Journey through Genesis: Jacob and Esau

A year ago at Christmas I received a chronological daily Bible.  I had intended to read through it last year but instead decided to take time and walk through the psalms, which was a sweet, rich time.  This year I have finally made it to the Chronological Bible and may I just say that I love it!  The Lord has been speaking to me so much through this so far this year (go figure, it is His Word afterall).   I would love to share thoughts, comments, and questions as I read through this with anyone who would like to follow along.

I may go back next and update a few of the prior things that I feel like God has taught me about earlier passages of Genesis, but what I want to write on today is something fresh on my heart.

Yesterday and today I have been reading about Jacob and Esau in Genesis 27-28.  Honestly, after yesterday’s reading where Jacob deceitfully swiped Esau’s blessing I felt a little down and confused.  I felt sorry for Esau.  His own mother betrayed him, his brother robbed him of his birthright and his blessing, and clearly poor Esau was still trying to win the approval of his father (Gen 28:8-9).  Why did God stand for that?  Why did he honor a blessing that was stolen?  Sure, I have heard explanations of this passage before, but this morning as I came to the Lord I posed some of these questions to Him.  

I wrote this in my journal:

“The story of Jacob and Esau is very sad to me, honestly, and one I do not fully understand.  Why does God honor a blessing that was deceitfully taken?  There is so much I do not understand here Lord, but I trust you.”

Right after, I felt like God deposited an explanation in my spirit.  This is what I felt like the Lord revealed to me about this rather complicated story that I wrote in my journal next:

“If Jacob lied and still received the blessing, favor, and covenant of God, then I must conclude that the reason for these things must not be based on the actions of Jacob but on the goodness of God.  And I am encouraged that if it is not by merit, than the blessing in my life is also not merit based, but grace based.  Thank you Lord, for the blessing and favor you pour out on my life, and the covenant that you make with me, not because of my own merit but because of the grace that is available to me in Jesus Christ.”

Later in Genesis 28:10-22 we see God renew His covenant that He made with Abraham and Isaac to Jacob.  God says to Jacob in a dream, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you and your offspring the land that you are now sleeping on.  Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north and the south.  All the peoples of earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.  I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you intil I have done what I promised to you.”

Jacab wakes up, makes a little marker to consecrate the place, and then makes the following vow:

“If God will be with me and watch over me on this journey, if He provides me with food to eat and clothing to ear, and if I return safely to my father’s house, then the  Lord will be my God.”

Wow, 2 things strike me about this text that are in direct contrast to one another.  The first are the words “I WILL” from God’s covenant.  The second are the words “IF…THEN” from Jacob’s vow.  Jacob’s vow is conditional, but God’s covenant is unconditional.

Our vows are so very weak, but God’s covenant is unbreakable and unending.  His covenant that He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was not based on them following through with their end of the bargain.  HE was the one who made the covenant, and HE was the one who kept the covenant.  Our “vows” will fall short time and time again.  How many times did the Israelites, the people of God, in all earnestness cry out, “We will be faithful to you this time God!  We will not sin against you…we will not worship any other God’s but you!”  And sentences later they are back into full-fledged idolatry.   And how many times do we, do I, make vows to God and turn around and break them an instant later!  This is why Jesus himself tells us very clearly do not make vows.  We can’t do it, we may mean well, we may have the best of intentions, but we will fall short every time if our vow is trying to be upheld in our own strength. 

Ah, but thanks be to God that our relationship to God does not rely on our own vow of commitment to Him, but rather we can rest in the unbreakable commitment he Has sworn to us.  God has made a new covenant to all who believe in Jesus.  Very simply, He offers to take our sin and give us His righteousness if we will but believe.  He takes our death and gives us life forever in Him.  He offers us a relationship with Him not based on our goodness, not based on our promise to be faithful and true to Him, not based on us doing enough good works to earn His affection… no, He makes His covenant based on and sealed by the blood of Christ.  As it says in 2 Timothy 2:13, “if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.”  Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose again, Jesus did it all. 

