The Habit of Keeping a Clear Conscience

July 30, 2010

Do you struggle against what your conscience is telling you to do? Do you wrestle with it, listen to it or ignore it? There have been times in my life when I wished I could “turn mine off.” Since I couldn’t do that I tried drowning it out with drugs and alcohol.

Not that I have put away the old me, I am thankful when my conscience is actively causing me to examine my thoughts, motives and actions.

The following comes from “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers. I really like this and hope you enjoy it as well.

. . . strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men —Acts 24:16

God’s commands to us are actually given to the life of His Son in us. Consequently, to our human nature in which God’s Son has been formed (see Galatians 4:19  ), His commands are difficult. But they become divinely easy once we obey.

Conscience is that ability within me that attaches itself to the highest standard I know, and then continually reminds me of what that standard demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what we regard as the highest standard. This explains why conscience is different in different people. If I am in the habit of continually holding God’s standard in front of me, my conscience will always direct me to God’s perfect law and indicate what I should do. The question is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I can live without any offense toward anyone. I should be living in such perfect harmony with God’s Son that the spirit of my mind is being renewed through every circumstance of life, and that I may be able to quickly “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” ( Romans 12:2 ; also see Ephesians 4:23  ).

God always instructs us down to the last detail. Is my ear sensitive enough to hear even the softest whisper of the Spirit, so that I know what I should do? “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God . . .” ( Ephesians 4:30  ). He does not speak with a voice like thunder— His voice is so gentle that it is easy for us to ignore. And the only thing that keeps our conscience sensitive to Him is the habit of being open to God on the inside. When you begin to debate, stop immediately. Don’t ask, “Why can’t I do this?” You are on the wrong track. There is no debating possible once your conscience speaks. Whatever it is— drop it, and see that you keep your inner vision clear.

Tags:
Posted in: Home – 1 Comment

Life’s Little Lessons

July 29, 2010

I mentioned a while back we have had a guest teacher for July and he will continue on through August. He is amazing and I could listen to him all day. God has blessed him with the great ability to teach. It feels like ‘one on one’ and his classes have been remarkable.

Today I will share one of the things he shared with us this past Sunday, and I hope I get it right.

A grandfather instructs his grandson to go to the kitchen, get a glass and only fill it half full of water. The grandson does and brings the half-full glass of water back to his grandfather. The grandfather takes the boys arm and shakes it causing the water to spill out. He then asks the grandson why the water spilled out of the glass and his grandson replied “because you shook my arm.” The grandfather said “no, it was because you put the water in the glass.”

The moral of the story is that whatever we allow our heart to be filled with, good or evil, that’s what will spill out when we are shaken by life, so we need to choose carefully what we allow in.

So simple yet so profound!

Here are a couple of other things he mentioned.

The first thing Jesus said to Simon after he had fished all night and then caught so many fish the nets were breaking and the boat was sinking is  “don’t be afraid.” Luke 5:8 Jesus isn’t waiting for us to mess up, he knows we are sinners; he wants us to keep on keeping on. “Don’t be afraid!”

He also said, “We either bring others up to their spiritual potential or bring them down. Be an advocate for another and, at the very heart of community is forgiveness.”

I don’t know, perhaps it won’t be the same reading about it second hand; perhaps you “had to be there.” I do know people are talking about this class and it is attended by more and more people each week.

Tags:
Posted in: Home – 1 Comment

Promises

July 28, 2010

Promises…we’ve likely all made them or been asked to “Promise” at some time in our lives. The promises we make are always conditional. Clean your room, eat your peas, do your laundry, be a good boy or girl. The list is endless, but to receive the reward of the promise the receiver has to perform an action. If the action isn’t carried out as specified then the promise can be broken; and regardless if the promise was made to a child or an adult and it gets broken, mistrust sets in.

I’m so thankful God isn’t like that, when he makes a promise it’s a done deal.  The first step in receiving God’s promises is to believe that he IS, to have faith in his promises, even in our darkest, scariest times. Our life of faith is a response to God’s power. We don’t rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s power. The Christian life is obedience of faith.

