time.

I truly feel that without God I'd be a wreck. Well, truth be told, he has wrecked me anyways. I know what your thinking...sounds counter-productive...right?  You would be right if it were any other relationship. One of God's goals is to make us a wreak. He wants us to be absolutely dependent on him and HIM ALONE. God has shown me a lot of this with the relationship with my Dad. For about 5 years now, we have been working on having a close relationship. Even with all the effort, we both seem like we are from different planets. We have a hard time talking sometimes, and have gotten through a major amount of situations together. Without God, we may not have had anything to do with each other.According to human standards, we were hopeless. God wanted us to need him. He alone could help us....not any effort that we tried.Our selves just get in the way By the grace of God,we both live among brothers and sisters in Christ  who have helped pull down God for us many a time, and  are headed toward a great friendship.As with all great friendships, it takes waking up every single day,  forgetting one's self to think of the other person. I really have started feeling a love for my Dad that wasn't there before. It is a miracle! Anyone who knows us both knows this to be true

We need to be emptied of ourselves to be filled up with Christ. If there is even the smallest amount of self, we need to ask  Jesus Christ to empty us of our self. A person devoid of self is like a vacuum for the Spirit of Christ. Hopefully we all can get to the point that we cannot truly live without Christ. I know I'm definitely not fully there yet...just  beginning.

Hudson Taylor, one of my favorite people

I just finished a re-read of a Hudson Taylor autobiography entitled "Hudson Taylor, God's adventurer" It was an amazing story! His faith was amazing,throughout his life going through almost dying very young of malignant fever to almost being killed at sea,and more! God definately looked after him. He is one of my best inspirations of a person who really had a relationship with Jesus. I hope one day that the faith he had, God would allow in me. I have been reading and praying more this week for Chinese Christians and for God's work in his people.  Everyday been another step towards a closer relationship with Christ. This week God has been targeting the way I say things to people without thinking of the conscequences. So far it has been like climbing a mountain by trying to change the way I've been for years. I believe that God can change anyone, even me! So excited to see what the future holds.

Another day...another lesson

Yesterday was a lesson . Work was highly intense and when I got home, I had the night all planned out, I was going to drop my friend off at his play practice, drive to Lowes and pick up a replacement door, drive home, and after all that craziness...go out and watch the new "Christmas Carol" in theaters. Once again, God usually laughs at me at this point. When I did get home, I remembered  that I was on dinner clean-up. I was sorta bummed out at this point, but did the job anyways with a small amount of faith that I would be able to pick up the door. Half way through clean-up,one of the ladies volunteered to finish for me. I was able to pick  up the door in enough time. This experience was a lesson to me once again the miniscule amount of faith that I have and how much the Father loves and takes care of his children. He works in ways that are not bound by personality,time, or circumstances. WOW!

"Don't compare yourselves with yourselves"

I have heard the saying about not comparing yourself with others, for you are who you are  and can only do what God gave you the grace to do.Let me give a couple examples.When I first moved from Florida to Tennessee, my friends were in an Irish dance troupe called Winddance (to see information go to danceonthewind.com) I thought that if they could do it,so could I. I think I was born with two left feet. That hope lasted a year. Another example is my first job. When I started painting, I worked along side my friend Brian. I thought we both had the same skill level, so when he was able to paint with a paint brush,and I was "the brush cleaner" I was a little upset. So, when I first got a paintbrush in my hand, I obviously thought I could paint (LOL for anyone who knows my paint stories). I have a partial genetic defect; I am clumsy. If there was a bucket of paint on a dropcloth over a driveway, I'd somehow manage getting it all over! I'd have times when my brain "shut off." For instance I'd have a highly corossive rag of lacquer thinner and I'd put it on a finished surface. Well..you get the picture. I was always doing things that weren't  for me. I recently joined  the Rose Creek Village  Shorinji Ryu Karate-do dojo (for info on shorinji-ryu see shorinjiryukaratedo.com). My Sensei, Master Thomas Cauley taught us this week that we must do karate (pronounced karatae) in our own speed. Just like in Christian life, we must care about the journey just as much as the destination. We must live for Christ with everything we have right in the moment. For in doing what the Father created us he made unique. Living outside the mold.