Sunday morning longing

But may all who search for you be filled with joy and gladness in you.  May those who love your salvation repeatedly shout, "God is great!" But as for me, I am poor and needy; please hurry to my aide, O God.  You are my helper and my savior; O LORD, do not delay.  Psalm 70:4-5 

This is a deep ache in me.   It's a whiff of something wonderful my spiritual nose has smelled. I want my life to make God's beauty and goodness be clearly seen. Not that I try to doll God up and make Him beautiful, but that my life will act like a magnifying glass, bringing into greatness and clear focus that which may seem far off or hard to understand to those around me. I want my God to see an Imago Dei one again in me.

Once I was broken and I distorted the truth about my good God. And He looked twisted and convoluted and crooked and wrong to people. But then Christ came. Christ, THE Image of the invisible God.  He did not distort the truth about God at all.  Perfectly clear.  Perfectly accurate.  God in the flesh.  He took all my brokenness to the grave and rose so he could work in me 2000 years later to make me a new creation, conformed to the image of the Son.

Do I want others to see the truth about God in me?  Then I'll let the Potter mold me to be like His Son.  Because the Son is how God wants to be seen.  The Son is the truth about His goodness and the exactness of His beauty.

Oh let the Son be seen in me!  Oh that people would see Christ in me and see a glimpse of the truth of how beautiful You are and how over-the-top is Your love for us, that you would not discard us but give us a Way to be made new.

Nothing is more beautiful than to be made like the Son!  Nothing is more wonderful!  Oh for the day when You are clearly seen as good.  No more lies about You.  No more creating entire systems and theories and lifestyles just to avoid You.  No more hiding from You.  No more denying You.  No more being uncomfortable at the mention of Your name.  No more feeling like you are some stuffy, religious old-man in the sky.  No more feeling like you are a nameless, faceless, force of destruction.  No more imagining you to be a great magic genie.  No more abuse in your name.  No more!  Oh for the day when You make all things new.  Even now, come, and make me new.  This side of the reckoning make me a reflector of Your goodness, of Your glory!

But help me Lord!  I want all this from the safety of my living room and laptop.  But out there I fear man's looks too easily.  Out there I suddenly don't know what to say.  Out there I get to easily caught up with the day to day stuff and forget I'm YOURS!    I am poor and needy!  Please hurry to my aid, O God!  You are my helper and my savior!  Don't delay O Lord! 

These revived me this week.

Watch how Gianna says, "... but I know in the age we live in, it is not at all politically correct to say the name of Jesus Christ in places like this; to bring him into these sorts of meetings because his name can make people so terribly uncomfortable. {Purposeful pause}  Well I didn't survive so I could make everyone comfortable. I survived so I could stir things up a bit."  

I want that kind of humble, happy, confident boldness.




 Listen to the words. These grab me:  Mighty God how I fear You and how I long to be near You...


 

Quieted,

Sheila

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. -Proverbs 16:1

The daily stuff has crowded out all time for writing.  Lots of changes lately.  The door was firmly shut on desired plans and I'm glad to embrace the plans of my Sovereign Good Father.  I'm actually looking forward to what's ahead.

In April Connor turned 10, got a BB gun from his dad as a coming-of-age gift (and a looooong lesson in gun safety), and started his first season pitching for the Majors in Little League.  He's only one of three 10 year olds on the Majors this year.  I was a little worried it would be too much for him... turns out it's a good fit.  He's no longer the super star and is now at the bottom of the batting order.  It's a good thing to get a dose of humility with your double-digit birthday and a BB gun.

Ryland has been rockhounding every Saturday in April with me as his adult supervision and escort.  I'm actually becoming a rockhounder myself.  When I was Ryland's age I wanted to be an archeologist.  I pictured myself as a sort of female Indiana Jones.  Ryland's third grade teacher and her family have been joining us every Saturday too.  I love it that Ryland's teacher is doing this with him on her day off.   It's making learning fun for Ryland and has dramatically improved his writing skills in class (per his teacher). Thank God for good teachers!  I feel badly because today she and her family drove all the way to Payson to meet us for a geode hunting trip.  They were about a half hour behind us, so we text messaged them the directions and got started.  About an hour later they showed up at the end of their mental rope having taken a wrong-turn detour and loosing a cell phone along the way.  No more had they gotten out of their vehicle and found the missing phone than their 5 year old son started vomitting. Poor guy.  Poor mom and dad!  They cleaned him, got back in their car and headed all the way back home.

We found tons of geodes, but the bigger deal was all the quartz crystal we found!  These are not documented in the books we used to find the geode collecting site so it was pretty sweet to find these little gems in the dirt unexpectedly.

Quieted,

Sheila

Tuesday Thoughts

It rained mud last night.

It's 9pm and I just stopped cooking. This crazy Music Man of mine is charging me to dive into entrepreneurship, but I have NO idea what I'm doing.

He's convinced I'm just a few short steps away from success with my homemade paleo mayo and the other paleo creations I've come up with.

Thursday he meets with a gym owner to see if we can do a test run and survey with his gym's clients.  We're going the direction of catered paleo meals.

I'm scared to death and excited as a kid in a toy store.

There's a helicopter hovering over our house right now.  My man says he thinks they're scanning the desert across the street from us for someone who's hiding.  "Does this mean someone could come running into our yard?"  I asked,  "Could,"  he answers non-chalantly with the front and back doors wide open.  I shut and lock the front, he walks out back with his binocs to see what he can spy.  Polar opposites.

I listened to a wonderful teaching on what it means to be a complementarian today.  I had no idea I was a complementarian.  But I am.  To me it is a beautiful, Christ magnifying thing, that we are made in the image of God as male and female.  Not unisex or asexual.  Male.  Female.  Each with a race set before us to live out by faith in Christ.  Each with a calling from God to conform us to the image of His son through our maleness or femaleness.  Servant Leader and Strong Helper.  Both terms God uses to describe himself.

So the primary responsibility for initiative and leadership in the home is to come from the husband who is taking his cues from Christ, the head. And it is clear that this is not about rights and power, but about responsibility and sacrifice. Verse 25: “As Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.”  No abuse. No bossiness. No authoritarianism. No arrogance. Here is a man whose pride has been broken by his own need for a Savior, and he is willing to bear the burden of leadership given to him by his Master, no matter how heavy the load. Godly women see this and are glad. This leadership in the home involves the sense of primary responsibility for nourishing provision and tender protection. Verse 29: “For no one ever hated his own flesh (that is, his wife), but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” The word, “nourishes” implies nourishing provision. And the word “cherishes” implies tender protection. This is what Christ does for his bride. This is what the godly husband feels the primary responsibility to do for his wife and family.So a complementarian concludes that biblical headship for the husband is the divine calling to take primary responsibility for Christlike servant-leadership, protection and provision in the home. And biblical submission for the wife is the divine calling to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. "A helper suitable for him," as Genesis 2:18 says. -John Piper

So what does a godly woman do who doesn't see that her husband's, "...pride has been broken by his own need for a Savior..."?  She looks to her Designer, and Servant-King Lord and bends her knee to his Soveriegnty and, "... entrusts {herself} to Him who judges justly." (1 Peter 2:23 with my personalization) 

Oh Lord, make me that woman!

 Quieted,

Sheila