Naming Baby #3

I am just over 28 weeks in my pregnancy with our third child and at my 20 week ultrasound, I greatly anticipated the possibility of finding out our baby’s gender, as we had with our first two children. However, I was sent to a different hospital this time where they have a different policy about this and they would not tell me the gender at the appointment, though they would put it in the report that they sent to my obstetrician. I was totally bummed, because I really wanted to know right then and now I’d have to wait a couple more weeks to find out!

However, I believe the Lord designed it this way, because a few days later, Joe and I went on a trip to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and I had the opportunity to pray for our baby and listen to the Lord speak to me about him/her without any preconceived ideas about the baby based on gender. I really wanted the Lord to speak to me about our baby’s identity and possibly about their name and He was faithful to show me some things.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me, but this is going to be a slightly lengthy story of how our baby’s name came to be chosen…

As I was praying, I recalled how many times in the Bible, babies were named based upon something that the Lord was doing personally in the life of the mother or even what He was saying corporately to His people. So I began to think about what the Lord had been speaking to us and putting on our hearts and He led me to Psalm 132:1-9…

¹ LORD, remember David…
² How he swore to the LORD,
And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob:
³ “Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house,
Or go up to the comfort of my bed;
⁴ I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
⁵ Until I find a place for the LORD,
A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob”…
⁷ Let us go into His tabernacle;
Let us worship at His footstool.
⁸ Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place,
You and the ark of Your strength.
⁹ Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness,
And let Your saints shout for joy.

Something we have been longing for in this season is for a greater realization of the reality of God dwelling with us. There are multiple facets and levels to the dwelling place of God, the first being the incredible truth that God desires to dwell and abide in us (John 15:4-11; John 14:16, 23; 1 John 4:13-14; 2 Cor. 4:6-7). We are carriers of His presence through the indwelling of His Spirit – jars of clay containing the infinite treasure of Jesus within us!

Secondly, we desire for God to have a dwelling place in our city, that there would be a literal, physical place where He could come and rest and manifest His presence and receive worship and adoration from His people. We long to see a house of prayer established in our city where we could go to worship and pray at any time of the day or night. We long to have His presence in our city, to enjoy being with Him and feeling Him in a tangible way, and so that our city could be transformed by His power to save, heal and deliver the people who live here.

Thirdly, we are eagerly anticipating the day when Jesus returns to the earth and we get to see Him face to face! When He comes, He is going to purge the earth from all sin and wickedness and He is going to make all things new so that He can once again reconcile heaven and earth, that God the Father may come and make His dwelling place on the earth permanently, bringing the New Jerusalem to earth so that we can dwell with God for eternity! (Revelation 21:1-7; Revelation 22:1-5)

As I was praying, I also kept hearing the word “joy”, but didn’t know how it fit in with the idea of God’s dwelling place. But as I read these various passages I mentioned above, I began to notice a common thread of joy throughout them all. When we abide in Jesus and He abides in us, we experience the fullness of His joy in us (John 15:11), when we are in His tabernacle and in His house of prayer, we shout aloud for joy (Psalm 132:9, 16; Isaiah 56:7), and when He comes to dwell on the earth, there will never be sorrow or crying every again – only the sweet, inexpressible joy of being with our God forever (Revelation 21:4)!

My prayer for our baby became that he/she would know the joy of God dwelling in their inner man, but who would also long for the dwelling place of God here on earth, and who would experience joy in the house of prayer as a priest who ministers before Him, as one who simply loves His presence.

A couple weeks later we finally did get to find out the gender of our baby, which is “inconclusively” a BOY!! While the ultrasound technician’s confidence in their opinion leaves something to be desired, we are thrilled and our son Justice is very excited to be getting a baby brother! However, this news presented somewhat of a dilemma in the naming department. We had a name that we liked for a girl, but nothing for a boy. Joe kept trying to convince me that the name could be used for a boy as well, but I was not budging. I was stubbornly insisting that it was strictly a girl’s name and I simply could not imagine naming our son this. Finally he gave up and threw up a prayer to God to speak to me if this was the name for our baby.

