Dressed and Ready

The other afternoon I was getting ready to go to work and I had an idea come over me. Sometimes I will ask Rod if something looks okay (hair, outfit, makeup) and he most ALWAYS tells me yes. He even tells me yes when he has not even looked at me. So, I decided to do nothing to my hair and see if he would say it looked okay. Just to test him if he was really honest or not because I was sure it was awful. Well, to put it nicely my hair looks like this poor troll before I began to call on help from the Most High. He sends aid in the form of a ceramic flat iron and some anti-frizz plus flat ironing spray. Don't you think this little Roman troll is cute? I thought it was the most biblical troll...LOL! Anyway, I came downstairs looking like a troll...and asked him if he thought my hair looked okay. No!!!, he said you might want to go upstairs and fix it some more. The Hallelujah chorus began to go off in my head. He didn't tell me that it looked good...Praise the Lord...I got some honesty! I am used to having sisters that would tell me honestly what they thought. I don't want flattery from him either if my latest fashion statement or hairdo is something like Medusa.

This brings me to another point. I have always kept a journal and voiced most of my prayers to the Lord in my journal over the years but the Lord has impressed it on me to really get on my face and just pour out my heart to Him each day. I got on my face in my heart at the hospital because i knew the Lord would understand me not getting on that hospital floor (yuck). So, I feel like in the last year that I just got lax in certain areas. When I come before the Lord I just have to get honest and quit with the churchy pretense since He sees everything bare and exposed anyway there is no point in trying to lie to Him. I've had to get honest before the Lord and acknowledge that I am not doing all that I can in my community or church to really serve the Lord at my best. I guess I just have felt lost in the shuffle since I have not been teaching Sunday school...its been more of a well where do you want me to serve you that will most glorify you Lord...kind of question. If we are not focused we will scurry to and fro serving in places that we are not called to serve. But I really know that I have not been focused in the areas that I have been called to make a difference in for such a time as this. The Lord wants us to be willing to do the "whatever" that He calls us to. He wants us to live out Phil. 2 and in humility consider others better than ourselves...which is only possible when our gaze is on Him. He doesn't want us caught up in being so focused on a ministry that we don't focus on Him. I am convinced that God is a God of using us out of the overflow. When we make it our goal to love Him and fix our ever wandering hearts on Him...He will use us alright. We so often get our sights on what a BIG ministry we want that we forfeit the blessing of the servitude that comes from washing others feet. The joy that can come from dropping a note of encouragement in the mail, taking someone to a doctors appointment, cleaning someones house, going to a homeless shelter. It is so easy to get caught up in ourselves that we truly become so full of ourselves that we don't think of the needs around us.

The other morning a lady came to the door to solicit something and I still had my jammies on. To my credit Morgan had stayed up VERY late the night before. Anyway, I had just finished reading the following verses:

Luke 12:37-39

37It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. 39But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

When my Master (Christ) returns either to call to meet Him in the air (1 Thess. 4) or to call me home...I want to be dressed and ready. I was not dressed and ready physically speaking to open the door (I did anyway). I don't want Him to come and find me sleeping...just passing the time here on earth. I don't mean rest...but slacking in my service to Him. I want to guard what has been entrusted to me and get some focus. I want to be able to love others with a supernatural love that gives me tenacity to keep after the goal for which I am here. I want to love the LORD with all of my heart and have no divided loyalties. I don't want to get off the path of righteousness and take any more trips to the pit. I really want to live for Him and I know that you do to.

Life can be so hard and sometimes I want to give up. That is not what the Lord wants. He calls us to be strong and courageous with the strength that He imparts to us as we come and bring our souls to be filled by Him and His word. His word will have to be the bread that we live on or we will always be hungry with a voracious appetite that can not be satisfied with this world.

Another thing the Lord challenged me on was to stop focusing so much on circumstances and to focus on the One who has numbered my days and knows every hair on my head. He spoke things into existence and He is in control of my life and yours ordering our steps and even using our past to shape us and use us for His good purpose. If my focus is on Him it will drastically change my view on things. If my focus is on my circumstances I am discouraged and controlled by those circumstances but with my focus on Him I have peace and can function.

So when your heart grows faint or weary cry out to God. He will lead you to the ROCK which is higher than you and your circumstances and set your feet upon the Rock above the flood that seeks to assail you.

Psalm 61:1-3

1 Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
2 From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
3 For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.

Psalm 84:2

2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God