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The Art of Sacrifice

July 7, 2011 in Faith, Life with 4 Comments

Reading through the Bible I’m learning a lot.  This would seem fairly obvious but I’m also realizing that I have to be intentional about having an open heart and not simply reading it to be able to say I read the entire Bible.  It’s easy just to read it as I would any other book and not allow it to penetrate my soul.

I recently finished reading the Books of the Law:  Genesis – Deuteronomy.  With the exception of the first 11 chapters of 1 Chronicles Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy were the most challenging.  God repeating to Moses and the people His laws.  His sacrificial requirements.

I was thinking about the sacrifices last night.  Here’s the notes I jotted down:

◙  The Israelites were required to offer sacrifices every day.  One in the morning and one in the evening.  In addition, there were sin offerings, peace offerings, offerings if you were a woman after every cycle, offerings after you gave birth, and the list goes on.  Sacrifices were just that a sacrifice.  God required the best.  He wouldn’t settle for second best.

◙  The aroma of the sacrifices would have permeated the Israelite camp.  If you’ve ever driven by or walked by a steak house or walked out of your house while someone is grilling burgers you know that the air around is heavy laden with with the scent of cooking meat.  With at least two sacrifices daily, the aroma would have clung to their cloths, their tents, everything.  They would have constantly been reminded of the offerings they made to God.

◙  The sacrifices were not consumed.  The offerings were the sustenance for the priests and Levites.

◙  To not offer sacrifices was not only robbing God, but also the men were leading them spiritually.

Here is what this means for me (and you):

God wants our best.  We are unable to live perfect, sinless lives but we are required to live holy lives.  Living our lives for Him and not our own selfish desires.

As I daily offer my sacrifice to God the aroma of that will permeate every aspect of my life.  I’ll make wiser choices.  I’ll choose truth over lies, and holiness over sin.

I think the fact that the sacrifices were not consumed is what hit me the most.  God did not simply rain down fire to consume the flour or ram or wine.  They were offered God accepted and blessed the people.  God will not consume me when I give my daily sacrifice.  He will accept and bless and enable me to offer myself to Him the next day and the day after that.

When I choose not to live my life for God I’m robbing Him and I’m robbing myself.  I’m robbing Him of glory and worthy praise, and I’m robbing myself of His blessings.

Jealousy’s Story

July 6, 2011 in Faith, Life with 24 Comments

Yesterday jealousy crept into my heart like a ghost.  Haunting areas of my life and rattling bones of skeletons I thought were safely tucked away.

In situations I thought were under control and my patience firmly rooted, I witnessed them plucked from loose soil and whipped around by chain dragging ghosts.  And observed flesh pulled back on my own self revealing festers that never quite healed fully, as envy oozed over what others have and God’s providential timing hasn’t placed into my life .

In all of this I’m learning that my story isn’t your story and your story isn’t mine.  And that with jealousy I’m saying I want your story; I don’t want my own unique one.

Jealousy longs to take your chapters and fit them into my book, but I’ll quickly see that no amount of trimming and gluing and refitting, your pages don’t and won’t align with the pages that God is writing out in my life.

Jealousy and envy tend to thrive in seasons of wait.  While we’re waiting for doors to open and questions to be answered we easily see everyone else’s doors open and questions answered.  We believe that their doors and questions had immediate responses (which often is not the case) while ours seem to take forever.

Patience is difficult but always worth the wait.  I want my story to be mine.  Uniquely written for me.  I don’t want jealousy to ghost write for me.

Aging

July 1, 2011 in Life with 10 Comments

It’s been [nearly] a year since my last birthday.

A year in which I’ve tried to learn the art grace and taken intentional steps to read through the Bible in a year [5/12 of the way through].  Of doing my best to scream at fear to back off.

A year of God slowly sanctifying this soul and the words that God gave me that speak of my hearts ache for sinlessness.

And I learned how just close knit this community family we have is.

I’ve experienced that the road isn’t always smooth and sometimes it comes crashing into you and occasionally wraps itself tightly into knots, yet in the rough terrain the scenery and the journey are beautiful.

I began taking steps to live life to the fullest before cresting the “hill”; and in that met fabulous virtual friends who became phenomenal real life friends.

And I’ve fallen more madly in love with him.

