The South Wind of Mercy & The North Wind of Adversity

Our mourning shall last but till morning. GOD will turn the winter's night into a summer's day, our sighing into singing, our grief into gladness, our  mourning into music, our bitter into sweet, our wilderness into a paradise. The life of the Christian is filled up with interchanges of sickness and  health, weakness and strength, want and wealth, disgrace and honour, crosses and comforts, miseries and mercies, joys and sorrows, mirth and mourning;

All honey would harm us, all wormwood would undo us; a composition of both is the best way in the world to keep our souls in a healthy constitution. It is best for the health of the soul that the south wind of mercy, and the north wind of adversity, do both blow upon it......Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)

3 Keys to a Significant Quiet Time
by Rick Warren

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24 NIV)

The main rule is this: Keep your plan simple.
Wait on God (Relax) -- Be still for a minute; don’t come running into God’s presence and start talking immediately. Follow God’s admonition: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Be quiet for a short while to put yourself into a reverent mood.
Pray briefly (Request) -- Ask God to cleanse your heart and guide you into the time together. You need to be in tune with the Author before you can understand his Book!
Read Scripture (Read) -- This is where your conversation with God begins. He speaks to you through his Word, and you speak with him in prayer. When you read your Bible, try to do it –

• Slowly -- Don’t be in a hurry and don’t try to read too large an amount.
• Repeatedly -- Read a passage over and over until you start to picture it in your mind.
• Without stopping -- Don’t stop in the middle of a sentence to go off and do a doctrinal study. Remember that your goal here is not to gain information, but to feed on the Word and get to know Christ better.
• Aloud but quietly -- Reading it aloud will improve your concentration. It will also help you understand what you are reading better, because you will be both seeing and hearing what you are reading.
• Systematically -- Read through a book at a time in an orderly method. You’ll understand the Bible better if you read it as it was written – a book or letter at a time.

Wait to Worry

From Attitude is Everything
by Vicki Hitzges

I used to worry. A lot. The more I fretted, the more proficient I became at it. Anxiety begets anxiety. I even worried that I worried too much! Ulcers might develop. My health could fail. My finances could deplete to pay the hospital bills.

A comedian once said, "I tried to drown my worries with gin, but my worries are equipped with flotation devices." While not a drinker, I certainly could identify! My worries could swim, jump and pole vault!

To get some perspective, I visited a well known, Dallas businessman, Fred Smith. Fred mentored such luminaries as motivational whiz Zig Ziglar, business guru Ken Blanchard and leadership expert John Maxwell. Fred listened as I poured out my concerns and then said, "Vicki, you need to learn to wait to worry."

As the words sank in, I asked Fred if he ever spent time fretting. (I was quite certain he wouldn't admit it if he did. He was pretty full of testosterone-even at age 90.) To my surprise, he confessed that in years gone by he had been a top-notch worrier!

"I decided that I would wait to worry!" he explained. "I decided that I'd wait until I actually had a reason to worry-something that was happening, not just something that might happen-before I worried.

"When I'm tempted to get alarmed," he confided, "I tell myself, 'Fred, you've got to wait to worry! Until you know differently, don't worry.' And I don't. Waiting to worry helps me develop the habit of not worrying and that helps me not be tempted to worry."

Fred possessed a quick mind and a gift for gab. As such, he became a captivating public speaker. "I frequently ask audiences what they were worried about this time last year. I get a lot of laughs," he said, "because most people can't remember. Then I ask if they have a current worry - you see nods from everybody. Then I remind them that the average worrier is 92% inefficient - only 8% of what we worry about ever comes true."

Charles Spurgeon said it best. "Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength."

The Source of Real Power

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

The Source of Real Power
by Tom Holladay

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Matthew 5:5 (NIV)

Do you want to make a difference in your life but just can't seem to get there? Do you want to see a change in a situation but it just doesn't seem to happen? Where do you find the real power to make a real difference in your life?

Jesus teaches us that real power is found in one of the strangest, most unexpected places. Real power is found in meekness.

