Recounting

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.- Psalm 9:1

(My guy's current project: a small barn)

It's Thanksgiving eve and the house is asleep. We have a couple of young guests tonight. My friend had surgery today and so we got to hang out with her kiddos (two of them anyway). It's been a good night.

My feet are swollen from standing for too long and I didn't deal with a situation between my boys and my husband tonight, so I'm ready to put my feet up and call it a day but, as David said, my heart smote me.  Dealing with conflict between children and husband is hard, especially when you feel your husband is in the wrong.  There was a time when I would have said nothing and pouted.  But now I feel I've swung the other direction, I'm not afraid to speak up, but when I do, it doesn't seem to be helping anything.  Conflict resolution is not my forte.  Praying for grace to do it better.

So the verse at the top.  I've been thinking about it all day.  What if I really took time to recount ALL of the Lord's wonderful deeds?  I need to give it a go.  Last year I put plates full of construction paper pieces on the table along with a marker and large plate in the middle of the table so each person at the table could write a thing or two or three they were thankful for and put in the platter before we started eating the meal.  This year, I'm going to try to fill that plate with my Lord's wonderful deeds.

He created the universe with his words. He holds the universe together by his words.  From the most remote star to the smallest organism in the bottom of the ocean, He thought it up and brought it into being.  He created human beings to be Imago Dei.  In His image.  Imagers of God.  Even me. He saw me in my fallen dead-to-him state and drew me to himself and made me alive to the beauty and wonder of God in the face of Christ.

Whoa.

There's a start.

Happy Thanksgiving peoples.

Quieted,

Sheila

Bearing the peculiar mark of majesty

So I'm doing this Bible study with my neighbor. First Peter. We're at that infamous submission part. I've camped out in this book for years. I frequently come back to it because it so directly speaks to me.

It bothers me that I'm bothered by the whole subject of submission because I can clearly see that submission is not a subheading under the subject of being a wife.  It is, as I've heard John Piper put it, the peculiar mark of majesty on all within the kingdom of God.  But it's just my fallen human nature to be bothered by the idea of submission.  No one. No. One. Likes someone else to be in authority over them  No one likes being the one who defers to the authority of another.  We all want to do life our way without anyone telling us otherwise.  That's just our messed-up nature.

Submissiveness is godly.  God-like.  It's not natural or human-like.  Submissiveness is to be the character of all Christians, not just women or wives.  Godly submissiveness is willing, not forced.  The godly submissive person knows where they come from.  They know who they are.  And Whose they are.  They know where they're going.  They know what their inheritance is.  They know all things are theirs in Christ.  And they willingly honor and defer to the authority of those in authority and they willingly humble themselves to lift up others.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him...  "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." - John 13:3-5, 14-17

Because all Christians are called to a Christ-like submissiveness in the way they relate to authority and to each other there is manifestly different kinds of submission.  Those who submit to persons in authority have one kind.  Those (even in positions of authority) who submit themselves to others in various situations have another kind.  But all kinds are willing, coming from a person who knows they are a child of the Living God.  They are not weak, doormats with no will or choice.  They are the wealthiest, most powerful of all because their Father is the Creator of the universe and works ALL things for their good and His glory.  No person in a position of authority over them has any power other than what their Father has ok'd.

The person who bears the God-like, peculiar mark of majesty can look the most powerful and the most harsh and the most wealthy person in the face and face any response or consequence they may impose on their life without any fear.

Quieted,

Sheila

Thursday night thoughts

(Ryland did the Crossfit workout with us. Mike, the owner, training him.)

I am so sore!

All day long I have all kinds of things I want to share here and then the end of the day comes and I'm toast. So, once again I sit down to post something and my mind is a blank. It just. Wants. Bed.

It's breeding season for my Nubians so I've been busy with reading, planning, contacting, and arranging breeding for my two doelings.  I decided to give our little suburban ranch a website so that I can hopefully generate interest and share what I'm learning and doing.  I also hope to use the site as a way to advertise goats I want to sell.  But since I started that site and it has it's own blog I won't bore you with all the goat stuff here.

The Bible app on my phone has plans for Bible reading and devotionals.  I read the Book of Common prayer plan which is mostly Psalms and some Old and New T too.  I've done different things with the kids over the years but recently I found a plan on this app that I can do with the kids.  We started it last night.  It's 21 days through the book of Matthew.  There's a short entertaining video, a very short devotional and then the reading for the day to take you through Matthew.  So far, their engaged!  I'm thrilled!

Watching someone you love make decisions you know will only bring destruction and pain to their family and loved ones is so hard.  Speaking the truth in love, pleading, praying, pleading more, praying more and repeat until something changes for the better is the plan.  But deep down, what you really want to do is smack them upside the head with something very hard in hopes they'll wake up!

Trusting God in hard things is... hard.

Ok. That's about all I got.  The bed is calling and the eyelids are responding.

The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle. 

They did not keep God's covenant, but refused to walk according to his law. 

They forgot his works and the wonders that he had shown them. 

In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan. He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. In the daytime he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a fiery light. He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers. 

Yet they sinned still more against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert. 

They tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved. 

They spoke against God, saying, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness? He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he also give bread or provide meat for his people?" 

Therefore, when the LORD heard, he was full of wrath; a fire was kindled against Jacob; his anger rose against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust his saving power. 

Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven, and he rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance. He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens, and by his power he led out the south wind; he rained meat on them like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas; he let them fall in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings. 

And they ate and were well filled, for he gave them what they craved. 

But before they had satisfied their craving, while the food was still in their mouths, the anger of God rose against them, and he killed the strongest of them and laid low the young men of Israel. 

In spite of all this, they still sinned; despite his wonders, they did not believe. 

So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror. 

When he killed them, they sought him; they repented and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer. 

But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. 

Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath. 

He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again. 

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe... - Psalm 78:9-42

 Quieted,

Sheila