Just a Flicker

What kind of light do you have that can shine? What light are you spreading?

Do you have a HUGE sun that is fiery and constantly burning? Do you have a city full of lights like NYC on New Year's Eve? Do you have a fluorescent light shining in a department store? Do you have a lamp shining on the bedside table? Do you have a flashlight casting light to the path ahead? Do you have a candle burning to the wick's end? Do you have a match that is ready to light a flame anywhere?

God reminded me tonight that to SHINE for Him, doesn't mean I have to be burning like fire. It doesn't mean I have to have this HUGE program reaching thousands of people. As I finished a phone call in prayer with dear friend going through a trial, God so gently reminded me what it means to truly SHINE for Him.

It is just one little light... it is just one little light that can make the difference. As that thought crossed my mind I looked up and saw my living room chandelier that has been having "technical difficulties" for the past few weeks. Some days, there is only one little light that is shining. I didn't even realize so many bulbs needed changed until the power flickered the other day. When it flickered, suddenly the other lights came on and the room suddenly became brighter.

Where is God wanting you to flicker today? Yes, we are to SHINE.. because light to a dark world is a testimony to God's goodness. BUT... if you don't have the energy or the confidence to SHINE... don't sweat it yet. God will be building you into the light He wants you to become. Be satisfied to be just a flicker today. When you flicker... someone will see what they have been missing. When you share a little flicker with them... even just for a moment, it will be a reminder of God's awesome power in your life... and it will give someone... a little flicker of hope.

Centered

Centered... focussed... balanced... all words an ADD woman like me can't seem to get a grip on. Finding the peace of being in the center of God's will, focussed on His direction on my life, and balanced between spirit living and flesh living seems more of a battle than anything else.

Lately I have been under a lot of stress. Probably a good amount of it is self-induced, but nevertheless, stress is stress! I spent the entire night itching for no reason. I tossed and turned. My mind ran endlessly on the things going on in my life. Should I have done this? How do I know the right decision about that? Where should I go? Wonder if I would have done something differently, would things be different? You know how it is.

As a dear friend on facebook sent me a "Praying for You" message, God showed me something. I have been so stressed out about the fear of NOT being in the center of His will. I battle between worrying if something is God's will or just something I personally would like. Is it the Spirit leading? Or is this a fleshly desire? My balance, focus, and peace is totally destroyed.

What God showed me is pretty simple. Instead of being in an uproar about being in the center of His will, I need to just allow myself to rest in His hand. Now I am not saying I don't want to be in the center of His will; but if I am resting in the center of His hand.. then I am also going to be in the center of His will.

Being a who God wants us to be, isn't as difficult as we make it out to be. We just have to rest in God. He sent Jesus to be our Savior. When I think about being in the center of God's hand, I have this visual that just brings me to tears. I think of Jesus and the nail wholes in His hand. If I am in the center of His huge hands... I am sitting right in the scars of the holes in His hands. I can almost see the skin of his hands as a wall around me. I wish I could describe it as beautifully as I see it. Such a place of protection, yet a place to constantly see the pain He bore to love us.

Today... why don't you try to be centered. Quit working so hard to find the center of God's will and just rest in the center of His loving nail scarred hands.

If God be for us?

Isn't it a shame that we even have to ask, "if God be for us"? Although I think that question in the scripture is meant more as a rhetorical question, I believe many of us waste too much time wondering if God is really for us.

A dear friend started off my new year right by sending me this passage of scripture and told me to meditate on it. I challenge you to do the same:

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. "

-Romans 8:31-39

I am making this my passage of verses for 2009. When struggles come..."Who can separate us from the love of Christ?" No matter what we are going through, Christ's love is always surrounding us. I am determined that this year I will not ask... IF Christ is for me. I have decided to pull out this scripture through any time of doubt. I am determined to be reminded that "neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing" will be able to separate me from God's love.

Won't you take a look at this scripture today and ask God to show you this year how HE IS for you!

Clean Slate

As a new year begins, we all want to start over with a clean slate. Forget about the things in the past year that we screwed up on. It is time to create a new record, a new way of living. On the new year, we each resolve to change all the areas that need improvement. If only all the things we have done wrong over the past year could actually be wiped clean and forgotten!!

If you are like me, sometimes it is hard to press toward new and better goals for the haunting of all the things I have done wrong. At times, it is so much easier to look at all the areas in life where I have failed. Yes the last year has had many great strides in my personal, professional, and spiritual life... but for some reason, the failures are what stay impressed at the forefront of my memory.

One of my favorite scriptures is found in Isaiah. I love the way The Message just spits it out in such plain English:

"...you're my servant. I made you, shaped you: You're my servant... I'll never forget you. I've wiped the slate of all your wrongdoings. There's nothing left of your sins. Come back to me, come back. I've redeemed you." -Isaiah 44:21-22

Oh how wonderful to think that my slate has been wiped clean!! All I have to do is ask. Jesus has redeemed me and I can start over any time I need to. He is right there creating a clean slate for me to start walking in the right direction.

Yes, I have messed up many times over the past year. I could write you a list right there on that little chalkboard... but...LOOK... it has already been wiped clean!!! Let's take the clean slate God has given us today and begin writing a story to be proud of. God bless you this new year!