Thank you, Lord, that my relationship with you is not based on my fickle affections, but on your steadfast character and unfailing Name.     

How to trap a Fruit Fly

Confession: lately we have had an infestation of fruit flies in our kitchen.  I must say that there is little that I find more annoying than fruit flies!  The things multiply like crazy and claim any sort of sweet food that is not actively guarded within a matter of seconds.  And on top of it, they just make you feel gross, like you have a dirty house and contaminated food.  So needless to say, we have been making every effort to get our little fruit fly problem under control quickly.  I have been cleaning and sanitizing our kitchen like it is a hospital and quickly picking up food that is not being eaten (which is surprisingly often with a 3 year old). 

In addition, we have set out a number of fruit fly traps.  If you’ve never seen a fruit fly trap before, it is surprisingly easy to make.  Rather than actively pursuing and hunting down to fruit flies, the traps work by slowly luring them in.  We set out a few bottles with apple cider vinegar and a little piece of really ripe banana.  The flies are immediately attracted to the bottle, but it takes them a while to venture down inside.  They sit around the rim of the bottle for quite some time.  After about a day or so, they start to get a bit more comfortable and go down into the bottle.  As you can guess, they can’t get back out and wind up drowning themselves in the alluring death trap awaiting them.  I know this sounds a little harsh, but did I mention just how annoying these little bugs are?

Surprisingly, the Lord used these fruit fly traps to teach me a very important lesson about sin and death.  He showed me that just like these fruit flies, the most effective way that we are lured in and trapped by sin is slowly and subtly, and that ultimately we are being seduced to death.  Let me give you a few examples of what I mean.

The enemy doesn’t catch many of us with the allure of going and killing someone right off the bat.  We know better than that.  Rather, he uses the slow, seductive trap of bitterness, resentment, unresolved anger, unforgiveness.  These smell sweet to us.  We can justify them, and find ourselves being sucked in by a very convincing lie.  In our bitterness and resentment, we believe the lie that we are justified in our anger.  Someone has wronged us, and we believe that it is our right to be angry with that person who has not asked or sought out our forgiveness.  Yes, we know that the Bible says to forgive up to 70 x 7, but this is different…do you know what they did to me…they clearly don’t deserve that sort of forgiveness and surely Jesus would agree with us if he knew the specifics of our situation.  And so we sit on the rim of the trap, just stewing there for a while.  After sitting there long enough, we become comfortable.  I’m fine, I’m not in any danger here…maybe I’ll just take a little peek inside and go a little deeper.  And so we are lured in, the end ultimately being death. 

 

In the garden when Satan tempted Eve and the Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and disobey God, they did not experience physical death immediately.  But death was certain and did in fact come, for them and for all people.  In the same way, we may not experience the death from our sin immediately, but ultimately all sin does lead to death.  The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death.”  There is no sin that does not lead to death. 

Here are a few more “fruit fly” traps that I feel we can easily get sucked into and the lies that we believe, luring us in…

-Sexual impurity….”It’s just today’s culture to have sex before marriage and is not realistic to think that people will be virgins when they marry.  Don’t be so old fashioned.”

-Overindulgence (materialism and gluttony)…”I deserve it.  I don’t want to wait for later, I want it now.”

-Pride…”God didn’t give me this, I earned it, I did it.”

-Selfishness….”They owe me.  When they ___, then I’ll ___. ”

-Harshness, unkindness, irritability…”They made me act that way.  I had no choice, did you hear the way they treated me?”

 

These are just a few areas where the Lord showed me we are so easily lured in to death.  We sit on the rim, justifying our behavior even though we know that the Bible teaches us contrary.  We know what  the Bible teaches us about forgiveness, purity, self control, humility, selflessness, and lovingkindness, etc, but often times what we don’t realize is that the reason God commands us to abide in these is to lead us to life!  Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

 

My prayer for you today is that the Lord will show you if you are sitting on the rim of a trap and lead you you life instead of death.  One more observation that I will share with you about my fruit fly traps is that the fruit flies are never sitting there alone.  They always have company sitting on the rim with them.  Don’t look around at the others in your life to see if you are “safe” from sin and death.  Rather, look up.  Look at the Lord, seek to see what His Word says knowing that it is there to lead you unto life, and ultimately to life found in Jesus Christ. 

