love and kindess - go along way

so here is this mornings morning and evening devotional,

"With loving kindness have I drawn thee." Jeremiah 31:3

The thunders of the law and the terrors of judgment are all used to bring us to Christ; but the final victory is effected by loving kindness. The prodigal set out to his father's house from a sense of need; but his father saw him a great way off, and ran to meet him; so that the last steps he took towards his father's house were with the kiss still warm upon his cheek, and the welcome still musical in his ears.

"Law and terrors do but harden All the while they work alone; But a sense of blood-bought pardon Will dissolve a heart of stone."

The Master came one night to the door, and knocked with the iron hand of the law; the door shook and trembled upon its hinges; but the man piled every piece of furniture which he could find against the door, for he said, "I will not admit the man." The Master turned away, but by-and-bye He came back, and with His own soft hand, using most that part where the nail had penetrated, He knocked again--oh, so softly and tenderly. This time the door did not shake, but, strange to say, it opened, and there upon his knees the once unwilling host was found rejoicing to receive his guest. "Come in, come in; thou hast so knocked that my bowels are moved for thee. I could not think of thy pierced hand leaving its blood-mark on my door, and of thy going away houseless, 'Thy head filled with dew, and thy locks with the drops of the night.' I yield, I yield, Thy love has won my heart." So in every case: loving kindness wins the day. What Moses with the tablets of stone could never do, Christ does with His pierced hand. Such is the doctrine of effectual calling. Do I understand it experimentally? Can I say, "He drew me, and I followed on, glad to confess the voice divine?" If so, may He continue to draw me, till at last I shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

again i am reminded of how kindness and love bring about repentance and acceptance - in studying eve last week and seeing how God calls out to adam and eve once they have sinned and are now in hiding because of their sin - God calls out, 'where are you" - yes we know that God knew were they were but to see this picture of a loving parent calling out in love and kindness to their child is such a sweet picture - adam responds immediately - now if the Lord would have yelled in anger " WHERE ARE YOU" do you really think adam would have spoken up - aaaaahhhhhh no he would have been a bit freaked out i'm sure - think about when you call your child when you want to bless them - they come running with a heart ready to receive - but if you yell out in absolute anger, they don't want to come at all - it's the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance - - how i need to keep this at the forefront of my mind and heart today not only in dealing with my son but of course in dealing with one another - -i just really love this sweet reminder fom the Lord this day - apparently i'm gonna need it

remember - Keep Chasing Rightesouness!!!!

so i wonder why Elijah didn't seem to be bothered that the brook was drying up a little more everyday?

1 kings 17

so here you have God calling Elijah out to the wilderness for a time of hiding and how faithful the Lord is to provide for him - the brook, a source of water, but also a source that is a natural source - - then you have food brought to him daily by the ravens - -okay this is the supernatural power of God displayed here - - so each day the water diminishes more and more - he obviously knew that is was going to run out but he isn't bothered by that - so i got to thinking when you are called by God to be in a season of the wilderness and He makes birds bring you food each day - one's faith would surely grow and nothing would surprise you much - i also see the picture of the more you are with God the more the natural goes away and what is left is the Spirit - - just a neat little thing i was looking at

