I listen to Joyce Meyer’s “Enjoying Everyday Life” program just about every morning. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about her stuff altogether, as there seems to be a bit more prosperity gospel in there than I’m okay with, but I do find something worthwhile almost everyday. Sort of a sorting through to separate the wheat and the chaff kind of thing, I guess.

What I heard today was this:

You’re the only Jesus that people are ever going to see.

WOW. This floored and humbled me. How many people do I run across in the course of a day or a week who are never going to crack open a Bible or set foot in a church? Truthfully, I have no idea what the number is but what if the number is just one?

What if, when I run across that one person, that one lost soul, I’m not behaving in a Christlike manner and what they see in me doesn’t cause them to wonder “I wonder what she has,” and then maybe try to find out so that I can tell them that what I have is Jesus?  What if what they see in me causes them to run in the exact opposite direction of any beliefs I might espouse?

I don’t have anything profound to say about this (yeah, like I’m ever profound!) but it certainly opened my eyes to a new way of thinking and looking at my behavior!

If you ask a grammar buff — or an elementary school student — about the phrase “with all your heart,” you’ll be told that it is a prepositional phrase. You’ll probably get an eyeroll as well and maybe even a “duh” depending on the age of the person you’re asking!

While this is true in grammar, I don’t think that it holds true in our Christian walks. At least not in mine.

For me, “with all your (my) heart” is a verb. A big, out-there, serious-ACTION verb. It has to be because in my natural self, my heart collects stuff, both good and bad, that clutter it up like an overly full landfill (or my son’s closet) to the point that there’s nothing “all” about it.

I have to continuously seek to keep my heart clear and uncluttered so that I can offer all of it to God and so that He has it all available to Him to fill with whatever He sees fit. Resentments, fears, affections for people that we prioritize higher than offering our entire beings to God (even if it’s just sometimes), ALL of these things have to be swept away before we can do anything with “all our hearts.” For me, in my fallen and sinful nature, it’s an ongoing process. I’d like to be able to honestly tell you that I seek to do it always but that would be a lie. Sometimes I just get tired. Sometimes there are blockages in my heart — both positive and negative — that I don’t even realize until something brings them to my attention.

And on that note, let me caution you that when you pray to God to remove the obstacles in your heart that keep you from being WHOLLY HIS, you’d better tighten your seatbelts because the ride is likely to get bumpy.

In two days, I have had two major issues come up. One is an interpersonal relationship and the other deals with finances. The interpersonal relationship pointed out some stuff, both good (at least on the surface) and bad, that was taking up some serious space in my heart. I spent a bad couple of hours white-knuckling it all the while saying “I know He is with me, I know He is with me,” before I was able to let it go. But when I did? When I told Him my thoughts in this situation, when I gave it to Him, so that He could have ALL of me, do you know what I found that He gave to me? A kind of quiet contentment — almost even joy.

The financial thing that came up was regarding my husband’s drugs. I went today to buy his prescription drugs (heart, diabetes, kidney) and it was in the mid three figures because we began the slide into the Medicare gap. The next time it will be in the range of FOUR figures as we’ll be fully in the gap and paying full price for all of his meds. The clerk at my drug store knows me — I’m a VERY frequent customer! — and the first words that came out of my mouth (not for us specifically but just in general) were, “What are people supposed to do?”

Now that financial stuff is more detailed than I’d normally share with people I haven’t even met but I’m sharing it to illustrate how great my faith is becoming and HOW MUCH I want to offer the Lord ALL my heart. ALL my heart doesn’t include paralyzing fear about how I’m supposed to keep my husband alive if we can’t buy his meds. ALL my heart doesn’t even include ME (me, what a riot!) thinking that I have the power to keep my husband alive at all! ALL my heart doesn’t include me going through about a million ways I might try to get that much money or how to finagle the drugs differently. ALL my heart doesn’t include being jealous of the people my age with healthy spouses. Yes, that’s an ugly thought but I do have it on occasion. Not that I wish your spouses ill; I just wish mine well sometimes.

Immediately after that thought, “What are people supposed to do?,” I was given great peace as I remembered that what we are supposed to do is trust in God — with ALL our hearts — to provide our needs. And I do.

So, given the events of the last couple of days, it is with some trepidation but an abundance of faith that I pray that the Father will continue to open my heart so that I can give it ALL to Him.

I’m still doing the reading and study related to “all your heart,” but I’m doing it slowly and with much thought and prayer so I’ll definitely be having my thoughts related that up before long.

In the meantime, I’ll be taking a couple of days offline. I have drafted slave labor (a/k/a my teenagers) to help me do a couple of projects around the house and I’m hoping to be done by Wednesday! You guys be safe and be blessed. Love ya!

Do we — okay, I — forget to fear the Lord?  Do I, in basking in His love and in seeking to be more Christlike, forget how HOLY the Lord God is?

After all, Psalm 111:10 says

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

As I look at “all your heart” throughout Scripture, I want to read the entirety of each book in which it appears so that I understand the context.  For me, anyway, it’s too simple to just grab a verse without looking at the entirety of its meaning.

Deuteronomy is a book of laws, yes, but what is compelling to me, as I read, is the repeated call, over and over, to obey Him.  To serve only Him.  And in rereading the examples of His wrath, His power and His mercy, His commitment to keep His oaths and covenants, I’ve got to tell you I am just FLOORED with the renewed understanding of how completely unworthy I am and I am completely lacking in words to describe His holiness.

And what about fear? How can we not fear His mighty wrath if we choose not to walk in His ways? I certainly fear it for my loved ones who have not yet come to Him!