The very next day after he prayed that prayer (without me knowing it), I sat down during my morning devotions and I specifically set out to talk to the Lord about this name and ask Him to show me if this was the name He had chosen for our baby. I decided to look up the meaning of the name in the Hebrew, since it comes from the Bible. The name actually means “delight” or “pleasure”, which certainly seemed to fit with what the Lord had spoken to me about the word joy.

I then began to look at all the scriptures in the Bible where this name appears, and since it is actually the name of a place, I only discovered one person in the Bible who had been given this name. It just so happens that it was a man (a point for Joe’s argument), but also a priest who served in the temple! When I went to read the scripture in context, I found myself in 2 Chronicles 29, which is the story of King Hezekiah, who ushered in a season of revival, especially regarding the restoration of the priestly service. The temple was in disrepair and ministry to the Lord had been neglected, so King Hezekiah reopened and repaired the temple and then issued a call to all of the priests to consecrate themselves and the temple and return to the Lord. His charge to them was this,

“My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.”

Coincidentally (I think not), this verse has been a prominent one that the Lord has given to us corporately at Sanctuary House of Prayer, where we attend. We have prayed this verse countless times, asking God to raise up men and women who would love Him wholeheartedly and who would be called to stand, serve, minister and burn before Him. I was stunned when in the very next verse it lists the priest with this name – Eden. He was one of the very first to respond to the call and to consecrate himself to God and who was among those who worshiped the Lord with the instruments of King David’s tabernacle. They worshiped, played music and presented offerings to God, praising Him with gladness and calling the entire nation to return to God as well.

Wow!! I was blown away that the one person in the entire Bible who is named Eden was a priest who also longed for the dwelling place of God to be established in his nation and who desired to minister to Him there. It quickly became obvious to me that this was in fact the name that God had chosen for our child and it also confirmed all the things He had spoken to me earlier.

Not only this, but the Garden of Eden also happens to be the original dwelling place of God where He first lived and walked with mankind before sin entered the world. Eden was truly a place of delight and pleasure, where man walked with God in unhindered, unbroken, perfect communion and this is exactly what Jesus is returning to the earth to restore!

If our baby had been a girl, I may have never searched out the name so thoroughly and discovered these things! But, an added bonus is that if the ultrasound technician’s prediction is wrong, our baby will still be named Eden.

The name is continually growing on me and I am falling in love with my little boy Eden and can’t wait to meet him! Another fun little tidbit is that my initials are JRE and the first initial of my three children – Justice, Rayah, and Eden – match my initials! So, that’s just a special little gift from my Father to me.

Freedom

Mark 5:1-20

Imagine putting yourself in the place of this demon-possessed man. You’re an outcast of society who is feared and hated. You are so tormented by the voices of demons that you are suicidal and the only way to find any measure of relief from their sadistic oppression is to mutilate your body and try to mask the mental, emotional and spiritual pain with physical pain. You are so overcome with sorrow and rage and every manner of wicked and depressing emotion and thought that night and day, unable to find rest or escape, all you can do is weep, wail and cry out. How long have you been suffering? Has it been weeks, months, or even years? You are in such great spiritual bondage, that the people’s attempts to bind you with shackles and chains is laughable – those chains are nothing compared to what locks down your heart.

Now imagine that you see a man in the distance, and due to your heightened awareness of the spiritual realm and the sudden chaos amongst the thousands of demons who inhabit your body, you see something about this man that not many others have been able to recognize. The demonic legion rages frantically in fear about the Son of the Most High God and you have a brief moment of sanity and clarity amongst all the confusion to realize that you MUST see this man and that He is your only hope! You run like you have never run before and fall at His feet in worship. In that moment, all you see is that He is beautiful and worthy of adoration and through this amazing gift of revelation of who He is, you even forget to ask for help, but simply whisper words of love.

Now imagine your surprise when control of your voice is suddenly seized from your power and the demons begin to engage with this man in pleas for mercy. Then with a simple command He instructs them to leave your body and with a jolt of power, you feel every single unclean, filthy, vile and evil thing wretch itself out of your being and you see the black cloud cast themselves into a herd of swine.

