I know this seems really basic–really rudimentary…I mean, totally foundational. But I decided to journal prayer my way through Psalm 139. It is taking me several days and I had hoped to have something truly profound to share here. HA! (There is that performance mentality thing I struggle with so much, rearing its ugly head again!)
Truth is, Psalm 139 really IS profound! All by itself!
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in–behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Psalm 139:1-6
I don’t even get to the “really good stuff” in this psalm before I have to stop and bow before my amazing, wonderful, kind, good, loving Lord.
Let me ask you this…as I ask myself. Are there activities that I tend to view as secular? You know…the sorts of things that I think fall outside of “God activities?” For instance, it is easy to see that going to church, having a quiet time, attending a fellowship group with other Christians and, maybe, even being with my family might be “sacred” activities. But what about website designing? What about grocery shopping? What about paying the bills for my 83 year old mom?
The truth is, in light of the above passage, it is clear that God certainly doesn’t draw a distinction between “secular” and “sacred.” The truth is every moment can be captured as a sacred one, every activity offered on the altar of my life, dedicated to God and His glory. I think this may be why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
All that I do can be dedicated to God’s glory, whether it is eating, drinking (the most mundane things in life!), serving in the nursery at church, pulling weeds, mucking stalls, riding horses, helping my son with his highschool chemistry work, vacuuming the carpet or doing the laundry. God cares about everything.
If he really is searching and knowing me, when I sit and when I get up, perceiving my thoughts, my going out and lying down…gosh, all my ways…can I really claim that he doesn’t care or has no opinion or thought about my eating, how I view my body, my self, the struggles that I have to give this area of my life to him?
A video version of some thoughts I have today as we begin:
In case you don’t want to take the time or have the internet speed to watch a video, basically what I share is this:
As I launched myself into the HEAL book by Allie Smith and Judy Halliday earlier today–really for the first time–I was struck by a thought immediately…This is such a fresh presentation of a message that I have become so familiar with it has almost become “old hat.” I don’t think I even realized it…but I had become a bit callused, jaded…something was off and I didn’t even realize it until I saw a new way of saying something that I have heard and written, spoken and read for years…My reaction to seeing it “done differently” showed me that I had kind of gotten skeptical or something! Not of the message, but of me or of the Lord’s ability to affect me…I don’t know. :-/
I was surprised by joy as I opened the cover of my HEAL book and began to read Acknowledgements and other introductory material. I appreciated Allie’s humility as she mentioned that Jesus met her in her brokenness and “breathed life into the empty parts of [her] soul.” This is a lady I can identify with.
In the Introduction, she mentioned “rising above the strongholds of food, eating, and body image”…amen. I am so done with strongholds in any form. The sanitized, “sanctified” versions of the very same strongholds that plague so many of our pre-Christian girlfriends, have assaulted the church of God and God’s precious daughters…including me!
Onward!
Let’s get right down to it…NOW. 🙂
Today I would like anyone who wants to see personal transformation in their life to evaluate:
“What am I willing to do to see change in my life?”
“Am I willing to experience some pain?” (Change IS often painful!)
“Am I willing to be vulnerable?”
This is a shared journey as Allie and Judy say on page 10.
What are you and I willing to do…what WILL we do…to be sure we aren’t isolating (which is where sin breeds more sin and shame breeds more shame) so that we can experience the personal transformation and abundant life that Jesus came to earth, died and rose again so that we might experience?
Feel free to answer here at the blog. I look forward to your responses! 🙂
Hi, everyone! Have a wonderful Lord’s Day! Today, I will relish the presence of God in the wilderness.
Last night, I confessed during bedtime prayers with my son and husband that I was anxious about today…helping on the worship team with songs that are out of my voice range…or certainly at the higher end AND having to play chords that I prefer to avoid (F# and G#m…ugh…) all at the same time. My son prayed that I would be filled with “a spirit of worship.” Oh wow…how perfect is that prayer.
I pray that all of us might be filled with a spirit…Spirit (big “S” perhaps, as it is the HOLY Spirit that floods us with a desire to worship the true God of the universe instead of to bow to self or something else!)…of worship today. May we bow before the true God and be flooded full of a desire to worship him no matter what circumstances face us!
About the HEAL study:
The assignment for this week from the HEAL book is as follows:
Read the beginning material…The Acknowledements, Introduction, Endorsements, and How to Use this Book. Based on this material, answer these questions:
1.) How does the author strike you? What does she seem to be like? 2.) What connection does she say this material has with Thin Within and/or Judy Halliday, if any? Does this connection encourage you? Concern you? Why? Why not? 3.) Consider inviting a friend on this HEAL journey with you…there are “Accountability Moments” throughout. Create a plan for using those to maximize all that these next 6 weeks can be for you. Options include: a real life friend who goes through the material, too; an online friend who goes through it too; or someone in email or who you can talk to on the phone who will just be there for you to process with when these “accountability moments” come up; someone to pray for you as well; lead a group through HEAL and take advantage of that as an opportunity for accountability; use this blog as a place to be accountable; create or write in your own blog as a place to be accountable and then tell us about it.
As you can see, there is no shortage of ways of being accountable.
Do Lesson 1: You Are Wonderfully Made, pages 15-29.
Prepare for the Group Study on pages 31-33
Additional Challenge: Memorize Psalm 139 – which provides a foundation for this study
By Friday, we will do the “Group Study” here at the blog and I will look forward to seeing your thoughts about this week. We will spend Friday (maybe even sooner) and any time through the weekend, interacting about the Group Study pages.
If you are not able to join us with the HEAL book, no worries! I trust that there will be something in the posts and dialog that others can glean from, even if they aren’t studying the HEAL book.
