Greatest Love in the Universe

For your Creator will be your husband;
The Lord of Heaven's Armies is His name!
Isaiah 54:5

Original video can be found at www.FathersLoveLetter.com

Stripping Away Me

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? – Mark 8:35-36

I prayed a bold prayer.

I asked God to strip me of me and fill me with Him.

I didn’t realize it would hurt this much.

I’m prideful and independent and stubborn and selfish and I don’t like losing. Especially when what I’m losing is myself. And as I shed the layers of myself, I don’t like seeing the ugliness that my heart is capable of producing.

All at once, a ministry that I have poured my time and my heart into felt like it was collapsing under my feet.

A well-intentioned request for input from a friend felt like a threat to the “safety bubble” I have strategically placed myself within.

All the while, dealing with so many uncertainties in my near and distant future.

Will God provide us with a home, where my kids can have their own space, but which won’t put me in a financial bind?

With my vehicle, my washing machine, and my computer all seemingly near death, will I be slammed with the expenses of having to replace all of them at the same time?

Am I being faithful and obedient, and am I really where God wants me as I begin a new semester in ministry?

Will the Steelers win the Super Bowl?

(Ok, so I guess the answer to that last one isn’t so uncertain… there’s always next season…)

With each unanswered question comes a follow-up question:

Regardless of how the answer plays out, do I trust that God will provide?

He promises He will. But it’s according to the riches of HIS glory – not mine.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19

With my ministry, when things seem to be unraveling, I start to feel responsible. I feel like a failure. I feel inadequate. I feel rejected – both by people and by God. I feel incapable. And sometimes, I feel like giving up.

With my “safety bubble” being pressed upon, I feel the potential for it to pop – leaving me exposed and vulnerable in front of people I don’t know well enough to trust. I feel like my relationships inside the bubble are being threatened. I feel like retreating into a self-imposed solitary confinement as a means of protecting myself from whatever I sense is threatening my security.

In both scenarios, God has something to show me. I continue to look too much toward myself, and not enough toward Him.

I find myself using words like “me”… “my”… “I”… “I”… “I”…

When I should be saying “You”… “Your”… and each of my “I”s  should be followed by a “surrender”.

And He reminds me that He’s not doing anything I haven’t asked Him to do. He’s stripping away the layers of me so that I can clothe myself in layers of Him. And as painful as it is some days to be stripped down and ripped apart, in the end, the glory of His righteousness will shine through my life more brightly than any layer of myself ever could.

And as I allow Him to do His work in me, I hold tightly to the promise and the pronouncement of 1 Peter 5:10-11:

And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To HIM be the power forever and ever.

Chasing Desires in God's Timing

There is a time for everything

and a season for every activity under the heavens

(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Sometimes God plants dreams in our hearts. Desires that He has for us, which, when sought after in the appropriate time, allow us to follow a path He has laid out for us. But sometimes this can be trickier than it might seem.

First, we must be sensitive to the Spirit moving in our hearts. We must be able to discern whether the desires are truly from Him. So how do we know if they’re truly from Him? We must seek Him first and foremost, above all other things. We must spend time with Him. Enjoy Him. When our focus is on Him rather than ourselves, and our intention is to live our life for Him rather than for ourselves, He promises to shape our hearts’ desires.

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

(Psalm 37:4)

The next part, however, has proven even more challenging for me. Not only do we need to be sensitive to God’s Spirit shaping our desires, but we must also be aware of God’s ability to time things just perfectly. Sometimes God puts certain desires on our hearts to prepare us for a time in the future when He intends for us to act on those desires. To begin to move us toward a position where we will be better equipped to act on those desires.

  

The bible is full of testimonies that point to the perfect timing of God. Examples of promises made by God to people who were then asked to wait. Wait and trust. Trust that when the time was right, God would initiate the move.

God has blessed me with a heart full of desires. He’s given me big dreams, big ideas, big plans, big goals… and the personality to want to chase after every single one of them all at once. Even recklessly. And for a long time, I spent a lot of my energy doing just that. And let me tell you, I can be good at it. I’m determined, and I don’t give up easily.

