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In the Image of Beauty!
Her Eyes see an Ugly Image!
Leola spent one hour in the bathroom, primping and covering, to be ready for work only to walk by a mirror to see what ugly looks like. She sighed and continued on her way to work. As she was driving she is careened back to grade school where she first learned she was ugly. She was one of the only red heads in the whole building. Why did red hair and freckles make a person ugly? Her lazy eye didn’t help either! She didn’t make that decision, someone made it for her and she accepted it based on their opinion. Someone decided she was different and that difference in their opinion was ugly. To be cross eyed with red hair and freckles was a deadly combination to be born with according to that person. Her brain runs over all the words people used to drive her to the conclusion she was ugly. Up until those days she never thought about it one way or the other. She looked in the rear view mirror of her van and sighed. “If I was beautiful no one would take me seriously on my job anyway,” she thought. As a leader in a male dominated field she was comfortable with being ugly.
In spite of her apparent ugliness she had accumulated a few friends in grade school but they lived on the other side of the tracks. They were headed to a different high school together while she alone would go to high school in Belle River, Ontario. She was devastated by this continued slight against her. How in heavens name would she make friends in a new town in a new school? She decided she just wouldn’t go to school so the skipping began. Every class she felt insecure in she wouldn’t go. She hated the school and its pretense but more so she hated her image. The people were beautiful and wealthy. She was ugly and low end middle class. The complete opposite of them and they had no issue reminding her of that fact. Why can’t she hide away somewhere to never be seen by anyone ever again? Sometimes she thought they sought her out just to fulfill their own fantasy of degrading people. Leola even stooped down to bully a girl much more beautiful than her to see what it was like. The act horrified her so much she never did it again and actually apologized to the girl for her bad behaviour. No matter how Leola felt, deliberately demeaning someone was something God never allowed her to get away with. She did not know Jesus during this time but He was working His plan in her life even then.
I spent a lot of my childhood emulating ‘the beautiful’ to be accepted, except it didn’t work. I was called on it constantly. A girl I admired in grade school told me to stop dressing like her to my horror. In high school Farrah Faucet was big so I styled my hair like hers and got bullied by a set of female twins because of it. I did everything within my power to appear beautiful but all of my work was for not because every time I looked in the mirror my eyes saw an image of ugliness. I eventually learned it wasn’t about the outward adorning it was the inward jargon. I probably spent more than one hundred thousand dollars on apparel to my financial peril. I believed my image was ugly from the inside consequently no matter how I changed my outside appearance it would never change how my eyes saw my image. That vision of my image became deeply rooted in me for many years. When I became a Christian I wrestled with the fact God had created me in His image which is not ugly. It would be many years before He was able to convince me I was made in His image and when I called myself ugly I was calling His created image ugly. The concept of that is far reaching and perfectly planned just for me and just for you!
Her Eyes see His Image!
Leola had to become invisible at school so no one would notice she was skipping classes and invisible at home to get away with it. In one hand she wanted to be invisible but in the other hand she wanted someone to see her as beautiful. Was that too much to ask? Not with our Jesus Christ it wasn’t! Jesus Christ had a plan for her and He was going to bring her too it. He gifted her to do things to make her visible even in her ugliness and she worked hard to look beautiful for the masses. It was still very important to be accepted by people to be successful at her calling. Jesus would deal with that too although not in the eyes of people but in His. Leola did not know she was still harbouring the feeling she was ugly to God therefore invisible to Him. How could God look upon her! She was learning her fear of being invisible is tied directly to her view of her image. If God couldn’t look upon her because of her ugliness than she was surely invisible to Him. Leola saw her image completely different than Jesus Christ saw her. He gave her His eyes, little by little, thus she would see she looks just like Him. She began seeing Jesus in the mirror every day and her image began to change until one day she looked in the mirror to see His creation in her image. Her tired old feelings are gone today and she is free to see God’s ‘very good’ creation in her image. She is also free to see His image in all women even when they don’t!
We are created in His image but that is a hard concept to realize when ugly is the image we see in the mirror. Peter tells us our beauty should not come from merely outward adornment because the mere adornment we use changes every single day. God created mankind in His own image both male and female. If we believe what God says eventually our soul will agree with Psalm 139:14 in that we are fearfully and wonderful made and praise God just for this alone. Women are made to feel but we need to feel what God tells us to feel otherwise we could spend our lives a slave to what other people feel. When Jesus Christ comes into our vision He forces us to see what He sees and feel what He feels! We transform from ugly to beautiful without changing our outward appearance at all. Let Jesus have His way in you so you see ‘you’ the way He sees you because beauty is NOT in the eyes of the beholder it is in the eyes of Jesus Christ!
Mediation Verses: 1 Peter 3:3-4; Genesis 1:27; Psalm 139:14
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The Time is Right!