My prayer every year is that I would simply become more like Him.

Thirty-six – let’s do this!!

“We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”  – Emily Dickinson

Sola Gratia | By Grace Alone

June 23, 2011 in Grace, OneWord with 10 Comments

This year of Grace looks nothing like I thought it would.  I thought I’d be shoulder deep in God teaching me to have grace, to extend compassion.  And He has, but what amazes me is that in these last six months, is He has shown me more His grace for me.

It is something that continues to blow me away.

In His showing and overwhelming me with His grace for me, I’m learning how to show grace to others.  It’s still not easy. Honestly, it may never be.  I believe that if it were easy He’d have nothing left to teach me, and there is a chance I’d take grace for granted.

That is something I never want to do.

As I look back over these six months I see the threads of grace that bind each moment together.

I’m realizing that this grace learning won’t be finished when the clock strikes 2012.  He is just barely scratching the surface of how deep grace goes.

(to see all my OneWord Grace posts you can click here)

Grace on Bad Days

June 20, 2011 in Grace, OneWord with 19 Comments

Yesterday wasn’t a good day.

A series of errors on my part that shaped my mood and my entire day.  The kind of day that makes me think I my phone case should consist of a couple layers of bubble wrap.

Yes.  That happened.

Even though my day was bad and my attitude was worse, Shawn and I (especially me) saw grace throughout that whole day.

His grace toward me in a situation in which I tell him to yell at me because I deserved it.  Grace from God in the absence of a large financial transaction we were expecting to make.  Grace in simple things like buying two bags of cookies for cheesecake crust instead of just one, and needing the second bag after you realize you forgot to put sugar in your cheesecake and the crust plops into the batter you’re attempting to pour back into the mixing bowl.

Grace comes in many different shapes.

Like remembering to remove the sharp cutting strip off the plastic wrap box, in which your dogs will find when raiding the bag of recycling you left on the floor.

Shawn’s encouragement to me throughout the day yesterday was, everything worked out.

Grace!

I laid in bed last night – and even this morning – thinking about what the day was like, and how God wove grace throughout every circumstance.  I know things could have been a lot worse.

Do you notice & rejoice over the small graces God weaves throughout your bad days?

Gifting My Future

June 13, 2011 in Life with 12 Comments

He loves giving me gifts.  Surprises in all different forms.  This husband of mine who doesn’t care if he gets gifts himself loves lavishing on me.

He only wants the best for me.  My claims that I’m fine with a Kindle are met with but you should have an iPad.  My declarations that I could have spent a lot of money at a particular store that had a lot of clothes I liked are followed up with, then lets go.

He desires for me to be happy.  To have the things I desire.

I forget that God desires the same for me.  In these gray seasons of waiting for answered questions I’m straining to remember that He is equipping, teaching, molding us me into the person I need to be in the future.

This long road is not an uneventful one.  Lessons have been learned.  Hearts have been changed.  Patience is slowly learned, and when it’s waning I cry out to be taught more, with an extra helping of trust as well.

While I weary often and dig my heels in while trying to race ahead there are events I need to experience now in these gray times.  He has so much for me now.

 

Gray Seasons

June 10, 2011 in Faith, Life with 18 Comments

I sit and I think.  I offer whispered prayers upward.  I cogitate every angle.  I ask for signs, believing that asking isn’t wrong and you must ask to receive.

I stare at the scale, the balance of what is and what could be.  I search my heart to discover if I’m hearing His voice or my own selfish one.

It’s a difficult task, searching for the needle in the haystack of thoughts running through my mind.

In a circumstance that theoretically has no right or wrong answer, how do you make a decision?

In the waiting for an answer I find peace as my heart feels pulled in directions I’m not sure it’s supposed to go.

With daily (every breath) I lift these prayers Heavenward.  I remind myself to trust.  To remember that gray seasons have just as much depth and meaning as black and white ones.

When you face circumstances with no right or wrong answer how do you make a decision?
How do you turn up the volume of His voice over yours, when your desires aren’t wrong?

Elements of Grace: To Forgive?

June 3, 2011 in Grace, OneWord with 12 Comments

Shawn and I were watching a TV show earlier this week in which a man who was in prison for killing a man was up for parole.  The wife & daughter of the victim were at the hearing bent on doing anything to prevent the prisoner from getting released.

