Monthly Archives: October 2013

Lord, It’s Time to Clean House…

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Create in me a clean heart

I hate cleaning.  I admit it.  I loathe it.  There is true enmity between dishes and me.  It is the thing I put off the most, and the thing I most need to do.  I have to be very intentional about making myself keep up on my cleaning duties.  Most of the time I fail, but I give it a valiant effort.

This last weekend I set about the task of getting two things done.  I wanted to get my house, “back in order,” as I like to say.  In other words, I had a week’s worth of dishes and laundry and clutter to deal with.  And, I wanted to start to clean out our basement.  Ugh.  The basement.  Two years ago it flooded.  We stacked up furniture in a dry corner and pulled up carpet in an effort to save as much as we could.  That time we did, but since then it’s flooded every third time it’s rained.  It’s awful.  So, I knew I need to just pitch most of what’s down there, and like all housework, I’ve been putting it off.

When my husband and I went down to start organizing things, we knew we had a big chore ahead of us.  What we found was not as bad as I’d imagined, but a whole lot of work.  The biggest issue is the mildew.  It’s growing in a lot of places and it’s going to be a battle getting rid of it.   It’s attached itself to things we treasure and we’ll have to clean.    We’ve lost a lot of things—nothing that can’t be replaced but still it was hard sorting through some of it.  It also hit me, “why have I been holding onto this stuff?”  Much of it I haven’t used in years, and it really didn’t need to be kept to begin with.  I just didn’t want to see it go.

The song “Whatever You’re Doing” by Sanctus Real kept running through my head as we took on this monstrous task.  The specific lyrics that resonated were:

“Time to face up,
Clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out
That I’ve wanted to say for so many years
Time to release all my held back tears”

As I worked on the two cleaning tasks I undertook this weekend, I got to thinking, “What sins and issues have I been putting off dealing with?”   I began to ask God to show me things that I had been avoiding cleaning out in my heart.  And, just like I asked Him to, He delivered.

The biggest sin He showed me just reared its ugly head a few days ago, but it was characteristic of something I don’t like admitting I struggle with—my temper.  This last flare-up was about something very dear to me—my Bible.  You see, since I’ve been working four jobs, I’ve had to grab my quiet time on the go.  So I’ve kept my Bible in my car’s passenger seat so it’s easy to grab.  The other night my daughter left something in the backseat, and for reasons that make no sense to me, she opened the front passenger door and climbed across the backseat to get it.  Her hands full, she carelessly didn’t close the passenger door behind her.  The result was about 6 barn cats climbing all over the seats.  And to top that off a thunderstorm came through.  The seat was drenched…and so was my Bible.  I have years of notes in the margins, and memories that go with them stored up in that volume.  And it was drenched.  I suppose I should thank the barn cats for setting off the warning lights or I’d have never gone out to check it until morning—by that time my Bible would have been ruined.  When I came back in, I was heartbroken.  I sat down and cried that something that was so precious was damaged—at the time I believed beyond repair.  (After a lot of work, I was able to salvage it.)  What made me mad though wasn’t that my daughter had carelessly caused this catastrophe, but rather her response to it.  She said it, “wasn’t her fault.”  I blew up.  I chewed her up one side and down the other.  I hurt her feelings the way mine were hurt.  I was so wrong.  I damaged her because something I loved was damaged.  How wrong of me.

God began to show me that, even though she was wrong in what she did and said, so was I.  My overreaction did not give her a good role model for dealing with adversity.  Instead, I was showing her that throwing a fit when something upsets me is acceptable.  It’s not.

“It’s time for healing time to move on
It’s time to fix what’s been broken too long
Time make right what has been wrong
It’s time to find my way to where I belong”

When we avoid sin it begins to turn into a similar scene as my basement.  We hold on to things we don’t really need—things that can cause damage if they’re left for too long.  They begin to mildew and break down.  They aren’t any good to us, so why do we keep avoiding dealing with them?  The worst part is that the sin we’re holding onto and not confronting can cause damage to other things that are of worth.  The mildew of it grows on the things we treasure—like relationships with our family, and with the Lord.

