Lessons from Exodus 16:1-3

Exodus 16:1-3
1 And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

Observation / Application:
VS. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

Here they are 30 - 60 days after their departure and now they are already forgetting the hardship of life in bondage. Going back to Pharaoh seems far better to them then this unknown wilderness.
I see an interesting thing here 30 - 60 days in and now they are complaining. It’s interesting to me that this is so often my battle. When trying to depart from areas of sin that God exposes to me ( Idols) it’s usually around that 30 - 60 day marker that I to start feeling the tug to compromise what I know God has shown me. Why is that I wonder? I know in the beginning I’m passionate about what I need to do so early on it’s often pretty easy. My victory in doing the right thing carries me in encouragement but then somewhere along that 30 - 60 day marker, the passion begins to fade, the thoughts of compromise begin to take over my thoughts. To the point of actually being able to rationalize it. I think there is a pretty good chunk of wisdom here from God. The temptation to go back will come. Know it and make preparation for it. We don’t always have a Moses to push us through. So that must be the provision we need to make. We all need that Moses person who holds us accountable and helps fight that battle for us.
Right now with me and this med. for my RSL that I am taking, I did exactly this very thing. I talked to a couple of friends that I knew would be boldly honest with me to help me through this adjustment period. And I have a friend that when I can't stand it any more and I need to eat something that I’m craving I can call her and she will kick my butt. You see certain foods are not an option for me anymore my health / heart depends on me doing the right thing. All this stuff with my RSL med and my food allergies are key to living a life honoring God with His temple, my body.
So this should be the same with the things of God. We all need to have that person or persons that will keep us on that right road and when we begin to lose focus, they will boldly, lovingly guide us back. We can’t live without a Moses. If you have been then let me ask you, How’s that been working for you? To live a life for Jesus with only "yes people" around us will never allow us to grow very far. We need each other in that way God intended.
So who comes to your mind right now that is your Moses? Take a moment and thank Jesus for that friend.

Hebrews 10:23-26

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,

Jeremiah 18:4
The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Yes i am marred but how grateful i am to a faithful, merciful Lord that will reshape me into another pot that will still be useful for His serve.

thank you Jesus!

Heavy on my heart - it's not going to be an enjoyable read. I just need this written down for myself.

Can you hear the Lord calling you to wake up, to stand firm? He is and we need to ready ourselves. Are you prepared for persecution? Are you ready for the Church to fall away? Are you ready for the most horrid of all circumstances to come flooding into your life? We pray and sing, 'Blessed be your name On the road marked with suffering Though there's pain in the offering Blessed be your name', and 'Bring me anything that brings You glory And I know they'll be days When this life brings me pain But if that's what it takes to praise You Jesus, bring the rain'. Are you ready to be a person of your word now? Am I?????



We need to stop being about our comfort zone and realize that the day is drawing near that our Lord is taking us up to meet Him in the Heavens. Life will continue to get more and more difficult before that happens. Are you going to let the offense of a friend, a family member, a church leader draw you away into self preservation emotions and sin, or are you going to keep your eyes focused on the One who is allowing the hard stuff to come. To bring wisdom into your life to draw you to that sweet place from brokenness, Surrender. Is your current hardship exposing your truth, your real hearts condition? Good then it's doing it's job. Are you repenting, I mean really repenting before a Holy God who died on a cross for those sins. Are you on your knees repenting asking for forgiveness - you know the kind of repentance that breaks that chain of suffocation around you. Okay maybe you don't know that kind of repentance. You better figure it out. There is no greater place of freedom in Jesus then when we figure out that real repentance.

Gods calls us to GO and make Disciples. Are we doing that, are we even one of those Disciples? Do you even know what it looks like to be one? My heart is greatly convicted this morning knowing that when I read what a disciple is my life just doesn't match up. So what the heck am I doing with my life. We (I) have become a generational Christian nation that is all about us. How everything effects us. The sound system at church acts up and I get completely irritated running around looking for someone who can fix it. Sure God cares about that but do you see what I am saying. Does He care more about that then the person who desperately needs Jesus and they are right in front of me. I get more emotional about the sound system then I do this dying, hurting soul. Somehow I (we) have made service about us and not about them, the lost, the hurting, the dying.

Lord Jesus what has become of us. We have become the Church in Corinth that you gave great warnings about.

1Corinthians 11:17-34

As Tony Huy so Spirit filled put it on Saturday night - the church in Corinth was doing more harm then good. It became more isolated then congregational. It was full of division. It became more about indulging its self then giving. They were going through the motions but it was so not their reality. They had made church about them. They had forgotten to really REMEMBER.