The Wrong Time!
Leola sits in the front window dreaming about being on a ranch, in the Southern United States, riding horses and working the ranch. She has had this dream since she was a child but it has never come to pass. She thinks she was too lazy to go after it or too uninvolved in her own life to actual make it come true maybe simply side tracked. She was born in the wrong time, in the wrong city to the wrong parents. She just feels like her whole life is just wrong. Her vacations reflect country life with streams of rushing clean water and her mind is always going to country living. She dreams of redecorating her house to look like a country cabin. Her dreams of the Life Skills Center are all inside a country house with a wrap around porch for the women to have alone time and swing their cares away. The laziness and the work of it all draws her attention. She sees someone riding a horse and she is off daydreaming about doing it herself yet she has only ridden a horse twice. She loves to watch movies about ranches and horses. Oh, how she wishes she were born down South one hundred years ago.
When Leola was reading romance novels she would always choose the westerns. Her dream was not only to be born during that time but also to be married to a rancher. They would struggle together to make it work and it would flourish. “How childish,” she thought, “to have this dream still!” Sam, her husband, is aware of this dream because they discussed what they thought they would be when they grew up. She loves to watch the westerns from the fifties and sixties with Sam. He wasn’t shocked about her dream because his dreams were just as wild. Leola knows most people dream of a life when they are children but don’t see it come to fruition as an adult. Some are just too extravagant, some to wild and some are just plain impossible. Sam and Leola dreamed the impossible for the time they lived in and the people they were. One of the things they had in common is a love of the country so they vacation in the country. She has the best of both worlds where they live and she is happy but she still pines every now and then for what could have been. Or could it have been? God will show her she is useful in this era!
God’s timing is so frustrating for most of us. He takes people from us to soon, He moves us to other pastures to late, His plan looks like it makes no sense some times, He doesn’t bring us what we need when we think we need it and He makes us live in a time we feel uncomfortable living in. We feel useless because we are doing nothing we deem important. If we could just be in this time what we had to do would be important. It would be time consuming and we wouldn’t have to dream about being productive because we would be. We are waiting on a God we don’t expect the expected from. We have experienced the unexpected and we don’t like it. Solomon tells us He has made everything beautiful in its time even if we feel out of place and awkward we are in our time. As long as we remain in the dream of other times we will not see the beauty in our time. God will put a dream of eternity in our heart that will satisfy us but still we will question because we cannot know the work that God does from beginning to end.
The Right Time!
Still staring out the window God begins to point out the beauty in her world today, right now! All the things she loves today were not even a glimmer in the eyes of the inventors one hundred years ago. God had created her for this time because He wanted her to follow His plan for this moment in history. She is not living in the past nor is she living in the future she is living today and today is where God wants her. It is frightening to give up the dream she has had for so many years. It gave her comfort but it also caused her sorrow for what she didn’t have. There is nothing now. No dream of a ranch, no dream of horses, no dream of a house on rolling hills with a view of a running stream. Her feeling of being useless is overwhelming her. What is to work for? No future images to look forward too. Leola will spend a good six months with no future dream and no goals to go with it. God waited for her to be completely stripped of that time then He went to work. God brought her to Revelation where she discovered the dream she should have. The New Earth and the New Jerusalem are her dream now. She wonders about it and has great joy thinking about it. The God she so longs to be with will be there. Jesus has put a great dream in her head and it will be hers in the right time!
Scripture tells us we are to be eternity minded to see Jesus. If we continue to allow our mind to wander into our time and our space alone He can not be found. He is our future as Christians. He is in the right time with the Father and speaking to us through the Holy Spirit. In the Fathers time He will bring us into the future to a beauty we cannot even fathom but He did give us clues in Revelation about what the New Jerusalem will look like. I want to be there, do you? The time is eternity, the time is right!
Meditation Verses: Ecclesiastes 3:11; Revelation 21; 22
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The Strong Survive
The Animal Kingdom
While watching Animal Kingdom Leola was given a revelation from God. Among us in the church there are the strong and there are the weak. Thank the Lord we don’t eat each other although we do try to consume each other. What is it making one person strong and the other weak? She asks herself, “Am I strong or am I weak?” Then God asks here clearly, “Which do you choose?” Good questions. Of course she would choose strong but that is so much easier to say than to do. Strength doesn’t come from how well she can control others it comes from how well she can control herself. It comes from how well she does what the Lord has assigned for her. It comes from how much she knows Him. The strong, she thinks, survive what God has in store for them! There are two very prominent character traits of the strong, trust and courage. They are interchangeable daily. Strong people trust God to do what He says He will so they stand before the daunting task with courage. Every time they act with courage and survive they trust more. The strong have the courage to do what God tells them to do because they trust Him. Every time they trust Him they acquire more courage. How often does our Lord say, “Fear not and take courage!” Trust Him and stand before the task with courage to do what He wants us to do is the main theme. Can we learn this from the animal kingdom? No, we cannot, Leola tells herself! Their strong survive by instinct, size and fierceness! They fight for dominance and they win by fighting to injure, maim or kill. For the animal kingdom winning is living but for the Kingdom of God the strong are dying to live!