When things are going well for me and for those I love, it is easy to keep living in anticipation of what God has promised for me. Why then is it so much more difficult to stay focused on these same promises of salvation, peace, justice and pardon when I am faced with trials and temptations? Is my faith gone during trials, have I quit trusting and   believing? Why am I so quick to want revenge, to inflict hurt on those who hurt me or those I love?  I don’t think I have lost my faith or put it on the shelf, I think the evil one wants me to doubt myself and to think I am weak and miserable. Christians are to hate evil, not the person, the sin. I am fully aware how difficult it is to separate the two, yet Jesus died in my place and yours, hating our sin and loving us and suffering far more than I can even imagine.

Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!  Rom 6:15-18 (from THE MESSAGE)

Our God is a just God, he won’t forget us. We are encouraged not to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Heb 6:12 NIV

Remember Abraham…Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” Rom 4:20-22 NIV

God will give us the strength to wade through the clutter in our lives that threatens to smother out the very one we want to live for and serve.

Tags: ,
Posted in: Home – 1 Comment

High Five

July 23, 2010

This morning I sent a congratulatory “High Five” to my friend Greg England for a project labor of love he shared with his readers.

After sending him the message I was curious and decided to Google “High Five.” I found much more than I expected and I suppose it really could be filed under useless trivia. That being said, I decided to share it with you. Did any of you know all of this about the “High Five”?

The following information is from Wikipedia.

The high five is a celebratory hand gesture that occurs when two people simultaneously raise one hand, about head high, and push, slide or slap the flat of their palm and hand against the palm and flat hand of their partner. The originator of the high five is a subject of controversy.  In the United States, there is an initiative to celebrate the third Thursday of April as National High Five Day.

The origins of the term are said to belong to sports, specifically US Basketball, and the use of the phrase as a noun has been part of the Oxford English Dictionary since 1980 and as a verb since 1981.  The gesture takes its name from the ‘five’ fingers and the raising of the hand ‘high’. According to an article published on the Outsports web site, the first high five in baseball occurred between Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke of the Los Angeles Dodgers in late 1977.  This report has been challenged by Lamont Sleets, who played basketball for Murray State University and claims to be the originator of the high five in the 1960s.

In addition to the standard high five, several types of “five” exist, and this factor adds variety to the experience, which tends to maximize the satisfaction of participants. The “low five” had already been known, during the 1940s, in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) as “giving skin” or “slapping skin”.

A related gesture, the “high ten” involves the initiator raising two hands simultaneously to another person, and then making contact with both the reciprocator’s hands. This is also commonly known as a “double high five”.

If one initiates a high five (or any variation thereof) by offering a hand, and no reciprocal hand appears to consummate the gesture, the initiator is said to have been “left hanging”. This is considered, in social circles, to be somewhat embarrassing, or enlightening, depending on who the person is. Initiating a high five excessively can also be considered quite annoying to non-initiators.

In the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, actor Al Jolson is seen performing ‘the low five’ in celebration of the news of a Broadway audition. The gesture has since spread to sports and into broader popular culture.

Another variation is Diamond Dallas Page’s trademark, the “self high five” and popularized throughout the Pacific Northwest as a cultural trait of the area. The action consists of raising one hand, generally the right hand and tagging it with the other.

The “too slow” variation of a high five occurs when one appears to be engaging in a high five initiation; however, the initiator succeeds in pulling their hand away before anyone can make contact. This is the only known “five” that may be used as an insult as well as a compliment, and, as early as 1971, was commonly followed by the taunting expression “too slow, buffalo!”

There are many variations on this theme, with additions of “at the side” and other hand positions for the partner to contact the initiator’s hand, and thus a greater number of opportunities for the initiator to deceive the victim.

An air five is a variation however, the hands of the participants never physically touch.  This is commonly implemented if the participants are too far apart in proximity to engage in the typical high five. The participants may simply pretend to high five, or may make a mouth-noise to emulate the sound, use voices, or even slap the bottom of their forearms simultaneously, to produce a slapping sound similar to a physical high five.

Aren’t you sorry you asked?? Oh wait…you didn’t ask did you!

Color me with ‘writers block’ this morning. :) )

Posted in: Home – 2 Comments

Because You Say So…

July 21, 2010

Have you ever worked all day or perhaps all night at your job and feel like you have just been spinning your wheels? Things don’t always go as planned. Do you get frustrated when this happens, does the tension set in, and do you feel like things are out of your control? Well….they really are! Yes, we make our plans and more often than not they probably fall into place, but for the times they don’t we need to keep on trusting God, keep on being courageous.