Avoiding sin is easy.  We just keep living upstairs and keep it up and running, but underneath, in the basement of our hearts, it’s still there, it’s not going away, and it’s destroying us little by little.

“Time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Reevaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow your will
or just climbing aimlessly over these hills
So show me what it is you want from me
I give everything I surrender…”

Lord, show me what I can do to fight off this sin nature that I detest so much and avoid.  I surrender…”whatever You’re doing inside of me…You’re up to something bigger than me.  Larger than life, something heavenly”  Let me be brave enough to say, “It’s time to face up.  Clean this old house.  Time breathe in and let everything out”

Staying Alert in Christ,

Megan

Battling Bitterness

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“Break my heart for what breaks Yours.  Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause…”

These are words to one of my favorite praise songs called “Hosanna.”  They have been a prayer of mine for a long time.  I want to be Christ’s servant in everything I do…it’s a tall order and some days a battle.  I’ve shared with you that I’ve been battling bitterness toward a group of people for a while now.  Two weekends ago God stripped that bitterness from me, and although Satan has tried to drag me back into the muck a couple of times, I’ve managed, with God’s help, to “not go there.”  It’s been a good week.   I’ve felt freer than I have been in a long time.  I can’t say that I’m ready to see these people and share a meal with them, but I’m getting there.  He’s answering my prayers to show me these women through His eyes.  He’s giving me empathy for them, and I’m actually forgiving them.  It’s something I wasn’t able to do in my own strength.  And, because it’s Him that’s refining me, I’m now able to help others in a way that I couldn’t help them before.  Amazingly He’s opened several doors to minister to those going through similar pain.  If these people had asked for my help just two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have answered in the way that He needed me to.

So, I thought I’d share some of the lessons God’s laid on my heart from my time battling bitterness.

1.     Don’t be afraid to tell God how hurt you are.  Many times we as Christians think we shouldn’t be weak.  This allows bitterness to get a foothold in our heart.  It’s a natural progression—in our sin nature—to want to lash out at those who have hurt us.  It’s not in our nature to “turn the other cheek,” and to forgive them.  But, in Ephesians 4:31-32 we’re commanded to, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  I’ve found that acknowledging my pain, and giving it to God daily, helps when I am hurting.  It also gives me permission to be okay where I am.  Telling God that I’m hurting opens me up to His will and perfect love.  Locking it all up means that I’m not okay with where I am…and this gives Satan a chance confuse and manipulate me.

2.     Have a plan.  So many times I catch myself running down a list of all the horrible things these women did.  I have found that if I have a plan to stop my thoughts from going down a path that leads to bitterness,  then I can battle the war going on inside me much better.  I have two verses that I claim regularly to keep my mind on the right track.  The first is Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”  Whenever I caught myself sinking into anger and bitterness,  I would repeat this verse to myself.  Then, I would practice it by listing all the things that are good, and noble, and true about my life right now.

The second verse that helped was Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that  hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the   race marked out for us…”  This verse helped me to remember that when these women were lying about me, and plotting to cause me harm, that God knew the truth.  He had placed witnesses in the heavenly realms that would intercede on my       behalf.  My job was not to worry about what was being said about me, but to focus on the sins that were entangling me and to walk through this trial with God as my companion.

 3.     Happiness is a choice.  When life is hard, it’s easy to get depressed and angry, but when we remember that we can choose to be happy,  then we have control over the outcome of our situation.  So many times I’d run into people who had heard about what I’d been going through.  I would choose to stay positive in my conversations with them.  It wasn’t easy.  I wanted to bad-mouth the women who were hurting me.  I wanted the world to know who they really were…but by choosing to remain calm and trying to stay positive, I left a lot of doors open.  I’ve been able to help others through similar situations because they trusted me and saw that I was trying to follow God through this valley.
4.     Let the God be your Lord.  This is the biggest one.  It’s more important than any other idea I’ve presented.  Lynda Randle, the speaker at the Women’s Retreat a couple of weeks back, said, “Jesus was my savior, but He wasn’t my Lord”  while she was sharing her testimony on the first night.  This phrase stuck with me.  There’s a big difference between Jesus providing a way for us to get to Heaven, and us letting Him be the Lord of our lives daily.  He tells us we must forgive.  So we must.  He tells us that we must pray for our enemies.  So we must.  He tells us to cast our cares upon Him.  So we must.  He must be our Lord.