May God bless you richly.

 

Power Source

The other day, my almost 3 year old was helping me with the laundry…a task I will most certainly encourage!  After throwing the clothes in the dryer together, he wanted to push the buttons to start the dryer "all by himself".  He wanted to push the red button first (which was the stop/pause button) and I tried to explain to him that unless he pressed the power button first, all of the other buttons were useless.

This is a very familiar concept to us in our power laden culture.  We rely heavily on electrical power, battery power, etc.  It is common sense to us that if the cell phone is powered off, then it cannot make or receive calls, send texts, take pictures, or do anything else that we do with our phones today.  If the lamp is not first plugged in, it will not work.  We even see this principle to be true in our bodies and the way we are made.  Our spinal cord is like the power cable to the rest of our body.  In cases where the spinal cord is severed, even though the arms and the legs have no problem in themselves, they become completely useless if their power source has been cut off. 

As I meditated on this concept, the Lord showed me that the same principle is very  much true in our spiritual life as well.  If we do not first plug into the power source, every other attempt to do any work in our own strength is useless and ineffective. 

How often do we jump up and attempt to start the day and forget to connect to our power source?  Do you find yourself frustrated, feeling like you can never get it all done, inefficient, ineffective?  Are you drained, weary, continually tired feeling like you have no energy to tackle the tasks before you?  I would propose that maybe it is time to recharge your battery, maybe you need to remember to switch on your power.

But what is this power source?  Let’s see what the Bible has to say:

1 Cor 1:24 Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom

Acts 10:38 “…God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

Luke 1:35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

1 Thes 1:5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. …

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Rom 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 40:29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

John 15:4-5 Abide in me (Jesus), and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

There are so so so many more verses I could keep listing about power, but I believe a few things have been made clear. 

1.    God is power. 

We see in these verses all three parts of the Trinity as the source of power.  The Most High God, the Father, is the source of power and thus endues and anoints with power.  Jesus Christ, the son of God and God Himself, is the Power of God.  The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of God and the third person of the Trinity, is the power of God poured out on us.

2.    The Gospel is Power. 

 

The Gospel is not merely something to be shared with someone once to bring them to salvation in Christ.  The Gospel is more than just good news for unbelievers.  The Gospel is greater than just words.  The Gospel is power!  The Word, or the Gospel, has always been (John 1:1-2) and always will be (1 Peter 1:24-25).  When we receive and abide in the Word of God, we receive and abide in Power.

 

3.    The Power of God is made available to us.

 

It is amazing to me to think that not only is God powerful and the source of all power, but that God makes that power available to us through Himself.  He does not hoard it and keep it all, He doesn’t Lord it over us as a cruel master, He is not corrupted by it.  But rather, in fullness of power He invites us to come to Him and tap into His limitless power.  He invites us to abide in Him.  He offers up His Holy Spirit to come and to dwell in us and anoint us with power from on high. 

 

Wow, what an offer!  My question of response to you is, are you taking Him up on this offer?  Are you tapping into God, the source of all power, by abiding in His presence, His Word, and receiving His Holy Spirit?  I will leave you with one final thought that I read from my Streams in the Desert devotional this morning:

“We are able to have as much of God as we want.  Christ puts the key to His treasure chest in our hands and invites us to take all we desire.  If someone is allowed into a bank vault, told to help himself to the money, and leaves without one cent, whose fault is it if he remains poor?  And whose fault is it that Christians usually have such meager portions of the free riches of God?”

I pray today that you will tap into the limitless and powerful presence of God.  I pray that you will indulge deeply in the free riches of God.  And indeed, as Paul writes in His letter to the Romans, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”              

       

Trusting God Completely

I recently had the privilege of doing the devotional for my MOPS group.  Here is what the Lord put on my heart.  I hope it is a blessing to you all as well!