Only the dead will survive in the Kingdom of God. It is not about animal strength or instinct or even reasoning, it is about how well we kill ourselves and fill our lifeless bodies with God. In the Kingdom of God it is about giving others your food not eating it yourself. It is giving away our riches to provide for others. It’s about becoming foolish to gain wisdom. It’s about getting to the back of the line to be first in line. All of this goes against the grain of our world. It goes against the grain of our own soul. This is a fight we can only win when we concede. When we concede our strength becomes boundless.
The Kingdom of God
The people who are in the Kingdom of God kill themselves. They don’t wait to be killed by the dominant animal in the group or by predators. As they kill themselves God dominates them and that is when they become strong. They are not surviving by instinct and they don’t have to chase down their prey – God supplies it. This is the most peculiar concept in the world for Leola who is fiercely independent. God bids her to want the Kingdom of God by proving He can be trusted! Leola is killing what God tells her to kill because she trusts He will replace it with better. She improves what He tells her to improve because she trust He is going to use that someday. She only has the courage to do any of it because she trusts God to keep her safe. God knows Leola will survive in the Kingdom of God because He gives her His strength to survive.
It is not easy to trust God enough to kill yourself but to survive in the Kingdom of God we must learn to trust Him. The more we put our own life on the line the more courage we get because we tap into the strength given to us by God to do what He wants us to do. He created us knowing we would be filled with fear and doubt and He told us over and over He would be our strength. He has proven Himself to be faithful to us therefore we should prove ourselves to others to be strong enough to survive.
Meditation Verses for this week: Psalm 8 (HCSB Version). This versions speaks directly to this. Believe verse four when it says that we were created a little lower than God because the original Hebrew uses the word Elohim. Another verse to prove this out is 1 Corinthians 6:3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? We are made a little lower than God – does that make you feel strong enough to survive. I hope so?
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The Answer to Every Question!
The Question
A question was asked at church this Sunday morning Leola knew right away the answer of or did she! If you could ask Jesus one question what would it be? That was the question? The only question allowed? Her question would be to ask why He waited until her forties to put this dream into her heart. And why can we only ask one question because surely the answer to that question would result in another one? This question bothered her for several days. Is life for him or anyone else about just one question? What if we ask the wrong question? Will it change our destiny? Why are we asking the question we are asking? Is one question better than another or do they all lead to one big answer? Leola thought and thought about what that question should be just in case the first question was the wrong question. She had to decide THE question. If she could come up with the perfect question would the answer be sufficient to answer all of her questions. Is there such a question?
She has been helping women with their life skills for twelve years and knows there is a plethora of questions to be answered but the answer is different for every single woman. You can ask ten questions of one woman to lead them into the answer they are looking for yet it might take one hundred to lead another. Each question depends on our direction and the level of truth we can handle. When Leola designs workshops the questions she asks never have one answer for that exact reason. The questions she asked are design to make women think about what answer they want. Some are even designed to make them think about what they don’t want because they may need to start there to make change. Some questions are designed to draw them directly to Jesus for the answer. How can she help women grow if she didn’t allow multiple answers from just one question? The problem is that question always leads to another one consequently we cannot stop at one question? What is stopping us from asking four thousand questions? Only Jesus knows!
Jesus asked a lot of questions of us in His ministry. He never stopped asking questions. Questions define what direction we are headed in. They help us focus on what is important. John tells us Thomas asked a powerful question after Jesus told us He is leaving to go to the Father. He asked in John 14 verse 5, “how can we know the way?” How indeed can we know the way? Would that question answer all of our questions? According to Jesus, yes. All the questions we ask lead us straight to the Father if we think about them. We think they may be self-serving but each time we allow the answer to come from Jesus it will lead us to the Father. The whole of Chapter 14 has Jesus telling us He is the answer to every question. How do I do this? Do what I tell you and it will happen! How can I do this? Take strength in Me and do can it! Where will I get what I need? Trust Me and you will have it!