Bitterness is a stronghold of the enemy.  It is a dark place within our hearts, and if we let it fester it will become a barrier between us and our Lord.  God wants to use us, but He can’t if we’re filled with malice and hatred.  We can’t really see people through God’s eyes when ours are blinded by sin.  If we really mean it that we want to be broken for what breaks God’s heart, we must empty ourselves of self and allow Him to fill us.  So we can say, “Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause…” Oh Lord grant me that privilege.  Amen.

Staying Alert in Christ,

Megan

Retreating from God

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I made a harsh realization this weekend.  Even though I’ve been closer to God in the last few months than I have been in years, even though this season in my life has me leaning on Him more than ever– I’ve been retreating from Him. I’ve been shying away when He convicts me in one certain area.  This area is tender…any mention of it makes my heart quiver.  I’m still very broken.  So, I’ve built up a shell around my hurt, kind of like a scab, or scales.  The problem is that the scales have gotten in the way of the wound really healing.  What I’ve done to protect myself has only made my pain deeper and last longer than it really needed to…and that all changed this past weekend.

Every year, since my first year of marriage, I have attended a ladies retreat with my church friends.  I’ll never forget the first year: strapped for cash, ladies whom I hardly knew offered to pay my way, offered to bless me.  I was too proud to accept their kindness though, and I ended up scrounging up the money to go.  I was so blessed by the experience.  I don’t even remember who the speaker was or what she spoke about, but I do remember going back to my cabin in tears and those same sweet ladies ministering to a very scared newlywed.  I just love these ladies.   I can’t speak enough about how having them in my life has changed me, blessed me…they’ve discipled me.

This year is my thirteenth year going to Retreat.  Every year I come planning to be renewed and loved on by my Heavenly Father, and every year He shows up.  I prayed as I entered beautiful Rock Springs that He would show up again this year.   I prayed that I would be His vessel if others needed help.  I prayed that I would be renewed.  It’s been such a hard year, and I needed to retreat.  I immediately felt the presence of the Holy Spirit speaking to my soul…I felt Him whispering a love song to me. I settled into my rest and was full of Joy to be at a place that has been a spiritual renewal for me for so long…and then, my sin nature reared its ugly head.

When I arrived at our cabin, I discovered all of the beds were already taken.  Frustrated, I went from room to room trying to find a spot for me and my best friend, who wasn’t able to arrive until later in the evening.  My frustration must have been pretty evident because one of the ladies from our group came to my rescue and helped me make up a rollaway bed in the living room next to a pull-out couch.  The thoughts rolling through my brain weren’t nice and are not worth repeating.  I’m working four jobs to make ends meet right now, and I was so aggravated that the fee I’d had to save, scrimp, and go without meals for didn’t even get me a bed.  I’m just glad I kept my cool.  I texted my friend, “I’m grumpy about [not having a bed], so it’s your job to make me thankful I’m here…K!”  I was trying to make light of the situation.  Her response, “We can deal!  Guess that means you will have to stay up with me in the main room till everyone goes to sleep.  LOL!”  I’m so glad I have a friend who understands me.  She knew I needed her to not empathize but to tell me to grow up.  It’s a real blessing to have a friend like that.

I wish this was the end of my grumpiness, but it wasn’t.  When I arrived at the dining hall, I discovered that one of the women who had treated me so terribly at my last job was at Retreat as well.  There are four ladies that I worked with who sinned terribly against me, and one of them was here!  At my retreat!  At the retreat I’d faithfully attended every year of my marriage.   She was like the evil sidekick to my arch nemesis, and she was here!  I felt my back tighten, my shoulders hunch, and the scales around my pain shift into protective layers.

I left the dining hall hardly speaking.  I probably would have been muttering had I spoken at all.  But no one asked me to, thankfully, and I quietly found my seat.  The praise team entered and I obligingly stood.  I was grumbling in my spirit to God.  This is retreat!  I’m supposed to be getting my spiritual tank filled.  “God, I can’t focus on you when she’s here.  My back is going to go out on that stinking rollaway too!  I shouldn’t have come!  She’s probably watching me right now, waiting for me to look like an idiot praising you!  She’s probably watching to see when I cry and when I don’t.  She wants to see me hurt.  She’s evil!  God why is she here!  This is so unfair!”  Then, the words I’d been mechanically singing broke through my tantrum.

