Change is a Process...

You know the phrase: "Please be patient; God's not finished with me yet."

It usually gets pulled out and applied at moments when we feel we've really messed up or at times when we are painfully aware of our weakness and inadequacy. But it is not simply something to say in an awkward situation - it is a hopeful declaration.

I don't know about you, but I am EXTREMELY grateful that we have such a patient and gracious God - He NEVER gives up on us when we sin, miss the mark, disappoint Him, ourselves and others, or make any number of mistakes.

Because of Christ, when we accept His sacrifice for us on the cross and surrender our lives to Him, God the Father now sees us not as flawed human beings, but as precious children clothed in the righteousness of His Son, and He is constantly working in and through us to change us so that we reflect the image of Jesus and bring glory and praise to Himself.

But make no mistake...this is a PROCESS, and one that continues day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute.

I think of the beautiful allegory "Hinds' Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard ... the Shepherd had promised Much-Afraid to bring her to the high places, to perfect her and to fulfil the deepest yearnings of her soul. But every time on the journey where the path seemed to lead away from the goal, Much-Afraid lost sight of the Shepherd's love and faithfulness and fell captive to her fear again. Then she would call out to the Shepherd and He would come immediately and patiently remind her that He would keep His promise. He asked her if she would she trust Him even though it didn't make sense? And then she would build an altar and make a sacrifice, picking up a stone to carry with her as a reminder of the lesson she had learned. It was only at the end of the journey that the stones were turned into precious jewels for a crown, and that she was ready to receive what the Shepherd had promised.

How like Much-Afraid I am sometimes! And how wonderfully patient and gracious is our Good Shepherd - He meets us right where we are at and, though He may discipline us to bring us to the point of surrender, He never condemns us for our weakness, but rather reminds us of His strength. Then He picks us up and sets us back on the path He has chosen for us, the path that will transform us and conform us to His perfect will.

I have been doing some soul-searching lately and have recognized some things in my heart and my life that need to be changed. I have been fighting a battle with my flesh and through Christ I know I will gain the victory, even though I'm not quite there yet. And today I had to face once again certain areas of weakness that affect my ability to effectively serve others.

It is not comfortable, but recognizing our failings and weaknesses is the starting point to move forward, to grow and change. I write this with tears in my eyes, but my heart is also hopeful because I know that God will never let go of me. As long as I seek Him, He will guide me and He will take me through the valleys when He knows there is a lesson there I need to learn, and I will eventually come out on the other side.

A little chorus we sang often when I was a child says this:

"Little by little, every day; little by little in every way,

my Jesus is changing me, He's changing me.

Since I made a turn-about face, I've been walking in His grace, my Jesus is changing me.

He lives in me - God's Holy Spirit - I'm not the same person that I used to be.

Sometimes it's slow going,

but there's a knowing that one day like Him I will be."

When we're in the midst of a refining fire, it's not pleasant. But God has promised to "take away our heart of stone and give us a new heart, a heart of flesh." He has promised to "complete the good work He started in us" until the day we come face to face with Jesus. And He has promised that we will find Him "when we seek Him with all our hearts."

I echo the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians 3: "...not that I have already achieved all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on towards the goal to take hold of the prize for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."

It's NOT easy to be still and wait for God.
It's NOT easy to admit when I'm wrong and to face my weaknesses.
It's NOT easy to face the reality that God's plan is not only different from, but better than my own.

But it's ALWAYS good and, if the desire of my heart is truly to please Him and to become more like Him every day, then it's WORTH IT!

And it's not going to happen because of my goals or my determination to succeed, but only as I humble myself before my LORD and allow Him to continue the process of refining me. And when my life brings forth fruit, ALL the praise and honour goes to Him.

All Through The Night

Normally when my head hits the pillow, I'm asleep for the night. It's rare that anything - even my often crazy dreams - interrupts my sleep. But early this morning, that's exactly what happened, and I knew the instant I awoke that something was not right.

Thankfully, I can't remember most of the nightmare - a few things still remain in my memory - but suffice to say that I awoke suddenly at about 3:00 am with my heart pounding heavily and a palpable sense of fear surrounding me. Although my eyes opened immediately and, although I could somewhat see my surroundings and I knew I was in my bed, it still felt a little like I was in the dream.

I knew I couldn't just go back to sleep - if I closed my eyes, I would be right back in the middle of it. So I just started quietly singing - with a quivering voice - the first worship song that came to mind. "Jesus, all for Jesus, all I am and have and ever hope to be..." By the time I had sung through the song, I had calmed a little but my heart was still pounding.

I continued singing, songs that focused on the name of Jesus, because I know that just saying His name has a powerful impact in these kind of situations. Once my heart was beating normally again, I began to pray aloud. I claimed the truth that God's Holy Spirit lives within me and was present right there in the room with me, and I thanked God for His strength, sovereignty, power, omniscience, and anything else I could think of. I prayed for protection over friends and family and asked for a covering of peace over me so that I could rest easily until it was time for me to get up. I read Psalm 121 in both English and Russian and sang quietly, "I lift my eyes up...to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from You, Maker of heaven, Creator of the earth..."