Wow does any of this seem vaguely familiar? I sit here and with regrettable honesty I must say Yes Lord I have made church about me. How did I allow such deception to dominate my life?

I have lived church with a greater purpose of isolation than anything else.

So what now Lord Jesus, forgive me for making church something you never intended it to be. This day Lord show me my error and get me back on the right path. I do Lord Jesus desire to be Your disciple.

1Corinthians 6:12 10:23
Everything is permissible for me - but not everything is beneficial nor is it constructive,
Everything is permissible for me - but I will not be mastered by anything.

"k" Group Leaders Appreciation Dinner - Darya's

Dinner at Darya's

Me & Melissa - she's my friend!!!!! - isn't she cute - I'm so glad we get to serve together.


Melody & Jenny - look at those perfect smiles - someone call Colgate!

Shelley & Dana - these are the nice ones of the group. I never knew people could be so nice.


Jennifer & Lyn - wait a minute these are the nice ones of the group. Am I the only one not nice?


Yes this is what they did ALL NIGHT!!!! ALL NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!

Karen and Kim - Kim I didn't mean to put a handicap label by your head - sorry

Karen - I love the color of your hair - to think that was the color I was going for - - hhhmmm well at least it's in the same color palette - well sort of.

Susan & Linda - I think if you really could blend these two women that you very

well would have the perfect woman. Don't tell them I said that I like them to think that I believe they are greatly flawed.

Lori & Becky - They have started the short hair leaders club - I think they just wanted an excuse to hang with each other. I'm offended.


Melody & Nidia - perfect little Angels - see the folded hands - aaawwwweeee

This looks forced

Susan & Shannon - see shannon it's a good picture. You know I was hoping for one of those scary ones. When you are as cute as you are it's a great releif to some of us that you take bad pictures.

Jennifer & Joanne - yes I do believe Joanne really is that short. Or maybe it's that Jen is that super tall. WOW


Deanne, Rochelle, and Lyn -Lyn over here look at me. I'm wondering what she was looking at that was more intriguing than I ;0)

Melissa C and Lori - pretty smiles !

but don'tcha get the impression they are both thinking something about the photographer? (me)

Steph and Steph - good grief look at Finn she looks 20. It's gotta be the Avon.

Nidia, Steph and Joannie - see how short she is I told you. Yes I see that Nidia is too.

Aren't they adorable. I wanna be their friend.



And to think they run the office - frightening!!!



Danette and Lori - Wow they're really close.

Okay what's with all the attached heads?

Yes a Mohawk

Pictures of Donna's Kids

Every year Donna would get the kids pictures done and well I wanted to do that for Tony for Father's day this year. Here are some of them. Thank you Lisa and Jennifer for making this happen.

Happy Dad's Day!

Bobby -
Outside of my salvation you are the greatest gift I have ever been given. I could have never have dreamt up the quality of a Dad you are to Aaron. Your constant love, patience, and guidance with him is a beautiful thing to watch and I count myself most blessed having you as my husband. I praise our sweet Jesus for giving Aaron to us. You are a good man Bobby Richardson and I love you dearly. I pray your day with Aaron out there paint balling will be one of great fun and memories.

Daddy - Happy Daddy's Day !! I love you and miss you so much. If I could fly to Montana today to even just give you a giant hug and a kiss I would. I pray that today you feel that constant showering of peace, love, and joy knowing that you are an amazing Daddy. I love our long talks or better yet that you are so patient with me that you listen to my long talks (hahaha) You have always, my entire life made me feel like I mattered and what I have to say is important. Now truth be told I'm sure everyone else might want to smack your bum for that one because now I believe I need to be heard (hahahah) yes daddy you have created this monster!!!!
I love you Daddy - xoxoxoxo
p.s take care of Mom for us and love her up real good - I hear she is sportin quite the tan these days - I bet she looks HOT!!! - she's always been a hottie. I love it when people say i look like her.

Dad John - Happy Dad's Day!! today I pray you have sweet joy knowing that you have always been a kind, loving Dad. How blessed I am to get to have you. I pray you always know how important you are to me. Your love of my Jesus has always resonated loudly to me and I am so thankful for your example. When are you coming over so I can cook you up something really yummie? You know I love to feed you. I miss you and pray that we will see you and Di very soon. God bless you dad - I love you much!!!

What do you have for me tonight Lord?