One night Simon and his companions worked all night fishing and didn’t catch a thing. Jesus told him to go out into deeper waters and drop his net. Simon and the others were probably all very tired and sleepy, they could have rolled their eyes and could have put up an argument as to why they shouldn’t go out again and I suppose they could have simply refused. Yet Simon knew Jesus, and tired or not, discouraged or not, he replied “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

We know what happened next. When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. LK 5:6-7

Simon recognized the authority of Jesus, he trusted him, and he obeyed him. The fish even obeyed him! We’re not talking about a few fish here either, the nets were breaking and the boats begin to sink.

We are not to live in fear. Scripture is full of “fear not” and “do not be afraid”, why?? Because God will be with us. He is our shield, our peace our constant hope.

Like Simon, we are sinful men and women, and like Simon we are to “catch men.” The one thing that stops us regardless of our many excuses is FEAR.

We don’t have to be scholars and we don’t have to have all the answers. We are believers….fear not! Live the way Jesus has shown us, plant the seed and let him give the increase.

***********

We have had a guest teacher on Sunday mornings; he will be with us through August. He used part of the illustration I shared with you from Luke this past Sunday. He is one of those gifted humble men who you could listen to all day and all night and never fall out of the window. :)

In his first class he wrote the following on the white board – Wisdom, Justice, Courage, Self-Control, Faith, Love Hope. These should be part of who we are…daily.

Rather than fearing what people might think of us or what they might say about us our real fear should be displeasing God.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Rom 12:1-2
(from THE MESSAGE)

Is fear the opposite of Courage or is it Conformity?

Tags: ,
Posted in: Home – 2 Comments

Sand and Stone

July 17, 2010

After writing on forgiveness yesterday a friend e-mailed this to me and I thought it to be a good follow up to yesterdays post.

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey,
they had an argument; and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
                                                         
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand
“Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis,
where they decided to take a bath.  

The one who had been slapped got stuck in the
mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.

After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
“Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him,
“after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?’”

The friend replied…
“When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand, where winds of forgiveness can erase it away…  
but, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.

Author Unknown

Should we find ourselves in a similar situation our anger and pride may incite us to strike back, to seek revenge.

Jesus instructs us to do this- If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matt 5:39

 

Tags: ,
Posted in: Home – 1 Comment

Forgive or Not to Forgive

July 16, 2010

Forgiveness is not as easy as plucking petals from a daisy, “forgive, forgive not, forgive, forgive not.” We must put away our own stubbornness, our own hatred and our pride.

Over the years I have had many conversations with close friends as well as casual acquaintances that have been carrying around a lot of bottled up anger for many years. The offenses mentioned are many and they are varied and nearly each instance the person telling the story ends it with these words…”I will NEVER forgive them.”  My heart sinks each time I hear a new story because I use to be just like them, someone who was unwilling to forgive.

I am forced to remember some of my own difficult years as I recall my adamant refusal to forgive past offenders in my life. I remembered the hatred I felt, the need for revenge, the need for them to feel my anger, my hurt and my disappointment. I lived in this self-inflicted misery for too many years. Years literally spent in rebellion, vanity and stubborn pride.

I refer to it as self-inflicted because I understand now that I am the only one who can choose my attitude each and every day. There is no denying I was abused and suffered at the hands of offenders in my early years, there is no denying that I was victimized. After much counseling, much teaching and learning what God wants from me and after years of chipping away the wall of hatred I had wrapped myself in, I learned my attitude was completely wrong and then I learned about repentance and I learned to forgive.

Forgiveness gave me a reason to live again; it freed me from the weight that had literally burdened me day after day, year after year, a burden that caused health problems and mental anguish. One person who I forgave had already died and I was never able to tell them face to face that I forgave them. My heart still aches that I didn’t get to let them know before they died but I still have peace knowing I did the right thing and truly forgave them.

Often times our hatred and unwillingness to forgive doesn’t even bother the other person and they may not even be aware of why relationships have been severed, yet it is carried around like a ball and chain by the person who was hurt, digging into their very soul and scarring it daily.

Many have said these words before and I say them again today. Life is too short to carry around anger and hatred. If you are carrying around the burden of un-forgiveness I pray you will search your heart and find a way to let it go. It will change your life for the better.

 ”If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matt 6:14-15

 

Tags:
Posted in: Home – 3 Comments

What is Getting Your Attention?

