Fasting: not an if, but a when

The idea of voluntary sacrifice is rare idea in our culture that is saturated with pleasure, instant gratification, and selfishness.  Fasting by definition is abstaining from food.  Many Christians think fasting is radical, however, Jesus said WHEN you fast (Matthew 6:16), not if you fast.  So if Jesus said WHEN we fast, why are we not fasting?  I believe most people don't understand it.  My lack of understanding has lead me on a path of learning and listening because I want to understand.  So these next few posts are going to be about what I have been learning about fasting.

Jesus has a burning desire for us, a firey passion.  The depth of His love comes through to me by His tender mercy, His gladness of having a relationship with me, His zealousness.  Until we fully understand our idendity in Christ, we won't understand our need to fast or even possess a desire to try it.  Fasting positions our hearts to encounter Jesus as the Bridegroom.  The purpose of fasting is to strengthen us in our quest to be preoccupied with God and His will.  We fast in in order to encounter God more intimately, more profoundly, to change the world! 

I read that and think, YES, YES, YES...I want that intimacy with my Abba daddy.  I long for Jesus, so I fast.  I want to fully embrace the discipline, the grace, the joy of fasting.  So I challenge you, will you choose a day or two each week to say "I could eat that, but I won't because in my weakness, Christ strong, Christ is revealed."  That is my hearts cry, deep, active intimacy with my DADDY.  I want to experience HIS heart. 

Abba, Father, draw me closer to your heart.  Give me the grace to fast and to hear your voice!

How to begin your week right...Gratitude

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul

~Henry Ward Beecher

The only way to life a full of gratitude to my ABBA FATHER is to always have my eyes and heart open to the blessings, both big and small, both beautiful and ugly, both extraordinary and mundane that surround me every moment of every day.  The way to combat the cares and worries of this world is by being ever aware of the largeness of God's love for me.

There is a blog I love to read for she writes about the substance of life, the beautiful moments, and the hard truths.  Her name is Ann Voskamp.  You can find her at A Holy Experience.  She has begun what she refers to as the Gratitude Community.  Each Monday she seeks to find the beautiful among the mundane, ordinary and ugly of life.  It is transforming people, it is transforming me and my family.  It is not hard once the FATHER opens your eyes to all HE has given you.  The goal is about living a life of worship!  How else can you come to the ONE who has given it all for for you?  How else can the darkness flee but by continual praise?  1000 gifts, that was her challenge, that is my challenge.  My family and I started our school year with Gratitude Journal.  Now I am going to join her in the blogging world and I hope you will be encouraged!  Come, join us!

1.  My Abba daddy who loves me too much to leave me in my filth

2.  The early morning sun shining on my face as I seek my FATHERS

3.  The words of LIFE spoken by a GOD who pursues me and a daddy who loves me and thinsk I'm enough

4.  The start of a new day, new beginnings

5.  Fresh revelation

6.  A straight path before me

7.  Birds singing praises along with me

8.  Grateful, sweet children

9.  New, big kitchen

10.  My hardworking husband

Something to ponder...

John Adams said, "From all that I have read of history and government and human life and manners, I have drawn this conclusion: that the manners of women were the most infallible barometer to ascertain the degree of morality and virtue of a nation. The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans , the Swiss, the Dutch, all lost their public spirit and their republican forms of government when they lost the modesty and domestic virtues of their women."
Proverbs 14:1 "The wisest of women builds her house, a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands."

A new plan...

For many years I have dreamed of the years I spent in the mission field as a child. Often yearning to return with an intensity that I could not explain or understand. After all I only felt that way because of my memories as a child growing up...right? That is what everyone told me, I had begun to set aside that deep desire. The Father had given me the other dreams HE had placed deep in my heart to be a wife and a mother and I was seeing those come to fruition before my very eyes. But why, on quiet occasions or while reading missionary stories to my children, did I have to tamp down the strong urge to GO? Recently I came to understand that that desire was there for HIS purpose, it was a dream HE did place in my heart, one HE intended for us to pursue.

Some months back in the spring of this year Kendall came to me and said the Lord had shown him something. Not telling me what it was, he wanted the Father to show me separately. A laying out of fleece so to speak, like Gideon did in the Old Testament. Then one early morning as I was reading through the New Testament I read this:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not hear?