Now when we talk about meekness, or gentleness, we tend to think of something sweet and gentle like a lamb or a baby. But, in God's dictionary, meek does not mean weak. It means "power under control."

Imagine it this way, it's like a rocket launching off a pad. If you took the same amount of energy and created an explosion, it would destroy the launch pad. But because that energy is funneled in a certain direction, it is instead able to launch the rocket into space.

That's what God wants to do in your life. He wants to take the power you have in your words, emotions and drive, and put it under control. But it's your choice. You have three ways you can choose to live your life.

The out-of-control life. This kind of living destroys everything around you. It's explosive with a lot of anger, issues, destructive power and undisciplined actions. It may seem like a lot is happening, but it leads to destruction in all areas.

The in-control life. In this type of living, you try to control every aspect of your life. This approach will leave you tired and stressed out as you realize you can't keep everything in check.

The under-God's-control life. In this type of living, you take the power God has given you and you give it back to him. You stop trying to control everything yourself. Under God's control, you can be used in ways you never thought were possible.

Can you guess which way of living will be the most fruitful? When we submit our life to God's control it will produce the fruit Paul talked about in Galatians 5:22-23, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (NIV).

Talk to Your Kids

Talk to Your Kids
by Doug Fields

“And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NLT)

The truth is, your kids need communication skills. When children don't learn how to communicate, they find it difficult to functions in jobs and relationships.

If you ever wonder how important it is to teach your kids how to communicate, pay attention next time you go to a fast-food restaurant where teenagers work. How many times have you done that and wondered who taught them how to communicate?
Unfortunately, it’s they’re parents.

The truth is, your kids need communication skills. When children don’t learn how to communicate, they find it difficult to functions in jobs and relationships.
And, Mom and Dad, you’re the best communications teacher they have. Kids learn communication skills by talking with adults.

God designed the family as a place where parents would follow God and teach their children how to do likewise. The Bible says, “And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6 NLT)
You’ve got to talk to your kids to pass on your faith to them. The Bible says to talk to them no matter where you’re at – whether you’re on a journey, laying down, or getting up again. But the key is conversation.

Unfortunately, many kids have learned that the only times when adults want to talk with them is when they’ve messed up.
How do you turn the tide on that? Resist the urge to comment on everything you hear. Kids don’t mean most of what they say. They’re just testing you. So allow them to talk without making them feel you’re going to jump down their necks

Parenting with the Lord's Prayer: Don't Worry

Parenting with the Lord's Prayer: Don't Worry
by Tom Holladay

“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11 NIV)

Praying for our "daily bread" includes everything we worry about on a daily basis – our health, our finances, our schedule, our future, all the things we have to deal with.

In today’s society, our children have a lot to worry about. So it’s our duty to teach them how God can replace their worry with his provision.
Now our normal reaction to worry is to find a way to control the situation. That’s just our nature. We figure if we can control everything, then we’ll never have to worry. But when we try that approach, the opposite happens. We find out that we can’t control everything, so we end up worrying.

The real way to deal with worry is to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Praying for our “daily bread” includes everything we worry about on a daily basis – our health, our finances, our schedule, our future, all the things we have to deal with. God says, “If you want less stress in your life, then you have to relax in me and let me give you your daily bread.”

It’s important that we teach our children that it’s daily bread, not weekly or monthly. We want God to give us everything we need for the next five years, just put it in a bank account so we can see it’s there and not worry. But God doesn’t do it that way. He gives us just what we need one day at a time because he wants us to live in a daily relationship of trust in him.

So we need to teach our children three basic truths about God’s provision:
God can meet every need you’ll ever have because he’s God.
God wants to meet our needs, not our greeds, because he’s a loving father.

God will meet our needs as we trust in him moment-by-moment, day-by-day.

And remember parents, you need to practice what you preach!

