2 Samuel 22:7

“In my distress I called upon the LORD, Yes, I cried to my God; And from His temple He heard my voice, And my cry for help came into His ears…”

I am amazed that God listens to me.  Lately I’ve been struggling to understand how my relationship to and with God works.  I’m learning to learn about Him, all over again.  Sometimes it’s easy to think of Him as big and distant and worried more about the bigger picture and not so worried about me.  But, that’s not the case.  Even though He is glorious and mighty and powerful, He cries for help come into His ears.  He hears.  And more incredibly, He responds.

Just like with my children, I wait for them to ask for help before I help them (usually), so does God with me.  He wants me to ask Him for help.  He’s waiting for me to remember that I can’t do this without His help.  And I think He probably delights in showing me how it’s done and helping me get it right.  At least, that’s how I feel when my little ones let me help then learn.  I need to remember those lessons more often.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nakrnsm/3493275365/in/photostream

Psalm 44:1

For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. O God, we have heard with our ears, Our fathers have told us The work that You did in their days, In the days of old.

Our fathers have told us.  That is one of the most critical roles of a parent or grandparent… to tell our children of the Work God has done in our days, in our life.  Hearing stories about God’s great faithfulness, provision, mercy, and love is so powerful.  I think of how often I am inspired or encouraged to hear what God’s been doing in the lives of other people.  Granted, sometimes I’m a bit envious… but it reminds me that He is working and moving in the world around me, and that’s something I need to be talking about with my children.

It’s a challenge, though, because everything I’m learning is giving me s bigger and slightly different understanding of the things I read in the Bible.  It’s richer, and probably controversial to some.  And these are the things I would tell my children.  I want them to dig deeper than the words on the surface, and listen and learn.  I want them to understand the richness and significance of what happened in the Garden, about the covenant that God made with Himself (Abraham was asleep, remember?) that was sealed by the blood of Yeshua providing me peace and restoration with God, about the importance of remembering context.  I want to pass to them a yearning for more, to never stop looking into the Word of God, to never stop seeking His face and His relationship, and to never be satisfied with where they are but always stepping faithfully in His purpose.  That’s what this verse is about – the legacy we leave.  It’s not about the money we leave or the worldly education.  It’s about reminding my children again and again of the faithfulness of God in my life, because when we look back we remember all that He’s done and I can use that to stand in faith that He is reliable and true, and He will continue to be faithful, no matter what the circumstances look like.

So what stories will I tell my children?  I want them to develop a hunger and desire to look deeply into God’s word and to search out the meaning and what the text actually says instead of taking my word or anyone else’s word.

And they’re up… so I’m off.

Galations 4:7

Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you.

I don’t really have a lot to say about this verse since so much has already been said… but I really like this verse.  I like the picture of me as God’s child.  I like the promise that because I am His child, all that He has is also mine.  Earlier Paul makes a good point though, that just because it’s mine, too, that doesn’t mean I have it all right now.  It’s like if a parent dies and leaves their child a good deal of money that parent (or maybe the court) appoints someone to watch the child and the child doesn’t get all that money until they reach a certain age and can be responsible with it.  Maybe part of our trouble is that we’re not mature enough to handle God’s many blessings responsibly, so He’s waiting for us to grow up before showering those on us.  It’s like the teachings on stewardship and money – he who can be faithful with a little can be trusted with more.  So maybe the reason we don’t have more of the blessings from God is that we, like children, haven’t learned to be responsible enough to handle the blessing in a good manner.  It’s an interesting thought…

Second, there’s a guy who leads worship at Discovery that sang a song he wrote and it’s AWESOME!  Take a peek:

The song’s called Saturate.  I hope it spreads because it’s beautiful.

Yesterday at church (yesterday was an awesome service!) our pastor (David Loveless) reminded us of the importance of speaking with God and relating to Him and praying to Him from different positions.  He has us all kneel down and pray that way for a moment.  It was a great reminder that simply kneeling before God has a way of focusing me and humbling me and allowing me to press into His presence more than if I’m sitting on my couch or bed or standing in the kitchen (and certainly more than if I’m chasing my little ones).  He spoke briefly about how the Bible talks about praising God with our hands raised, or on our knees or faces, or with instruments, or with our voices, silently and out loud.  And each of these methods brings something different to that moment.  It was very cool.

My amazing husband, John, went to an awesome men’s event at Discovery Church this past Saturday called the Better Man Event.  He has a great time and met some wonderful guys (one of whom just appeared and disappeared but made a pretty deep impact on John).  So, last night John actually came into our room as I was getting ready to go to bed and invited me to pray with him!!!  It was SO cool!  :)  I was so proud of him and thankful for his courage in taking the initiative.  Yeah God!  And then he went to up his character points to 60 since the Mass Effect 2 game comes out Monday at midnight (and he found out that the main character, not only has the same first name as he does – John Sheppard, but they also share the same birthday, so that upped the awesomeness of the game for him a little more)…

Children’s laughter.  There aren’t too many things more awesome than children’s laughter.  John was throwing Gavin and Kai last night and rough-housing with them right before we put them to bed (yeah, way to calm them down before bed, right?), and they were screaming and laughing and it was beautiful!  No wonder Jesus said, let the little children come to me… I can totally see Him scooping one of them up and tossing them into the air as they screamed with delight.  Cool pictures.