I sat watching the show unfold and began to wonder, what does grace look like in this situation?  I believe in second chances.  I want to live my life as a person of the second chance.  But what does second chance living look like in this situation?

Could I offer grace?  To a man who murdered my father, brother, mother, husband, best friend.

What about someone who merely betrayed someone close to me?

Could I forgive?

In truth I don’t know.  I could say yes, but the truth would only come out if I was forced into a situation like the one in the TV show.

The fact of the matter is, is that I’m supposed to.  If I’m going to live my life as a reflection of Christ I must forgive, and I must offer grace.

Jesus didn’t simply forgive those who were prideful, told small lies and stole things.  He died for the soul of every murderer on death row too.

To offer grace & forgiveness does not mean that consequences shouldn’t be rendered.  It simply means that we look at others as Christ looks at them.  It means taking off hatred, slander, and oppression.

As the story unfolded the man who had killed was put in a position to either kill the victim’s wife and daughter or be killed himself.  The man, who lived daily with his sin & sought redemption, chose the greater good and refused to kill them.  He chose to protect them.  The show ended with the daughter telling a police officer to give the man who killed her father a message.  “I will be at his next parole hearing.  I will be there to support him.”

Granted this was just a script written by writers for the enjoyment of the viewers, but there is a greater message here.  The daughter could have continued to hold a grudge against him.  She could have continued to live under the weight of unforgiveness.  Instead, she chose grace.

If you were faced with a similar situation (doesn’t even have to be similar) how would you handle grace?

Yesterday Was For Me

May 30, 2011 in Faith with 7 Comments

I’m gonna be honest.  I did NOT want to go to church yesterday morning.  It’d been a beautiful, lazy anniversary weekend [the kind where I was in my PJ's all day Saturday until we got ready to go to dinner & even then I think I could have gotten away with the yoga pants & tank top] and I wanted it to carry over to Sunday morning.

I stood and sat there my mind telling me the songs were out dated, that there are newer/fresher ones.  With eyes closed I did my best to focus my worship and attention on the one who deserves them.  Reminding myself over and over that He is delighted, and these are not meant for human ears or human hearts.

I was tired.  I wasn’t expecting.

I was simply fulfilling my Christian duty to go to church.

It’s sort of funny.  It’s in those moments that God shows up with a mighty force.

God gift wrapped Ezra 5 & 6 and dropped them into my lap.

Mere moments into the message I sat there, staring and thinking this is for me.  This is for us.  In the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the waiting.  When I did not even expect to hear from Him, God met us where we are at.  Every part of what was spoken, spoke to our tired hearts & soul.  Promises that we are not forgotten.  That He will give us counsel.  That He will lead us.

The evening before was wrought with arguing over these circumstances we find ourselves in.  Emotions high.  Aggravations and fears that awoke on my shoulders that just wanted to stay in bed.  Frustrations that were slowly worked out over bagels and whispered feelings.

It’s just like our creator and the lover of our soul to arrive and whisper to us, “I know.  I’m not forgetting.  I will lead you.”

 

Elements of Grace: Marriage

May 27, 2011 in Grace, Love Letters, OneWord with 5 Comments

I laid in bed Wednesday night my brain slowly drifting towards dream land.  Literally giddy over that fact that Shawn and I would celebrate ten years of marriage the next day.  I kicked my feet like a child exuberant over a trip to Disneyland.

I recalled that this was probably similar to what I felt like ten years ago in a hotel room sleeping with my two best girlfriends anticipating the next day.

And as I laid there my brain getting heavier with sleep, my thoughts cried out in thankfulness to God.  I know we wouldn’t be where we are at if it weren’t for His grace.

Grace to forgive and to apologize.  Grace to make allowances for each others faults, and even grace for our own faults.

We don’t have a perfect marriage, far from it; but it’s a beautiful marriage.

It is one that we daily try to plant grace, and allow it to be fruitful.

When we got married I only saw the lifetime.  I never considered the years that make up the in between – the ten, the three, the 28.  I only saw spending the rest of my life with him.  As we look through the telescope at another ten years and onto 30 more, we will only arrive at that place with grace wrapped around our wrists leading us forward.

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