You now find yourself sitting at the feet of the man you now know is Jesus. Your nakedness has been covered and the most incredible peace has filled your heart and soul and mind. The look of compassion and love on His face floods your heart and you are consumed with love for this man. You are oblivious to the others who have come and who are pleading with Him to leave until He suddenly turns to go. Now you are the one pleading, but you are begging to go with Him. You have just encountered the love of the very Son of God and your life has been altered is a way so dramatic that it has caused an uproar in your community. You have been freed from demonic slavery and now all you want is to become a bondslave to Jesus and go with Him wherever He goes. When he denies your request, for a moment you are crushed, but then by His grace, you trust Him, for you know the depth of His love for you and you willingly accept His commission to go tell everyone about what He has done for you. In your heart, you still long for His presence and to simply be with Him, but you treasure the experience in your heart, holding onto it, believing that one day you will be with Him again for eternity.

2011

There have been an abundance of New Years posts lately, many detailing their resolutions or outlooks on the upcoming year, so I suppose I will join in as well.    While I wouldn’t say I’ve made any resolutions, I have several new projects or goals that I am wanting to implement this year that I am really excited about!

Prayer & Giving
Joe and I enjoy giving to various causes that we are passionate about, but we realized that we felt somewhat disconnected from the things we were giving to and that it was important to not only give financially, but to also pray for these issues.  So we are starting a prayer meeting with just the 2 of us once a week and we’ll focus on one of these issues per month in a rotation.  This month our focus is praying for the ending of human trafficking (modern-day slavery). 

We had our first prayer meeting last night and used the International House of Prayer‘s free prayer room webstream to help us out – they conveniently have a prayer meeting every Monday evening at 8:00pm for the ending of human trafficking that we could easily join in with and add our prayers to!  While I know that there will be weeks when I don’t feel motivated to get off my butt or where I have other things on my to do list or when I’m so focused on my own wants and needs that I won’t want to intercede for others, I am praying that God will give us the grace and strength to carry through the year. 

Ultimately, our goal and desire is to discover what it means to be priests of God and to minister to Him and others daily, wherever we are – at work, at home, at church, running errands, etc. – because this is who He made us to be and because He is worthy and deserving of our worship.

Bible Study
Joe and I also wanted to incorporate some kind of Bible study into our schedule, so we took advantage of the discounts available through IHOPU’s eSchooland registered for a 4-course non-credit audio bundle, which gives us four of the University’s courses in .mp3 format with all the course notes, which we can go through at our own pace.  We are probably going to start with the course “Christology” taught by Stephen Venable, which has 32 sessions, which we will go through 1 per week – that’s 8 months!!  The course description is:

“Through rigorous exploration of the biblical teaching concerning the person and work of Christ, this course seeks to inform the mind and inflame the heart with love. In view of the coming eschatological delusion, it is imperative that believers be established in the truths regarding the Son of God.”

We’ll probably listen to the teachings individually on our own time and then hopefully spend some time once a week together to discuss what we learned, simply meditate on God’s Word, and maybe spend some time in worship, singing about what we’ve discovered about Jesus!

Bible Reading Plan
I’ve noticed lots of people are getting excited about reading the Word this year and many people are signing up for various Bible reading plans.  Last year I managed to complete reading through the entire Bible in 90 days, but when I finished, I found myself floundering and not knowing what to do next.  Without a plan, I was lacking direction and so I ended up not reading my Bible at all!  When I read about some people who had this crazy plan to read through the New Testament in 30 days every month of this year (#NTx12 for those of you on Twitter), I felt like this was the plan I wanted to get on board with.  I’m excited about this plan because I had actually already been wanting to go deeper in the New Testament and this plan offers you the opportunity to “re-start” every month, in case you fall off the wagon.  Plus, it’s extra fun when you have others doing it along with you – several of my friends are joining in as well and it’s great watching the tweets starting already with people’s thoughts on what they’re discovering.  Most people are taking advantage of YouVersion.comwhich has fabulous resources with many reading plans to choose from – it’s easy to sign up for free and create an account that allows you to start a plan, tag verses with your own custom themes, bookmark your favorite verses, create notes with your private thoughts or share them publicly with the community, and much more!  If you’re on YouVersion – come follow me here!  I personally love using the YouVersion iPhone app, but I also enjoy the Blue Letter Bible iPhone app which allows me to highlight passages with my own custom colored themes (up to 7) and view related commentaries, dictionaries, etc.

