Choose life

   

  All around the enemy’s camp there is dancing and celebrating the latest victory. High fiving, singing, shouting profanities as they revel in the taking of a country’s government. Satan himself falling into a false security that he has won. His narcissistic pride blinding him from the spiritual reality. The earth has seen this before, Satan rejoices in his stupidity and blindness, celebrating that he killed the Christ, the Savior of the world. Jokes on him, Jesus rose again ruling and reigning from His Throne in Heaven. So believers, rejoice! Jesus is still on throne! Many countries all over the world that don’t have our freedom of sharing the gospel are powerhouses of many miracles and signs and wonders. Dead raising, miraculous healings, supernatural encounters with angels, prophetic gifts flowing, so take heart and position yourselves in humility in a real relationship with the Lord. Allow Him to teach and comfort you, get so close to His heart that you only speak what He speaks and only do what He tells you to do. A few months ago Father told me, “There will be those who will and those who won’t.” It is your choice are you going to be one of those who will step into your destiny and be completely immersed in His will or are you going to go on as you have always gone on.

 

2 Timothy 2:11-26New International Reader’s Version (NIRV)

11 Here is a saying you can trust.

If we died with him,

    we will also live with him.

12 If we don’t give up,

    we will also rule with him.

If we say we don’t know him,

    he will also say he doesn’t know us.

13 Even if we are not faithful,

    he remains faithful.

    He must be true to himself

20 In a large house there are things made out of gold and silver. But there are also things made out of wood and clay. Some have special purposes. Others have common purposes. 21 Suppose someone stays away from what is common. Then the Master will be able to use them for special purposes. They will be made holy. They will be ready to do any good work.

22 Run away from the evil things that young people long for. Try hard to do what is right. Have faith, love and peace. Do these things together with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with arguing. It is dumb and foolish. You know it only leads to fights. 24 Anyone who serves the Lord must not be hard to get along with. Instead, they must be kind to everyone. They must be able to teach. The one who serves must not hold anything against anyone. 25 They must gently teach those who are against them. Maybe God will give a change of heart to those who are against you. That will lead them to know the truth. 26 Maybe they will come to their senses. Maybe they will escape the devil’s trap. He has taken them as prisoners to do what he wanted.

In the love of Jesus I pray all who read these choose this day who they will serve. 

 

Jonah, The Rest of the Story

Jonah 4:1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

     Jonah had just suffered the most traumatic event in his life. Caught up in the belly of the whale for three days and vomited out onto the beach, so he reluctantly went to prophecy to the people of Nineveh that they needed to repent. He didn’t like these people, he thought they were evil and in all probable scenarios he was probably right about them. But God is His compassion said go and tell them to repent. 

     How many times in life have we just gone through a situation where we were swallowed up by situations where people have betrayed us and it seems to come out of nowhere like a drive by shooting and the person leaves you bleeding and dying on the side of the road and you are all alone like Jonah. God comes along and picks you up and places you somewhere safe. It might not feel like you are safe. It might be a stinky situation like the belly of the whale but it carries you to a place of freedom where you can finally crawl up on the beach, clean yourself up and take a fresh breath. THEN God comes along and says I want you to forgive that person. And you say I knew You were going to ask me to do that because You are a compassionate God and it is better for me to die rather than forgive that person.  

     I have had similar conversations with God, a lot 🙂 It is very hard to come to terms with the emotions that are so overwhelming when someone has treated you badly, especially those that are close to you and you trusted. 

Jonah 4:5  Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant[a] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

     So in our self pity we go out and try to shelter our hearts, find some comfort in the shade and wait and see what happens to the person who has hurt us so badly. Amazingly enough, the person usually by all appearances seems to flourish and prosper and does not even seem to care what they have done to you. This adds fuel to your angry fire. Then God tries to comfort you because He is a good Father, and grows a vine around you of people who do love you. But then because of your anger and unforgiveness the worm of destruction comes along and starts to separate and cause those who love you to keep their distance. And you are even more angry.