 

Taking the Plunge:  Trusting God Completely

We all know that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to believe Him, to trust Him completely. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 is a very familiar to many.  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.” 

Psalm 62:8 says “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

We know we are called to trust God completely.  This is not really where the issue lies.  But knowing we are to trust Him and truly living this are two very different things.  So the question that I will focus on today is how?  How do we trust Him completely?  How do we trust Him with our children, our husbands, our families, the daily stresses of life, the big life altering challenges that we face?  How do we “trust in Him at all times”; how do we trust Him “with all of our heart”? 

First and foremost we must determine if God is truly trustworthy. 

Who is God?  What is He like?  We know from scripture that God is unchanging…He is immutable, His Character forever constant.  So who is He, and what is His Character? 

If you have never truly dug into this question before, I would encourage you to spend some time digging here for yourself.   Truly knowing who God is, believing it, knowing it in the very fabric of who you are is foundational.  It is not something that someone can tell you in a 15 minute MOPS devotional.  But when you seek Him, meditate on His Word, spend time with Him in prayer, you will find Him, you will learn His character.  In order to trust Him completely, you must first know who He is, because How can you trust someone that you do not know?  Let me tell you a little bit about who the Bible says God is…let me tell you about my God:

My God is all powerful, all knowing, ever present, unchanging, completely sovereign, wise, good, faithful, true, strong, victorious, gracious, perfectly just, loving, merciful, compassionate.  Most of all, my God is trustworthy.

So, who is your God?  Is He trustworthy?  If so, trust Him.  If not, then why are you wasting your time being a Christian?  If God is not trustworthy, then quit believing because all of this is for naught!  But if He is, then choose to trust Him.  Our faith in God must based on His character, not on our circumstances.

So how do we trust Him regardless of the circumstances?  We are going to dig deeper with 3 more points…

1.       Focusing on the Who and not the what

2.       Focusing on the Who and not the what if

3.       Focusing on the Who and not the why

First: Focusing on the Who and not the what

There are and always will be things in life that attempt to draw our eyes off of God and place them on the reality of our circumstances.  This can be especially true as a mom…a sick child, a rebellious child, a disobedient child, a needy child, a messy child…you get my drift.  It may be a stress at work, family problems, marital conflict, financial stress.  Life is messy and there will always be something,  The size of that something really doesn’t matter…it may be a big “what”, it may be a small “what”, but the tactic of the enemy is always to get your eyes off of the Who and onto the what.

But regardless of what our eyes may see, our minds may perceive, our senses may assess, we must know that the reality of God is greater and more real than anything we are going through.  There are many, many stories in scripture that teach us that God is bigger than our circumstances, and that regardless of the “what” we can trust Him.

In the Old Testament, for example, there is the story of the Exodus.  God’s people, enslaved to the Egyptians for 400 years, have just been radically set free by a mighty work of God.  But soon they find themselves backed up to the Red Sea with an angry Egyptian army hot on their trail.  Things look bad…things look very bad.  If there was ever a time to stop trusting God, the circumstances would tell the Israelites that this was it.  The reality of their circumstances said that they were all about to be slaughtered or taken back into slavery.  But, having history on our side, we know the end of this story.  In a grand finale sort of miracle, God, the great miracle worker, comes through and parts the Red Sea.  His people all walk across on dry land.  The Egyptian army, who try to follow, are then swallowed up by the sea …and hooray, God wins the day.  God’s ability and God’s reality was very different than the reality of their circumstances.  Moral of the story…trust Him, no matter how bad things look.    

Think also of the stories of: The Battle of Jerico where the army of God fell the impenetrable walls with a trumpet’s blast, the victory of Gideon’s tiny army of 300 over the much much larger Midianite army, God saving Judah from the unstoppable and cruel Assyrian army in the days of Hezekiah, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead after 4 days in the grave, Peter walking on water with Jesus, Peter being miraculously set free from jail when he was facing certain death…and on and on the list goes.  In all of these and many more, God shows us that the reality of God is greater than the reality of our circumstances.  So rather than focusing on our circumstances, rather than focusing on the what, focus on the Who.  Can we be certain that God will always come through with the rescue, with the miracle…no.  But when we focus on the Who, we remember that no matter what we can trust Him because He is Good, He is Trustworthy, and He is faithful.   He will never leave us, and He will never forsake us. 