365 Photography Project
I’ve always thought it would be fun to do a 365 Photography Project where I take one photo every day for a year and I am wondering if this is the year to try it?  I’m a little late, but I think it would be fun!  I’m a little hesitant because it’s also a big commitment and of all the things I’d like to do, this one would probably be the first to get abandoned, and I don’t really want to start if I’m just going to quit.  If my husband is reading this, he is probably pleading with God right now that I won’t do it, because he is horrified by the number of pictures I take and keep stored on our hard drive already – lol – but I am still very intrigued.  I’m thinking that if I don’t manage to take a picture every single day, that I would probably even be happy if I just took one picture per week, which works out well for one 365 Photography Project planthat gives you ideas/themes to inspire you – one for each week of the year.  The other drawback for me is that all I have are a point-and-shoot camera and my iPhone camera – not exactly professional equipment – so I’d have to do it knowing that my pictures wouldn’t be all that spectacular or come anywhere close to comparing with other photographer’s similar projects.  This week’s theme is “Cold”, which is definitely fitting for the frigid temperatures we are experiencing right now – I wonder what interesting photo I could take today???  If I do this, I’ll also have to choose my medium for sharing my photos – whether to post a blog weekly, monthly, or simply put them up on flickr or some other site – I’ll keep you updated on what I decide to do.

Yikes!!  I’m a little nervous about the amount of things I’m getting into, but mostly I’m just excited about the potential for growth and creativity and being challenged! 

Have you made any resolutions or goals or started any new projects this year?  Do share in the comments and let me know!

The Only One Worthy of Worship

“All your pomp has been brought down to the grave,
along with the noise of your harps…
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’”
Isaiah 14:11, 13-14

“…You were the model of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty…
You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created
till wickedness was found in you…
Your heart became proud
on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom
because of your splendor…”
Ezekiel 28:12, 15, 17

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…”
Exodus 20:4-5

The scripture tells us that Satan was a guardian cherub, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty who walked amongst the fiery stones on the holy mount of God and who played musical instruments, perhaps leading worship in heaven.  But somewhere along the way, he became corrupted in his heart because he allowed pride to seep in and cause him to consider his own beauty and splendor to be equal to or even greater than that of God.  In his heart he aspired to ascend God’s holy mountain and take over God’s throne so that he might receive worship for himself.  Somewhere along the way, he began to believe that his wisdom and beauty were of his own making and that he was deserving of the worship of heaven, forgetting that it was God who created him and gave him that beauty to begin with.

Many of us are familiar with that story and we might think ourselves wiser and above falling for the same deception, yet I’m afraid that the desire to receive worship is a common iniquity within us all.  As fallen, sinful humans, there is a part of our flesh that longs for others to recognize our beauty, our talents, our abilities, our riches, our admirable qualities, our power, etc. etc.  In fact, humans receive worship from each other all the time – politicians, musicians, athletes, celebrities, wealthy business people – and secretly, we love it.  We love to be admired, adored, praised and told by others how wonderful we are!  Now, I’m not talking about the healthy desire for words of affirmation and love from those who care about us – I’m talking about the deep, hidden desire that we wish wasn’t there that longs to be worshiped.

The Holy Spirit constantly has to remind me of this trap of the enemy, as it is so easy to get caught up in this, especially when you are involved in any kind of leadership role where people are looking up to you.  I don’t know about others, but I’m guessing that this isn’t uncommon even for worship leaders, musicians and singers whose sole purpose is to lead people to worship God.  Now, I believe that even deeper, there is the sincere and completely pure desire to have all worship go only to God and that He sees that desire more than He sees our weakness and sinfulness, so I hope I’m not communicating any sort of judgment or shame!  I know that God sees my true longings to praise and adore Him, but I also know that He is absolutely not willing to share any of His worship with me or any other person, and that He loves me so much, that He will do anything to rid my heart of these idolatrous roots!