The Answer
As Leola ponders all the questions people ask her in her classes plus all the questions she has asked over the years, she comes to the conclusion one question is not enough to fully get any answer. Some questions are relevant, irrelevant, nosey, inappropriate and appropriate but all are worth an answer that leads to another question. Jesus asked a lot of questions of us to help us discern what it is we want. We can ask people questions but we are still asking the questions that help us discern what we want. Our problem is who we are asking answers of. Who should answer our questions? Who can answer our questions? In her experience, only Jesus has been able to answer her questions with the truth she is looking for. No one can tell her where she is going because only Jesus knows that. No one can tell her what direction to go because only Jesus knows that. No one can tell her how to serve His women because only Jesus knows the way to do that. The relevant questions that need answers need to be asked of Jesus because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We cannot get to the Father who has all the answers if we do not ask the questions of Jesus (John 14:6). What He tells us is what the Father tells Him based solely on the plan the Father has for us (John 14:24). How wonderful is this to know? Knowing this tells Leola exactly where to go for answers and exactly what to do. The only answer she can rely on is Jesus. He is the answer to every question she has and He is the answer for every woman she serves. Jesus is the answer!
Jesus is the answer because the question leads to the way He wants us to go. Every question we ask relies on what the Father has planned for us. Should I go here or there? Should I do this or that? Here, there, this or that are all part of the grand plan of the Father. You might go here while I go there so you can do this and I can do that then we come together to do thus! Our whole life is planned out by the Father but we have to walk in it using Jesus as our answer to every question about direction. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him and that is the answer to every question.
Meditation Chapter for this week: John 14
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My Father Who Art in Heaven
Her Father
Father’s Day is coming and Leola doesn’t have one to regale with gifts and pleasantries. Her earthly father passed away in 2001 from the damage inflicted by a stroke the year before. She wasn’t a Christian then but was getting close. In just a couple of years she will be saved by the calling of her Heavenly Father. She is not sure if her earthly father is with her heavenly Father but she does know she will be. Her Father who art in Heaven has called her from the death into life. The sun is shining this morning because of Him. Her hope is secure because of Him. There is no father on earth who can promise the hope He can.
Leola used to be upset at her earthly father for not taking care of himself during his time on earth. She is without him today because of that yet today she is reflecting on her Heavenly Father and how she can talk to Him daily. She did not talk to her earthly father daily nor weekly for that matter even though he lived just miles away. The Father has taught her more than her earthly father ever could because he can never know her heart. The Father searches her heart and cleans it. His goodness brings her into repentance. His discipline grows her. His love teaches her to love. She sometimes questions how she lived without Him in her dead life but as she looks back she can see she never did. He has been with her from the day she was born. She understands she was predestined to be called to His purpose therefore her life has always been under the Wings of Love. He has ordered her steps and numbered her hairs for her whole life. She was created to live in this time by her Father who art in Heaven and she is eternally thankful to Him!
Ephesians 5:20 tells us to give thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. How fitting we should thank the Father through Jesus, His Son, for everything even for the time we were not saved from hell for all of our times belong to Him. It is during that time we were subject to the absence of the Father that makes us appreciate His presence today. Even though my father is dead I am subject to my Heavenly Father who shows His love toward me each and every day of my life. I offer myself as a gift to Him on this Father’s Day and every day because He created every single one of them. So I will pray to Him from Matthew 6;
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
The Father
Leola is reminded of how the Lord taught His disciples to pray. It is all about giving thanks to the Father who is in Heaven but is also here. His closeness will never go unnoticed by Leola. She can do nothing for Him without Him. Her righteousness vanishes when He does. Her soul falls apart when she cannot see Him. How she loves the Father more than life itself! He gave her life for His glory. He gave her work for His Son. He is forever the lover of her soul and she will do anything for Him. The Father has proven Himself to be faithful to her therefore she will dedicate her life to Him, over and over again. Psalm 103 speaks her heart perfectly, Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me bless His Holy Name. Her soul still baulks against it, in its selfishness, but she does it anyway. She is beyond grateful for His presence in her life therefore she will bless the Father, O her soul!
Our gratefulness toward the Father in Heaven is paramount to our thankfulness for what we have and who the Father has placed our life. If you find yourself critical toward people and things look deeper into how you feel about the Father. When you are of the belief the Father is holding back His favour, you will be critical of everything He has given you. Remember He has chosen you and loves you as much as He loves His own Son. You can turn your thinking around by just blessing the Father one time each day. Your Father who is in Heaven is in love with you and wants to be your Father. He wants you to say Happy Father’s Day Father but more so He desires to prove to you He is a good Father worthy of praise.
Mediation verses this week: Matthew 6:9:13; Psalm 103
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His Dream is Deeper!
The Tit for Tat!
Setting her mind on the things of Heaven is one thing but setting her mind on doing what is His way is another thing all together. Leola is working on doing the right thing and has not been able to learn how to set her mind on lining up what she believes with what she needs to do. The struggle in her mind is how she has been used by people before to fulfill their goals without consideration for her goals. It is that whole tit for tat concept; you rub my back and I’ll rub yours. Those concepts are getting Leola nowhere in her life and her bitterness is definitely holding her back. She gave up on her dreams and packed it in because she was being used by so many people to accomplish their goals. Her goals were not being accomplished. She still worked hard for the Body of Christ but not toward the dream she had. She really had no goals for herself anymore which was ironic to her since she taught for years having goals is paramount in our life. What she didn’t understand was her goals need to be transformed into God’s goals. She is rewriting her goals.
