This week I’m thankful for things like:

1). Our Neighborhood Watch-it’s been a week

2). Summer temps in late Fall

3). Really good coffee-expensive but worth it

4). That my brain is still capable of learning new things after lying dormant for years

5). The out-of-the-blue check we received this week from one of my husband’s student’s family-that will come in handy since my daughter’s car is broken.

6). Being able to help a friend with their book-so awesome to be part of the process with them.

7). An out-of-the-blue check that a friend of mine received that will meet a need he had never told anyone about. God is awesome!

This week I’m praising God for:

1). Shuffling through the leaves while out on a walk with my husband

2). Morning cat cuddles

3).  Routine: with all of the craziness in the world, my daily routine of mundane tasks is oddly comforting

4). Being reminded of God’s jealousy over me. There’s nothing like the reminder of holy jealousy to keep a person in line!

5). The opportunity to tutor a Spanish-speaking woman one-on-one and start building a relationship with her.

6). Lunch with Rachel-if you don’t have a friend you can spew your guts to and not risk judgment, find one.

7). Watching my daughter realize that the right decision is not always the easy one. I could say the same thing over and over, but experiencing this truth is far more effective.

This week I’m praising God for:

1). 21 years with my sweet husband (an obvious one if we’re Facebook friends!)

2). The gift certificate that paid for the celebration of 21 years (probably found under my husband’s 21 years of receipts!)

3). Sweet anniversary wishes from friends and relatives. We feel loved.

4). Lunch with a friend. Always a fabulous way to spend an afternoon! Thanks, Jeannie!

5). Serving a God who is a Giver of good gifts.

6).  A friend’s successful surgery.

7). My pastor for his tireless service to our church over the years. Thank you, Pastor John for all you do and for always being approachable and available. You are loved.

 

I’ve made no secret of my lack of gardening skills. They are limited to plants that don’t require much shade or water, like my hardy tropical hibiscus which thrives on my lack of remembering its need for water.

When we moved into our house, the fence lining one side of the backyard was home to three Rose of Sharon plants put there by the previous owners. They looked great. Tall, flowering, low-maintenance. They stayed nice looking for about five years of our living there, and then things started changing. One day while the cat and I were out on our daily walking of the backyard perimeter, I gave one of the bushes a good look and couldn’t figure out why the leaves looked so weird. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the branches featured two different types of leaves. I kept looking at the dumb branches trying to wrap my brain around the mystery of how one branch could sustain two types of leaves. Not only that, but up from the center of this beautiful flowering plant stood a tall stock of something that didn’t belong. It reached higher than the Rose of Sharon, and it’s foundational stalks stood surer and stronger than that of the original plant.

Frankly, I was annoyed. It was mind-boggling and beyond my comprehension. So I got out the Big Guns- that is, my mother, and asked her what she thought was the cause of two different kinds of leaves on one branch. She reached out, turned the leaves around and said, “Looks like accidental grafting.” Somehow the seeds or roots of the intruding plant got mixed into those of the original plant causing the merger of the two in a mystery of coexistence.

Two weeks ago I talked about God’s abundant love that covers any and every situation we find ourselves in, a love so fierce that it never finds itself bending to disappointment. It is looking through this lens of God that we can finally rest in who He is and who we are in Him.

With that in mind, we continued on addressing our need for a right perspective on God and what His idea is about the abundant life. A life that mirrors His is the only way of surviving this life with any amount of joy and faithfulness.

I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the subject of how we have come to the place to even begin talking about this life in abundance, and that is this idea of grafting. Romans 11:17-24 says this:

“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.  Then you will say, ’Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.  Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.  And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.  For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?”

As God’s chosen people, we know the Jews rejected Christ and His message of salvation, and as a result, salvation was offered to the Gentiles.It’s a mixed bag of feelings, this thankfulness I feel for their rejection opening the door for my adoption and regret at those who walked away from their status as chosen. For whatever reason, the great plan of the ages was to die for all of us, whether through the initial choosing of a people or through adoption, grafting.