Secondly, we must focus on the Who and not the what if.

I think for me, this is one of the greatest challenges.  More than the what or they why, the “what if” can rouse the greatest amount of fear in me. 

What if something happens to my husband…this family cannot function without him?  Why hasn’t he called yet…maybe he got in an accident?  What if something happens to my son? What if he runs into the street or gets hit by a car in the parking lot...what if he gets sick with some kind of crazy disease?  What if something happens to both Ethan and I, what will happen to Eli?  One after the other, these terrifying thoughts assault me continually.  Sometimes, this can even be a very “spiritual” sounding attack.  Often times to me I will hear, “well, you know God’ll be with you and use it for good, but He is going to make you go through something really terrible.  A storm is coming, and you’ll come out stronger in the end, but it’s going to be bad so get ready.” 

And just like that, the enemy has stolen my joy and replaced it with fear.  He had taken my eyes off of the Who and focused them on the what if.  Can anyone else relate?  

The enemy knows that if he get our eyes off of a faithful and trustworthy God and onto the what if of the future, than he can cancel out our faith with fear.  He can render us ineffective in our Kingdom Work, He can steal our joy, our peace, and ruin our witness.  Think about it, he doesn’t even have to do anything but get us worrying about something that may or may not ever even happen and he has paralyzed us with fear.

I think what is at the core of this attack is the very same strategy that Satan used with Eve.  Essentially, he is challenging the very nature of God. 

Look at Genesis 3:1-10

3 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

⁴ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

⁸ And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

⁹ Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

·         The serpent challenges God’s word… verse 3- “Has God indeed said…?”

·         The serpent challenges His trustworthiness…verse 4- “You will surely not die…”

·         The serpent challenges God’s goodness…verse 5- “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…”

He gets Adam and Eve to buy into the lie that God is not really Good, He doesn’t have their best interest in mind, and they can’t really trust Him.  So rather than trusting God for who He is and what He said, they trust what they can see, feel, sense.  The enemy got them with the “what if.” “What if God is holding out of you?  You better not trust Him, your better trust yourself instead.”

And what was the result of believing this lie?  Fear.  Verse 10…”I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid…”

We must remember that regardless of our future circumstances, God is who He is and He does not change. 

·         Do you know that you know that God is Good?

·         Do you know with all of your heart that He is trustworthy and His Word is true?

·         If so, we must resolve that as the lyrics of the song Bless the Lord O My Soul say, “whatever may pass or whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.”

The greatest power that I have found in overcoming the fear of the “what if” is praising the Who.  Rather than entertaining the lies of the enemy, give praise to the One to whom praise is due.  And when you take your eyes off of the “what if” and focus them rightly back on a gloriously loving God, you will be amazed at the peace, joy, and hope that immediately replace that fear…for there is no fear in love. (1 John 4:18) 

Which brings me to my last point…

Focusing on the Who and not the why.

If there is one thing that is clear in scripture, it is that trials and storms will come, and suffering is not only a part of life, it is a part of the Christian life.

So how do we reconcile this?  I know by now that you know where I am going…you must focus on who God is rather than trying to understand the why.  Trying to figure out why something happened may very well drive us crazy and we are not assured any answers.  Even if we do get answers, they hardly go toward healing our wounded hearts.  Understand is not satisfying or restorative. 

Rather than seeking out the why, we must seek out the Who.  There are many things that we will never understand on this side of Heaven.  

Why do some prayers for healing get answered and some don’t?  I don’t know.

Why do some people lose a spouse, lose children, or go through major traumas in life while others don’t?  I don’t know.

Why do bad things happen to good people?  Why are some nations plagued by such horrible death, disease, war, oppression? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that God is both sovereign…all powerful, in control…and that He is good. 