Jonah 4:9  But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Moral of the story, we are not the creator of life. When someone wrongs us, we do not easily recognize the big picture of their worth to our Father no matter how bad someone has hurt you, in God’s own words, “there are people who cannot tell their right hand from their left”. We are not to be concerned about their sin or iniquity and we should not be holding things against them. God will judge them but by the same principle He says,

Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Not an easy lesson, but forgiving those who have hurt you is freeing yourself from the responsibility of carrying their sin. Be free today. Ask God to show you the areas you might be harboring unforgiveness and then ask for Him to forgive you, just as you are forgiving those who have hurt you.  

     

Willie’s sister

 

I introduced you to laid back Willie the other day so now its time to introduce his sister Zoey and the lessons I have learned from her. Willie and Zoey are litter mates that my son and I helped deliver. We had their mom and dad.
Zoey is the total opposite of Willie in personality. I wasn’t going to keep one of the eleven puppies we had but Zoey wasn’t having that. Every time I would walk by the area we were keeping the puppies she would stand up on the baby gate and whine and cry and “yell” at me until I would pick her up and she would tuck her little face in my neck and I would go about my business holding this crazy dog. Bad idea, I got so attached to her I couldn’t let her go when we were finding homes for the pups.
To this day she is whiny and full of energy and very vocal. She lays on my bed looking at me whining and half way barking until I pet her. She is nervous and full of separation anxiety when I leave, thanks to my neighbor who decided to torment her when I was gone. Animal abuse is a terrible thing. I discovered the situation when I came home one day and my neighbor was hosing her down while she barked hysterically and the whole back yard was soaked and she was soaked so who knows how long he did that to her. We called Reno 911 and they came out and he denied it. So there you go, I am left a pup with PTSD and between the two if one of them ever bit anyone it would be her because she is so afraid all the time.
Zoey is more like my personality than I would like to admit so thank the Lord for the refining of His love to help overcome those traits that I have learned since childhood.
Don’t be sad though, she is getting better with our love and acceptance and her otherwise happy personality makes her adorable. So there you have it, my two dogs, different as night and day just like all of us humans. All special and precious in our Lord’s sight.

John 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—

Choose Wisely

I just love this picture. I enjoy taking old things and recycling them into other things of art and beauty. There is that saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So true, so true.

I have been struggling lately trying to sort out the new things happening in my life and wanting to bring some of the “old” and transform them into the new. This time it isn’t going to work. New days are here, new adventures, new places and things to see and do, the “old” things are heavy and slowing me down no matter how I try and change them by painting beautiful colors on them or adding a flower here and there, they are still the old.

I read a quote today from Mike Murdock that said, “Those Who Unlock Your Compassion Are Those To Whom You Have Been Assigned”. #drMM There have been many people that I have not been assigned to that drain me emotionally, they clearly do not have my best interest at heart and its time to stop “prettying them up” and to move on. Not that they are bad or wrong and there is no judgment intended but I am in a new season of my life and I want to be surrounded with positive people that really like me, genuinely care for me, don’t smile at my face and gossip behind my back, friends that would literally take a bullet for me and I would them. God puts these people in your life, they give you life, they don’t drain you, criticize or judge, they lovingly help you to move to the next level of your life.

I am ready to let go of some of these “drainers” 🙂 I am ready to pour my heart and energy into those that I am assigned to. If any of you know me personally this is really hard for me. I seem to be drawn to people that suck the life right out of me and give nothing back in return because I want to help at any cost. So this has been a revelation in my spirit that I am allowed to not be friends with some people who do not see my worth or my potential.

Life really is too short, so onward and upward!

