Real Life - A Weekly Blog Devotional

With an hour to kill sitting in the bleachers at my daughter’s gymnastics lesson, I decided it would be a good time to finish up my homework for Bible Study the next morning. I pulled out my copy of Lord, I Want to Know You by Kay Arthur, my favorite pen, and my shiny new, green, spiral notebook, and settled in to study.

As I read the chapter, two questions the author asked jumped out at me:

1. Why do you think it is important to know Him as Creator?

And

2. What role has God had in your life?

Drowning out the noisy gym, I let my mind chew on these questions for awhile. Why is it important to remember He is the Creator? I asked myself. And I wondered if someone asked, What role has God played in your life? how I would answer.

I opened up my new notebook and put my favorite pen to work brainstorming. Here are some of my disorganized thoughts on these two questions:

• Knowing Him as Creator, reminds me of His power. The same One who created stars so large I cannot fathom them, and who’s very fingerprints are all over the tiniest of cells my eyes cannot even see, is the same One who knows me AND He is knowable. Amazing! This knowledge leads to worship and gratitude.
• Knowing Him as Creator leads to humility. I am reminded that I am created, He is my Creator, therefore I submit to Him, to His will, His ways, and have no right to dictate how things should be. (Job 38) I don’t even know enough to know how He does the simplest of things in creation, how can I then tell Him how to run my life?
• Knowing Him as Creator, reminds me that He is worthy of my trust. As my eyes sees all that He has made around me, and as I’m reminded of how mighty He is, how powerful that He could speak life into existence, I’m no longer anxious or afraid. I am His.

And how would I respond to what role God has played in my life? Well….that would take a very long book to write. : ) But here is a shorthand list:

• He had a plan for me, my life, my purpose, and my salvation before the foundation of the Earth.
• He created me. Perfectly. Even with my imperfections. He allowed my left eye to be small and blind for a purpose and my body, my personality, my mind, everything to be formed according to those plans and purposes He had for me before time began.
• He called me and accepted my little girl invitation to come into my life and be my Savior.
• He directed my life, but gave me free will to decide to love and follow Him.
• He forgave me every time I strayed, and welcomed me back with open arms. (Still does)
• Allowed trials, hard things to draw me to a deeper relationship with Him, more reliance on Him, a stronger character, and an ability to comfort and minister to other people in a way I would never have been able to do if I hadn’t been there myself. During all of it, He carried me and comforted me.
• He healed my broken heart and made me whole again
• He gave me hope, purpose, and eternity.
• He filled me with peace that is unexplainable and completely outside of the circumstances in my life.
• He loves me with a love that NO ONE and NO THING can ever take away from me.
• He is my everything, my very reason for existing.

Now it’s your turn. Because meditating on these two questions blessed me so much this week, I wanted to deviate from my regular devotion format and encourage you to contemplate these questions yourself this week. Feel free to use the comment section to do some brainstorming and sharing of your own. It would be awesome for me to read what your thinking about our Creator.

Love,

From God’s Word:

Click and Read Matthew 6:19-21

Key Verse:

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. -Matthew 6:20 (NIV)

Without Googling his name, can you tell me who Millard Fillmore is?

A few history buffs will be able to tell me, but most of us won’t have a clue.

Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States of America. You would think we would know the name of someone who held such a prestigious office, right? If I don’t even know the name of someone who was president, who will ever remember me when I’m gone? Does this life even matter?

It is a sad fact that most of us will be completely forgotten within two, maybe three, generations after we pass away. Here today, gone tomorrow. No matter how much we gain or accomplish, no matter how noble the causes we fight for, no matter how powerful the positions we hold, our lives truly are just a vapor.

Solomon saw it. When he looked at the works of mankind, he said, “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14 NIV).

This has been a reoccurring theme for me this week. I’ve been reminded so much in sermons and my own study time, that time is short. So what am I doing with it? With the time I have been given, is it possible to do something meaningful? Can I devote myself to something more than chasing after wind?