July 13, 2010

Sunday, Bob Bushman one of our brothers, brought the lesson to us. Russell and many others are at camp this week. One of his points was about our need to “keep silent before God”, to “be still.” He mentioned that every eight seconds the scene on a television program will change. I Goggled “Every eight seconds” and found that a baby boomer turns 60, someone dies, and every eight seconds a child is born.

Many things happen every eight seconds!

Something or someone is always vying for our attention. He also illustrated that simply driving down the road of any Main Street USA, there are business, signs and billboards all competing for your attention and for your dollars. Each one is selling something that “we just can’t live without”, each one claiming to be better than the other, each one trying to get our interest, get us excited or gain our  enthusiasm. Satan surely loves it when we are so easily distracted by things of the world and spend more time pursuing worldly things than spending quite time with God and learning more of his will for our lives.

I found all of this to be painfully true, at least for me. Just recently I was having a conversation with my friend Karla; we were discussing our short attention spans, and I told her that when I was a child they didn’t have diagnoses for children or adults for ADD or ADHD. I don’t recall having a short attention span when I was younger, yet I have noticed it about myself in the last few years and I don’t like it. We both wondered if we could possibly have ADD.

I am very easily distracted, whether I am reading, watching television, even when I’m praying. The last one disturbs me very much. I can’t tell you how often I apologize to God and ask for forgiveness when I’ve been praying, because suddenly I realize my mind has wandered completely off track.

I have wondered if my wandering mind developed through my survival skills of learning to block out the painful things which occurred in my younger years, or perhaps my problem is that I have not “befriend faithfulness” or am not “delighting” myself “in the Lord,” nor “committing” all my ways to him. Perhaps there is only one set of footprints in the sand….I’m really not sure. I am working on it-prayerfully and diligently.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.  Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Ps 37:3-6 ESV

 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. Hab 2:20 NIV

Do you struggle with this?

 

Tags: ,
Posted in: Home – 4 Comments

Day 20 – End of Experiment

July 5, 2010

It’s finally over! Now I can tell you about the “experiment.”

I called it an experiment as I didn’t want to announce that I was alone for three weeks. Some of you knew of course and some may have guessed. Now the cat’s out of the bag.

As you know, I have been doing most of Larry’s tasks for the past three weeks as well as my own. I learned a lot from this too. First and foremost, I learned I do not like being alone!! That’s right; Larry has been in CA for the past three weeks visiting his 88 year old mother and his brother and sisters. I couldn’t make the trip because I couldn’t leave my mom on her own for that long, nor did we want to ask our friends to take care of our critters for three weeks.

Karla and I drove Larry to Texas to his sister’s house and they flew from Dallas to Fresno. They flew back to Dallas yesterday and spent the night at his sisters as it is another three hours to our house; one way.

To celebrate his homecoming I made barbequed pork spareribs, potato salad, deviled eggs, baked beans, garlic toast, mango-peach tea, and for dessert I made an Allspice Cake.

Second, I learned that taking care of the chickens is a lot of dirty, smelly, hot and sweaty work. Oh the things we do for fresh eggs. I also learned that I was able to show those contrary critters who really rules the roost. They are hefty little eaters and they um, well let me just say they seem to “deposit” three times as much as they eat. Also as I mentioned in earlier posts; spiders love hanging around the hen house. They spun big circular webs on all four sides daily and always just about in line with my head and face. I imagine to any onlookers it appeared like I was practicing voodoo as I approached the coop each day. I did the stick wave, up and down and all around to knock the webs down, walking ever so carefully trying to keep my eye out for snakes, who also love hanging around the hen house. Thankfully I only had one encounter with a snake, still it was one too many. I will admit though that I am as afraid of spiders as I am of snakes.

The third lesson I learned is that pockets are a good thing when working outside, I didn’t have any and as mentioned earlier I put my cell phone “somewhere else” and it didn’t stay put. First it fell in the floor of the coop, not a pleasant place and the next day it fell in the water. I now have a new i-phone. I didn’t get the newest one though and I am quite happy with the old 3GS. It really is a ‘smart’ phone.

Last I learned that absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I was beyond happy to see my man again.