So I'm sitting here in the CM office killing some time and I got to thinking about tonight's service and I wonder what God has laid on Tony's heart to teach from the pulpit. Tony Huy is one of our Pastors actually he is our Youth pastor and every now and then we get the privilege to have him take Bob's pulpit for a Sat/Sun service. If you haven't ever heard Tony well you are missing out, go to our Churches website and pull something up of his to listen to.
Calvary Chapel East Anaheim
Trust me you won't be disappointed. Tony has this way of bringing Bible people to life and making you feel like you are there living it with them understanding who they were and why they made decisions that they did. Very gifted / very insightful / and every time he teaches I walk away with a huge nugget to chew on for sometime. So tonight I eagerly await to see what God deems necessary to speak to us through this man.
I always approach each service with a question at the top of my note pad. Usually seeking God on wisdom for something that I need answers and His guidance with. It's a fun way to listen to service, not to mention that it keeps me focused on me and not sitting there thinking that so and so should be listening to this message. I love that I pretty much always get some chuck of wisdom that takes me to either complete answer or it gives me a spring board to which direction I need to be seeking in. So all day I've been praying about a couple of things and asking God for wisdom so tonight that will be at the top of my note page.
I was going to write the questions here then I realized that someone could very easily misunderstand the questions so I'm opting out of full disclosure. I guess i should be thankful God laid that on my heart before I hit publish now.

one last thing......

keep chasing righteousness!!!!

Where He Leads Me - I will follow (?)

What a difficult season this is right now. Of course can't we always say that from one season to another. Growth is His purpose and surrender should be ours so getting those 2 things to blend in perfect harmony is the real challenge. Well at least that's my story right now.
This is always the most busy time of year for me, which I love because it's VBS time. The rub right now is that I am taking this med for my RLS that is really messing me up. I'm giving it the proper time to level out in my body but I'm pretty much very anti anything that messes with your state of mind. I figure battling my flesh is hard enough let alone having to battle it with an uncooperative state of mind. Or it blocks out something that God is trying to get me to deal with, SIN so that I can be more devoted to Him. This is my thing, if we are anxious, uptight, stressed, whatever you want to call it, well it's from sin in our life, somewhere somehow we allowed this sin to stay and now it has caused issues that we can barely even recognize the original sin because we are so focused on our state of mind of the above mentioned. Then there is the part that it takes away the ability to deeply touch the Lord (intimacy) and that absolutely freaks me out because that is my craving, my source of strength is to be able to be intimately worshiping my Jesus in prayer, in worship, in quietness. Taking this med was an act of submission to my dear husband who desperately wants his wife to be able to sleep. The lack of sleep from my entire life had begun to take some drastic health issues on my body. My Dr basically said until we get you to sleep at night your body will not heal. So there in lies my challenge. So I'm taking this med, sleeping far better then I ever have in my intire life except when I was pregnant but now this intensity I feel through out the day is driving me crazy. So enough of this - God help me see even but one purpose for this during a season that I need to be so much about your work. Lord please show me that You are in this!
Then it began to come over me the past couple of weeks and when He began to speak to me I realized these are Words that He has been preparing me for all year long.
Meekness
Meekness is a calm temper of mind, not easily provoked.

I have been forced to be calm and quiet, well quiet for me ;0) desperately trying to not react to the things going on around me. I have learned many things along the way so far. I know I am far from really understanding meekness because my inner heart is far from being meek - so really what I guess I am currently living is false meekness. You know what I mean when it shows on the out side but so not the truth for the inside. It's just like humility. You can act humble but inside your acknowledging to yourself that you are humble - hahaha that cracks me up!
Back to meekness I read this radio broadcast everyday online and the past 2 days it's been on this very thing. She states it far better than I so I will share some of her thoughts.
Meekness matters to God. You can’t avoid that in the Scripture. Zephaniah 2:3 says we are to seek meekness. Colossians 3:12 says we are to put on meekness. First Timothy 6:11 says we are to pursue meekness.

Psalm chapter 37 tells us "the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (verse 11). Now that’s something I’d like to have. People who are not meek do not have an abundance of peace. They can’t have settled hearts and minds. But the person who is meek can be delighted with an abundance of peace. Peace of mind. Peace of heart. Peace in relationships.

Psalm 25:9 “The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach his way” If we want God to guide us, to teach us the way that we should go, if we want to know good judgment, if we want to have insight and wisdom and understanding, we have to be meek.
Meek people are:
teachable people
humble people
open to counsel.


There was so much fantastic stuff in that message but the bottom line is this is me, this is where God has me, this is my training ground right now and He is using this season of me taking a med that provokes what is obviously already in my heart to be exposed to myself so that I can come to repentance, come to consecration and then grow in what God requires of me as His - Meekness!