As a college student I attended a Messianic Jewish service on Friday nights at Moody Church. It was my lifelong dream to be Jewish, to be of the same bloodline of the One who created all of this, to be able to trace back my ancestry to the baby in the manger. (Instead, I’m a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Gentile with German and Irish blood flowing through my veins).

If you’ve ever been around a Messianic Jew, that is, a Jewish person who understands who they are and have embraced Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, it will change your life. The blood that pumps through their veins is significant more so because of their spiritual acceptance of Christ than because of their physical heritage. Their lives are marked by a thankfulness rooted deep in their belief in what God has done for them. It’s a thankfulness that ignites contentment and satisfaction and abundant living.

In Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts, she talks about what caused rebellion in the Garden, that is, the sin of ingratitude. Abundant living is more about what God has done for us than what we believe He hasn’t. Our adoption as His sons came at great cost to Him. I ask you what I ask myself all the time: is that enough?

I have a feeling that the shoot growing up through my original plant is either a weed with delusions of grandeur or a small tree. Either way, because of it’s grafting into the original plant, the source of its life, it has taken off. The “intruder” if you will, saw the opportunity for life and took it. Much of our experience in this life is really up to us. We have the opportunity to grow in the life that God has offered if we will only spend less time concentrating on what we believe is missing and more time being grateful for what is.

 

 

This week I’m praising God for:

1). A warm dry living room on a cold rainy night.

2). A full life.

3). My Bible study group. I love their honesty and great sense of humor.

4). Honest conversations with my 14-year old.

5). My daughter’s kindergarten teacher who is STILL encouraging her and loving on her.

6). Solving the mystery of the squeaky car: a break job that only cost me $62, and now my husband has learned a new skill that he can use on the other two vehicles as they are needing new brakes too.

7). Watching two sick friends get the answers to their prayers that they wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first post I ever wrote for my blog was one on perspective. In fact, I titled it Perspective is Everything. Fast forward a year and a half later, and I still believe that perspective is everything. And I’m still trying to achieve some semblance of it in the everyday.

Within the last month, I have watched one friend undergo a double mastectomy, the mother of one of my daughter’s friends get diagnosed with breast cancer, another mom of one of my daughter’s friends reach remission in her journey with cancer, a mom of one of my husband’s students be diagnosed with cancer that is everywhere, and a friend’s husband younger than me suffer a heart attack over the weekend.

While I have not set out to discuss suffering and the role God means for it to play in our lives, the simple fact is that when we are searching for an abundant life on this earth we are always doing so in the midst of some sort of suffering. Randy Alcorn once said that while God is preparing a place for us in heaven, what we often don’t realize is that He is preparing us for that place. Maybe the life to come wouldn’t seem as precious a promise without the struggles we face here. Without suffering and hardship in this life, we would never experience His grace. Perspective is indeed everything.

Last week I talked about a right view of God as being one of the most important steps in walking toward the abundant life. Without it, our perspective on everything else is warped and lacking. Without a right view of God, our understanding of His love for us holds no weight in our living. But that’s only the beginning. With a right view of God we begin to adjust our view of abundance to fall in line more with what God had in mind.

Our right view of God comes first and foremost from His letter to us. I could go on and on with what I think abundant life is and what it should look like in the life of a Christian, but I won’t. Instead I’ll follow in the footsteps of what was said on Sunday and let Scripture do what it does best: soothe the soul parched from life’s fiery trials.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory will be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18 NIV

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial; because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, that God has promised to those who love Him.” James 1:12 NIV

“But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:37 NIV

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” 1 Peter 5:10 NIV

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Romans 8:17

What is conspicuously missing in these verses is the worldly perspective on abundance which includes material wealth, occupational success, marital bliss and successful kids. Instead the abundant life is one of spiritual dimension, including but certainly not limited to:

• Rest
• Inward renewal
• Future glory
• A crown of life
• A conqueror
• Restoration
• Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ

 

At the end of the day is God enough? Is Who He is and all He encompasses enough if nothing in our lives ever changes or ever improves? It’s really about perspective.