Anyway, much reading yet to do for the “all my heart” devo but I wanted to share what is happening as I read.

I love it when the questions are easy! Here’s today’s Cafe Chat question:

Name 3 qualities or characteristics of a good/close friend. Explain why the qualities or characteristics you listed are important to you in your friendships.

This is easy because my very bestest friend embodies these qualities:

1. Loyal love  — not the kind of blind loyalty that doesn’t see my flaws but the kind that finds the flaws and loves me anyway.  An echo of how the Father loves me.
2. A sense of humor.  Life is challenging and it’s great to have a friend who can find the humor in not-so-funny situations with you!  Besides, God gave us the gifts of humor and laughter!
3. Honesty.  My friend can and does tell me exactly how she sees it and she lets me know when I’m off my rocker — which happens a lot!    God is the epitome of honesty.  He lets us know what is expected of us and what the consequences are when we don’t obey.  And, if you believe as I do, that the little voice inside of us (our conscience) is God telling us what is right and wrong, He lets us know when we get it right — and when we don’t.

I’m not sure why but I’m feeling compelled to do a study on the phrase “all your heart” as it occurs in the Bible. Because I don’t know why, and because I am being compelled, I’m going to go with it because if it’s God leading me, I don’t want to say no!

I checked at Bible Gateway and in the NIV, there are 23 occurrences of that phrase. In the KJV, there are 7. Only one of the verses is from the New Testament. That means something to me that God has been telling His people, all the way back to Deuteronomy, to apply “all their hearts” to whatever the topic at hand was.

I am so looking forward to digging into this and sharing what I find with you!

I’m a day late posting this, due to technical glitches, but I am so excited to tell you about what happened on Wednesday! It was truly a victory for God!

I have been feeling that I am not joined as fully as I should be with the Father, that something in my relationship with Him has just not been quite right.  And since the problem is certainly not with Him, it has to be with me.  But what in the world could it be?  My faith is stronger than ever before.  So that isn’t the problem.

I referenced yesterday the verse from Jeremiah that I love, Jeremiah 29:13

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all of your heart.

I have also started reading, in Speaking Thru Me, Leigh Gray’s series on Whole Heart Faith.  Her very first post of the series just grabbed me.  Is there something in me, something in my heart that I’m not even fully aware of, that is keeping me from the relationship I am seeking to have with God?

He is so holy, holy beyond any words that I have, that even my whole heart seems inadequate but certainly He deserves it all!  I owe it all to Him; this is my Father who gave up His Son to die for me because through His blood was the only way I might ever be worthy.

So on Wednesday morning, as I was doing a solo drive that makes me feel kind of nervous because of the big trucks on the same route, I decided to turn off the radio and just open my heart to God.  I prayed that I would become aware of anything standing between Him and me.  I prayed it sincerely, I thanked Him for the blessings He was so richly bestowed upon me.

On Wednesday afternoon, as I was sorting through the disaster area that is my “office” I found some CDs that weren’t labeled properly.  There in those CDs I found remnants of a situation that hurt me deeply and I found the seeds of resentment and anger and injustice stirring in my heart.  There it was.  That situation and my inability to move past it, was at least a part of the obstacle between me and the relationship I crave with the Lord.  It was keeping me from the “whole heart faith,” the “all of my heart” that He says in Jeremiah that we should have and tha when we have it, we shall surely find Him.

So I re-read through all of that material.  But something was different. It was the same old hurtful material.   Something in me was different.  I read  all of that and all that I could see was a group of wounded people — lonely, hurt, angry, frightened, bewildered.  And, rather than anger or resentment, I found compassion.

When God allowed me to find compassion, He opened a piece of my heart that had been closed to Him before.  And now I pray that whatever other obstacles might stand between me and my God — be they big like the one I just wrote about or small — that He will let me see what they are so that they can be removed from me.

What about you?  Is there anything keeping you from seeking God with all of your heart?

Hi guys. The revamp hit a couple of glitches that are slowing it down so I’ll just try to do as much of it as I can while the blog is still up.

Are you familiar with Jeremiah 29:11-13? If you’ve read me through the A Journey In Faith incarnation you’ll know that they are among my favorite verses.
I have a post coming up today — it has to, it’s about to just burst out of me — regarding my experience with verse 13 which says

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all of your heart.

God claimed a victory yesterday regarding this verse!

Some of the things that I have been praying about regarding the blog are beginning to coalesce so I’ll take it offline on Wednesday morning to work in some of those changes and hopefully will have it back up by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.

Today In Other Words Tuesday is hosted by the beautiful-down-to-her-soul Denise of Shortybear’s Place.

In trouble then and fear I sought, The Man who taught in Galilee;and peace unto my soul was brought, all my faith came back to me.”~ Anonymous

I don’t really do In Other Words usually but it’s about faith so I just had to jump in.  Faith is my watchword these days.

My faith began growing last year when I was in a darker pit than I could have ever imagined.  It began with the still, quiet whisper of the Lord speaking to me “You are not alone.  I am here.  I have always been here.”  And it has grown.  As I grow more in faith, it seems that the enemy is finding more challenges to throw at me.  I’m not going to lie and tell you that I sail through them just fine but what I can truthfully tell you is that while my emotions and my feelings get bounced around a bit, my faith that God is with me, that He is working through whatever the situation is, that He will NEVER leave me doesn’t waver anymore.  It is firm and strong.

And if I hadn’t ended up in that dark pit of despair, I would have probably never known He was with me because I was too full of  myself, and handling my own life (HA!) to even look for Him.