And how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written:

How beautiful are the feel of those who preach the gospel of peace,

Who bring glad tidings of good things?

Romans 10: 14-15

AND I KNEW, the Father in HIS all encompassing presence and sweet, still voice, whispered in my spirit..."Yes beloved, I have lit that same flame in your husband, I am giving him the dream of taking ME to the nations! Your dreams will be a reality, for that was MY dream for you!!" So I ask do dreams come true?

Just as Joshua asked the leaders of each tribe of Israel to take a rock as they crossed the Jordan and set foot into the promise land so it would serve as a reminder for the generations to come what God had done. This blog has become my "rock" to bring Glory to my Abba Father. We are willing FATHER, send us where you want us to GO...

I'm Back!

Wow, it has been a long time since I have been here. Preparing a home to sell, moving, and then preparing the new home to live in takes much time and energy. Life is returning to normal, our homeschool curriculum is ordered...we are anxiously awaiting its arrival!!! Kendall and I have a surprise trip planned for the children to end our tiring, hectic, and exciting summer before we start school on the 7th of September. I am hoping to be back to blogging now that I have a place to put my computer and we are not rolling out of bed to remodel and unpack. God has been so good to us. He is such an amazing, loving father. Our summer's journey will be my next post. God told the Israelites when they crossed over the river Jordan to take a rock to commemorate what the LORD had done. I am going to write, so not to forget the love the father lavishes on us, so not to forget the Hand that so lovingly provided us a new home in which to grow and share his greatness...looking forward to the new year and many new memories!

Abba's Love for Me

Do I know that...

...the Father knows my name?

"I will go before you and level the exalted places...I will give you the...hords in secret places...I call you by name." Is 45:2-4

...the Father keeps track of the the smallest details of my life?

"Even the hairs of your head are numbered." Matt. 10:30

...the Father collects my tears in a bottle?

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" Ps 58:6

...the Father has inscribed me on the palm of His hand?

"Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me." Is 49:16

...the Father's heart is stirred and aroused with compassion for me?

"The Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him." Ps 103:13

...the Father has a cord of love tethered to my heart and is gently drawing me closer?

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son...It was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws and I bend down to them and feed them." Hos 11:1, 3-4

Abba wants me, he desires a deep, abiding love relationship with me. He wants my heart. He says, "How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My father, and would not turn from following me." Jer 3:19

Do I understand His love for me? Do I understand His desire to hold me, sing over me, breath on me? His desire for me has nothing to do with my performance. But His sheer love and delight in me, His daughter. Praise God!!

Father, come! Sing over me, hold me, breathe your breath of life over me until only you run out of me...only you Abba Father!

"...He will rejoice over you with gladness,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing."

Zep 3:17

Mothering...a calling from the Father God

As I sat in the quiet of the morning, dry, weary, listening for the Lord to say just one word to me. For I knew that just one word from him would water the wilderness I was feeling in my spirit. I was parched and needing just sit in the river of the Father so that when my sweet children awoke they would find a mama who was refreshed and ready to mother. The Lord is faithful, always! He sat with me this morning and ministered in such a way so I could minister to my family. What He said was not profound revelation, but simply a reminder. A reminder that most mamas need every now and again.

Mothering is a CALLING from the heart of our Abba Daddy. I am not "just" a mother, a domestic slave as our culture would trap us to believe. No, I was called, created for this very vocation from the foundation of the world. It is not just the fixing of the meals, keeping the children clothed, housekeeping and home managing. Mothering is a HOLY calling, one that rocks the foundations of the world, one that storms the gates of hell, one that brings the kingdom of God to the very present moment we are living in. What shows the love of God more profoundly than families that love and honor one another? Who, but a mother, can orchestrate that love and honor better by building her home with her hands; loving, serving, and helping her husband; mothering her children, the arrows in her husbands quiver; running her home efficiently and with care? These traits are what mothers are created with that effectively usher in God's kingdom and His amazing love to this world, a world that is so in need of a savior.

Sometimes as mothers we just need a bit of holy perspective in the midst of mopping up dog hairs and muddy feet prints, cleaning bathrooms and making dinner. This job of mothering is not "just" some job, but a Holy, Godly, foundation building journey. Allow the Father to remind you just who HE created you to be. For we need not another earthly present for this mother's day, only a sweet word from the Father whose love for us and our families is so deep and wide that he called and chose us to be A MOTHER!!!