This week I’m praising God for:

1). The changing leaves

2). A day off of school/work with the kids

3). God’s amazing encouragement to me through the words of others

4). Catching up with friends I’ve not seen in awhile

5). Learning new things-didn’t know that part of the gray matter was still functional

6). My neighborhood. It’s quirky and busy (which I love), and as I’ve been outside a lot this week watching the neighbors water their new sod, others getting a much-needed new roof, others fixing up their yards, I have felt so grateful for where I live and the people I share my street with.

7). When my daughter was quite a bit younger she informed me one day that she would like to live to be 100 years old to which I vigorously asked, “What on earth for?” She responded with, “Because you get a birthday card from the President when you turn 100.” Didn’t know that. Well, I’m praising God for my stepfather, who has not quite made it to 100 years old but just celebrated his 90th birthday. Praise God for 90 years of life. Happy Birthday, Jack!

A few months ago I was listening to a message by David Platt, author of the New York Times bestselling book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream. In this particular sermon he challenged his listeners to be looking at every verse in the Bible with one thing in mind: what does it say about God? The idea being that God can be found in every page of Scripture, that His letter to us is one way He teaches us about Himself. I started thinking about this concept in the everyday and began asking God to show me Who He is in the everyday. What do I not know about Him that He wants me to know?

At the same time I was beginning to really search out this idea of abundant life. What does it mean to have abundant life? Is it reserved only for eternity, and life on this earth is merely surviving the best we can until we finally reach this mountaintop of abundance? What does Jesus mean when He says,

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10, NIV)?

And what about this verse?

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, NKJV).

How can God promise abundant life on the one hand and tell us that we will have tribulation in the world on the other? And be of good cheer? In the middle of trouble? Seems a bit impossible if you ask me. And then I learned something.

This past spring I interviewed for and got a job as a teacher of English as a second language. It seemed perfect for several reasons:

1). I was going to get paid to talk about one of my favorite things: the English language

2). It involved spending time with people from all over the world-another one of my favorite things.

3). It would begin the process of getting me out of the housecleaning business once and for all.

4). It would provide us with some much-needed extra income.

I spent the summer going to department meetings, preparing with my mentor and meeting my coworkers. I had an aide, money for teaching resources, my own classroom-things teaching dreams are made of. About a month out, I started to get a little nervous. Attributing it to new job nerves, I attempted to stifle it by both preparing and procrastinating. A couple of weeks before the semester began, my nervousness gave way to sleeplessness. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I couldn’t fill the three-hour time slot? What if I looked like a fool?

And then a week before classes started, something happened. My nervousness exploded into full fledge fear, undeniable, uncontrollable fear and anxiety in the form of panic attacks in public and seven days of uncontrollable crying. The last time I experienced something even remotely similar was the months of post partum depression after my daughter was born. Neither experience is anything I would wish on anyone.

My what-if questions turned into I-can’t statements. Despite the prayers of friends and family and my own appeals to God for peace, there simply wasn’t any which did nothing more than open the way for an onslaught of frustration at my lack of trust in God. To make matters worse, my first class did not go that well. I called my boss later that day and asked if there was any way someone could take the two evening classes I was assigned, and I would concentrate on the two morning classes and try to get through the semester. To make a long story short, by the time I went to bed that night, I’d lost both classes. The shortest employment in the history of the world.

What followed was a week of self-loathing, feeling like I’d failed my family, convinced I’d disappointed God to the point of possibly burning all my bridges with Him. Was this it? Had I ruined what He had for me? Would I be left living a subpar existence? Had He grown tired of me and my questions and doubts and failures? The worst part was that I was so relieved that I didn’t have to teach anymore that I began feeling guilty about that! I imagined myself feeling relief over what I perceived as sin which left me in an even deeper pit.