Lastly, something I’ve been thinking about is that one of the attributes of God that makes Him God is that He alone is the only One worthy of worship or praise.  Like I already said, He will share His worship with no one – not an angel, not an animal, not the sun or moon or stars, not a demon, not any created thing in the universe, and certainly not any human!!  For Him to allow anything or anyone other than Himself to receive worship would mean that He would cease to be God, because then He would be saying that this thing or person is equal to or greater than Himself. 

However, there is one amazing exception to this, in that part of His perfect plan to redeem humankind involved sending His One and Only Son, His equal in every way, to become a man forever, and He set it up that Jesus will one day receive the worship and praise of every man, woman and child, every angel and demon and living creature, and they will all confess that Jesus is Lord!!!  Jesus is the ONLY man who is and will ever be worthy of receiving worship, because though He is now fully a man, He is also still fully God!  Through God’s sovereign and supernatural workings, He made it possible for a man to receive worship, while not relinquishing any of His own Divinity. since He chose to express His very own nature and form in Jesus, making what was once invisible now visible to mankind!  It’s sort of hard to wrap your mind around, but it’s pretty awesome!

In the end, I am so grateful that it is Jesus who will receive all the worship of all creation and that nobody and no thing will be able to any longer take any worship for themselves…including myself.

A Home for Sanctuary House of Prayer – Part 2

Read Part 1 here…

Back in Calgary a few months later and we found ourselves at a fork in the road with several different options before us.  Joe had been offered a really great job opportunity that would require us to move to a different city.  We were also being asked to help head up the leadership of a ministry by a great couple who had mentored us in prayer and intercession.  And then I think it was me who decided to throw in the monkey wrench of proposing that we move to Winnipeg to be a part of this new budding house of prayer.  The thought of it was scary and crazy, but so tempting!  Yet these other options were also really great and we were having a really hard time deciding which path to take?  Finally, we felt the Lord say that it was our choice and that He would bless us no matter which one we chose.  In the end, we had to follow the desire of our hearts to be in a place where the main focus was simply to minister to the Lord in worship and prayer – we could think of nothing better!

After taking a trip that summer to visit Sanctuary House of Prayer and meet all the awesome people who were a part of it, our decision was final and in September 2006 we picked up and moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba to join them!  I vividly remember the first time I attended and sat down in the back row by myself (Joe was still in Calgary and would be coming in a couple weeks) and as I opened my Bible and journal, with the prophetic worship happening on stage, I broke down in tears, I was so happy to be there!  It didn’t matter that it was small, that the sound system was terrible, that the musicians and singers were amateurs, that there was no air conditioning – these people loved Jesus, the presence of the Holy Spirit was there, and I felt His delight over it all.  Something in my heart came alive and I knew we were where we were supposed to be.

Fast forward nearly 4 years and I don’t think any of us expected that we would still be in that small building with bad sound and no air conditioning – ha!  I think we’ve grown as musicians and singers over the years, but the most important thing is still that it’s all about Jesus, His presence, and ministering to Him.  Joe and I have had the privilege of hosting hundreds of prayer meetings in our own home as well, which has been an incredible blessing to us and our family.  There have been many challenges and trials, growing experiences, joyful and fun times, intense encounters with God, tears, laughter, and hours of prayer and worship that have brought us to a new season at our little house of prayer.  As of September, exactly 4 years since Joe and I moved here, we will no longer be able to use the building that has been graciously provided to us by the church who owns it.  We have longed and yearned and searched and prayed for a building of our own probably ever since we began, but the time has come where our prayers are now being lifted up in earnest, as we need a place of our own more than ever!

I wanted to share a little bit about our journey and how we came to Sanctuary House of Prayer because I wanted to give you a glimpse into why we love this place and why we are passionate about seeing this ministry unto God continue in our city.  Not only do we want to be able to continue to gather to worship and intercede on behalf of Winnipeg as we have been up until now, but we long to be able to one day do this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Jesus said that He would return to the earth to bring justice in response to day and night prayer, so that is what we want to do!  Not only because we desire to see justice and righteousness established on the earth, but simply because He is worthy and deserving of non-stop, continuous worship and adoration!  In heaven, there is ceaseless worship around the throne of God, and Jesus Himself taught us to pray, “on earth as it is in heaven”, so we would love to see this happen here and now.