I must say as I have been more silent I have been able to see so much more around me and this has given me great insight for prayer - so somehow I pray this makes even but a little bit of sense to you. Everything always comes back to God is desiring more of us for Him and the question becomes AM I WILLING TO WALK THIS HARD ROAD RIGHT NOW IN ORDER TO BE MORE LIKE HIM???? I pray the answer to that is YEs but we will see.
The proof is in the fruit!

Our VBS theme song this year - God You Reign!

I'm stealing this from David Wilderson's Blog - it's to good not to post.

Recently I reread the life story of George Muller who, in the mid-1830s, cared for over 2,000 orphans in England – all by faith in God. Muller was a known as the man who got answers to his prayers. Before he died, he had listed in his journals over 50,000 answers to prayer.

When asked how he determined the will of God on any matter, Muller listed the following steps he believed were necessary:
1. “I get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to any particular matter.”
2. “I do not leave the result to feelings or simple impressions. That can make one open to great delusions.”
3. “I seek God’s will through, or in connection with, his Word. If you look to the Spirit without the Word, you open yourself to delusion.”
4. “I consider providential [God-controlled] circumstances.”
5. “I ask God in prayer to reveal his will to me.”
6. “I make sure I have a clear conscience before God and man.”
7. “Every time I listened to men instead of God, I made serious mistakes.”
8. “I act only when I am at peace, after much prayer, waiting on God with faith.”

Those who walk by faith, seeking only God’s perfect will, are often sorely tested and tried. More and more in my own life, I am finding out how important diligent prayer and Bible reading are. Sadly, not many of God’s people pray diligently nowadays. Instead, there is much TV viewing and very little of waiting on God.

When I give myself to prayer, my faith rises. And when I feed on God’s Word, my confidence in his power to lead and help me increases. The Lord becomes my banker, my advisor, my attorney.

May you find him doing the same for you.

We don’t think “God has things for me to do today”, we think we have things we need to do and so we go to God to help us.

He becomes the means rather than the end – Francis Chan

Exodus 15:22-25 Bitter waters made sweet

Ex. 15:22-25
22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" 25 So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them. And there He tested them,


The Lord often uses unusual things to accomplish His purposes. This stick is something that can so easily be overlooked. Looks like nothing special in fact there are so many of them around that they basically look the same. No one but God would have ever known the potential in this stick just laying there in the dessert. But God sees it God sees the potential and He knew that this stick could be used by Him to save millions of lives. Even if you are not aware of the things that God has put in you, trust me He has and He will use you if you will only but be willing, be present. Just let go and let God. God has a purpose for you!
another little thing here - isn't it comforting to realize that the God of the Universe notices even this normal, nothing spectacular stick. He saw it and He used it greatly.
another thought on a more yucky side
Here we can see this picture of who we ( I ) can so easily be. We just come from a season where we have seen the wonders and love of God shown towards to us, then we come to a little pond (new circumstance/ trial) and what do we do, we complain. Good grief just days prior we were praising God for all that He is and all that He has done. But today we have a need and it just doesn’t seem like God will help us with this one. It does not matter that He has NEVER failed us. This time O No He Just Might. Good grief do you see what I am saying and how absolutely crazy it sounds. Yet we do it. In fact we always will. I think the prayer needs to be that even if our first response is slightly panic our very next thought will be “BUT GOD” . Truth is trials are meant for us to see our weakness, to see our absolute dependence on a Holy, Righteous, Loving God.
So let me ask what pond are you stressing over today? I have this really great way to make the stress go away. Ready you may want to take notes on this one. Here it is
Praise God!
Yep you read it right that’s it just begin to praise God, out loud. For all that He has done and all that He is – just praise Him. Gosh that’s good I wish it had been my original thought ;0)

I was thinking about this bitter water. Feeling the conviction of where my own heart is bitter these days. O sure it’s camouflaged by many things that most people would never even have a clue that there was anything wrong but who am I kiddin, surely not Jesus.
So I looked at this passage and read it over and over and over again. Thinking about what it looked like then, and wondering what it could look like now for us, for me in my heart today. To cry out to the Living, Merciful, Gracious God. He will give me a stick. A stick that represents Calvary. Where a stick and the blood that was shed on it become a way for salvation, forgiveness, healing, a way to be set free.
So today go ahead be set free - it is there for the taking.

Weekend Family Visit

Just a typical Josh and Aaron moment. These two are a mess but they are our cute mess.

xoxoxox

Can you see how he really felt about getting this picture taken.

Aaron, Hannie, and Josh - we really do raise them to love Jesus

not sure what I'm supposed to say about this - just pray for him

Mommy and daughter - sweet kodak moment