Years ago, when God lead Leola to begin teaching life skills, she was very excited to do it. She is gifted with teaching and writing. This was going to be easy to accomplish. She would do fantastic at it and make millions in no time, goal set! Then, Hope Devoted Life Skills Center for Women would open its doors in Essex County with those millions, and women would flock from all over Canada to be trained, another goal set. Franchises would open in every province and women would flourish under the care of Hope Devoted, the perfect vision. Then, Leola discovered the truth. Just because she had the dream did not mean it was going to happen. There have been too many times she worked hard to get somewhere and someone else’s dream advanced instead of hers. She is going to throw in the towel because maybe she heard God wrong. Maybe the dream she had belongs to someone else and not her, taking into account she has seen so many people advance in teaching what she had been teaching for years. She is watching many people succeed in their ministries leaving her behind. It does look to her like she is not going in the right direction. She can see that people are hardly having to work and are successful but she is working hard to get nowhere. The sound of failure is ringing in her ears so loud she cannot hear anything else but God will remove the ringing and start reminding her the old dream is about to come alive again.
Have you ever questioned your directions because it doesn’t seem to be going in the direction you thought it would? For several years I have been questioning and losing verve over my direction. God has kept me going thankfully but I had lost hope in the old dream. I have been praying for someone else to pick it up and was okay with mentoring someone else to do it but at least I was hoping it would get done. I did get to the point of giving up on it! At that point my heart was truly broken because I wanted to do it so badly. I began to pray for a new goal. What am I going to do with my life? Just sit in my Jesus Room and read the Bible? Teach one woman the Bible weekly? Run a retreat for seven women bi-monthly? I’m okay with this but I need Jesus to remove the dream I had from before because it is killing me not to do it! Then, events started happening regarding the old dream because of new events taking place. John 14:26 started coming to life for me. All these years I had been taught by the Holy Spirit the new things I needed to know so the old things I already knew could take place. I cannot describe the moment I discovered this to be happening and I cannot today describe the feeling but I can describe the knowledge. Jesus said it and it will be! I know that more now than yesterday!
The Deep!
The ringing in her ears turns out to be the Holy Spirit blocking out any other dream she is dreaming up. She is by nature a dreamer and the Holy Spirit had to step in to stop the dreaming. His plan for her had to happen and He needed her to stop all fleshly dreaming and start conforming to His plan even thought she was convinced it was dead. He has been showing Leola the direction to go, she goes and then He reminds her of the time He told her this exact event would happen. How impossible it all seemed to her from over there, but now that she is here, she can begin to see it happening. She is not as giddy as she was when she was young because she is more mature now. It has all spun into joy rather than happiness. Happy was she to be able to help women when she was young but God has matured her into someone who now sees the joy and the sorrow with helping women become women of God. It is found deeper in her soul rather than more of a surface goal. The goal has to be number one outside of the surface emotions taking place. She needs to keep the goal at the front of her mind and do what needs to be done. It is hard for Leola to describe the feeling. She now knows how shallow and fluffy her emotions and her conviction to be successful were about this deep task she is about to embark on. The Lord could not have that, not for one second! When He sends her to accomplish this goal He needs to know she is committed to His goal for life! He has made His point! She will wait in the deep because that is the only place Jesus is!
I am convinced on this day just as yesterday and the years before God tells us from the beginning what His plan is for us. Thankfully He doesn’t tell us what we are going to go through to get to the deep point where He can actually use us for that task. Sometimes, like Gideon, His plan is quick but then there are others, like Joseph, whose plan is far off. Each one of us has the Holy Spirit living in us and directing our plan daily therefore we can be sure, if we are listening, that He will do what He said He will no matter how long it takes. The Spirit wants us to know that He is taking us through the ringer to get us to the dream He has planted deep in our soul because His dream is deeper than ours. This week get back in touch with that deep dream and live in it!
Meditation verses for this week: John 14:26; Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 3:16
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Invisible Rewards
Invisible is She!
Leola is gifted with administration, which is causing her quite a bit of heartache because she sees issues with planning others just don’t see. Not only is this an issue for her in church but at work too. She needs to learn how to train herself to say what needs to be said then and not say more. She needs to understand what needs to be done when it absolutely needs to be done and not more. She also needs to learn to allow time for the people to catch up in their own mind without the “I told you so” stance. It is not about pride for Leola, at least in this situation, it is about not being listened too by leaders or people in authority. This plays right into her insecurities so she walks out of meetings or conversation with another crack in her heart. Leola has felt invisible all of her life. Each part of her life has brought a new season of feeling as if no one sees or hears her. Maybe it is this gift of administration from the Lord or maybe it is just her? She does know one thing – it is a horrible feeling not to be seen and she doesn’t like it very much!