Hiding

so this morning in looking over a few of my studies that i am currently doing i see this theme that is a bit awkward - first, let me tell you that right now the Lord is making good and sure that I am in His Word - I have my regular inductive study with my "k" group, we are doing esther - quickly becoming my 2nd fav. book of the Bible ( Nehemiah is my #1 no doubt) - then i am teaching a small group (14) of kids ages 0-14 , how to study the Bible inductively - we are doing different stories in the Bible that they are already familiar with - i wanted to set them up for success - God is doing such great things in that class - these kids are teaching me - as it should be!!! - then i have this small prayer intercessor group and a few of the ladies wanted to be held accountable to study the word (love it absolutely love it) - so we are inductively studying women of the Bible - lastly, I have my own study time that always seems to take a long rabbit trail - i'm basically convinced that God needs me so in His Word because He knows how weak my flesh is these days and He is being that heavy handed parent right now - it just dawned on my that He is showing me an example that I need to imitate for my son - i've been praying for wisdom and look here it just came to me - Thank you Jesus!!!! - anyway, so there seems to be this theme running through alot of my studies right now about hiding 1. in studying eve: she was hiding because of her sin - she put herself there not God - He called her out of hiding and He did it with a loving call out to her and Adam - then there is Elizabeth, she went into hiding when she got preggo - it had to be so hard for her - she wanted to be pregnant so bad and finally it happens and God has her in hiding for 5 months - no doubt to teach her the discipline that it would take to raise a child with a nazarite vow - then there was Elijah when God told him to go away in hiding by the brook - this ever present idea of hiding is there in my studies - so i'm asking God now if He is calling me into hiding and if so what does that mean? - stepping down from ministry? i'm willing but it seems unlikely - keeping more to myself and not being so visible - very possible - it's all very interesting to me right now and i know My faithful Lord will clearly guide me - so if you don't see me, you'll know why ;0)

posting is getting harder and harder

so my sis reminded me that i'm not posting - the truth is things are so crazy that i'm sure to be committed if anyone actually reads this stuff - let's see God is doing so much - so much painfully hard stuff - i'm in the center of a very difficult trial and the enemy is throwing deception everywhere - now don't get me wrong i am completely aware that the enemy can not do a thing without permission from our great God but it does make it hard to discern every step along the way - i feel like i'm in the center of the greatest chess game ever - satan makes his move - God makes his - and so on and so on - it is an honor to stand firm in praying, watching the powerful Hand of our Creator do what only he can do - but it is hard - it's hard to be painfully reminded that at any moment i can be used as a tool of the enemy if i let my guard down - through all of this through the Bible I have been reminded that the after math of a battle is often the hardest part - how things get handled is key - praying and fasting have been my life this past month - pray walks which i had never done before have become a new understanding for me - i think the hardest thing that i have had to do was fast from my words - cut me at the core of who i am - which is exactly why It was necessary - one thing i would like to say is i have been in His Word day and night and He has shown me so much - it's as if the flood gates of His Word has been open in a powerful way for me - how faithful our Lord is to speak when we chose to listen - i gotta run - i will try to get back to this later tonight