Hollow Sacrifice (Eileen Button)

Like many Catholic children, I gave up sweets for the forty-plus days of Lent. I remember creeping downstairs on Easter morning, hoping to be greeted by a marvelous, solid-chocolate Palmer's bunny. After surviving the torturous season of sacrifice, I could barely wait to nibble the cottontail's long, delicious ears.

I would sometimes be disappointed to find a hollow chocolate cross in my basket in place of the preferred bunny. Propped in green plastic grass and surrounded by pastel jelly beans stood a milk chocolate version of my Savior's object of torture. In place of Christ's broken body, the cross bore a pink and yellow flower made of sugar. I couldn't eat it. It felt blasphemous to do so. While it was almost impossible to endure the long, sweet-less days of Lent, the triviality of my "sacrifice" always shocked me when I was confronted by that chocolate cross on Easter morning. Even a child wrestles with the reality of Christ's ultimate sacrifice.

The annual season of Lent is puzzling to many. Denying ourselves our favorite treats or habits - even for a short time - seems unnecessarily archaic in our I-want-it-now culture. Lent is a plodding, definitive crescendo that leads up to the cacophonous noise of Good Friday and the gorgeous aria of Easter Sunday. It's a season marked by deliberateness and intentionality.

But we often get in the way of our own best intentions. When fasting from food or technology (or whatever else captures our hearts and threatens to take the place that only God can fill) we might be tempted to feel a sense of pride or arrogance about our sacrifice. The very thing we relinquish sometimes clamors inside us as a "need" to be met. Instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, our attention can dangerously be drawn to the very thing we've voluntarily surrendered.

Even so, the practice of Lent can be a valuable discipline. It's difficult to comprehend what our continual sense of entitlement does to our bodies and souls. Our culture worships at the feet of pleasure, deeply bowing to all its delicious offerings. As we "shovel it in," we can become desensitized to our needs - the real hungers - in our lives. Observing Lent can help us wrestle with the reasons behind our perpetual consumption. When we decide to relinquish that thing that fails to truly satisfy, we come face-to-face with some tough questions. Can we believe Jesus when he says, "People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"? How can we make room for the Savior in our buried and burdened lives? Can we grasp the reality of Good Friday and live within its irony?

Lent challenges us to consider the honest answers to these and other soul-searching questions. It invites us to voluntarily jump off the hamster wheel of consumption and experience the pinch of abstaining from continual, thoughtless indulgence. It has the potential to give our frenetic material selves a much-needed break.

Like many believers, I hold fast to the annual discipline of Lent and continue to give up something that I consume. I treasure the season of abstinence, seeking, and revelation. Every year, I learn something new.

Perhaps I was - and still am - offended by a hollow chocolate cross because it signifies what is too often true about our spiritual lives: What we see on the outside might look pretty, but we can be tragically empty. Occasionally, the reality of Jesus Christ's sacrifice and the power of his love break through our hardened hearts. The realization, like a splash of freezing water on our tired faces, causes us to gasp. The hollow parts of our souls can be filled.

THE LENTEN SEASON

For some Christians, Lent has always been a part of their spiritual life, but for others it is unfamiliar. Lent is a season leading up to Easter, a time when Christians have historically prepared their hearts for Easter with reflection, repentance and prayer.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and proceeds for forty days, excluding Sundays and culminating with Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

Since Sundays are weekly celebrations of the resurrection of Jesus, the six Sundays in Lent are not counted as part of the forty-day season, which focuses on introspection, self examination and repentance. 

Many Christians choose to celebrate a fast throughout the season of Lent, but the focus is not on depriving themselves of something as much as it is on devoting themselves to God and his purposes in the world.

How will we devote more time to God in this Lenten Season?