Recently we held an assembly where we gathered for a focused time of worship and prayer and brought in a guest speaker and worship leader, Justin Rizzo, from IHOP.  While he was here, he shared many things that really encouraged us in what we’re doing, but one thing that really struck home was a prophetic word he gave us where he shared about a vision that he had seen of a whirlwind of God’s presence that was in the place where we currently meet.  Similar to the cloud and pillar of fire that was with the Israelites in Exodus and which led them through the desert, Justin shared with us that he felt we would move when the whirlwind moved – as God’s presence leads us, that is how we will know where to go – it won’t be us moving and hoping He follows us! So, this is the place we find ourselves – needing to trust in God’s perfect leadership and that He will truly lead us to where He wants us to go.  He is not surprised by these events and He knows exactly what He’s doing!  He is the One who is building His house of prayer in this city and He wants it even more than we do!

So, for anyone who reads this blog, in the weeks ahead, I would like to ask you to partner with us as we pray and seek God for a home for Sanctuary House of Prayer…

1.  PRAY!  Please pray for a building for us, that we will find the right one, that the Lord will provide the resources needed, and that we will follow His leadership throughout the process.

2.  SHARE!  Tell your friends and your friends’ friends, your relatives and your relatives’ relatives, your co-workers, your neighbors – anyone and everyone!  You never know where there might be a connection that could help us find our new home!

3.  HELP!  If you see or know of a suitable building for sale – tell us, if you have millions of dollars you want to get rid of – by all means do share, if you have or know of a space for rent or lease or free – we’ll take a look at that too!  Any lead or donation or anything would be super helpful to us at this stage in our journey.

While we do not know exactly how the future will unfold, we are excited for whatever God has in store and to see how He is going to write the next chapter in our story.  Thanks for reading and for joining with us in this adventure!

A Home for Sanctuary House of Prayer – Part 1

I want to share a little about our journey that has brought my husband and I to Sanctuary House of Prayer and what God is currently doing in our midst…

Before I met my husband Joe, I knew nothing about the International House of Prayer (IHOP) and was simply enjoying life in Calgary, Alberta where I had been living for over four years.  I loved Jesus, was going to school for Computer Programming, volunteered part-time at my church, and figured I would probably stay there forever?  Then my life got turned upside down when this handsome, tall, charming man entered my life and swept me off my feet with poetic, romantic words from the Song of Songs, wooing my heart with words about my Bridegroom Jesus that I never thought I’d hear coming from any man!  To find someone who was this in love with Jesus felt like a direct answer to my prayers and it wasn’t long before I was head over heels in love.

During our dating months, I began to learn that Joe had learned all this wonderful language about Jesus as our Bridegroom from teachings he had listened to by Mike Bickle at IHOP and my first personal experience came when he bought me Mike Bickle’s 20 session series on the Song of Songs.  From then on, I was hooked, and soon began to learn all about intercession, harp and bowl worship & prayer, the End-Times, the Bridal Paradigm, and more.  Joe and I both knew that this was something we wanted to be a part of!

After we got married, we seriously considered moving to Kansas City so that Joe could do an internship at IHOP, but we felt like the Lord told us to stay put.  We then got involved at our church in a leadership role for the prayer ministry of the young adult service and we started to implement anything and everything we could from IHOP’s harp and bowl worship and prayer model.  We loved it and were experiencing some really enjoyable times of prayer!  But we longed for more…

In January of 2006, as I was reading the blog of an old friend from highschool (Kristi), I discovered that her husband(Shane) was going to become a full-time intercessory missionary as they launched Sanctuary House of Prayer back in Winnipeg, Manitoba!  Joe and I were so excited just to hear about another young, married couple with the same desires and passions and that there was going to be a house of prayer in Canada!  We had not heard of anyone else doing anything like this in Canada and were simply happy for them.  As we made plans to visit my family for my dad’s birthday that March, we knew we just had to get together for coffee with Shane & Kristi to chat with them about their new endeavor.  When we met up at Cora’s for brunch, we immediately connected and felt like there was finally someone speaking our language!  They encouraged us in what we were doing back at our church and we encouraged them in what they were doing and we left that coffee date not thinking much of it.