But as I found myself dragging my kids to every ministry opportunity I could get myself signed up for, and then beginning to resent the fact that they made it difficult for me to be so involved, God began showing me something I hadn’t expected.

He really didn’t want me involved in everything.

But He did want my attention.

Because He had blessed me with one of the greatest ministries any person can be given – the ministry of shaping the hearts of my children. And then He reminded me of a sobering reality that, while this may well be one of the most important ministries of my lifetime, it may also be one of the shortest ministry seasons I ever have. My children’s childhood will be over before I know it. They will only be children for a season. Every other ministry opportunity will still be there when my children are grown. But their childhood will be gone.

God has placed many desires on my heart, but I cannot do His kingdom justice by chasing after them outside of His perfect timing. Those things He has placed on my heart for a time in the future, are the very things He is training me for and preparing me for in the present.

And what better training ground than the exhausting, messy, chaotic, disorganized, everyday life of a single mom?

One Word for the New Year

It wasn’t my idea, so rather than trying to paraphrase an idea that someone else has already so impressively articulated, I’ll just let you read it straight from the source for yourself.

http://www.myoneresolution.com/one-word-resolution/

Have you ever made a resolution and actually stuck with it for the entire year?

Is your resolution list for this new year really any different than the one you made last year? Or for that matter, every year previous?

In an effort to live my life more consciously for God… to seek His will… to follow His lead… to walk the path He has already laid out for me… my word for 2013 is intentional. That everything I do be done with a purpose. That all I seek to accomplish this year be for the sole purpose of fulfilling what God has asked me to accomplish.

I’ve always been good at being busy. Being busy for God, even. Teaching classes, taking classes, volunteering, studying God’s Word… but sometimes I do these things just to do them. Sometimes I do them just to stay busy. Sometimes I do them because I’m afraid of missing out on an opportunity to be a part of something God may be doing. But in over-committing myself, I’m never able to fully commit myself. I spread myself thin and don’t allow myself enough margin to fully be a part of what God really does want to do in and through me.

So this year, I want to be intentional. To allow God to use me where He wants to use me. To avoid filling my schedule with stuff He may have already designated for someone else. That there would be less of me in my commitments and more of Him.

What will your word be for 2013?

He Already Knew...

For the Lord is our judge,
The Lord is our lawgiver,
The Lord is our king;
He will save us—
Your tackle hangs slack;
It cannot hold the base of its mast firmly,
Nor spread out the sail.
Then the prey of an abundant spoil will be divided;
The lame will take the plunder.
-Isaiah 33:22-23

 

As these words were penned, God was already standing with you in today.

 

Really think about that for a moment.

 

As God gave us His Word, He already knew exactly where you would be today - in this very moment. And He gave us these words to guide us, encourage us, and call us to truth - already knowing exactly where we'd be standing today.

 

And as He stands with you today, He is already standing with you tomorrow. What is true in our past and present days of suffering is that God is also currently present in our day of healing. Time is a worldly concept - God is not restricted to the laws of time. He is simultaneously in all places. God had a complete understanding and an absolutely sovereignty of and over your situation today, as His Word was being written for you.

 

While that concept may be next to impossible to comprehend this side of heaven, God will give us the faith to trust in Him and to trust in His truth. We can trust that He holds the answers when we do not. We can trust that He will guide us toward our next step in the journey of our lives, even when He chooses not to show us the entire path at once. We can trust that He has our best interest at heart, that His plan is the only plan that will bring us peace, and that He wants us to follow Him even more than we usually want to ourselves - because He knows the end of the story. He knows where the journey will ultimately lead. And He asks us to trust that He will not lead us down a wrong path.

 

God does not override free will. Even when He doesn't want it for us, He allows others to sin against us. But He also sees what we currently do not, and He is already standing with us on our day of healing. Trust that He wants to get you there; trust that He knows the way.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope... when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you," says the Lord... "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." -Jeremiah 29:11-13; Psalm 32:8

Single & Parenting

It seems like the summer has gone by so quickly – it’s hard to believe that fall is just around the corner!

