Sing it!!!

I was listening to a song called Sing It by Josh Wilson (video at bottom of page) and several thoughts came to mind.  If God places a song in our hearts, it's because he wants to hear us sing it.  (so #1 is to glorify him)  Confidently,  whole heartedly, maybe even running with your arms wide open!  How free does THAT sound?

Take what he has given you and belt it out!  He doesn't want it to remain dormant.  And it's not for you anyway (#2 it's for building up others). Others need to hear your song, so quit being prideful-even when that looks like scared-and SING IT!  When we allow others' songs to build us up, we see how important our music is for the kingdom of God.  So, don't stop.  Don't stop singing, but don't stop meeting.  We need you!  

Here are some scriptures references about how/why it's important to all meet together and bring our gifts (songs) to build one another up. 

1 Peter 4:10-11

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Romans 12:4-5

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Romans 14:19

So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Ephesians 4:14-16

 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Psalm 133:1

Behold, how good and pleasant it is

    when brothers dwell in unity!

Josh Wilson Sing It

http://youtu.be/iXdVD9foAg4

Confession time.

I don't like story time at the library. I go as far as looking up the times, but never go.

I don't plan meals (honestly I WISH I did)

I never take my kids to the park.

Sometimes I choose doing dishes over spending time with the kids because I just can't take one more person talking at me.

I escape to the bath tub, even if I don't need a bath because it's harder to be bothered in there. It's a good excuse. I'm a person that needs spurts of solid alone time. But not too much or I get nervous. A daily bath is good for this.

I like being indoors...outdoors not so much. I use mosquitos as an excuse to go back inside.

I don't know why, but I dread practices of any kind (violin, gymnastics) and all day long, I think about it until it's over. I just don't understand the mind of a sports mom, but I sure wish I had some of their enthusiasm! For real..

I love planning parties, but hate executing them.

I can literally eat a WHOLE bag of chips in one sitting.

Half an hour after my morning coffee, I feel like superwoman and that I could handle another couple of kids...then Asher fills a cup with juice and puts all of his Legos in it and while I'm cleaning that up he punches the dog and while I'm addressing that, the dog poops and...well...I come back crashing down.

If I don't see the bills they don't exist.

I've become a procrastinator but I didn't used to be.

Sometimes I yearn to work again and sometimes I take advantage of staying home to just be lazy.

Sometimes I "let" Zoe play extra long because I just don't feel like dealing with homework.

I feel like a bad mom a lot of the time.

I still think I'm a pretty good mom.

Thank you God for grace. And thank you God all of these don't happen everyday at the same time!!!! This may have seemed like a downer blog, but it's good to get it out sometimes, right?

Opportunity to choose

We had a bible study a while back and Alyson Johnson (14 and crazy wise beyond her years) asked a question.  She pondered about the fact that God made Adam and Eve and God and Adam and Eve had the perfect relationship with Him.  So, then HOW was it possible for them to ever have even THOUGHT of disobeying God.  How did that way of thinking even enter into their perfection?

Now that is a good question.  The sort of question you have to be smart to even ask.  That's the type of question that you don't even think to ask while you're busy studying the specific fruit that was eaten by Adam and Even for 40 years of your life while the most important questions lay unasked in your mind.

Anyway, that was a few months back, but just recently I was rereading the story of Adam and Eve (I've been stuck there, blissfully because I love it, for about a year and a half...I've written other blogs about it, written a very long poem about them and love to hear about them).  It's the beginning, ya know?  Our genesis.

Wow, I keep getting sidetracked.  I started to think about her question, too.  Pastor Steve, along with everyone in the bible study offered amazing insight into this and I left with new knowledge of the same Word I've been reading over and over.  I love that.  I was reading the account of what happened (found in Genesis 2) and I think that it was always meant to be this way.  I don't think they were always MEANT to eat of the fruit, God wanted them for Him (bad grammar, but it rhymed).  But he KNEW it would happen.

So, when did that thought enter their minds? That's my real question...

God gave Adam instruction and said, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat."

After this instruction and providing Adam with a helper, the serpent enters.  What I noticed (I'm FINALLY getting to it) is that only after God gives them instruction, after He gives them a chance to disobey, after he gives them a choice, does the serpent slither in.  He was always there, but we'd never heard anything about him until after these two things happened.  Choice and helpmate.

And (sigh) when there is a choice, there is a wrong choice.  Even when it's obvious (ya know...like booming-voice-of-God-obvious) there's a wrong one.  God always intended for his children to choose, because He yearned for us to choose Him!  But sometimes in just having a choice, we make ourselves little gods and get really high on making the decision.