Even when we don’t understand Him, will we trust Him?  When we let go of our need to understand the why and seek out the Who, it is then that we find Him as healer.  Old Testament, New Testament, and the work of the Holy Spirit today all confirm that God’s very nature and heart love to heal.  He is the restorer, He makes all things new, He binds up the brokenhearted, He brings rejoicing in the morning.

So, on this day, my challenge to you is to take the plunge and choose to trust God completely, not because of your circumstances but because of who God is.  In doing so, your life will look radically different.  You will be marked, set aside, by your peace, your joy, your hope, and your faith regardless of the circumstances.  Let’s pray.

Bigger

A while back, I feel like God gave me a picture of just how big He is, how unfathomable and incomprehensible His greatness.  And yet, we make Him so small, so boring, so weak.  I want to share with you the picture that the Lord gave me, although I know words will never be able to do it justice.  I pray that God will stir in you a vision of His power, His might, His Greatness, and convince you that even when you think it is not possible, He is bigger!

The vision that the Lord gave me began with a woman standing with a small cup of ocean water in her hands.  This certain girl was built with an unquenchable desire for the ocean.  With her small cup of water, she had convinced herself that this was indeed the ocean.  She felt that she should be content, she should be satisfied, and yet found herself so unfulfilled and disappointed.  "Is this really the ocean?" she pondered.  "Is this all there is?" 

Of course that is not the ocean!  While the water in her little cup is technically from the ocean, that little cup is not an accurate portrayal of the ocean in its entirety.  Imagine her excitement, her joy, her surprise if she had the chance to travel to the beach and stand on the shore of the ocean, looking out at the water stretching out before her as far as her eyes could see.  "Ah, this is the ocean!"  her heart cries out, "I knew there was more!"  While this, in and of itself, is greater than she can take in, the ocean is bigger still.  This is but the continental shelf (for all of you geography buffs out there)...oh how much more there is!  She has no idea of the vastness of the seemingly endless waters, or the unfathomable depths and mysterious creatures that lie at the ocean floor.  Still to this day, after thousands of years, we know so little about the bottom of the ocean.  And yet how easy to think that we know all about it.  "Yep, ocean...that's beaches, waves, lots of water, sharks, fish."  We think that we understand it, that we have figured it out, that we know all about it.  But do we, truly?  No one does!  The ocean is bigger, deeper, wider, greater than we can even imagine.  This is the ocean which the girl was built longing for, and its greatness, its depth, its vastness does not disappoint.  Her heart can explore and research all the days of her life and never find all of the answers, never run out of material, never fall short of new discoveries.  No matter how much she learns, grows, seeks, the ocean will always be bigger still.


Beloved, do you find yourself unfulfilled, disappointed, unsatisfied with God?  Are you bored with Him?  I would challenge you that if you find yourself here, you may be standing there with a tiny scoop of God, holding Him in your nice, safe little cup.  But the true God, the God of the Universe, the Creater and Sustainer of all things, cannot be contained!  Quit trying to hold Him in your hands, and instead let Him hold you in His.  You were built with a longing for God, a longing that cannot be fulfilled by anything else other than Him.  He is the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  He is Truth and Life.  He is bigger, greater, stronger, and more powerful than our wildest imagination.  I pray today that God would knock that petty little cup of water out of all of our hands and overwhelm us with the reality of who He is and show us that He indeed is bigger still.  

Isaiah 40:28  "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom."

Romans 11:33 "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!"

Psalm 1453 "Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable."

My Rock, My Fortress, My Deliverer

A passage of scripture that it seems like I cannot get away from lately is 2 Samuel 22.  I have read it over and over, and each time I do it seems like it grows richer and deeper and more beautiful to me.  Truly the word of God is living and active; what a gift it is!  I feel like most of what I want to do is to share this gem of a passage with you and interject a few comments here and there.  May the Word of God shape you, encourage you, empower you, and bless you richly as it has me.

