Whispers of Truth

I think it is really cool that I get to blog on a regular basis about spiritual things and people all around the world can read what God puts on my heart, but tomorrow, I have the privilege of going to Ecuador as part of a missions team through my local church, First Baptist Tallassee. We will be conducting VBS, teaching some basic English skills, and doing marketplace evangelism while our pastors train the church leaders there. Jesus says in Matthew 28:18-20,   " All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.   Go therefore and  make disciples of  all the nations,  baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,   teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo,  I am with you always, even to  the end of the age.” How cool is that? Global evangelism and the Great Commission. God is good to let me be just a small part of it, and I am so excited! Please pray for the Spirit to open hearts.

      Do you ever struggle with having the "want-to"? You know you wan t to do something, but not quite enough to put forth the effort to make it happen right that moment...it can be anything from cleaning the house, cooking supper, getting up to exercise, or even the most important thing for a Christian each day--reading God's Word. I struggled with even writing this today because don't all Christians naturally want to communicate with God?       At least that's the thought that came to me as I struggled to get going. Tonight is Bible study night at the Cafe. We have been studying Malachi, which concludes the first part of our study on the minor prophets. It has been a wonderful, unexpected journey for many of us, but it has also been hard. It is not always easy to pick up God's letter to us and see our own sin exposed through the sins of His chosen people. It is not always easy to want to leave our families behind to go back out after a long day to gathe...

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (Romans 8:14 NASB) Have you ever felt the whisper of the Spirit waken you with he impression to do something specific? Twice in the past week, I have awakened to the Spirit's urging me to action. The first time was simple, and I obeyed. Easy enough, right? The second time I felt the urging to pray, as I often do when awakened in the wee hours of the morning. This time was different though, as I had no distinct impression to pray for anyone specific. So I asked, "Who, Lord?" He whispered, "You." I was surprised and prayed rather reluctantly and weakly for strength for the day without putting together the idea that I would face testing. As soon as my feet hit the floor, it began. One stress after another led to anger, regret for my anger, and feelings bubbling up that didn't even realize I had...and finally, I got it. God through his Spirit was warning me that I was to be tested, and I ar...

"Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23). Today my husband and I had yet another conversation about modesty on the way home from church. Like me, he is disturbed by the lack of it by the young ladies and women who profess to be the body of Christ. There is no question that the world and its standards have crept into the Church, and this is not a discussion of rebellious youth--instead, ladies of all ages seem to be struggling (or maybe not struggling enough) with this issue. Many times I sit in the choir loft and wish the congregation, too, had a modesty rail like the one in the front us. Too much skin is often showing both above and below the waist, and if it is a distraction to me (because I promise I am not looking to see it), then I know it has to be a problem for many of the men. When it is impossible to sit and be modest, the skirt is just too short... Modesty has become a pervasive problem. Unfortunately, ma...

Yesterday I mentioned that I got rather distracted when I went on a word search for the word agitation , but I didn't share what I learned from my search. It all began as I was waiting for the washer to fill up with water yesterday. My washer is rather dysfunctional, and as a result, I can actually have the lid open while my clothes are washing (yes, I know the dangers...). Unfortunately, I have the bad habit of starting the washer and then  going to get the clothes. If I get sidetracked, when I get back the washer is usually so full of water and suds that it takes me several minutes to actually get the clothes into the washer because of the suds that would overflow if I forced the clothes...so, as I stood waiting to put all the clothes in, I noticed the agitation that forced the dirty clothes down. As I stood and simply watched, it made me think of spiritual things. God often uses agitation in my life to get me clean. I don't always want  to be clean when I am steeping in...

Have I mentioned before that I am a logophile ? If you know me at all, you already know this, but those who don't know me shouldn't be scared. According to Emily Brewster, an editor for Merrimack-Webster's online dictionary, a logophile is simply "s omeone who loves words." Some of you who know Greek (or at least its roots) might have recognized the words  logos , which means    "speech, word, reason," and   philos , meaning "dear, friendly." Ms. Brewster goes on to explain that words  such as  analogous ,   apology , and  logic have a historical link to the word logos as well, and philos  contributes   -phile , meaning  "someone who likes something very much."  So I found this in a dictionary...it's what word-lovers read, OK? I am quite sure that many of you are weird in your own ways...but back to the subject at hand;  the point of this (besides my love of words) is my love of The Word (Logos), Jesus Christ. John 1:1 p...

Perspective matters. Malachi understood this. God loved His people, yet they questioned His love and saw their own actions much differently than God did. Where they saw sacrifice and worship, God saw the offense of their sins. Their lack of perspective got so bad that God told them to try offering the sacrifices they were presenting Him to their governor in lieu of their taxes and see the truth of the situation. There was no fear or reverence of God because they had slid into a pattern that wasn't even visible to most of them. This is common to us all. We take a small step off the path of righteousness, justify it IF we even recognize that there's a problem, and soon we have veered off the path to a degree that requires God's discipline to make the correction because we can no longer see the truth of our situation. It doesn't always feel like God loves me when I encounter hard things or trying times, but in my heart I know that all of mankind (even God's children) e...

I came home a few weeks ago to find a dirty, old brown bottle sitting on the catch-all shelf by the back door. I wasn't sure who put it there, but I suspected my husband had unearthed it while plowing in one of his fields. It was a squat bottle coated in dried mud inside and out. At first glance it was hard to see anything of beauty in it, but I grabbed the dirty thing as I walked through the door thinking to save it from shattering on my back porch. After setting it on the cluttered bar, I changed clothes and set to cooking supper--a rare occasion lately. The bottle sat there until I could no longer ignore it. The dirt bothered me, and I couldn't resist getting a peek at what lay underneath. As I scrubbed and rubbed at the dirt, I wondered what kind of bottle it could be--anything from DDT to an old brew could have been held in the circa 1974 bottle, but I could see it holding flowers.... After about five minutes of scrubbing using soap and hot water, the outside was clean, ...

I have to confess that often during the end of April each year I spend more time reading English research papers I've assigned to my 11th and 12th grade students than I do God's Word. I don't do this because I have a twisted longing to read a lot of less than ideal writing about subjects that are trivial or worldly. I do this because it is part of my job to train students how to write--and they cannot learn to write without writing. However, there's always a lesson in there for me, even when I'm sixteen hours into grading research papers about topics such as a lottery to benefit education... This year I asked my 11th graders take a stance on the often hotly debated topic of establishing a lottery that would benefit education in Alabama (somewhat like neighboring states). Due to the fact that they know very little about the subject up front, all but three chose to write on the pro-lottery side. It is interesting (and often scary) to get inside the heads of my stude...

Recently I have been thinking a lot about the idea of being redeemed. The old hymn by the same name has always been one of my favorites; in addition, what Christian cannot help but ponder the idea of redemption this close to Easter? The point where these thoughts that seem rather random intersect is what has been on my mind. To redeem something is to buy it back, which implies that ownership had been established at a prior time. I belong to Him and have from the beginning, and Jesus gave His precious life blood to redeem me. So why wouldn't I "love to proclaim it," as the song proclaims so joyfully yet reverently? I have always known there was a price for redemption paid by Christ, but I haven't always given enough consideration to the prior ownership of my soul...it is God's right to redeem me, and my job to bring Him glory. Honestly, relating the idea of redemption to a coupon helps me somewhat, strange as that is. When I go to the grocery store and have a co...