One of my favorite things about fall is that the church launches all kinds of new groups and bible studies! And I am super excited about a new group I’ll be leading at my church for single moms! If you’re a single mom in the Omaha area, this would be a perfect opportunity for you to get connected with a wonderful group of women, to talk about life, and to get personal with God’s Word. Together.

The group is called “Single & Parenting” and it will begin meeting this Sunday morning! In this group, you will have an opportunity to discuss and apply God’s Word to parenting issues such as discipline, emotions, conflict resolution, financial struggles, and so much more. And you will learn that you are not alone. Whether you are a single parent due to divorce, death, or having never been married, God values you and your family just as much as every other family. And He promises in Philippians 4:19 to “meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.”

I will have an opportunity to present the group it in further detail during our fall Bible Study Kick-Off next week, however, since the group will actually start meeting before then, I’m just trying to get the word out so single moms have an opportunity to get involved right away!

If you’d like more information about the group or if you would like to join, you can email me at smithjosie6@gmail.com or contact Westside Church directly.

I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us this season!

Pride and Obedience

I’m somewhere between completely impulsive and a total procrastinator. Actually, I’m nowhere between – I’m 100% one or the other, depending on the circumstance.

If I get a great idea, I rarely bother to think it through – I jump in, head first, and don’t stop until I inevitably screw something up and have to start over.

Give me an “assignment”, however, and I’ll put it off until the very last minute. And then 3 days later, I’ll start on it.

And then there are those occasional situations where I actually really want to do something, but for whatever reason – either I get busy, get distracted, or things just get in the way – it gets put off. And sometimes it gets put off for so long that I decide its time has passed, it’s just too late, and I write it off.

That’s where I found myself when I looked back on the years I’d spent as a believer without having been baptized.

I had decided it was just too late. Most people jump into baptism shortly after committing their lives to Christ. It feels like a natural transition from an old life into a new one.

But not me. I didn’t even have a church when I committed my life to Christ, so I wouldn’t even have known how to go about getting baptized. Besides, it wasn’t really a very high priority to me at the time – I’d been baptized as a baby, so I figured if it was something God wanted me to do, I could consider myself “grandfathered” in.

Eventually I found a church. And a church family. And over time, I became involved in different areas of ministry.

When God started nudging me toward baptism, I graciously told Him thanks, but no thanks.

I mean, what would people think if they knew I’d spent all that time as a believer not having been baptized? What would they think if they realized the woman who taught their bible study class last semester hadn’t even been baptized?

What would people think??

(And also, who wants to spend two hours getting ready for church in the morning, putting on makeup and blow drying and straightening hair, just to be dunked in a pool of water and have to start all over again?!)

But God being God, He rarely lets us get away with excuses that easily. And He’s not a big fan of pride. (Trust me on that one, he reminds me of that more often than I’d like to admit!)

Eventually, He convinced me I needed to do it, and He did so through my 8 year old.

It reminded me a little of the times when you’re a kid and you send the youngest, cutest, most innocent sister to ask mom if you can all go out for ice cream – because you know, while she would have no problem saying no to you, that sweet baby is hard to turn down!

Well, my daughter asked me if I’d ever been baptized. And then she asked me if we could get baptized together.

And what mom in her right mind could say no to that?!

But I’d be lying if I said I was instantly excited about it. In fact, I’ve had to spend a lot of time in prayer about it – mostly asking God to simply help me get over my own stupid pride.

And finally tomorrow, she and I will be baptized together.

Sure, we know a lot of people in the church… but we won’t have pews full of family to stand and support us like many people do. And there may even be people there who do think the very things I was afraid they would think.

But God has shown me that that’s ok.

My prayer has finally turned from asking God to help me get over my pride, to asking God to use this opportunity to move the hearts of people who may feel the same pride I felt. To show people it's never too late to be obedient to what God asks us to, even if we're a little bit afraid of what others might think.

And also that He’d give me just a tiny bit of grace and not let my mascara run…