This all started when I was drawn to verses 2 and 3 of this passage as a memory verse for my 2 year old.  We were out looking for "clues" about who God is in nature and talking about how God is our rock.  We then made up litte motions to teach us verses 2-3, "The LORD is my rock (fist motion) and my fortress (make a house over you with your hands) and my deliverer (two thumbs point to yourself), the God of my strength (flex muscles), in whom I will trust (open palms to God)."  We would recite these verses often to help us memorize it well.  Then I began to get drawn into the entire passage.  Let me share a little of that with you...

2 Samuel 22

Praise for God’s Deliverance

22 Then David spoke to the Lord the words of this song, on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. ² And he said:^[a]

“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
³ The God of my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation,
My stronghold and my refuge;
My Savior, You save me from violence.
⁴ I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

*Oh what confidence in the Lord and who He is!  He is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer!  I trust Him, He is my strength.  He is my victory.  He is my stronghold and refuge.  He is most worthy of my praise, for He saves me.  He hears me when I call to Him and there is absolutely nothing that is too hard for Him and no one who is stronger than Him.  He is the One to have on your side, and we can be confident here that He is absolutely for us.  He is our defender, He is the mighty warrior who protects us.  What shall we fear?  Whom shall we fear?  Nothing is too great for Him.  Don't believe me?  Read on...

⁵ “When the waves of death surrounded me,
The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.
⁶ The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.

*It doesn't get much more desperate than that, folks.  Are the waves of death surrounding you?  Are floods of ungodliness and evil making you afraid?  Are overwhelming sorrows upon you and the snares of death confronting you?  No matter what our situation, God is greater...so what do we do? 

⁷ In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried out to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry entered His ears.

*Cry out to Him, beloved!  He is there, He is listening, His will hear and respond.  Just watch...

⁸ “Then the earth shook and trembled;
The foundations of heaven^[b] quaked and were shaken,
Because He was angry.
⁹ Smoke went up from His nostrils,
And devouring fire from His mouth;
Coals were kindled by it.
¹⁰ He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With darkness under His feet.
¹¹ He rode upon a cherub, and flew;
And He was seen^[c] upon the wings of the wind.
¹² He made darkness canopies around Him,
Dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
¹³ From the brightness before Him
Coals of fire were kindled.

¹⁴ “The Lord thundered from heaven,
And the Most High uttered His voice.
¹⁵ He sent out arrows and scattered them;
Lightning bolts, and He vanquished them.
¹⁶ Then the channels of the sea were seen,
The foundations of the world were uncovered,
At the rebuke of the Lord,
At the blast of the breath of His nostrils.

*Wow, does this get you fired up like it does me?  This is my God!  He is mighty, He is the strongest of all, and you DO NOT mess with those that are His!  So often we can portray certain elements of God as all that God is.  I think in today's culture especially we can hung up that God is only love, only forgiveness, only mercy.  We get to thinking the He would never do anything like this, and surely never get mad.  While God is absolutely those things, He is also justice, holiness, jealousy, righteousness, and if you look in His word there are most definitely things that make Him angry.  All I am saying is that you do not want to be against God, and you most certainly do no want to mess with His people.  He is like a protective Father, and if you mess with His kids, He is coming after you.

¹⁷ “He sent from above, He took me,
He drew me out of many waters.
¹⁸ He delivered me from my strong enemy,
From those who hated me;
For they were too strong for me.
¹⁹ They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
But the Lord was my support.

*Your enemy is stronger than you.  Satan is stronger than you.  But God is stronger than Satan and all evil!  Do not try to fight your battles yourself or you will lose.  Cry out to God, He is your support, He is your deliverer, He is the one who saves you.

²⁰ He also brought me out into a broad place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me.

*Ahh, I love this verse!  Now we get to the "why" of all of this.  Why does He deliver me, save me, respond when I cry out to Him, defeat all of my enemies?  Why is He on my side?  Very painly, "He delivered me because He delighted in me."  He delights in me!  And He delights in you.

²¹ “The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands
He has recompensed me.