“This is my prayer in the fire,

in weakness or trial or pain,

there is a faith proved of more worth than gold,

so refine me Lord through the flames.”

And the Chorus,

“I will bring praise,

I will bring praise,

no weapon formed against me shall remain…”

God spoke to my hurt.  “Child, I know you are hurt.  I am angry you are in pain.  My pain is greater than yours because not only were you hurt, but, those who injured you did it out of their own pain.”  And then, “You are here because I need to strip you of your scales.   You have to heal if you are to complete the tasks I have for you.  I can heal you, but you have to let me tear the scales from your wounds.”  I was sobbing before our speaker even entered the stage.  God impressed upon me the image of Eustace Scrubb in C.S. Lewis’ The Dawn Treader.  Where he’d been turned into a dragon and Aslan had to tear the scales from his body in order for him to be restored.  It was quite an image.  I prayed, “Lord, if this is what I must do, I have faith that You will do what I need.”

Since the time that I decided to leave my last job, I felt like I had to prove that I was right.  God has told me I was, but I felt that I needed the world to know it too.  He taught me so much this weekend.  It was a divine appointment. I’ve been frustrated because my husband, who has been amazingly supportive of me, hasn’t continued to let me vent to him about my hurt.  He has asked me to forgive them…but whenever I tried, I started going down a laundry list of all the sins they’d committed against me and my anger and bitterness would come up and I would quit praying for them and start complaining about them.  I have been trying to practice the principle of forgiving a sin 70 X 7 times, but I’m failing.  God showed me that I didn’t have to win.  I needed to be broken.  I can’t change them.  They have their own crosses, crosses of their own making to bear, and it’s not my job to fix them, or to make them pay.  I prayed that He erase the laundry list of sins they’ve committed against me from my head.  Little by little, God tore each scale away this weekend.  He stripped me bare of my bitterness and anger.

So much more happened this weekend than I can fit into this blog.   First of all, my back didn’t go out on the rollaway, and we even found a bed for my dearest friend.  She also continued to not let me wallow in my frustrations and proved, yet again, why she is my confidant.  Best of all, the messages the speaker, Lynda Randle, gave spoke right into my pain.  She recently went through loss and pain, and she shared from that.  Sunday’s final message was on healing broken relationships…talk about a God thing.

I didn’t go to Retreat planning to have my scales ripped from my spirit.  I went planning to be renewed.  But God knew best.  He knew that while at Retreat He could stop my retreat from Him.  As the last verse of that precious praise song went, “This is my prayer in the harvest, when favor and providence flow, I know I’m filled to be emptied again, The seed I’ve received I will sow.”  Thank you Lord for giving me fresh seeds to sow this weekend.  I’m now ready to accept the blessings you so graciously want to bestow upon me.  I’m empty Lord, fill me up.

Staying Alert in Christ,

Megan

Here are some photos of our beautiful Retreat.

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I’m trying to be a lighthouse…

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“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining- they just shine.”

–DL Moody.

Something’s been bugging me.  Ever since I wrote my last blog, I’ve felt like I didn’t go deep enough.  Sometimes, when writing, we writers have to focus our work on a pretty narrow topic in order to really get the point across, and so sometimes the end result feels a little watered down.  I mashed up what God is doing in my heart into bite-sized pieces.  But, what He’s doing inside me is much deeper than what I get down on paper.  I know that this is what “good” writers do—otherwise we’d be so boring no one would want to read what we have to say.  So, I’m going to attempt to put into succinct words the depth that he’s been laying on my heart.