Finally, it felt like the darkness and oppression I had experienced in the dream had lifted and I could no longer keep my eyes open, so I prayed for God to watch over my mind and then I rolled over and immediately went back to sleep. I think I had probably been awake for about 40 minutes.

Praise the Lord, I slept peacefully until I got out of bed about 4 hours later! I don't even remember what thoughts went through my mind or if I dreamed anything after that point. But I was very conscious of the sweet, comforting presence of my Lord surrounding me. It was almost as though His arms were literally holding me as I slept.

I believe that what happened in the wee hours of this morning was a spiritual attack of the enemy. I don't know why or what precipitated it - but I could clearly sense a spirit of darkness in the dream and in the moments after I awoke. And I battled it as best I could with the power of prayer, worship and God's Word.

Ephesians 6:11-12 says this: "Put on all the armor that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the devil's evil tricks. For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in this world; the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers of this dark age."

We know that our enemy will attack - but we often don't know when or how. So we must have our armor at the ready. The Spirit of God within me helped me to recognize what was really going on and I am so thankful for all the songs and Scripture I have memorized so that I did not have to think hard about where to begin to combat the darkness that was surrounding me.

Jesus Christ has won the victory over our enemy and through His blood and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can win every spiritual battle. I hate to have my sleep interrupted, but I am thankful that I woke up when I did and was able to find peace for my spirit again.

My closing thought is a remembrance of a little song my mom used to sing to us at bedtime when we were children - especially when we had trouble sleeping:

Jesus is with me all through the night,

Stays close beside me all through the night;

So I sleep safely till morning light;

Jesus is with me all through the night.

A Glimpse into God's Heart

I'm not a Bible scholar; what I'm about to share is not an exposition of this passage, just some thoughts that God gave me as I read from my Bible this morning. Quite some time ago, I embarked on a new Bible-reading journey. I know certain parts of the Bible quite well, so I didn't want to just read it in a year; I wanted to go deeper and really "glean" the important truths from it.

I wanted my reading of God's Word to become a search for treasures that I could hide in my heart and which would strengthen and encourage me in my relationship with Him. So I decided to start reading through the Bible, only reading one or two chapters at a time, meditating on them and journalling my thoughts and the things that God revealed to me as I did so. I have made many new discoveries and even in the stories most familiar to me, I have learned new things. God's Word is indeed "living and active," and has the power to change willing hearts.

But I have been stuck for the last little while in the book of Isaiah - especially chapters 15 and 16. This morning I read these chapters again, for probably the 4th time, and all of a sudden I saw what it was that God wanted me to understand from this passage!

Chapter 15 is mainly about the desolation that will come to the nation of Moab (judgment from Almighty God, I believe). It follows a chapter describing how God will have mercy on His people and how He deals with them according to His character, and I wondered initially why it was placed here. Verse 5 especially caught my attention when God says - through the prophet Isaiah - "My heart shall cry out for Moab..."

Why would God cry out for Moab? They were a neighboring nation to Israel, but not one that honored the Lord God, and their relations with God's chosen people were not exemplary. So I continued reading ... verse 4 of chapter 16 is interesting: God says, "Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler..." Why would God task Moab with being a refuge for His chosen people?

He goes on to talk about the one who will sit on the throne of David and judge in righteousness, and in verse 6 makes a bold statement about the pride and haughtiness of Moab. In verse 7 God declares that Moab will cry out for itself (which is to be expected - we humans are good at feeling sorry for ourselves), but the statement in verse 9 is what REALLY caught my attention.
"Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen."
Verse 10 describes how the gladness is taken away by God's judgment, and then again in verse 11, God says: "Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kirharesh."

The prophet Isaiah concludes the chapter by saying that God had spoken this previously about Moab, but now has a new message that soon Moab's glory will be completely gone and the remnant left will be very small and weak. As I meditated on this Scripture, God brought to mind a situation from my past that profoundly reveals the difference between my heart and his - which is what I believe He wanted me to understand in a fresh and new way today.

Although I know it is true, I often forget that love is part of judgment. When I was a child I was disciplined for the things I did wrong and it wasn't pleasant or painless, but I knew that my parents did it because they loved me and they wanted me to develop character. If they only ever punished me for wrongdoing, I would perhaps have viewed it more negatively, but they always affirmed that they were doing it because of their love for me. I also remember as a child sometimes being quite happy when my brothers were punished for their wrongdoing. What an awful attitude to have! I should have been saddened that they made that choice and should not have thought more highly of myself simply because I didn't.

I confess that I sometimes translate that thought process to God's judgment on wickedness: "Yay, they're getting what they deserve!" But from what I read in the Scriptures, that's not what God is like. In 2 Peter 3:9, the apostle Peter writes that "the Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance."

