God ALWAYS pays you back!

I wanted to write about something that is nothing new, because God does it all the time, but sometimes, you just SEE it more clearly.  Your eyes are open.

But when you put Him first, as in helping others, doing church work and things like that, magically, some sort of door opens and you are able to get things on your own to do list done. (Maybe things that have been chafing at you for awhile).

Anyway, I had this experience today.
I went to the church to work on some things for our virtual VBS this year.  While there, my computer was able to print to the church's printer (long, boring technical story)...which I had been needing to print out some things for church.
I had tried before and couldn't get it figured out.  This time, is was just like voila!
And then I went home (I couldn't get my computer to print at home either)....typed a quick search into google, did a little bit of research and voila!  I can now print at home also, which will save me a ton of time and chafing! (trying to find someone's printer during certain hours and especially during COVID is difficult)!

So, I just had to give this shout out to God, because that is just how He is and how He operates, over and over again in my life!

God......................makes me smarter than I really am!
.............................gives me ideas (especially after I ask) :)
.............................helps me find stuff! (when I ask)  always.  well, almost always.

He wants to be involved with you, all the little details of Your life.  NOTHING is too petty for Him!  God is just like the best friend, perfect friend you never had.  He's amazing, worth more than life itself.  I wish everyone could know Him like I do or better than I do!

The benefits of not returning evil for evil

I am a little uncertain about writing about this topic,  but I guess my son told me that I should do more writing......so......

Anyway,  sometimes in life,  you have to LIVE and walk just by pure faith.

I was thinking of a little bird that is peeking out of its shell at the world trying to come out and every time she does she gets hit by a hammer (beat up, black eyes, the whole nine yards) and so she retreats back into her shell.
Each time she tries to go back out again,  it takes a TREMENDOUS amount of faith (since she has been beat up so much previously).
So that's  pretty much where I'm at in my life right now.  I have hatred spewed at me on a regular basis.  :(.
I know God has a purpose for this and I have a few ideas about this, but I will remain quiet on this for now.
I have to tell you that I was falling for the temptation last night to return hatred for hatred.  That is a short path to hell, let me tell you!  If you are a Believer, hating someone is absolute torment!   Although, forgiving is hard, it is much preferable to retribution and hatred because hatred spawns more evil little hatred babies until you are just one miserable mess of a person!  Yes,  I've been there!!!  It's not fun!
So, the way out of the demon's domain of any kind of hatred, (including self-loathing)- been there, too (often as a matter of fact).....is so simple that you just want to dismiss it....

Give me Snow more of that Manna!

photo by Laura Vromann

I was thinking that God's grace, mercy and peace are like the Manna the Israelites picked up.
If you try to grab it, hang on to it for yourself, and refuse to give it away,  it will become rotten....And in it becoming rotten, your refusal to forgive will make you rotten....like rotten fruit, so bad, it can't be eaten. 

How to pick what to do when you have some extra time on your hands.

How to pick what to do when you have some extra time on your hands.

So, with all this extra time on my hands, it's been interesting.
I'm sure a lot of you are like me,  I know some of you are anyway!  I have activities up the Yangtze River that I could be accomplishing.  I could be painting, both artwork and my house.  I have dozens of unfinished projects laying around.

I decided the questions to ask to help me maintain priorities during this time are:
 "If you get to the end of your life and this is not done, will it matter?"
"Which items on your list will help you out the most in the future to have done? (It will be a relief, it is something that is Needed).

Joy and the purpose of life

God wants us to have joy in our lives, but that is not the main purpose of our life.  If that is all we are seeking, we are heading in the wrong direction; we are lost.
We need proper balance in our lives...seeking God and His will should be paramount, but it comes very natural to us to also seek our own joy.  

Why do people have children?  I believe mostly the answer is joy.  Children provide joy and completeness, wholeness and balance to our lives.

Why do people sing and dance and draw and write and play sports and watch sports?
I believe the answer also is joy.  peace.   pleasure.   Different people find their joy in different things.

Why do we seek the company of like-minded individuals? (Why do we socialize)?  Again,  you know the answer to this... -Joy-   This is also an inherit need in our life. We need people.