*I am going to skip a little bit here, but I will just say a quick note on this section.  As for my righteousness, it is not found in my own works but in the atoning work of Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."  The only reason that I am seen as clean and righteous before God is because of the blood of Jesus.  He has taken all of my sin upon Himself and thus made me pure, spotless, and blameless before the Father that I might spend eternity in Heaven with God.  Thank you Jesus!

²⁹ “For You are my lamp, O Lord;
The Lord shall enlighten my darkness.

*Do you feel like there is any area of your life that is cloaked in darkness or uncertainty?  Do you need guidance, wisdom, direction?  Go to the Lord.  He is your lamp and He alone will enlighten your darkess and show you the way.  

³⁰ For by You I can run against a troop;
By my God I can leap over a wall.
³¹ As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

³² “For who is God, except the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?
³³ God is my strength and power,^[e]
And He makes my^[f] way perfect.
³⁴ He makes my^[g] feet like the feet of deer,
And sets me on my high places.
³⁵ He teaches my hands to make war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

³⁶ “You have also given me the shield of Your salvation;
Your gentleness has made me great.
³⁷ You enlarged my path under me;
So my feet did not slip.

*Precious, precious, precious truths.  I can say nothing here but go back and read this again, it is so rich!

⁴⁷ “The Lord lives!
Blessed be my Rock!
Let God be exalted,
The Rock of my salvation!

You have delivered me ...
⁵⁰ Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the Gentiles,
And sing praises to Your name.

*So how do we respond to all of this?  God has said that He delivers us because He delights in us.  He makes our way perfect and sets us on high places.  How can we possibly respond to such unmerited favor?  We see the answer here...praise Him!  Exalt and bless His name.  Give thanks in all things, sing praises to Him always.  Share His mighty deeds with those who don't know Him.  Praise Him, for He is most worthy of our praise! 

Thank you God for Your Word, for your Love, for Your Power.  Thank You for being our Rock, our Fortress, our Deliverer simply because You delight in us.  We respond in praise to You and we bless and exalt Your Name.  Who is like You, Lord?  Indeed, there is none like You, none but You.  Thank you for protecting us as your children.  We love you and trust You, Abba Father.  Amen.

Droopy Basil

I live in the great and glorious state of Texas. :)  And there is only one word to describe Texas this time of year...HOT!  It is so hot that when you are outside for any length of time, you can literally feel the heat like fire on your skin.  Thankfully, the Lord has extravagantly blessed us with two marvelous inventions that make the hot summer days bearable, pools and air conditioning!

While I can come inside and escape the blazing sun, my poor little basil plant, that started off this whole blog, cannot.  A few mintes ago, I walked outside to snag a few leaves and noticed that my basil plant was looking pretty droopy.  I grabbed the hose and doused it with water, giving my little plant a nice long drink.  About 5 minutes later I went back outside to find my basil plant back to it's perky self.  I was a bit amazed at how quickly the water perked the plant back up!  So, I picked a few leaves afterall and added them into my homemade eggplant parmesean that will serve as tonights dinner.  Yum, I can't wait!

This little scenario sparked a verse in my mind that Eli and I have been reciting lately.  John 7:37-38 says, "³⁷ On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. ³⁸ He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." 

Do you find yourself feeling "droopy" because the heat of life is getting to you?  Are you thirsty?  If so, there is great news for you...Jesus Himself is inviting you to come and to drink.  He is the one who douses us with living water, quenching our thirst and renewing our spirit.  We are revived and replenished instantly in Christ.  While the heat may not necessarily go away, we receive a new source of strength, hope, and courage that allows us to endure and thrive even in the midst of our greatest trials.  And when we find ourselves perked back up with the living water that Jesus offers to us freely, we can once again be effectively used for the purpose Christ has for us. 

Oh Lord, we are so thirsty for You.  We thank You that You indeed are all that we need.  We thank You for Your invitation to come to You and to drink.  We accept Your offer; we come to You now, Jesus, and we drink deeply of the living water that You provide.  Thank you for the satisfying, thirst quenching life that is found in you, Jesus.