When Leola feels invisible she ramps up her actions toward noticeability ultimately inflating her anger because she is getting nowhere. What she hadn’t noticed before is she is attempting to get rewarded by man! The premise of getting our reward from man is complicated and stealthy. At work she understands she is looking for the recognition of capability and at home she is looking for ignorant compliance to her demands. This is simple ten years later to understand, but at the time it was a struggle to work it all out. For as long as Leola can remember she has been one step ahead of most people with insight into the issues facing them. It has never been something she bragged about but it has always been a burden for her. She couldn’t understand why man could not see what she was seeing. It was simple to her! Maybe it was her! Maybe folks just didn’t see her. Oh, they saw her long enough to call her ugly but not long enough to take advice; long enough to tell her what to do but not long enough to listen. On her knees bawling like a baby, God would teach her He sees her and a lot more.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1) This verse we read but don’t see it for what it really means to us on a daily basis! Our deep feelings of insecurity come from the rewards we are attempting to get from man and do not receive. Men, of all kinds, are trying to get rewards from men and it is highly promoted. Gifted leaders are rewarded by man with leadership but it goes to their head and they begin to accept the reward from man rather than Jesus. Gifted musicians take reward from man then fall prey to pride and start singing worship to the devil. People cross the line every day under the guise of getting rewards from men. We see it happening daily from the world and the church including people who love Jesus. We are just a little more subtle about it. We tell people how much money we gave, who we helped, what we do for others and the like. The minute we open our mouth we have our reward!
He Sees Her!
Leola, still on her knees, cried out to God telling Him everything she feels. She told God, people don’t see her and she isn’t sure He doesn’t see her either. He has removed everything important to her and here she was alone in her ‘Jesus Room’ with nothing left to lose. Her heart was broken beyond repair from being invisible all of her life. She couldn’t stop crying and her emotions were running the gamete. When she stopped crying there was no lightning bolt to knock her out of her chair. There was no angel standing in front of her to tell her face to face God sees her. She just felt relief from the tirade because she actually understood herself why she was so disappointed with God. She expected God to take from her because she had known no different. She expected God to be blind to her because she felt no other feeling. Leola placed a human standard on God. Up to that point there was no male figure in her life she could say had any favourable impact in her life and God, to her, had been no different. She loved Him dearly but she also wasn’t expecting much from Him either. She didn’t expect Him to meet her needs, meet her expectation or to meet any of His promises in her life. The year following this outburst was enlightening to say the very least. God transformed the way she saw Him but more over He transformed the way she saw herself. She loved Jesus with all of her heart and did everything possible to obey His every command but her invisibility had engulf her whole life even into her Spiritual life. It had permeated so deep she was even invisible to herself. God raised her from the dead and changed how she looked at herself through learning more about rewards from the Bible. Leola now understands the difference between the rewards from Heaven and the rewards from man! She works fervently for the rewards from Heaven knowing God sees her and is the rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). They are invisible rewards!
We are made to want reward but not from people from God! He knew we would need this to be driven. He gifts us to be driven in specific directions yet He also knew that same gift is used in the world to make money to live on. There are poor Christians and there are filthy rich Christians and everything in between. Our reward is not the money, the accolades or the power because God can take all of that away in a minute. Our reward is the treasures we are storing up in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy (Matthew 6:20). This week think about why you work so hard and for whom!
Meditation Verses this week: Matthew 6:1; Hebrews 11:6; Matthew 6:20
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Self-Serving Self
The Nothing
Leola is thinking about so many things lately that she cannot concentrate on one in particular. She is thinking about courage. How much courage does it take to be in the will of God and to be completely dependent on God? She is thinking about shallow loving. Her skills to love are shallow and she wants to love deeper. She is thinking about when God is going to use her to teach life skills again. Her mind races more often now than before. So much so that she cannot think well enough even to write her blog. She started with courage and couldn’t figure out what to say in the end. She decided to keep the idea for a future blog. The concept is lost to her. She is not sure how she will come out the other side of this whole brain fart days but she does know one thing – God knows everything and He knows about this too.
What subject does He want her to write about? If I go into the Bible and finger pick a verse will it give her revelation? Will anyone miss it if she didn’t post a blog? She is resting on the idea that this is a good thing because she is not as frustrated as she used to be. In the olden days she would have spent hours on the computer typing away and throwing it all away. She would shout at God because He is the one who gave her this talent to write in the first place. If he wants her to write He will give her the ideas but they all seem so far away. There is nothing!
