I cannot NOT pass this on. Thanks to the friend who let me know about this blog. I have been reading little by little the last couple of days and have given in more than once to almost uncontrollable sobbing. There isn't anything on earth much more meaningful than seeing people respond to immense pain with HOPE in the Lord. This is what life's all about. You will need a large chunk of time (be sure to start from the beginning) and a large box of tissues.
http://www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Chase What Matters
Yes, call me crazy--Two posts in one day!! I can't let this one go any longer. For weeks now, I've been driving through Philipsburg and the sign for the Chase Bank branch just eats away at me. "CHASE WHAT MATTERS IN YOUR LIFE." Should I expect anything different from the world? I doubt the person who came up with that slogan had on his/her mind spiritual things. It just bugs the tar out of me that the bank would try to imply that "what matters" in my life can be found by coming in and taking advantage of their newest refinance offer. The thing is--sometimes I'm tempted. Just the other day Matt and I were discussing how a $50,000 check falling from the sky would make our lives a whole lot easier. Granted, we both threw in there a "spiritual" comment to make it sound like we were kidding. But deep down, I think our flesh really does think it would make life better. My Spirit, on the other hand, knows exactly what MATTERS, and regardless of how hard I look, it won't be found inside a bank.
I press on (chase) toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:14
I press on (chase) toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:14
The War
"I start the day, the war begins," a popular song says, reminding me of my predicament. The Apostle Paul, inspired by God Himself, describes it perfectly, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing". Romans 7:19 If ever I had a question, THIS IS THE QUESTION!!! WHY, Lord, oh why must I endure this battle every day?
Ever since I made the decision to follow Christ when I was 14, this battle has been present. Only in the last two years of my life it seems it has turned into an all out WAR!! How is it possible that, one moment, I can proclaim with everything in me that I WILL FOLLOW CHRIST, and in the very next moment I can feel consumed by fleshly desires/thoughts/feelings? One example is in my prayer life. This happens to me quite often, I am in (seemingly) earnest prayer, asking that God's will be done in a certain situation, and AT THE VERY SAME TIME, the thought runs through my head, "Maybe if I pray for God's will, He'll be pleased with me and let me have what I REALLY want!!!!! HA! That is absolutely my flesh talking! And even though I KNOW that's my flesh, and I KNOW I don't want to follow my flesh, why do I think that's what I REALLY want? My Spirit knows what I REALLY want is God's will. Nevertheless, these thoughts run through my head and make me despise myself. I think, "If you truly love Christ, Kati, how could you even think such a thing!!??" (And yes, I know that fleeting thoughts aren't necessarily sin, it's the intentional decision to DWELL on those thoughts that becomes sin. Still.)
I often wonder and ask God why He couldn't have set things up differently. After all, I know better than He, right? (grin) Why is it that He couldn't have set up some system that protected us from bad thoughts once we made the decision to follow Him? Silly thing is, I ask these questions and I already know the answers. Christ Himself surely wasn't protected from temptation. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Hebrews 4:15 And I have even been known to argue with God and say, "But you really DON'T understand, because Christ was PERFECT. Human, yes, but still fully God and didn't really have the ability/capacity to sin. Jesus Christ in His life on earth wasn't like me, who has the DESIRE to be holy, yet CAN'T, no matter how hard I try, live it out. No, I don't understand it fully. Just read the verse again, Kati, and TRUST.
Why must we endure this battle? Can't we just skip this life and go straight to HOLY? For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14 What's up with describing us as "perfected" and "being sanctified" in the same sentence? Christ has already done the work and made us perfect. Gish, I really don't FEEL perfect!! For some reason known only to the Father, He purposes us to live out this life and go through the grueling sanctification process. So we're, in a sense, "becoming what we are". (Piper's words, not mine.) Figure that one out!!!!!! Can't we just skip straight to perfection, Lord? Please? Apparently there's value enough in the process itself that makes God say, "Yes, this is worth it. You MUST go through this."