i'm back

so let's see so much has been going on, hence me not posting - we had our leader's retreat - it was by far the best, but in a very challenging way - the teachings this year were heavy exhortations and corrections from our Lord - now the truth is, this is how i appreciate teachings - don't give me some real pretty fluffy stuff with maybe a verse or two thrown in - i need the hard stuff - the stuff that God requires change with - the stuff that is going to take a scalpel right into my heart and show me the real me and not let me get away with any mask or delusions of grandeur - i could go on and on about the teachings and maybe i'll get to share a little bit later but the real challenges came to me when i got my WORD this year - 1st know that leaders retreat has always been like the begining of a new spiritual year for me ( i think most of the ladies view it this way) - well we get these words and they are words of God's character and or things that God from His word requires of us - truth is all the words are good and challenging - they are not to be thought of as some spiritual fortune cookie though - they have no abilites to change what God has already purposed for us - it just gives us something to study in the scriptures and think about our Lord and what He has for us in the words - it seems that it just heightens our awareness of the word through out the year - you know it's like if you buy a new red car and all the sudden you notice the same red car every where - same thing - so we get these words, chosen by God for us - they have been prayed over greatly and asked of God to put the Word He choses in each hand - so here I was coming off a year of the word righteousness - now let me tell you a little something on that word - for the first time ever i ignored it for most of the year because i was so afraid of it - i was completely focused on myself and terrified of all the stuff that i would have to work on within to be able to even begin to have that associated with me - well that was my first mistake, i was looking at ME!!!! - will i ever learn????? - finally one day i realized that it wasn't for me to focus on me, but for me to focus on my Lord and His Righteouseness - WOW it only took me half the year to get that !- so my journey began and shortly after my focus got corrected I branded the saying, ' Keep chasing righteousness' - that began my everyday to chase after His righteousness then about a month or two ago, I sat down and asked God the ever difficult question, " have I grown at all this year Lord? am I falling into the same sins? do I justify the cravings of my sins? - humbly i will say there was much that had gone to the deepest part of the ocean without me even knowing it - my journey of chasing rightesouness and taking focus off me, i let go of things without even knowing it - PRAISE THE LORD JESUS!!!!!!!!! - i got it, i really got the lesson He wanted me to see all year - focus on His righteousness and my flesh will begin to melt away and i will grow in His likeness - truth be told they were areas that were hidden and most people wouldn't even know but God knows and I know and my heart is full of great joy as He is abundantly faithful - - - - so here is this new retreat and i wait and pray until I can tell my Lord that i completely in faith trust His hand in chosing my word for me this year - this year it took a little longer to get to that honest place of faith, but i finally came to that prayer where I feel so peaceful and excited to see my word - - and there it was - ENDURE - yes i failed once again - i put my focus on me and said,' o Lord what will I have to endure this year?' - well thank you Jesus it only took a few hours for me to repent of my Me focus and I began to think about all that God endures - His word endures forever - His righteousness endures forever - His love endures forever - His grace and mercy endure forever....etc...... - so now the truth is I am excited to face this year and all that He has for me - my focus on His endurance and that will take me through anything that I will need to endure - - now the most painful difficult issue at retreat that still sits unsettled in my heart today was from being called by God to pray and pray alot for retreat and all the ladies -here's the deal - i was called by God to be an intersessor for our retreat - so 6-7 months prior the praying began - first it was a few of us 1 time a month and i was praying alsomost everyday alone at that time- then quickly it went to that few of us praying every week and me everyday - after much prayer and fasting and even taking a nazarite vow for 2 months prior, retreat was apon us - i felt as if i had lived retreat already as God continued to reveal so much about retreat and so much about the ladies hearts to us as we prayed - the truth is there is no greater honor then to be called by God for such a beautiful service as praying - the blessings i could talk about would take hours of posting - there were days that my heart couldn't contain all the love I felt from our Lord that He would entrust such a rich responsiblility to me - so i get to retreat and i am ready to have a fantastic time with all 32 ladies - i have prayed them all up many times over and i was so excited for the work that God was going to do at retreat, now i was sitting pretty just ready to bask in all the after math of the prayers - - - o me of small understanding - - steph and i get to retreat hours before everyone else so we can get the house ready and all was going well, then the ladies began to pour in and my heart was so heavy i felt like i was walking with a black cloud - for the first 20 hours i was so heart broken because i couldn't seem to shake the feeling of heaviness in my heart - i confessed - praised and worshiped my God and nothing broke the chains around me - Lord Jesus what have I done wrong? Lord what have I done wrong? was the question i asked over and over again - - then it came to me - my Lord wanted to know if this was the role I was really willing to take in this group, that of intersessor - - i wasn't feeling my heaviness, i was felling different ladies - i began to understand in my naive immature heart, i felt like my work was done over the past 6 months and the truth is it was just begining and God wanted to put me to the test of how serious are you about this praying role? - now, i need to make a decision - was i willing to allow God to show me a sister and allow me to feel her heartaches, her sins, her burdens, her walls, her mask, her irritations, her offendedness - i will be honest i was never able to answer my God up on that mountain - i went in and out of victorious and defeated moments of doing the right thing and then pulling away because it hurt and i wanted the retreat that i wanted - never did i understand the responsibility that i so desired at one time to have in this group - it's really humiliating and me posting about it is a part of my process of reconciling with my Lord on this issue - so today i stand walking baby steps towards the right things but terrified and ashamed that i am terrified - i long to be completely surrendered to my Lord's calling in my life- but for today i find it bitter sweet - so pray for me - i have begun to understand that to be an intersessor you take on the one being prayed for their circumstances within your heart - i now understand there is a difference in being a prayer warrior and and intersessor - both important but both very different - My Lord is patient as I fight this battle between my flesh and the Spirit.