Some people find fulfillment and joy in their work (the lucky ones). :)  They excel at something and they get paid to do it!  Some people may not naturally enjoy their work,  but they choose joy.  This is actually possible but requires a lot of mind bending;  a lot of mental work! :)

For the devout believer, there is another Place where joy is found, a Holy, Sacred Place.  This is in the presence of God.  Yes, God is present in the joy of our children,  He is present in the joy of our hobbies and watching others perform hobbies that they excel at.  He is present in our pleasure/enjoyment of people and in our enjoyment of work (if it is all in proper perspective).  The minute those things become our life, He is no longer in it.
But Joy in the Presence of God, for those who have experienced it, is like no other joy.  I could describe it, but until you know it, it won't mean anything to you.  He is available to all who seek Him.  If you seek to find joy in His presence, you will not be denied.  Those who find Him find peace, love, kindness and  inexplicable forgiveness and love and joy.  "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be".  Luke 12:34

But this dissertation about joy does not explain something else in life.  Sorrow.  Suffering.  Death.  These words that command the silence of a room.

 We all know, that these, also, are a part of life.  No one wants them or enjoys them.
But as a Christian, we look to Jesus' death on the cross as the ultimate in willing suffering.  He chose to be tortured for us.  Most of us would not choose suffering if we had an option.  Suffering is just there and we endure it as best we can.  Many Christians around the world choose actions that cause suffering for themselves.  Many more Christians choose to suffer with those that are already suffering, which actually bears the burden of suffering and causes true empathists suffering as well. Why?
This is where the labyrinth tunnel gets very twisted and there are so many different paths that 'I', the writer can take.  The answer is that choosing to suffer with God is more desirable than the other outcome;  continuous willfully disobedient suffering.  There is a peace that "passes understanding" for those that are suffering in the will of God versus those that suffer as a consequence of their own inpalitable actions.  That type of suffering (in the will of God) is worth it for those who figuratively hold God's hand through it.  His Presence is with you.  It is the kind of Presence that is dear and comforting.  It is warmth, kindness and healing in the midst of intense pain (both emotional and physical).  This type of inexplicable comfort of never being left to suffer and die alone.  NEVER.
Most people that have experienced any type of intense suffering and have had His presence say that He made the suffering endurable.  And it is hard to imagine anyone not wanting to have comfort in the midst of intense suffering.

So this diatribe was to tell you (and work through myself) the balance seeking of pleasure for ourselves and of allowing into our lives, suffering in the will of God (for example, joining some type of humanitarian effort that will probably cause you some suffering).

The long and short of all this is to 1) Wait sweetly upon God (be actively reading His word and talking to Him in prayer) 2) Do what He tells you to do  3) Be ready for the call....because he will call you to do something  4) Be willing to abandon your thing that gives you joy;  (Anytime you give something up for Him, He fill that hole many times over with something better-although it might not be what you expect).

Surprise!

I read a blog about how a man prayed and asked God to surprise him that day!   How sweet, I thought,  I LOVE surprises.  I will try that. 

Then, as I was thinking of this,  all the ways I had been 'surprised' lately came flooding into my mind and I had to offer up many thanks for the many ways God has already 'surprised me'. 
-a beautiful new journal (reasonably priced) with my favorite colors and subject matter depicted artistically on the front that I found in an unusual place digging through a bunch of office supplies while on a trip to buy stuff for work.  NOT LOOKING FOR IT.   SURPRISE!  :)
-getting to go to an auction with my mom,  that ended up being very entertaining.  I also saw some old friends and made some friends there,  one of which turned into a date :)....a very good SURPRISE!
-visiting my son's church, meeting some wonderful people, some with the same careers as me, some with careers I've always wanted, being ministered to by the wonderful pastors there (including my son),  eating great food and garnering a few new recipes/food ideas.
-finding an audio book by my favorite fiction writer on my library app for the drive home...FREE!  LOVE those surprises, too!  :)
-ooooh . getting to go 'all the way across town' . (my son is soooo accommodating)!  to the only tea store that I've ever known, so to me it is the best in the world (but I have yet to find better tea) and sample butterfly blue tea (Quite surprising and amazing)-  I'll take a picture next time,  it was beautiful and good.
Never mind.....why should I when there are better pics on the internet?  Anyway, this is it!
I can't tell you why,  but there is something very peaceful about a pretty cup of tea!
-mmmmm
the restaurant we ate at in the strip mall nearby had the best baked onion soup!
-lately
being under some duress at school, I was surprised by my student finding some stress-relieving music and playing it during class!  (she is only a 4th grader-have to think it was a 'God thing' :)   It really helped!
-oh   I could probably go on forever, if I kept thinking about it,  but it is now time to surprise myself with a good breakfast!  LOL

You will not want to look at this post.

