Whose in your camp?

 Jacob means "Trickster" and he spent his life living up to it. He however, encountered a bigger trickster in his Uncle Laban. He tricked him into marrying Leah before Rachel even though all Jacob wanted was Rachel. Laban then tricked Jacob into working another 7 years for Rachel. When Jacob finally said enough is enough he had worked for Laban for 20 years. Jacob was ready to go. He was ready to pack up and leave. When he got ready to leave, he went to Laban and let him know he was leaving. Laban convinced him to stay. He offered him anything he wanted. Jacob recognized that Laban had all he had because he was connected to Jacob. When God blessed Jacob, Laban received a blessing as well.... Long story short, Jacob, in the middle of the night, packs up his wives, his children, his servants, and all of his possessions and left. When Laban realized he had left, he traveled after him. The reason that Laban was chasing after him was because one of Jacob's wives had gone into Laban's tent and stolen his gods. Jacob did not know that the gods were in his possession.(Genesis 31:15-49)

The reason I bring this particular story up is because it goes to show you that the actions of those in your camp affect the overall outcome of things as much as your actions do. We see this throughout the Bible. Adam went through it, Moses had to wander 40 years because of it, Joshua went through it... Even Jesus had to deal with betrayal in his own camp. Why do we keep finding examples of this throughout the Bible? We find it to let us know that not everyone who is connected to us has our best interests in heart. It is to let us know that we have to be very careful who is allowed to move with us. We have to be careful because as we see in the case of Jacob, a member of his own camp, his inner circle, brought with them foreign gods. They did this knowing that the God of his father Isaac and his grand-father Abraham was the only God that they served. They also did this without telling Jacob....

Jacob's story is a warning to us.... We may have people who are in our camp, in our inner circle, who have brought idols into the camp. Idols can be money, fame, power or even other gods. We may not even know that they are there and we wonder why things are not going the way that they should be. From time to time, we have to take stock of those around us.. We have to make sure that our camp is not with us just because of the blessings they are receiving, but that they are with us because they are supposed to be with us. We have to make sure that they are not bringing idols or false gods into the camp.  I have found in the reflection of my own camp that there are people who don't always have my best interest in mind and have had to be cut loose in order for me to move onto the next level. I have also found in my own camp that there are people in which I thought might not have had my best interests, but in reality, were just coming from a different experience.

My challenge to you is to pray on it, then take stock of your own camp. There may be people that have to be let go... And don't be afraid to do this from time to time....

Who God is to me....

The Lord is my shepherd my rock my salvation The reason why I smile even when having a rough day He is my example My light and when I can't go any more His is the wings on which I soar.

Faith is our Currency

Faith is a funny thing.... We can lose it just as easy as we gain it. When things are going rough, our faith has a tendency to dissolve.... But what if, just what if, when we lose our faith when we stop believing that it's like shredding our paycheck. What if when we lose our faith, its like throwing a million dollars into the ocean?

Matthew 17:20 says that if we have faith like a mustard seed that we can say to the mountain move and it will move... Luke 17:6 says the same thing but with a sycamine tree instead of a mountain... What did Jesus mean by this? In Matthew 17 the apostles were trying to drive out a demon from a kid, however they could not. No one could figure out why... Jesus explained that they had no faith; because they had no faith, they could not drive the demon out. They didn't have enough currency.... 

Whenever we believe, it's like depositing money in the bank. The more we deposit, the more we have to draw on. When we believe something is going to happen, it does.. Not necessarily in the manner in which we want it to, but it does happen. We have to be careful not to hit a point where we're only living pay check to paycheck i.e. living off of God's grace. God's grace is sufficient yes, but after some point you get tired of living paycheck to paycheck. You get tired of just barely making it.. You get tired of not having any extra for rough times.... After a point, you get tired and your faith starts to waiver... When you don't have faith, you don't have currency and when you don't have currency you cannot "buy" anything. God's hands become tied because if you feel as if he can't do something or won't do something then he will not/cannot do the thing is which you need.... Not that he won't move - but that it makes it harder for him to move...

How much Currency do you have? Do you have some saved up or are you living paycheck to paycheck? 

Have you lost faith?

I find that when things are the toughest that it's the easiest to lose faith. I know I can only speak for myself, but when God does not move as fast as what I want him to, I can at times develop this sense of discouragement. It is at this time I need to be reminded of where He's brought me and where he is bringing me. It is at this time I need to be reminded that God is God and everything happens with his time....

Speaking of his time, we are not the only ones that have had to wait on God's timing. David had to wait 40 years before becoming King... 40 years! In the meantime, there where things that God had to work out in David so that when he became king he would be a great king. If it hadn't taken 40 years we never would have had the Psalms. What's special about the Psalms, well the ones written by David, is that they are still relevant today. How you may ask? Well, Psalm 23 starts with "The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want".. Have you ever noticed that when our eyes are focused on God and the things of him that things seem to be a bit more peaceful? Not that everything is going right - but that we have an extra strength to draw from so things appear to be easy.

What makes the story of David encouraging is that if God moved fro David, he will move for us. David - even in all of his trouble, never stopped relying out to God. Psalm 46:1-2 says "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. Psalm 18:2-3 says"
is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. 3 I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised... There are many more Psalms where David has said the Lord is his rock etc... David, while at times complained, he never lost his faith and even once he became King praised God so hard that he danced out of his clothes... (2 Samuel 6:14, 20-23)....