Luke 9:5 If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”

Finding Bigfoot

I absolutely love the show Finding Bigfoot.  Matt Moneymaker, Cliff Barackman and James “Bobo” Fay and of course Ranae Holland go bigfoot hunting all over the world searching for the elusive bigfoot.  A person can become rather fond of their diverse personalities and the way they interact with each other while in the dark, followed by camera men. Sometimes its quite entertaining. Number 5 on my bucket list is to go bigfoot hunting someday with people who really know what they are doing. So why would some one like me be interested in such a subject? There are two types of people in the world, those that believe in bigfoot and those that don’t. I grew up in the Sierra Mountains and would hike the hill on many occasions to retrieve cherries from the water canyon or just sit on this huge flat boulder that over looked Carson Valley on the East side of the mountain below Lake Tahoe. I was an adventurous child and didn’t really worry too much about anything, I would charge ahead into the unknown full of confidence and no fear of anything (except snakes but that is a whole other story). I have never seen a bigfoot but I have felt an unknown unexplainable presence sometimes that made me leave the mountain in a hurry.

I am not here to argue with anyone about the existence of the big guy, I just think everyone should have an open mind. There are so many things we don’t know about our own environment and we are so smug in our intellectual ability to tear apart and analyze everything to death to disprove something just because we haven’t seen it with our own eyes.  I choose to look at the world through my “child eyes” with wonder and excitement that maybe someday they will find something new and exciting to surprise us and make us ponder this vast big world we live in.

Kind of reminds me of my faith in God. There are people who believe and people that don’t believe, but that doesn’t make Him not real just because someone doesn’t believe in Him.

Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

My dog Willie

Life happens, might as well enjoy the ride.

I started this new blog in the wee hours of the morning when I woke up and couldn’t sleep. Thinking random thoughts about everything in my life: past, present and future. They say nothing is sure except death and taxes: I say eternal life is a sure thing if you want it and taxes can be changed if we would stop letting other people decide our future who don’t really care about us. So on that note, this blog is going to be completely different than my blog dancinginpraise@BlogSpot.com. I wanted a generic blog that I could randomly talk about anything that pops into my pointed little head.  So there you have it, ramblings that come from crazy late night.

On that note I chose a picture of my dog Willie Nelson (yes named after the famous Willie Nelson).  This picture shows him in all his glory, just how he is, take it or leave it, don’t care attitude, completely mellow and at peace with everything around him. He is a 95 lb.  love bug who thinks he is a lapdog. Yes I might be obsessed with my dogs at this moment and rightly so. In the uncertainty of my little world at the moment I need something to hold on to that is tangible and that I can touch and feel their warmth. And the love and comfort I get through these animals is precious to me. It’s ok, I am not going to turn into a animal hoarder or crazy dog lady (notice I didn’t say cat, not too crazy about the felines, no hate email please).

Let me tell you a little about Willie. Willie is actually my son’s dog.  We were there when he was born along with 10 other siblings. Not something we expected but stuff happens you know. He is a pit bull in all his glory, his regal looks and his beautiful coloring. Willie bonded to me from very early insisting on sleeping with me and to this day I can’t go anywhere in the house that he isn’t under my feet. Even cooking dinner or doing dishes he has to be laying right under my feet touching me.  He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body but if he barks at you, you will probably need to go change your drawers, ha ha for real. 🙂 I don’t think he would bite but I think his loyalty is so strong if you chose to try and hurt me he might defend me. That’s a good thing in my opinion.

You never know exactly what someone is going through and I have learned through my own trials and tribulations, stretching and refining in the fire of God, that we all need something to hold on to. Yes, my faith is strong and when my outside is crying and whining and showing weakness, my inside is strong. Willie reminds me on a daily basis that I am loved and I need to chill and have faith. It’s all going to be ok.

Hebrews 11:11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So those days that I want to curl up on the couch and have a 95 lb Willie dog laying in my lap, watching #Finding Bigfoot or #Opposite Worlds and want to zone out and not think about anything else I think I am entitled. Sometimes we need something tangible to hug and with me that is Willie and his sister Zoey (her crazy personality is a whole other discussion left for another time).

I have learned those that are going through the fire right now are there because they are being refined because they are called to a higher purpose with higher responsibility in the Kingdom of Heaven not because God is punishing them and they did something wrong. So if you take away anything from this little random story of my life, I hope next time you look at someone’s life, don’t judge their faith or their walk with God by what you see in the physical. Sometimes what looks bad is really Heavenly.