Pray for a willing heart to sustain you! Until the pain of staying where we are, overcomes the pain of moving forward toward change, we are bound to staying stuck. Let’s agree to ask God that he will give us the motivation to become “unstuck!” Even if it is painful! (Do we dare?)
My family and I had the joy of going to an archery lane with some friends who know their stuff. They taught us the basics and then we got to play. It was such fun!
Wow. If I could figure out a way to convey what it is that God has been really trying to teach me lately…oh, if only! My words simply don’t do it justice. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around it–so that is part of the problem.
The wilderness represents that place that I have always considered UNDESIRABLE. It is a place like the old joke says that you would rather be FROM than be in right now. For me, one example of a wilderness place is the place where I find myself unhappy with my physical body. I want something else. I want to be fitter, thinner, yada yada. When I view myself through my “wilderness hating eyes” all I can think of is “I have to get out of this place.” Discontentment. Worse than that…it is with a total lack of acceptance of the place. So applied to the body thing it is “I have to look different to be ok.” Obviously, this isn’t God’s plan for me, but before we dismiss it, consider how this so permeates our thinking in subtle ways…
In this place my eyes are fixated on “Canaan”…the place where the wilderness will only be a memory. To continue the analogy, it is the place where I hope to be thin, to have the body I feel ok about and living there “in freedom.” It is that place where I assume I will never worry about gaining weight back ever again, I will be “normal” and no longer “struggle.” Hmm…even thinking this through, I see the defects in my thinking! But let me press on.
I thought I had landed at the “desirable” place, in Canaan, and even stayed there a year. If all that this was about was the physical, then I had!
God showed me something…I had missed the point of the wilderness. Missed it COMPLETELY. If I had gotten the point of the wilderness, I wouldn’t have been in the state I was in once I arrived “in Canaan.” Once I was thin, I wouldn’t have been freaking out about staying there, clinging to the bathroom scale for all I was worth.
So off I trudged back into the wilderness again…very begrudgingly. Again, my eyes on the “if only” and discontentment with where I am now. The wilderness seems to be lackluster and stretch endlessly without any promise.
But…here is the thing…in the wilderness, at the farthest end (check your bible map) away from Canaan there emerges a place of wonder…Mt. Sinai. And what did God use Mt. Sinai to do? To rock the world of His people. To unveil His bigness. If parting the Red Sea wasn’t enough, if appearing as a pillar of cloud and fire daily wasn’t enough, if providing manna and an oasis, sweet water from bitter…if all of that wasn’t enough, God’s intention was to show up as holy, almighty GOD in a way that would cause Israel to know that He is God and that He wants a relationship with his people.
The wilderness is all about God. It isn’t about MY discontentment. It is where God takes me to learn to lean on him. If I relish the wilderness, I am learning to relish HIM and learning to value depending on HIM.
This is huge for me. It takes my eyes off of the supposed promise of things to come and causes me to anticipate the NOW. My physical body has little to do with anything really. What matters HUGELY is God…is GOD…is ALMIGHTY GOD!!!
He is challenging me…will I let go of my insistence that there even be a “land of promise?” Will I release my hold on the “if only” and allow my gaze to be pulled from Canaan? Will I crucify this posture of pride that says my hope is out there somewhere? Will I choose instead to relish this wilderness walk, in the now, and delight in the pillar as my Lord travels with me–NOW? Am I on the edge of my seat (so to speak) as to what God will do next, how he will show up, how reliable he is? How sufficient He is to be my all, to be what satisfies…no, not instead of food, but COMPLETELY??? Oh, my heart is convicted with the answers to these questions!
The wilderness is where “stuff happens!”
Check out Isaiah 35 by clicking this link. Look at all that happens when God shows up in the wilderness! WOW!
This blog is titled “God is Doing a New Thing.” That comes from yet another passage, Isaiah 43:18-19:
18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
This, too, is a description of the wilderness, the wasteland. Notice the word “IN!” It is IN the desert, the wasteland, IN that place where “it is good to be FROM” supposedly where God does a new thing…constantly…This is out IN the wilderness. He is at work. He wants me to relish the Wilderness Walk because there I can see HIM at work, I can experience HIS awesomeness, I can know HIM. More than my health, being thin and fit…blah blah blah…oh how he wants my heart!
In Hosea 2 God speaks of rebellious Israel this way:
14Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
The wilderness is an opportunity to know Him. It is definitely related to letting go of the bathroom scale, too. That piece of metal kept me constantly looking somewhere else other than now and here. I missed what God was doing NOW. He wants me…not just for the purpose of him being enough so that I don’t turn to food and can get thin. He wants me PERIOD.
Lord, please work in me a true delight in the Wilderness Walk. May I thrill to being alone with you, leaning on you, waiting for you and seeing you show up and be God. Open my eyes that I might not miss a thing. Keep my eyes and heart from any focus but being here, now, with you. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Hi, folks! YES! I will begin the HEAL book on Monday, October 5th! I will try to go slow enough to linger 6 weeks…that should take through Thanksgiving or just about. But I have so many other things to share…yes yes yes…the journey through the wilderness…the focus being getting OUT of the wilderness…God is showing me so many things! 🙂 I am glad that others are being shown this too! I don’t feel quite so “out of it!”
I must confess that I have waaaaay overextended myself in personal commitments. Thus, the reason I haven’t blogged much. I haven’t even ridden my horses! Today was the first time in over a month! You know life has gotten too crazy when I won’t take my time with my ponies! 🙂
I hope to write more tomorrow or this weekend. I hope some of you will join me as we study HEAL by Allie Smith and Judy Halliday!