Today is our 30th wedding anniversary and having him back home is the best present ever. We have never been apart for three weeks in all the years we’ve been married. I admit I had a few melt-downs. Nights were the worst, no one to hold my hand, to throw my arm around. No “I love you” and no goodnight kiss. I may never let him out of my sight again. :)

Just a few more things to mention…I slept a lot less while he was away, I ate a lot less, (no fun cooking for one), I worked more and I found out that we have incredible and wonderful friends. Karla is like a sister and we either saw each other everyday or talked on the phone. Other friends took me to dinner, called and visited, and last Sunday evening Russell, Jim and Kevin came and mowed and groomed our yard.

I especially have a much greater appreciation for all the things Larry does around here too, things I have never had to worry about and I don’t come close to filling his shoes.

Lastly I learned that for those who have lost their loved ones there is a huge void in their lives. Friends and family are wonderful and awesome, but no one can take the place of a husband or wife.

Abba Father, in the name of your precious son, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for my husband and I thank you for bringing him home safely and for your immeasurable love, grace and mercy. I thank you too for friends who “love at all times.”

Posted in: Home – 5 Comments

Day Ten-Hisssssssss

June 25, 2010

Disclaimer-No it wasn’t the kind in the picture and no it wasn’t that big. Yes, I was scared enough that it could have been!

If I were a superstitious person I might say I jinxed myself by being pre-occupied hoping what I’m about to tell you wouldn’t happen. I’m not superstitious and it came about anyway.

What I feared and dreaded has happened!! I had an encounter with Mr. Snake last night around 8pm. I had gone to the coop to put the tarps down, I got the first one down and headed to the south end of the pen to the gate. I lifted the gate latch and something caught my eye about two feet from the gate. It looked like a long, very black and battered limb. I thought I don’t remember seeing that. I stepped through the gate and turned around for another look and that long black limb had a head attached to it! His body was outside the fence and his head was underneath the fence. I froze in my tracks, my mind was racing…what to do…what to do. My cell phone was in the house so I was on my own. I quietly and might I add very quickly walked around to the far end of the coop and dropped and secured that last tarp. I did this in record time immediately after I did the “stick wave”. Let me explain the ‘stick wave.’ I have started taking a stick with me to the coop because the spiders build a new web every day, right where I have to stand to do the tarps. I “wave” the stick all around the area where I have to walk to knock the webs down.

Sorry, I wandered. As I was bent over securing the bottom of the tarp, all the while my mind is racing like crazy and fear is weighing me down I felt a sharp pain in both of my shoulders. Surely I was trying to sprout wings to fly out of there. I quickly realized it was just tension from being afraid.

I headed back to the gate and the enemy Mr. Snake is still there. I got out, latched the gate and headed toward the house. After walking running what I considered to be a safe distance I turned around to look and he was slithering off into the sunset. All 3 plus feet of him!

When I started this three week ‘experiment’ I would take my cell phone with me and since I didn’t have any pockets I would stick it in my, um well, somewhere else. Early into the ‘experiment’ it fell out and landed in the floor of the coop. It was then I decided I didn’t need to take the cell phone with me. This morning though after living the horror movie last night, I decided I needed to take it with me again, just in case I got cornered by Mr. Snake I could call my neighbors to come and rescue me. All was going well with the cell phone tucked away somewhere else. I got the tarps raised and let the chickens out, fed them and took their water containers back to the house to wash them and put fresh water in them. Just as I finished filling the last container, Splash!! My cell phone fell out of its obviously not so secure place right into the water. I’ll just say I am really getting good at doing things in record time. I snatched it out before it hit the bottom. Time will tell if it was fast enough.

Now I will tell you about the fun part of my day. Karla and I went shopping in Owasso yesterday morning. We both found some good bargains and had a great time. On the way home we stopped at a place called Ram Country, they sell a large variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. We purchased some tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, Porter peaches, (the best peaches I have ever eaten) and a watermelon. When we got back home we fixed ourselves a tomato sandwich and the recipe will follow. Some may think a tomato sandwich sounds weird or gross, before you write it off your really should try one, especially if you have access to fresh produce. They are wonderful!!

Tomato Sandwich

100% Whole Wheat or Multi-Grain Bread (We used Milton’s from Sam’s Club)
1 large tomato, sliced
Mayonnaise to spread on bread
Sliced red onion (however much you like)
1 slice Pepper-Jack Cheese
Sliced Cucumber

You may put the cucumber on the sandwich. We had ours on the side with a drizzle of Italian Dressing. Delicious!!

Tags: ,
Posted in: Home – 6 Comments
« Older posts

Bad Behavior has blocked 441 access attempts in the last 7 days.