But...God had to provide the chance to choose.

AND THAT, my friends, is when we see evil enter the scene.  As soon as God gave a rule, the evil one knew that He could possibly turn them to death.

The serpent is at home within your choices.  

I think what I learned from this and I hope you do too, is that the serpent always enters into a chance/choice/opportunity/rule.  If you are making a decision, try to recognize that God is with you and the serpent is close by.  Whispering doubts about your ability to follow the road that you know takes you to righteousness.  The serpent doesn't care if you take the wrong direction or the almost right direction, there is just ONE road he doesn't want you traveling and that is the road where you follow the still, small voice of your Creator, your Father, your Lover.  

The One who knows what's best for you and while He's already seen you make the wrong decision is begging you not to, anyway!  The One who formed you with the dirt of the planet where the enemy lives, and then breathed HIS BREATH into HIS CREATION.

God is love and He loves us.  

Love loves us!!!!  Are you getting it?  And even as we make the wrong decisions over and over and over, He loves us and fights for us.

***

I have one question that I haven't really thought through yet and I'll stick it here at the end with all of my rambling thoughts surrounding it.  It's probably actually the same question that Alyson asked except in a different format, but I'll ask it anyway because I LOVE discovering the Word all over again.


***Why was the tree of knowledge even there to begin with?  To offer a choice in itself?  For God's children to be forced to choose between knowing God or knowing knowledge?  If so, then we've failed.  Sometimes whole churches have failed, in that they seek knowledge instead of just seeking God and FINDING HIM!  I want knowledge, but I don't want it more than God.  I like knowledge, but I YEARN for my Father***

Climb the mountain with your hands wide open

Forgive the grammatical mistakes, I just need to get this out.

I was listening to a song on my phone, ear buds in, relaxing on the couch and suddenly some words popped into my head.  It was sort of visionary or something, like I was half dreaming.  Thought I'd share.  (BTW, this does NOT mean that I will do this one day, obviously, because I'm telling you now...I don't know why I saw it but I would ONLY share if I felt that I was supposed to...and I do).

It was during praise and worship at church and I had a microphone and was telling the congregation to hold their hands out in front of them and look at their palms.  To then visualize whatever problems they've been carrying around and can't let go of.  To look their problems square in the face and... face them.  Then, to raise their hands in the air and turns their palms out, away from them.  That was the way they'd let the problem go.  I asked them to see their problems/issues/addictions/whatever being swept away by a strong wind.  I was saying "no one will take these problems from you.  If you want them gone, you have to figure out a way to release your grip on them, lift them up and let them go.  This is on you right now."  Sounds harsh, but I wasn't even second guessing myself.  I was just saying it.

Then, (I don't know who I was speaking to), I was telling someone that even though they had let most of their problems go, that one problem they couldn't/wouldn't deal with had now taken on the weight of all of the problems combined that they had before.  It was because their hands had gotten used to holding a specific weight and until all of the weight was gone, none of the weight would be gone.

Maybe (just, maybe) I was talking to myself, who knows.  But we were singing a specific song that of course has words that go along with these thoughts, in a way.

The song is called Climb by Will Reagan and United Pursuit.  The lyrics and video are at the bottom, I highly encourage you to listen to the song, read the lyrics and search your heart to see what you can't release.

Imagine climbing the mountain (whatever big thing you're getting ready to do) with your hands wide open!!!  With nothing holding you back!  And maybe God won't let you NEAR that mountain until you've held your hands wide open before Him saying "take this, remove it from my life, I can't climb holding onto it"  I need grip.

Surrender.  Obey what He says to do next.

As you go to your church tomorrow and meet with your church family, lift up your hands and say "God, I give this to you!"  Prepare today by asking Him to search your heart and reveal to you what you need to let go of, if you don't already know.  Spend today in prayer reflecting and praising Him and thanking Him that tomorrow you will be brand new all over again.  Ready to face whatever mountain is coming.  You can't do this.  But when HE is in you, YOU LACK NOTHING.  

 Mark 9:23 

"'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

Climb by Will Reagan and United Pursuit I lean not on my own understanding My life is in the hands of the Maker of heaven I give it all to You God trusting that you'll make something beautiful out of me There's nothing I hold on to There's nothing I hold on to There's nothing I hold on to There's nothing I hold on to I WILL CLIMB THIS MOUNTAIN WITH MY HANDS WIDE OPEN  (repeat, repeat, repeat...) Here is the song:  http://youtu.be/vLPb7bfT2rg