I’ve been looking at my life and doing some self-inventory. I don’t have the answers yet, but I’ve been going through my day today asking:

• What in my life has eternal value?
• In what ways am I investing in eternity?
• What activities am I wasting my time on?

It’s been good just to ask the questions. If this is all there is, then life is utterly meaningless. I should just go have fun, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow I die. But since this is not all there is, I want to build a life that is meaningful and purposeful.

Our pastor taught us this weekend that the key to a purposeful life is doing life as if you are doing it unto God. Whatever you do, do it unto Him. I’m not famous or powerful. I am a mom. I’m a wife. I’m a homemaker. Not very exciting!

Cleaning my toilets, changing the diapers, serving my family, all of these appear meaningless, but they have the potential of being more eternally significant than being President of the United States if done with the right heart. If I do my life, the things I’ve been called to do, and do them as if I was doing them for God and for His glory, that work will last. And it will bring me joy.

Personal Application:

Do your own self-inventory this week:

• Can you identify ways you are chasing after wind and wasting time?
• How are you investing in eternity?
• If you were to die tonight, is your life in order? What would you be able to take with you?
• Are you ignoring eternity or building up treasure there?
• How can you do your own life as if unto God? What meaningless activities can become eternally significant just by changing your heart and attitude about them?

Dear Lord,

Thank you that this life is not it. Give me an eternal perspective and help me to build my life in a way that will have eternal significance. Help me to set aside the things that are worthless and to strive for the things you value. Show me how to do my everyday life for you.

In Jesus’ Name I pray,

Amen

More of God’s Word:

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. - Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)

From God’s Word:
Click and Read Matthew 14:22-33

Key Verse:
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” - Matthew 14:30 (NIV)

I made a startling discovery this week.

There are some awesome people out there doing some amazing things for the Lord, and I DON’T MEASURE UP!

When the kids are tucked in for the night, I love to put my feet up, grab my laptop, and surf my favorite blogs. There are some that I follow on a regular basis and look forward to seeing what has been going on in the lives of my blogging buddies. This week, it became clear to me that my blogging buddies are stellar people. I came across stories of people feeding the hungry, traveling to Africa to serve orphans and other ministries, families adopting here and abroad, people reaching out and ministering to hurting people. Others who are missionaries far from home.

A great wave of discouragement rolled over me. Inventory of my life showed much lacking: Inconsistent prayer life, no time in the Word, nothing done to meet the spiritual or physical needs of hurting people. In my own estimation, I’ve been boring, blah, and of little value to the Kingdom of God.

As I pushed my stroller along the greenbelt on Thursday afternoon, I prayed about the situation. And I got a strange answer.

The Holy Spirit said to my heart, “Turn your eyes off of yourself and on to the glory of Jesus.”

I remembered Peter walking on the water to meet Jesus. As long as his eyes were locked on the Lord, he was doing the miraculous, but as soon as he took his eyes off the Lord, looked at the waves and thought about his own inability to do what he was doing, he sank.

When my eyes and focus are locked on Jesus, I will reflect His glory to this hurting world. When I’m stuck focusing on myself and my sin and failures, I get nowhere other than discouraged. My eyes this week have been on the wrong person.

Awhile ago, I read about a mom who was seriously struggling to love her adopted teenage daughter. She confided in a missionary friend how difficult this girl was to love. The missionary told her, “Quit working so hard to love her. Instead focus on loving God. That is where you will find the ability to love her.”

God’s purpose in my life is to make me more and more like Jesus. Focusing on my sin and failures won’t make me more like Jesus. Focusing on Jesus will make me more like Jesus.

Personal Application:

Read this excerpt from Andrew Murray’s book Humility:

Being occupied with self, even having the deepest self-abhorrence can never free us from self. Not to be fully occupied with your sin but to be fully occupied with God brings deliverance from self. This gives us the answer to the question so often asked and seldom clearly understood: How can I die to self? Death to self is not your work: it is God’s work.