When I screw up, ex. screaming at my kids, disrespecting my husband, etc., I recognize it pretty quickly as clear-cut SIN. This grieves my heart, and for some reason makes me want to beat myself up. (I've actually physically hit myself at times. You don't have to tell me how stupid that is!) A trusted friend recently told me I need to lighten up on myself. So, where's the balance between grieving over my sin and just accepting Christ's forgiveness and "letting it go"? I know Christ paid the price for my sin and I'm forgiven, that's not the problem. But why has He given me this desire to be holy that I can't reach? It is frustrating that I am not who I want to be, YET. But God's already given us the answer as to why it has to be this way, so I don't know why I keep asking. As I must, for now, live with the frustration, I will continue to need the encouragement from my brothers and sisters until the day I get to go HOME and can experience, at last, PERFECTION, in every sense of the word. And may God give me the grace to be an encouragement for them as they fight the same battle.
The answers to my questions are always found in His Word. I am SO THANKFUL for His Word. Yet, You are so mysterious, God. Thank you for the grace to trust You even when I don't understand.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Ever since I made the decision to follow Christ when I was 14, this battle has been present. Only in the last two years of my life it seems it has turned into an all out WAR!! How is it possible that, one moment, I can proclaim with everything in me that I WILL FOLLOW CHRIST, and in the very next moment I can feel consumed by fleshly desires/thoughts/feelings? One example is in my prayer life. This happens to me quite often, I am in (seemingly) earnest prayer, asking that God's will be done in a certain situation, and AT THE VERY SAME TIME, the thought runs through my head, "Maybe if I pray for God's will, He'll be pleased with me and let me have what I REALLY want!!!!! HA! That is absolutely my flesh talking! And even though I KNOW that's my flesh, and I KNOW I don't want to follow my flesh, why do I think that's what I REALLY want? My Spirit knows what I REALLY want is God's will. Nevertheless, these thoughts run through my head and make me despise myself. I think, "If you truly love Christ, Kati, how could you even think such a thing!!??" (And yes, I know that fleeting thoughts aren't necessarily sin, it's the intentional decision to DWELL on those thoughts that becomes sin. Still.)
I often wonder and ask God why He couldn't have set things up differently. After all, I know better than He, right? (grin) Why is it that He couldn't have set up some system that protected us from bad thoughts once we made the decision to follow Him? Silly thing is, I ask these questions and I already know the answers. Christ Himself surely wasn't protected from temptation. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Hebrews 4:15 And I have even been known to argue with God and say, "But you really DON'T understand, because Christ was PERFECT. Human, yes, but still fully God and didn't really have the ability/capacity to sin. Jesus Christ in His life on earth wasn't like me, who has the DESIRE to be holy, yet CAN'T, no matter how hard I try, live it out. No, I don't understand it fully. Just read the verse again, Kati, and TRUST.
Why must we endure this battle? Can't we just skip this life and go straight to HOLY? For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14 What's up with describing us as "perfected" and "being sanctified" in the same sentence? Christ has already done the work and made us perfect. Gish, I really don't FEEL perfect!! For some reason known only to the Father, He purposes us to live out this life and go through the grueling sanctification process. So we're, in a sense, "becoming what we are". (Piper's words, not mine.) Figure that one out!!!!!! Can't we just skip straight to perfection, Lord? Please? Apparently there's value enough in the process itself that makes God say, "Yes, this is worth it. You MUST go through this."
When I screw up, ex. screaming at my kids, disrespecting my husband, etc., I recognize it pretty quickly as clear-cut SIN. This grieves my heart, and for some reason makes me want to beat myself up. (I've actually physically hit myself at times. You don't have to tell me how stupid that is!) A trusted friend recently told me I need to lighten up on myself. So, where's the balance between grieving over my sin and just accepting Christ's forgiveness and "letting it go"? I know Christ paid the price for my sin and I'm forgiven, that's not the problem. But why has He given me this desire to be holy that I can't reach? It is frustrating that I am not who I want to be, YET. But God's already given us the answer as to why it has to be this way, so I don't know why I keep asking. As I must, for now, live with the frustration, I will continue to need the encouragement from my brothers and sisters until the day I get to go HOME and can experience, at last, PERFECTION, in every sense of the word. And may God give me the grace to be an encouragement for them as they fight the same battle.