Those two weeks were not my finest moments to say the least. What I will never forget are the words that kept coming back to my mind despite my wrong thinking, and that is this: Jesus Loves Me. Jesus Loves Me. Jesus Loves Me. I will go to my grave believing that God Himself planted those words in my brain amid all the muck, and for the moments I concentrated on them, there was relief.

Among all the religions and beliefs out there is Deism. Deism is less of a religion and more of a perspective of God that believes once He wound up the world and got things going, He retreated and became uninterested and unapproachable. If you adhere to the Deist school of thought then you believe God is uninterested in your worship that He doesn’t desire to have a relationship with you. Deists believe that their knowledge of God comes from applying reason and studying the universe.

We sometimes treat the love of God the same way. We accept and lean into it for our salvation-clinging to His love to avoid the fiery flames of eternity without Him. And somehow once we’ve accepted this love, the rest of our Christian experience, whether good or bad, becomes solely dependent on us and our behavior. The love of God never factors into anything. We live by the law the enemy has inflicted on us completely devoid of the love of God. While the love of God is the most basic tenet of the Christian faith, I believe it is grossly underestimated.

In my own example I had based my belief about God on my own reason-human reason. I judged Him according to lies from the enemy and my own warped thinking, and what I came to realize is that I really don’t have the first clue about who God is in a way that is deep and meaningful and applicable to my everyday life. The question in all of this is not whether I handled my fear incorrectly, or whether I should have even taken the job. It was never a question of disappointing God and finally pushing Him to the point of being done with me (which of course is impossible). It was all about Him. What does He think of me in every situation? How does He feel about me? What emotion, if you will, drives Him to stay in the fight with me everyday? Love. We learn it as children in the Sunday School songs and in the memorization of John 3:16, but love goes beyond the initial coming to Christ. It’s woven into our days and experiences, good and bad. And if we can get a handle on this concept of God’s love in our limited thinking, than all of His other qualities like justice, and holiness and His need to discipline and our unpleasant experiences will have new meaning.

Maybe we’ll believe things like Lamentations 3:22 which says “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”

“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?  (As the Scriptures say, ‘For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep’).No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:35-37, NLT).

In the weeks to come I will share with you what I’ve learned and am still learning about abundant life. It’s not the least bit elusive, nor is it nearly as difficult as we make it. Abundant life is simply wrapped up in our view of God. A correct view of Him colors all of life with the beauty of who He is, what He has for us, and dare I say, what He wants from us. The only way to get there is by going deeper. Going deeper with God can only benefit us both for our life here on earth and the one that is to come.

This week I’m praising God for fun things like:

1). Day trips with my husband and kids

2). $3.27 for a gallon of gas. Shocking that this is praiseworthy, but what can I say?

3). Stolen hours indulging in the guilty pleasure of a well-written mystery novel.

4). Sitting outside in the September sun with my furry baby.

5). Joking around with my kids. Love their sense of humor.

6). Being able to laugh at the embarrassing squeak that my car makes rather than worrying about what might be the problem and what it might cost to fix it. I’ve got a bit of Scarlet O’Hara syndrome: “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

7). Having a surprised microcosm of success creating a Power Point for a company when I really have little to no experience doing such things.

 

 

This week I’m praising God for:

1). The change of the seasons. Yes, I love the heat, but there’s something invigorating about Fall breezes!

2). Clarity.

3). The ability to have choices and to make good ones.

4). Family dinners. They tend to be a bit rare at our house due to scheduling, but when they do my husband and I feel like we’ve won the lottery!

5). Reconciliation. I have a front-row seat to what God is doing in a relationship that has seemed unfixable at times. Amazing.

6). One on one time with each kid. It’s amazing what they will divulge when it’s just the two of us.

7). God. I’m praising God for who He is and that I have Him in my life.