In the fifteen years I’ve written for God I have had many days where I couldn’t write a thing. All of the ideas work out to nothing so I have come to one and only one conclusion when this happens – I have begun to rely on myself to do the writing. Proverbs 3:5 says we should trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding. When our own understanding takes over it is hard to trust in God. The work that we do, as good as it sounds, is not the work of God but the work of ourselves. It is self-serving even if it is for God. Courage to do what He wants us to do comes from Him alone. Deep love for His people will also come from Him. When God asks us to do something He will provide the way to do it. All we have to do is obey and trust.
The Worthlessness of Understanding Understanding!
There have been many times when Leola thought she was doing the will of God but she was doing what she had understood His will to be. She thinks about courage and thinks about shallow love but knows that even those huge topics belong to God. Leola cannot have courage to do what the folks in the book of Acts did if God has not gone before her to get the people ready to receive her. She will never love anyone with any kind of depth until God gives her the understanding to do it. She has been racking her brain to figure out how to do these things and cannot. They are to deep for her. Her understanding is worthless to her because her understanding proves she doesn’t trust God enough to take care of this in His time. How she has been working hard to do what she believes God is asking her to do. Leola has got to relax and let God do the work. She is learning this concept as she learns how worthless even her understanding of her understanding is. She is reminded of a Psalm she read and will now memorize because it speaks to these times. Psalm 131 says Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters nor with things to profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Leola, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. [modifications mind] She has read this before and knew the implication yet forgot them. She has been talking to God for three days wondering what the problem was when all along she had fallen into the same trap of self-servingness she had fallen in so many times before. “Lord,” she says, “Please help me to recognize this sooner! Amen.”
There will be plenty of times in our lives we rely on our own understanding without even knowing it. It will sneak up on us and cause lawlessness or staleness in our walk with God. If we are going along like gangbusters then all of the sudden we are stopped check whose work we are doing. If we are aware that sin has crept into out walk with God, check whose work we are doing. Be vigilant about who we are following because we want to follow Jesus if we want our work to be good work.
Meditation verse for this week: Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 131
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I am Not Failing!
The Failure!
The sun is shining this beautiful morning and it is shining in Leola’s heart too. There is no other day that she can remember at this moment to have such an impact on her than today. She is wiping the tears away as she opens her Bible to read. How grateful she is to be saved by grace! She is reminded of how often she has failed to do what God has convicted her of but this morning she is remembering something the Spirit revealed to her last night. Her conviction is renewed but it wasn’t quite so easy in the past. Today, she is quick to discover her underlying issues and quick to get on with living the abundant life Jesus came to give her. If it were not for the Book of Life her existance would be the same as everyone else’s. She has become one who cares so deeply about following her calling that she would pray for God to get her ready. She wants to save women from everything 2 Timothy 3 says will happen to them but failure needs to be dealt with. And what better place to go then the Psalms.
“A Psalm a day keeps my depression away,” she thinks as she starts reading Psalm 73. Leola had been beating herself up yesterday for failing to continue on her path with Jesus. He has convicted her to love her fellow man. Jesus has been working in several areas of her life at the same time. Most people would cringe at the prospect of doing so much at once but God has gifted Leola to be able to handle it. What most people take a lifetime to clean up Leola can clean up in no time thanks to Jesus! She also knows, when much is given much is expected (Luke 12:35-48). She knows what is expected of her and she is extremely hard on herself when she fails. In the olden days she would beat herself up for days yet never come to the conclusion of why she failed. She failed again, after years of practice, she did it again! That old ugly woman (ETS – Evil Twin Sister) rises up at different times and Leola is unprepared for her appearance. She will be happy and content then, bam, ETS shows up unstoppable. An ETS warning light would be nice like the Kmart Blue Light Special but unfortunately it doesn’t and she fails. When she is walking up to a situation she would love to see the blue light flashing then as she is walking up she can prepare for it. Alas after years of torturing herself, God has given her a partial sentence that will change the way she deals with the ETS appearance from that moment on.
When God calls us He has already created our new man but our old man has to be put away by us. We need to remember God create both men. The old man is who He has saved and knows him better than we do. He has prepared the new man to do His work because the old man was incapable through sin of doing the righteous work. The old man is self-serving and self-absorbed but the new man is Spirit minded and Heaven absorbed. We will only be 100% heaven minded when we are in Heaven so in the meantime, while we are on this earth, we will not only fight the devil but we will fight our old man too. They exist, for us, in the same body, in the same space, in the same time and the devil knows that better than we do. As long as he can make us think the old man still lives he will be successful at reviving that dead guy each and every time. We need to work hard at keeping that dead guy in the grave. It may be a slow process at times and quick at other times. It is completely dependent on what God is teaching us and how much we fight Him. It is our job to be successful at keeping the old man in the grave.
The Revelation!