The answers to my questions are always found in His Word. I am SO THANKFUL for His Word. Yet, You are so mysterious, God. Thank you for the grace to trust You even when I don't understand.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Friday, April 11, 2008
What to write, what to write..........................
I have no idea what to write here. I like the idea of blogging.........kind of. I love to write my thoughts. And trust me, I have plenty of them. I've had this account open for several months and have thrown around the idea of writing anything on here, but I've put it off, going back and forth several times about whether or not I want to make my thoughts "public". And the truth is, only a small fraction of my thoughts would I feel comfortable making public. I struggle with pride. Surprise! So that presents a problem when writing in a public venue. I don't want to ever write anything with the intention of trying to sound impressive. So I hesistate to write anything at all because even admitting that publicly could turn into some twisted form of pride, like, "Maybe if I admit I struggle with pride everyone will think I'm so humble!" HA! I can't get around it anyway I try!
And that brings me to the next problem with this whole idea of blogging: I get a bit obsessive about grammar and spelling when I know others will be reading what I write. When I leave a comment on a blog, or when I email someone, it takes me FOREVER. Just a two-sentence email will take me sometimes 10 minutes to write, edit, erase, re-write, etc. What is with this paranoia that someone will find a spelling error on something I write? Am I terrified that they will think me less of a person? (Which I don't think less of someone just because they make a grammatical error. I happen to be MARRIED to one of the world's WORST spellers, and I love him dearly!!) So why do I obsess??? And even more than obsessing about grammar/spelling, I worry about, "What if people think I'm stupid for thinking/writing this? What if they think my thoughts are immature or stupid and therefore think less of me as a person? Come on, Kati! (You'll notice I talk to myself a lot!) Why do you care so much about what people think of you? If you have something to say, just say it! If you lived for what people thought of you, you'd have reason enough already to commit suicide. (No joke) I must learn ALWAYS to live only for what my Lord thinks of me.
Anyways, I don't know if I'll be writing on this blog much or at all. For some reason, today I had an urge to put down some thoughts. If ever I write anything else, I must first examine my heart to make sure that anything I write on here would be done with pure intention, NEVER to lift up myself, ONLY to lift up my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. (It is hard sometimes for me to believe that ANYTHING we do as humans can be done with 100% pure intention.) Nevertheless, I pray that everything I do or say would be all to His glory.
And that brings me to the next problem with this whole idea of blogging: I get a bit obsessive about grammar and spelling when I know others will be reading what I write. When I leave a comment on a blog, or when I email someone, it takes me FOREVER. Just a two-sentence email will take me sometimes 10 minutes to write, edit, erase, re-write, etc. What is with this paranoia that someone will find a spelling error on something I write? Am I terrified that they will think me less of a person? (Which I don't think less of someone just because they make a grammatical error. I happen to be MARRIED to one of the world's WORST spellers, and I love him dearly!!) So why do I obsess??? And even more than obsessing about grammar/spelling, I worry about, "What if people think I'm stupid for thinking/writing this? What if they think my thoughts are immature or stupid and therefore think less of me as a person? Come on, Kati! (You'll notice I talk to myself a lot!) Why do you care so much about what people think of you? If you have something to say, just say it! If you lived for what people thought of you, you'd have reason enough already to commit suicide. (No joke) I must learn ALWAYS to live only for what my Lord thinks of me.
Anyways, I don't know if I'll be writing on this blog much or at all. For some reason, today I had an urge to put down some thoughts. If ever I write anything else, I must first examine my heart to make sure that anything I write on here would be done with pure intention, NEVER to lift up myself, ONLY to lift up my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. (It is hard sometimes for me to believe that ANYTHING we do as humans can be done with 100% pure intention.) Nevertheless, I pray that everything I do or say would be all to His glory.
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