Wednesday, February 02, 2011 Choose Faith and Ask for Help by Rick Warren “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

When faced with the reality of a situation that is overwhelming, the best thing you can do is focus on God. The disciples, in Matthew 8, knew that Jesus could do something about the storm that threatened their lives as they were tossed on the sea.Their answer to the overwhelming storm was to ask Jesus for help. “The disciples went to him and they woke him up, shouting, ‘Lord save us, we are going to drown” (Matthew 8:25 NLT). Why is it that we wait until it gets really bad before we think we have to pray? One of the keys to dealing with anxiety is to cry for help earlier because God wants to help. Instead of trying to live life on your own and let the worry over- whelm you, turn to God. He wants you to live life connected to him, talking to him, and getting connected with others because when you try to do it on our own and never ask for help, worries just multiply. Maybe it’s hard for you to admit your needs. Maybe you think no one cares. Maybe you’re convinced you know the answer and no one else does. I think a lot of people don’t ask for help because they don’t want to be a bother to anyone. It does not bother God when you ask for help. He stands ready to help you in every moment of life. “Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6 NLT). Talking to God in prayer is the single most effective cure for worry, and it needs to be the attitude of your life. Our verse today gives us the formula for how this works. “Pray about everything.” First, you talk. As you talk to God about  everything, you will find the anxiety level lessening in your life. “Tell God what you need.” That’s the second thing. A lot of times  people go to God in prayer and tell God about everything and everyone else,                            but don’t share their needs with him. Tell him what you are worried about! “Thank him for all he has done.” There is something about gratitude that lessens anxiety and opens the door to peace and incredible faith in your life.                       No matter what you’re going through in life right now, there is something                                   you can look back on and say, “God, I’m grateful for that.” So hang                                         on to that.

Chelsea's Injury

What a day today (January 19, 2011) has been. Inspite of it all, one thing for sure, GOD is an awesome GOD. He deserves all the praise, all the GLORY.

Chelsea's wrist is broken in 2 places. She is worried of course, she is in pain, but all I kept saying is THANK YOU GOD! The ball could have it her in her eyes or worse, hit her in her head (head injuries).

Then while in the recovery room, her report came in my inbox, she opened the mail and she smiled. She said "mommy I'm so happy".
She called her friends and told them of her report and she kept saying to me "mommy I'm so happy".

Chelsea is a Honour Roll Student, she works and studies hard, yet she takes nothing for granted.
With a cast and sling on her hand, she reassures me, that she will be fine at school," mom I have friends who will assist" she said.

I love dearly my one and only daughter and I am extremely proud of her.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!

I LOVE THE DAILY POSTINGS BY HIGHER AWARENESS

 

BEING GENUINE by HIGHER AWARENESS

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you
something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
                                         -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we don’t know who we are -- or if we are afraid to be who we
are -- we betray ourselves. We pretend to be who we think we are.
Our self image is made up of our experiences, desires and other
people’s ideas and expectations of us.

Maintaining this false self is a betrayal of ourselves. In all
deep spiritual journeys, there is the experience of betrayal.
Betrayal always tells us to adjust our life to be more authentic.
What we identify with is all important.

There are large betrayals (e.g., your partner leaving you) and
small betrayals (e.g., disappointments). They are all experiences
of being wounded for the purpose of breaking down the defenses of
the personality. When we allow the wounding and accept the
betrayals as divine gifts, we greatly benefit.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind
don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
                                        -- Dr. Seuss (via Elena)

“What you must dare is to be yourself.”
                                           -- Dag Hammarskjold

DISCOVER THE TREASURES INSIDE....Higher Awareness

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or
consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every
minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
                                              -- Denis Waitley

Peace, joy, health and well-being can only be found inside us.
They exist within us now, waiting to be discovered. Yet we tend
to look to the outside world to satisfy our needs and longings.

Our outer life reflects back to us the way we think, feel and
behave. The outer world is all effects. Go to the source inside
for all of life’s treasures.

How are you searching for peace and contentment outside of
yourself?

"The great Western disease is, ‘I'll be happy when… When I get
the money. When I get a BMW. When I get this job.’ Well, the
reality is, you never get to when. The only way to find happiness
is to understand that happiness is not out there. It's in here.
And happiness is not next week. It's now."
                                           -- Marshall Goldsmith