Leola gets quite a few revelations from God while looking out the front window or any window as a matter of fact. This is why she loves to be able to do see out the window while she is studying the Bible, writing or doing any kind of work. When she stares out the window in the winter she sees white (the colour of purity) and in the summer green (the colour of growth). Every time she looks up she sees blue which is the colour of Heaven. If she could live in a house made of glass she would. While she was thinking about her failure again, she instinctively walked to the front window and she is spoken too. Leola has become very aware of the Spirit speaking to her. He said, “You have failed but you are not failing!” She smiled from ear to ear! The perfect encouragement at the perfect time. Her soul accepts it. She is not failing she is succeeding. She has come a long way from where she was and it has been a long road travelling from dead to alive. Leola knows the road is still long and narrow but she is accepting day by day every success she has gained and she is accepting every encouragement he God is supplying. She is not failing, she is succeeding.
I know how hard it is to accept our success because sometimes our failures are before our eyes constantly. Since our mind is filled with our quest to be like Jesus we forget how much closer we are toward that than yesterday. When we look in the mirror we need to begin seeing this new man, who looks like Jesus, rather than the old one who looks like sin. Psalm 73:26 is correct in saying, My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. This is why we are not failing. God is the strength of our heart and He is our portion forever. I look like Him and because of His Spirit in me I will act like Him when I keep the old man buried. I did fail but I am NOT FAILING!
This week’s meditation verses: Psalm 73:26; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:24
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Our Effective Control
The Awakening
As she sits on her ‘have-to-have-it’ couch she thinks back to when there were no choices to make. As a child she was told what to do and as a teenager she fought to make choices of her own. She had no idea at the time what a mess she will make with that right. Then, when she became an adult Leola made too many wrong choices. Too many choices with her time and too many ungodly choices with her morals. The result of that is she has too much furniture, gadgets, clothes, food, body fat, shoes and worse, flimsy morals. Leola just has too much of everything except money and godly morals. How did she get so out of control? Loela was not watching her future nor was she controlling her current wants. She has in effect lost control of herself.
Leola has seen the word ‘sober’ in the bible! It always brought to mind alcohol but she is getting a good picture of what sober means outside of drinking. She wonders if there is much of a difference between what she has been doing with her life and what someone who is drunk all the time is doing. They make impulsive decisions weighing the cost later when they are sober yet is that any different than what she is doing? Are either one of us clear-headed when we are sober? She is recklessly spending her life on useless things meant for instant gratification. She knows it isn’t going to last because she will soon be bankrupt. Her husband, Sam, is frustrated with her spending. As long as Sam stays in the dark about all the purchases and donations he will never voice his frustrations and she is off the hook. Leola has become accustomed to deceiving her husband. She isn’t seeing how ineffective she is at this deception; she is sound asleep.
Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:6). We need to make sure we do not fall asleep while we are living our life for Jesus. We have a roaring lion following us around whose goal it is too make us ineffective in the Body of Christ and in the world. Our effectiveness depends on our own self-control. This is something we need to learn over time. Self-control doesn’t just show up overnight, it is learned. It takes a little self-control to gain a lot of self-control. The issue with lack of control is it engulfs our whole life and our whole being. If we lose control in one area I am pretty sure we have lost control in many other areas. Let’s think about alcohol for a minute. Someone who drinks to excess has lost control of the alcohol but what has he lost control of before the drink. The area God will go after to get control over is what is causing our life to be ineffective right now. Once we are effective at controlling that other areas to control will show up.
The Conviction
One more lie won’t change anything except Leola. God has had enough of the deception. She has lost control of the truth! God ordained her to teach women life skills but how will she be able to be of any effect to them when lying has become her norm instead of the truth. She is extremely grieved by her behaviour. She looked around the room to see all the money she has spent on frivolous stuff. Sam was right! It is time to clean this mess up. Leola would embark on a two year quest to get rid of the frivolous stuff everywhere in the house and control her spending. The first thing she had to do was stop lying to her husband. Leola has asked the Holy Spirit to convict her on this because it has become so habitual she won’t catch it fast enough before the dirty deed is done. Since Sam is not saved yet, his only view of Jesus is her. She is determined to be a good effect on him and anyone else she teaches!
It takes a long time to clean up a mess that was years in the making. When we lose control it effects our whole life as well as the people around us. Discord is the mainstay with loss of control but we don’t first try to fix it, we attempt to hide it, making everything worse. Paul wants us to watch and be sober about our life because our Lord Jesus Christ is coming back and we do not want to be caught in the middle of dishonouring Him when the trumpet blows. Fear not because you can do this! God has chosen us, equipped us and set us to His work that we would be effective to all, honouring Him.
This weeks meditation verses: 1 Thessalonians 5:6; 1 Peter 5:8-9; 2 Timothy 1:7