Commit today to turn your eyes off of yourself and on to the Lord Jesus, desiring to know Him more, so you can reflect Him more. That is when you will make a significant impact on this hurting world.

Father,

In Jesus’ Name I pray,
Amen

More of God’s Word:

1. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)

2. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
- 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 (NIV)

Turning my eyes to Jesus,

From the Word:
Click and Read Isaiah 55:6-11

Key Verse:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. -Isaiah 55:8 (NIV)

Yesterday, I went on a field trip to the zoo with my daughter’s Kindergarten class. The highlight of the trip for me was seeing this guy:

My friend, Daiquiri, took this picture with a simple digital camera and no zoom lens. We were literally this close to him, the only thing separating us was a sheet of glass. It was surreal to be so close to a lion. Awe inspiring, really.

Mildly curious, but undisturbed by the strange humans oohing and awing over him, he lounged right by the front of the cage the entire time we were in front of him. He almost appeared cuddly, like I could reach out and pat his furry mane or snuggle up next to him for a nap. But then I saw the scars on his face and realized, this guy is for real. He’s not some play thing or a pet. He’s dangerous and unsafe. Thank goodness for that glass between us!

The adults seemed to have a healthy respect for him, but the kids were clueless of how dangerous he was as they climbed on the outside of the exhibit and pounded on the glass. Many grew bored with it all and wanted to move on, while their parents stood and stared.

“How often do we see God this way?” I wondered. As clueless little children, forgetting His majesty and power, expecting Him to be “cuddly” and “safe” and to do our own bidding, according to our own will?

C.S. Lewis wove a similar theme throughout his Chronicles of Narnia series. In the books, Aslan the Lion represents Christ. Often the characters are reminded that Aslan is “not a tame Lion.” He is powerful, merciful, loving, kind, and trustworthy, but he is not tame, predictable, controllable, or even safe.

I love this quote from Lewis’ novel, The Last Battle:

Do you think I keep him in my wallet, fools?” said Tirian. “Who am I that I could make Aslan appear at my bidding? He’s not a tame lion.”

I enjoyed watching Disney’s movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where this concept appeared again through this scene:

Mr. Tumnus: [of Aslan] He’s not a tame lion.

Lucy Pevensie: No… but he is good.

What a MIGHTY God we serve! How worthy of our worship! How strong on our behalf! Thank God that He is not safe, not a puppet who dances at our whims, nor a small thing to be contained in the box of our limited understanding. He is HUGE, MAJESTIC, AWESOME, and not at all tame.

Yet, He loves me. He always acts in my defense and on my behalf. All that He does is good, even when I don’t understand it. How safe that makes me feel!

And He loves you. Even when He isn’t doing what you think He should. Even when His ways are incomprehensible to you, when it feels like He is doing it all wrong, remember that He isn’t tame, but He is GOOD.

Personal Application:
Are there circumstances in your life where God isn’t acting as you think He should? Take time to confess your desire to control and tame Him. Ask His forgiveness and worship Him despite the circumstances.

I’m not sure who said this, but it fits, “If God were small enough to understand, He wouldn’t be big enough to worship.” God is worthy of our worship. AND He is knowable. We can snuggle up to Him and feel safe and protected, unlike the lion at the zoo. We just can’t expect to control Him.

Father, I worship You. Your ways are not my ways. I submit to Your perfect will. Forgive me for the times I have been more concerned about my own will than Yours and expected you to do my bidding. Thank you for your forgiveness and patience with me. Thank you that in the midst of your majesty and power, you love me, and know me, and have my best interest at heart. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen

More of God’s Word:

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. - Romans 11:33-36 (NIV)

From the Word:

Click and Read Colossians 3

Key Verses:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24

Hi, my name is Becky, and I’m an approval junkie.