The image of 'gehenna' and 'maggots' means decomposition. Once a body is dead it loses its beauty and strength and coherence, it begins to break into its constituent parts, to stink and to disintegrate. So what is a 'totaled' human soul? It does not cease to exist, but rather becomes completely incapable of all the things a human soul is for--reasoning, feeling, choosing, giving or receiving love or joy. Why? Because the human soul was built for worshipping and enjoying the true God, and all truly human life flows from that. In this world, all of humanity, even those who have turned away from God, still are supported by 'kindly providences' or 'common grace' (Acts 14:16-17; Psalm 104:10-30; James 1:17) keeping us still capable of wisdom, love, joy, and goodness. But when we lose God's supportive presence all together, the result is hell.

Okay,  I did warn you!

Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others . . . but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.

 We run from the presence of God and therefore God actively gives us up to our desire (Romans 1:24, 26.) Hell is therefore a prison in which the doors are first locked from the inside by us and therefore are locked from the outside by God (Luke 16:26.) Every indication is that those doors continue to stay forever barred from the inside. Though every knee and tongue in hell knows that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11,) no one can seek or want that Lordship without the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3.This is why we can say that no one goes to hell who does not choose both to go and to stay there. What could be more fair than that?

So what about Jesus?  In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says that no physical destruction can be compared with the spiritual destruction of hell, of losing the presence of God. But this is exactly what happened to Jesus on the cross-he was forsaken by the Father (Matthew 27:46.) In Luke 16:24 the rich man in hell is desperately thirsty (v.24) and on the cross Jesus said "I thirst" (John 19:28.) The water of life, the presence of God, was taken from him. The point is this. Unless we come to grips with this "terrible" doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him he was experiencing hell itself. But consider--if our debt for sin is so great that it is never paid off there, but our hell stretches on for eternity, then what are we to conclude from the fact that Jesus said the payment was "finished" (John 19:30) after only three hours? We learn that what he felt on the cross was far worse and deeper than all of our deserved hells put together.

"The results of his suffering he shall see, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). This is a stupendous thought. Jesus suffered infinitely more than any human soul in eternal hell, yet he looks at us and says, "It was worth it." What could make us feel more loved and valued than that? The Savior presented in the gospel waded through hell itself rather than lose us, and no other savior ever depicted has loved us at such a cost.

If we say hell does not exist..... we have to realize we are saying to Jesus, the pre-eminent teacher of love and grace in history, "I am less barbaric than you, Jesus--I am more compassionate and wiser than you." Surely that should give us pause! Indeed, upon reflection, it is because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamations of grace and love are so astounding.

Why talk about the afterlife?   First, it tells us that people only get in the afterlife what they have most wanted-either to have God as Savior and Master or to be their own Saviors and Masters. Secondly, it tells us that hell is a natural consequence. Even in this world it is clear that self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness makes you miserable and blind. The more self-centered, self-absorbed, self-pitying, and self-justifying people are, the more breakdowns occur, relationally, psychologically, and even physically. They also go deeper into denial about the source of their problems.

On the other hand, a soul that has decided to center its life on God and his glory moves toward increasing joy and wholeness. We can see both of these 'trajectories' even in this life. But if, as the Bible teaches, our souls will go on forever, then just imagine where these two kinds of souls will be in a billion years. Hell is simply one's freely chosen path going on forever. We wanted to get away from God, and God, in his infinite justice, sends us where we wanted to go.

If you want more!  http://www.timothykeller.com/blog/2008/8/1/the-importance-of-hell

This is all from Timothy Keller who is an amazing, phenomenal preacher, clearing up things for me that I have wondered about for decades.