We know as believers and followers of Christ that we are loved in a way that we cannot fully comprehend - but I think we often forget (at least I do) that God loved us WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, just as much as He does now that we have chosen to follow Him. So why do we think that people in the world around us - yes, even the ones who do dreadful things - are any less valuable than we are to the One who created them?

In Isaiah 16 God declares through Isaiah the prophet that He is weeping and mourning over Moab's desolation. He HAD to punish them for their wickedness and the way they treated His chosen people, but I think I see now why this is here. It is to show me that God loves each person equally and would rejoice over the repentance of a wicked nation just as much as He rejoices over me when I choose to do what honours Him. What a compassionate, gracious, loving God!!

And we are commanded to be holy as He is holy. That means we must hate sin - ESPECIALLY our own sin - just as much as God does, but we must also seek to have a heart like His that looks upon people as a precious creation and loves them for their intrinsic worth in God's sight. We should rejoice when they follow God's will for their lives and mourn when they turn away, because we should desire as God does that "no one should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

I got a little glimpse into my heart - and God's - this morning, and it literally brought me to tears. Tears of joy that God loves me - and you - SO much that He would crucify His own son to make it possible for us to have a relationship with Him, but also SO much that He will weep over the punishment that is inevitable when we choose to sin against Him!

How high and how wide, how deep and how long,

how sweet and how strong is Your love!

How lavish Your grace, how faithful Your ways,

how great is Your love, O Lord!

Birth-and-Life-Day Celebration

When it comes to birthdays, I freely share my age and happily celebrate every year because for me, it's about celebrating the fact that I am alive and I have a birthday! God has been so good to me, and my birthday is just one special day that I can set aside to celebrate and appreciate the life that He has given me!

This year, I was sick with a cold on the actual day of my birth, and I wasn't able to celebrate with others also because it was the day before Ukrainian Christmas. I did have a nice relaxing day and was thankful for the kindness of many friends and family to remind me how much I am loved.

I spent the last week in the city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine, with a missionary friend, and we planned a little party to celebrate my birthday.

Step one: Preparing the decorations

I popped the only purple balloon in the package while blowing it up, but it was fine.

Step two: Setting the table...a "love"-ly theme

 

Nice candles and a pretty little rose decoration in the middle!

The birthday girl (and her talking hamster)!

 Step three: Just about ready to eat...

Kate (far right) is a friend I met last August who celebrated with us.

Me and Doreen, a dear friend who hosted me in her home for a week!

Delicious food - beet salad, rice and chicken casserole and pickled tomatoes!

My birthday cake was one of the best I've tasted in a long time!!

The chocolate candy in the bottom right corner was a gift from Kate - yummy!

Blowing out the candles on the cake...

Then, while drinking coffee and eating chocolate, we watched the first 2 hrs of ...

Anne of Green Gables - the Sequel!

Fellowship with friends, great food, and my favourite movie...

It was a special party - just enough to help me celebrate and remember how very blessed I am!

Dear God, Thank You...

Dear God,
Thank You for 2013.

Thank You for always being faithful to me, even when I was not, for forgiving me and helping me back up when I failed, and for blessing me in ways far beyond what I expected or even deserved.

Thank You for listening and understanding the needs of my heart, and for giving me friends who have been there to encourage and strengthen me when I needed it most. Thank You for using me even when I felt insignificant and weak and I didn't know what to do, and for giving me the ability to see the people and situations around me through Your eyes.

Thank You for being God, and for the assurance that You have everything in control. I am comforted to know that nothing happens in my life or in this world that You don't know, and that You are working out Your good plan, even though in my inadequate understanding it sometimes seems otherwise.

Thank You that my life is in your hands - and the lives of all those who are dear to me - and that I can trust You and have peace. Thank You for giving me faith to believe You and for giving me the ability to communicate that to others, both through my life and through the talent of writing You have given me.

Thank You for joy that cannot be explained.
Thank You for Your constant presence with me, and for keeping me strong. Thank You for the convenience of the internet, which makes it possible for me to keep in touch with those I love who are far away. And thank You for helping me not to feel lonely.

Thank You for giving me the intellect and memory to learn and be able to communicate in a new language - one that was completely foreign to me and is very difficult. I know that any progress I have made and will continue to make is only because of Your grace in my life.

Thank You for the confidence to face this new year - 2014 - and whatever changes it will bring, knowing that You have known it from the beginning of time and that everything is in Your hands.

Thank You for giving me opportunity to glorify and praise You, in my home, in my church, with my family and friends, in ministry, and in this country not of my physical birth, but where You have placed me to be an instrument of Your grace to the people around me.

How can I keep from singing Your praise? How could I ever say enough, how amazing is Your love? How can I keep from shouting Your name? I know I am loved by the King, and it makes my heart want to sing!

I love You and I commit my heart and life again to You as I begin this new year, confident that You will continue the good work You started in me, and that in both the good times and the bad You will always be walking right beside me.

Your willing servant and precious daughter,
Darlene Joy