Words of praise, acknowledgement for a job well done, and positive feedback are gold to me. When I was in elementary school, I loved getting assignments back with a “Scratch ‘n Sniff” sticker and words like “Way to Go” or “Fantastic” written across the top in red ink.

As an adult, I often long for that same kind of encouragement. When I get done scrubbing a toilet, no one hands me an “Excellent Work” certificate. Most of the time, no one even notices a clean toilet. The other day, I actually dragged my poor husband into the bathroom to show off my handiwork. I had used a new steam cleaner, and I wanted him to see how shiny it all was. Trying to be enthusiastic, the best he could come up with was, “It smells nice and disinfected!” Not exactly the glowing praise I was after. : )

Recently, God gave me some ministry assignments. I struggled with them at first because I wasn’t getting feedback. There wasn’t anyone telling me if I was doing things “right” or “well.” I wasn’t even sure if He was using the work at all or if anyone was even aware of the work I was doing. And when I reached out and took the risk of looking for affirmation from people, it was all falling flat. I started to doubt God had called me at all. My natural self wanted to quit. I felt apathetic about the work because I figured no one was paying attention anyway. It became drudgery to do the work.

It took time to figure it out, but my attitude is slowing changing. I’m learning I am doing it for an “audience of One.” There is only One person to please, only One who needs to see. And whatever I do, in word or deed, it should be done with excellence, because it is done for Him!

Personal Application:

We can forget that as followers of Christ, our WHOLE lives need to be lived for Him. There should be no separation of religious and secular aspects of life. Everything needs to be done as an act of worship.

Take a look at your attitude about the work you do. Are you doing it with excellence? Are you finding joy in doing it for Him? Talk to Him about it this week. Ask Him to breathe new life into the way you look at your responsibilities. Ask Him to show you how to make them your own acts of worship and gifts to Him.

Do you crave affirmation and approval? Do you find it hard to do work where there will be no affirmation or encouragement? Ask Him to help you crave His approval and to get the encouragement you need from Him. He has already accepted you and loves you. Your worth is not determined by your boss’ opinion of you nor by that important person you hope to impress.

Father,
Help me to desire your approval above the approval of anyone else. Give me the desire to work hard for you. Make my everyday activities acts of worship to you. Be glorified through me and forgive me for the times when I want the glory for myself. Where I have experienced discouragement, I pray you will build me back up and renew me. Help me to see that my worth is in belonging to you, not in the opinions of other people. Thank you for loving me and accepting me. Thank you for giving me a unique purpose and gifts that I can use for you and your Kingdom.

In Jesus’ Name I pray,
Amen

More of God’s Word:
1. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. 1 Thessalonians 2:4 (NIV)

2. Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. - Galatians 1:10 (NIV)

3. The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ - Matthew 25:40 (NIV)

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” - Matthew 2:2

Christmas is on its way! Preparations for the season are happening around my house, too. I’m excited to have my Christmas cards ready to go weeks earlier than I did last year, and my husband and I are working through our shopping list. Only a few more gifts to go! I love Christmas, and I’m having so much fun.

But as much fun as it will be to bake gingerbread cookies with my mom while she’s visiting this week, or to decorate our tree on Tuesday night, I know preparing for Christmas needs to start in my heart. These traditions and memory making things are great, but this year I want to make worship a top priority.

These videos came to my email inbox just in time to help me with that priority. I hope you’ll watch them, too. I’m praying they will touch your heart as much as they did mine. They left me in awe of how great God really is and in awe of what Christmas means. This great God, the One who is beyond all we can comprehend, came to Earth as a tiny baby to give us hope. The God who created the stars, cares about little me and little you. How small we are, yet how great is His love and faithfulness. Worship Him!

This is only Part One and Part Two of a five part series. Here are links to view the message in its entirety:

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

I hope you have a wonderful week worshipping our great God!

Love,