To be continued…

(You can read Part 2 here)

Women Who Proclaim

If you haven’t visited this site recently, you should really come by just to see the beautiful new header that my friend Bethany Vanderputten of www.bethanyillustrates.com painted for me!  Here’s a close-up view of her creation and you can view the full painting by coming to www.echoinghim.com.

As we were emailing back and forth, discussing the painting, Bethany sent me a word of encouragement for writing on this blog, sharing with me the scripture Psalm 68:11 which says,

The Lord gives the command; the women who proclaim the good tidings are a great host.

In her personal study of this verse, she wrote her own paraphrase which goes like this…

The Lord speaks poetically and a great host of women shine like stars in sacred service publishing the beautiful good news.

I love this!  The Lord is speaking and there is a great host of women who are listening to hear what He is saying and are then proclaiming His message to the earth!  I am so encouraged by the many amazing women of God who are using the various platforms out there to proclaim the beautiful good news of Jesus – whether through their blog, in a 140-character tweet, a work of art, a worship song, a phone call, during coffee with a friend, in an article or book, from a pulpit, in a video on youtube – the possibilities are endless!  Daily I am challenged and inspired by this great host of women whom God has anointed and appointed to shine like stars in the darkness and declare what is on His heart towards mankind. 

So today I want to bless and encourage every woman of God who reads this and remind you that God has given His command, His Word and you are His voice in this world!

Perhaps in the comments you can share links to some of the women that inspire and challenge you through their words, their creations or their lives.

A Pleasing Offering – Part 3

A continuation… (Read Part 1 and Part 2)

In Romans 13:8, 9, Paul writes that all of the commandments in the law are fulfilled if we will just love one another and that all of the commandments could be summed up by the command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. While the Scriptures themselves command me to be a woman of the Word and to meditate on it daily and to pray unceasingly, if I do those things and neglect to love my children, I have missed it! Matthew 23:23 has Jesus rebuking the religious leaders saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone.” It is a religious spirit that causes us to get so focused on performing the duties of being a Christian that we forget what truly matters – justice, mercy, faith and love. They were offering to God what was required by the law, but they had missed what He truly desired to receive from them.

For me, while this new revelation has deeply impacted my heart, it is still difficult to put into action. I have found it difficult to lay down my desires for how I want to worship God and what I want to offer Him in order to seek what He wants. While I may be fixated upon getting time to read my Bible or pray, if I were to stop and ask Him, “What offering do you want from me, God?” perhaps His answer would be, “Play with your son” or “Rest your body” or “Go for a walk with your husband” or “Call your friend and pray for her need” or “Sing a song to me” or “Hold your daughter while she cries” or any number of things that I previously wouldn’t have considered as being a valid offering of worship unto God. Somewhere along the line, I forgot that I am actually loving God when I love people! I think there will also be times when He would ask of me to read my Bible or pray, but the point is that I don’t assume what He wants and that I am willing to give up my way of doing things for His way. To have a broken and contrite spirit like David wrote about in Psalm 51:16-17 requires that I submit my will to God and set aside my own selfish desires – not an easy thing to do!

As Romans 12:1 says, “…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God…”

A Pleasing Offering – Part 2

A continuation… (Read Part 1 here)

My husband gave me a word from the Lord, “You want to give an offering to God your way instead of His way.”