Jesus said His greatest two commandments were to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” And to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  All of the other commandments are built from these two simple statements.   These may seem simple, but they are hard to live up to.  I’d challenge you that when you really look at your heart, you’re failing in these two areas just like I am.  It’s hard to keep your eyes on Christ and love Him first.  It’s even harder to treat those around us—who may be secular and not living like they’re supposed to—with the love we give to ourselves.  There are so many sins that get in a Christian’s way.  Being Christ to the world gets lost in translation sometimes.  We put people off because of pride:  we know we’re right and they’re wrong.  So, they need to just “get with the program.”  I’ve heard good Christians talk about politics in a way that makes my heart break.  Their argument was that they were fighting for the right things, so what if they stomp on a few toes in the process. What’s been bothering me so much is the way we go about making our point: whether we’re right or not, if we sin while delivering the message, then we’re getting in Christ’s way!  I’ll give you a couple of clear examples.

The first example is from an article I read published by Kirk Cameron.  The article was on non-negotiables for being a dad.  (http://kirkcameron.com/2013/09/8-non-negotiables-dads-daughters/)  It was a nice article and I enjoyed reading it.  Then I got to the comments.  A self-proclaimed atheist made a classic comment on the sins of Christianity. I read as a couple readers tried to minister to this man, but soon they were drowned out by the onslaught of attacks against him.  Here’s one, “Ahh, [name omitted] … you spew garbage. But, when one lives in the dumps, that’s all they know. Ain’t that right, bubba.” Yikes…my heart sank.  Christians were not behaving like Christ.  And the man’s response was right on the money:  “I’m starting to get enjoyment out of this.  You proclaim yourself as a Christian but conduct yourself poorly, it just provides [proves] my point with every insult, but maybe I should just listen to some of the Good Christians on here and not judge them by your actions.”

I see it all the time.  Christians are sinners, I grant that, but we let Satan drag our attention away from the issues—in this case a good article on fatherhood—and we drag Christ through the muck with us.  We tarnish His name.  I’m just as guilty of this as anyone.  I used to be a debate coach.  I love a good debate…but when I’m winning that battle by attacking the other person, I’m the one who’s wrong—even if my point isn’t.

The second example I found was in the article Why You’re Teaching Your Daughter to be a Mean Girl (http://m.ksl.com/index/story/sid/26861581?mobile_direct=y#.UjwuzhQsFjY.facebook ).   Another awesome article, and the author hit the nail on the head when she wrote, “Social media has created an atmosphere where people feel entitled to peek in on every aspect of your life. People feel entitled to say whatever they want. I cannot tell you how many times I have observed mothers, via social media, being downright nasty to one another about anything and everything. It is shocking and sad. But if it starts with us, it has to end with us. It’s our responsibility, as mothers, to do everything in our power to make sure we aren’t (even unknowingly) raising mean girls.”  I see this everyday on Facebook!  It’s crazy.  We don’t even know people and yet we’re attacking them. I fear social media has allowed us to devalue human life.  We don’t see people as people because we can’t see them, touch them, or be a part of their lives.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a Facebook junkie.  But I do fear what will become of us as we delve more and more into a world where humanity isn’t tangible.

So, we all know there’s a problem, but, what do we do. Martin Luther King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”  Profound words, and hard ones.  Especially when we believe we are right and we’re being attacked.  You say, “We can’t change this in a day.”  You’re right.  We can’t.  It’s a day-by-day deal.  My grandma always told me that I might be the only Bible some people ever read…I better get it right.  That doesn’t mean proving others wrong with my words, but rather with my life.  I have to live the life that glorifies Christ.  I think of how He answered when He was attacked.  He answered with kindness and love, usually with scripture, and He didn’t attack back.  You don’t find many times where Jesus lost his temper.  Every word He spoke had a purpose and He was never rash.  My interactions must be a reflection of Christ or I’m failing Him.  I have to remember His word and treat others like I want to be treated—not how they treat me.  I have to remember to keep my eyes on Him and love Him first and then put everyone else on the same plane as myself.  I have to remember to get the plank out of my eye so I can see clearly to help others with the speck in theirs.  I have to remember that when I am talking to any other person on this earth, that they are His child whether they acknowledge Him or not.  I have to remember that a gentle answer turns away wrath, and that sometimes I don’t need to answer at all because, as DL Moody said, “We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining- they just shine.”  I pray that my light is clear and bright for Him.

Staying Alert in Christ,

Megan