Matthew 10:37

If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine.

This is a difficult verse for me.  I want to love God more than anything.  But He’s so ephemeral that it’s hard to love Him the way I should.  My children are here, and I can hug them and kiss on them.  They’re physically present, and it’s easy to love them when I can see them.  It’s so much harder to love God more because I can’t physically touch or see Him.  Heaven knows, I want to.  There have been times when I felt Him physically and was overwhelmed in His presence, when I learned that I do love Him more than I can say.  But having children and loving them so tremendously makes me question the love I show to God… especially in light of this verse.  I hope that God considers my heart and knows that I do want to love Him first and foremost, but that I don’t really know how.

Matthew 6:8

Don’t be like them, because your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

My favorite word here is BEFORE.  He knows before we ask anything.  The verse before this says that we don’t have to say the same words or make the same request over and over and over (although the woman who was persistent later on was rewarded with healing) because God already knows what we need.  Now, another important word is the word NEED.  It’s not about what we want.  It’s about what we need.  So, if you want that new car but don’t really need it, that’s a different matter.  But God knows that we need food and we need shelter and we need to be healthy to work and take care of our families.  He knows we need Him, whether we’ll admit it or not, too.

I think it’s reassuring that God’s got it covered.  It doesn’t hurt to ask, but I know I forget that God already has my back and knows these things, so I don’t have to beg.  It’s like with my kids.  I know what they need, for the most part, and I’m happy to give them what they need.  They don’t get everything they want because, frankly, playing with the scissors or chewing on the electronics is not safe.

And sometimes they don’t get what they want or need because it’s not ready yet.  For example, at night I make them chicken fingers (yes, it’s sad, but my oldest won’t eat anything else, and I refuse to starve him into eating), and it’s really hard for them to wait.  But I can’t serve them frozen chicken.  So, yes, they need to eat, but they do have to wait until it’s ready.  It’s the same way in life.  Sometimes those things we need aren’t “ready” yet and that’s why we don’t get them right away when we want them.  And sometimes the things we want aren’t safe so we don’t get them at all… but if God is anything like me, maybe He’ll try a redirect and give you something else that you can have instead!

Who knew being a child of God was so much like being a mom!

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

Matthew 2:11

They entered the house where the child and his mother, Mary, were, and they fell down before him and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

I think it’s funny that Jesus is always shown as a little baby in pictures with the wise men.  If the star appeared when He was born, then He was about 2 years old.  I have a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, and let me tell you…  those painters should have painted Jesus running around playing instead of sitting quietly on Mary’s lap!  Granted, He was God, so maybe He knew that He should be still and thank the nice wise men for his gifts, but I can just see Him stopping what He was doing and looking at the gifts, then at his mother, and then at the wise men, raising his eyebrows and going back to his games.  Gold, frankincense and myrrh?  Dude I’m a 2-year-old boy!  Can I have a truck?  (Yes, I know they didn’t have trucks back then)  But, then again, since He was perfect, maybe He politely jabbered some nonsense (unless He was also linguistically advanced), smiled and sat like a good boy until they left.

My 2-year-old – what kinda gifts are these?!

It’s kind of funny to think of God as a 2-year-old.  Granted, since He was perfect and sinless, He probably behaved quite a bit better than my 2-year-old, but I think He was still a little boy who wanted to do little boy things and wrestle with his dad and touch every, every tool on the workbench – twice!  It gives some humanity to His deity.   It also helps me remember that He really did experience a lot of the things that we, as humans, experienced.  I know I normally think of his experiencing human things as something that happened as an adult, but I wonder if Jesus ever had a crush on a girl?  Or did a girl ever have a crush on Him, and He has to politely and kindly let her know He just wasn’t interested…  What must it have been like to have a been 10 and known the thoughts and feelings of everyone around you?  Or maybe that was something that came up gradually.  Who knows.  It’s an interesting thought to me, though.

Okay, enough rambling.  There are the random things I think about at 5am. 

Well, that wasn’t much commentary on Micah, but there it is… my morning in a nutshell!  Have a beautiful day (if you’re in Florida, enjoy the 89 degree weather in November – sheesh!)!

Jonah 3:17

When God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he had mercy on them and didn’t carry out the destruction he had threatened.

I think this is the essential message of the Gospels, here in the Old Testament.  People repent and God has mercy.  God doesn’t want to punish people.  He just wants us to realize that our way is wrong and follow His way which is better.  He wants to show mercy.  It’s like with my children.  I want them to be obedient and I want to be merciful because I really don’t like having to discipline them.  I know it’s necessary because if they don’t obey, they could get hurt.

And on that note, Mr. G is up and about….