My question to you is that in all that life has dealt you, do you still believe that God is going to fulfill everything that he has promised? Do you still believe that he will never forsake you? Do you believe?

I encourage you to not lose faith even in the midst of terrible things. 

Where do you draw your strength?

There are those of us who have moments to draw strength from when things get dark. When the night seems the shortest, when everything goes wrong, we have personal experiences to draw our strength from. We've seen God move and work things out, but what about the people who have not seen God move... What about the people who don't know who he is... 

What do they have to draw on? Where is their faith? 

Do they place their faith in man, only to build up walls later on because so many people have left them who should have been with them through thick and thin? Do they place their faith in how much money they make.. only to have their world shattered when they lose that job or have to take a pay cut? Or do they place their faith in themselves, only to be limited by what they can do?

In your moment of utter chaos... Maybe not even utter chaos, but uncertainty.... Where do you go fro direction....? Where do you draw your strength?

Pain, Testimony, and Life's Lessons

We go through life running on fumes half the time. We get hurt, go through things, and then decide not to address them until things blow up in our faces and we are forced to face things. I wonder how many of us walk through life not addressing things that are bothering us?

I was thinking of this the other day. For some reason, Jesus in the Garden right before the Crucifixion popped into my head. He's knee bent, praying in the garden. The image we see is of him in great suffering. He knows what's getting ready to happen and he's petrified. He's hurt, and I'm willing to bet that this is the first time he has really had a chance to think about the pain he's about to experience. The thing that blows your mind is that he's been prepared for this his entire life. Everything he has every said, has ever done has led to this moment; but even Jesus did not address the thing that hurt him most until he had too - until he was ready. (Matthew 26:38) When he was ready, he got on his knees and prayed. He prayed for God the Father to help him through this pain. (Matthew 26:42) He acknowledged that he has to go through this pain, not for himself, not because he wanted it to, but because it was God's will. Once he acknowledged that it was God's will, he was able to finish his mission. He understood that while he was going through the pain, the lesson wasn't for him, but it was for the people coming after him.

We lose ourselves in the pain when we forget that our pain is our testimony. It is the thing that while we had to go through it, it is the example for someone else of what not to do or of what to do in the situation. We at too many times do not share our stories. The Early Church started because of everyone sharing their stories. Paul was always sharing what he was going through, what he had experienced. He did this to let people know that while he was Paul, this great leader, he was also human. He struggled with his flesh. Paul is famous for talking about his struggles with sin... "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." (Romans 7:19) He was constantly using his pain and suffering as encouragement for people. This, I'm willing to bet, helped him come to terms with what he was feeling; the pain he was suffering.

To be honest, this post started off talking about needing to recharge batteries. It started off talking about how there are times in our life where we need to take the time to be by ourselves to recharge our batteries. Maybe the way I needed to recharge my batteries was to think about pain..... Actually sit and think about the stuff I've been going through lately. Pray on it, and figure out what the lesson is behind it.... and Maybe.. just maybe... I'm not the only one who needs to recharge their batteries this way....

Hardest thing about change....

The idea of transforming into a better person is great. I mean we all want to change; we all want to be better today than the day before. We all want to transform ourselves into something different. The hard part in the midst of it all is keeping faith.

Faith is the hardest thing about change. Faith is the hardest thing to maintain throughout because you don't know what's going on. It's as you change that things seem to get darker and darker and darker. It's as you start to transform that it seems as if the dark clouds just keep coming and coming. It's always darkest before the dawn. In writing this, I find myself thinking about David for a number of reasons.

David, even though he was a man after God's own heart, had some dark nights. He was being chased.Saul wanted to kill him. He was living in the wilderness away from his wife, his family, and his best friend. He had to sleep in trees and in caves. He had to wait for signals in order to know when it was safe or when it was not..... This is just to name a few of the things he had to go through on his way to being king. You could argue that he had help and that he did not have to go through what he did alone - that he had others to help him out... Truth be told he was by himself. Truth be told he spent more time alone than with other people. In the midst of this he prayed. He prayed..... He prayed...... He still kept seeking after God. He learned to rely on him more in the midst of this than at any other time in his life. This is the period of his life from which the majority of the book Psalms come. They are comprised of David's personal testimonies and his praise. He is one of the many examples of people who figured out what to do in the midst of a dark night. He realized that while things were dark, the one thing he had as a constant in his life was God. He recognized that no matter what happened, no matter what was going on, God was still in the midst of it all. God was his strength, his deliverer. God was the thing in which he could trust... It was God who saved him from his enemies. It was God who never failed him. (Psalm 18).

We have to remember that if God is for us who can be against us. There are going to be times in which we go through fire. It is the fire that strengthens us; that hardens us; that forces us to examine our lives. We have to go through the fire in order to get rid of things in which are not good for us. We have to go through the fire in order to no longer rely on our own understanding of things. It's the fire that pushes us closer to God. But we have to keep faith. We cannot give up just when things are getting rough. God is doing a new thing in us, but we can not get to where he needs us to be if we give up. Faith is the most important thing in the midst of change. It's the thing that will get us through, especially when it seems as if God is not hearing our prayers; when we think he's not moving. It's the thing that we need most and yet it is the hardest thing about change.