I immediately was convicted by the truth of his statement and realized that though my initial desire to spend time in the Word and in prayer was good and honorable, that I had never bothered to ask the Lord what kind of offering He desired! And perhaps that was the problem with Cain in Genesis 4. Perhaps he saw that Abel was giving an offering to God and in his own desire to please God, he strove to present something to God out of his own strength, instead of first asking the Lord what type of offering would please Him? I have done this countless times – I see what someone else is able to offer to God, by spending hours in Bible study or intercession, and then I feel that I want to do the same, regardless of whether or not that is what the Lord is asking of me. I so easily feel pressured by what the apparent standard is for being a “good Christian” and I strive to please God by checking off chapters on a Bible-reading plan or logging the hours I’ve put in through prayer. Only, I’m usually left feeling like it is never enough and that I can never attain to this elusive super-Christian status. I want to give God an offering my way, based on my desires and my strength, and I just set myself up for failure.

Why has it never occurred to me before to ask God what type of offering or worship He would like from me?? Yet this is the very same trap that the Israelites fell into several times. King Saul is a prime example, for when he was commanded by God to kill every person and animal in a particular tribe, he kept the best of the animals to present as an offering to God instead. And was God impressed by this extravagant gift? Not at all. In 1 Samuel 15:22-23, the Lord says this,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…”

Saul had his own idea of what would please God, but completely disregarded what the Lord had commanded him to do and in so doing, missed out on what He truly desired. As a result of this act of disobedience, Saul was rejected as king of Israel and the Lord began to seek for a man who was truly after His own heart. This brings me to David, who was perhaps one of the few who really sought God’s heart and sought to discover what He delighted in. In Psalm 51:16-17, he writes this,

“For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart – these, O God, You will not despise.”

It seems strange, that the very sacrifices and offerings that God commanded His people to offer Him were the very things that they would get tripped up on, thinking that these outward signs of worship were what He desired, when what He really wanted was their hearts. In Isaiah 1:11-17, the Lord rebukes Israel, saying that He has come to despise their sacrifices and that their incense has become an abomination to Him because of the sinful lives they were living. If I put myself into this story, I might be looking for God’s approval after reading for an hour in my Bible, only for Him to find it an unacceptable offering, since it was given at the cost of treating my children without love.

To be continued…

A Pleasing Offering – Part 1

Perhaps you are familiar with this feeling – you have a hunger and a desire to spend time with the Lord and when other responsibilities, events, or people get in the way, it’s almost as though they become your enemy. This is a good feeling to have when the things that hinder you from loving God are sinful or fruitless activities or relationships, since we need to be tenacious and violent in our pursuit of God and willing to forsake our other “lovers”. However, what do you do when the thing that’s getting in your way is your own flesh and blood – a screaming toddler or a hungry baby?

This was where I found myself the other day – longing and aching to fulfill that desire to spend long hours reading my Bible and communing with Jesus, only to be continuously thwarted at every turn by my own dear children. It didn’t take long before there was a pent-up ball of fiery rage burning on the inside of me and I just wanted to scream and cry and yell at the unfairness of it all (and in fact, I did scream and cry some). This is the paradox of parenting – how this little human being whom you love so deeply also seems to bring out the worst in you by exposing all your selfish motives!

But this is not what I wanted to share with you – it is just how the story begins. That evening, as I was ready to fall apart at the seams and break down once again, my dear husband turned in his Bible to Genesis 4, which tells the story of Cain and Abel. I’m sure you are familiar with this famous tale of the very first murder, but it begins with what appears to be a sincere offering to God on Cain’s part. He brought an offering of his crops to the Lord, while his brother Abel brought the firstborn of his flock. The Lord accepted Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s. At this, Cain became very angry and the Lord asks him, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

To be completely honest, when reading this, it is tempting to side with Cain and wonder why the Lord was so hard on him? What was wrong with Cain’s offering? Why wasn’t it good enough? Wouldn’t you be angry and upset too? Must we strive to gain God’s approval and acceptance? Like Cain, I had an offering I desired to give to the Lord – I wanted to offer Him my time and focused devotion – and when that didn’t work out for me, I became angry and began to take it out on my own family members, even as Cain took out his anger on his brother Abel.

Now was there anything wrong with my desire? Was there anything wrong with wanting to spend time reading my Bible or praying? Of course not! But, here is where it hit home for me when my husband said to me, by the Holy Spirit’s prophetic inspiration,

“You want to give an offering to God your way instead of His way.”

Ouch!

To be continued…

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