What Kind of Book Are You Writing?

by Mary Southerland

"I will be careful how I act and will not sin by what I say. I will be careful what I say around wicked people. I became very angry inside, and as I thought about it, my anger burned. So, I spoke" (Psalm 39:1, 3 NCV).

A young lady named Sally relates an experience she had in a Seminary class taught by Dr. Smith, a teacher who was well known for his elaborate object lessons. One particular day, Sally walked into the classroom and instantly knew they were going to have a lot of fun. On the wall was a big target and on a nearby table was a large stack of darts. Dr. Smith told the students to draw a picture of a person they disliked or someone who had made them angry and he would allow them to throw darts at the person's picture.

Sally's girlfriend drew a picture of a girl who had stolen her boyfriend. Another friend drew a picture of his little brother who was a constant irritation. Sally drew a picture of a former friend who had betrayed her. As Sally remembered the pain and hurt of that broken friendship, she put a great deal of detail into her drawing, even drawing pimples on the face. When her picture was completed, Sally sat back and gazed at her work, pleased with the overall effect she had achieved.

The class lined up and began throwing darts. Laughter and shouts of success rang out as each dart found its target. Some of the students threw the darts with such force that their targets were ripping apart. Sally was looking forward to her turn but was disappointed when Dr. Smith called time and asked the students to return to their seats.

As Sally sat thinking about how angry she was because she didn't have a chance to throw any darts at her target, Dr. Smith began removing the target from the wall. Underneath the target was a picture of Jesus. A complete hush fell over the room as each student viewed the mangled picture of Jesus; holes and jagged marks covering His face.

Dr. Smith quietly said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40, KJV). No other words were necessary. The tear-filled eyes of each student focused only on the picture of Christ. 

Words are like seeds. What we plant will grow. The words we speak are powerful and will either build up or destroy. Words can diffuse anger and turn tragedy into triumph. The right word, spoken at the right time and in the right way can bring peace in the midst of confusion. God gives us "spiritual radar" so we can assess a situation and speak the right word for that circumstance, but how often do we speak before we check the radar?

·         A judge utters a few words and a guilty man is taken to death row.

·         A friend speaks a word of encouragement and a desperate heart finds hope.

·         A mother lashes out with angry words and the light in her child's eyes is gone.

·         A wife offers a word of forgiveness and a marriage is saved.

·         A gossip makes a phone call and a reputation is destroyed.

·         A teenager says "no" and changes the course of her life.

Father, I need Your help. I want the words I speak to encourage and build up the people in my life. Forgive me for the hurtful words I have spoken. Teach me how to speak the right words in each situation and how to think before I speak. And Lord, help me keep my mouth shut when I need to! In Jesus' name, Amen.

12 Reasons I Stopped Attending Sports Events

Thought it might be interesting to take some of the most common excuses for not going to church and use them to stop attending sporting events and here’s what you get:

1. Every time I went, they asked me for money.

2. The people I had to sit by didn't seem very friendly.

3. The seats were too hard and not comfortable at all.

4. The coach never came to call on me.

5. The referee made a decision with which I could not agree.

6. I was sitting with some hypocrites -- they came only to see what others were wearing.

7. Some games went into overtime, and I was late getting home.

8. The band played some numbers that I had never heard before.

9. The games are scheduled when I want to do other things.

10. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up.

11. Since I read a book on sports, I feel that I know more than the coaches anyhow.

12. I don't want to take my children, because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best.

Hmmmm....Are our expectations a bit whacky? PEOPLE get a grip! If you are going to church to get something you will NEVER be satisfied. If you attend church to give something to your community you will be blessed beyond measure. The world loves, measures and rewards by performance according to their individual truth. God rewards for transitive giving.  He gave you a gift and when you use it to bless His people God responds with His loving abundance.

I love singing the words to the Prayer of St. Francis: "For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life".

Oh this beautiful paradoxical Christian life.

A pearl to string: St. Francis echoes the words of Jesus, "Freely you have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8).  We only get what we give. Whether it's money, love, friendship, kindness, or even anger - it's in giving that we receive. What we give to this world we live in is important. If we give love, we get love. If we give hate, we get hate. It's a law, like gravity, that we can resist, but we cannot break.

R. G. LeTourneau, a Christian businessman, once said, "I shovel out and God shovels in - but God's shovel is always bigger."  It's true... God's got a bigger everything.  As my Coach Wonderful always says: "you can't out give God".

Love out my friends

                         Lyndi

Yellow Zebra

It use to be you were a daring sort if you colored outside the lines in life. I don't see so many daring types out in worldville anymore. I run into the sort that change content to serve their needs.  People seem to be making up religion as they go along. That is so strange to me. It sure makes  Proverbs 19 verse 3 jump off the page of my Bible: "People ruin their lives by their own foolishness  and then are angry at the Lord". What's up with that? Hey we all sin, we all fall short of the glory of God. We also equally have the choice to stay there and wallow or turn towards our Lord and away from our sin.

If we dwell on the lie that says,

“God doesn’t love me,”  it’ll lead us into bondage.

Satan watches for those vessels that sail without convoy. 

-- George Swinnock

The truth is that God does love you. Paul tells us how much in Romans 5:6  “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.... God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Same Scripture verse via The Message. "Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him". Romans 5:6-8 (The Message)

A pearl to string:  You have probably discovered that you simply cannot trust your emotions because they are unreliable, misleading and will constantly betray you.  A family member can verbally blast you and rage consumes your spirit.  Your career is in decline and depression slithers into your heart.  Caught in the comparison trap, you find yourself avoiding those who have bigger, more influential jobs.  Anger is a constant companion, finances are tight and rest is a distant memory.  A sense of bone-deep weariness saturates your soul as your own heart ridicules the sincerity with which you serve.  "You might as well give up.  It's no use.  Just quit!" the enemy taunts. 

"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control." Proverbs 25:28 (NIV)

Negative emotions can take hold of and destroy a life void of emotional control.  Control puts emotions in their God-shaped place, discarding negative emotions as the spiritual leeches they are while safeguarding and reinforcing positive emotions.

Emotions are a gift from God.  While emotions themselves are not sin, the place we give them can be.  Since God created us with the capacity for strong emotions, we can rest assured that He will equip and empower His plan for managing them.

So many times we attempt to engage in a spiritual fight using natural weapons. That just won't work. Remember, God's Word is your weapon against the tactics of the enemy.

Stay in His Word and

Know you are loved,

Lyndi

SIN OUT

    

       "The chains of sin are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken".  Tom Drout

      

   Do you ever think about sin?  I don't like the word sin nor do I like to sin! I do not think it's very ladylike. It's not very ladylike to sweat either so I use the term 'glow' when referring to the glisten of a workout session.  I suppose we use the word 'mistake' for the same reason. Sin just punches but mistake is a more palatable description.  What happens when we respond to sin sometimes? We decide to give into temptation, and we get a little check in our spirit. We ignore that check thinking that we will still be fine. Sooner or later though, just like the ground rising up to meet me, our sin reaches up hard with its consequences and there is no avoiding them any more. It's too late to turn back.  Sin always finds it’s root in our own selfish desires and self-gratification.

      

    We generally do not plan to go out and sin... at least not at first. We get tempted  - then we think about it a while. "When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."  (James 1:13-15)

      

   Even if we manage to "get away" with sin, and believe that "no one knows", our sins will come back to bite us.  "There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs." (Matthew 10:26-27)

Sin will take you farther than you want to go,

Cost you more than you want to pay,

And keep you longer than you want to stay. ...

Not only does sin have consequences, but also each time we sin, we reinforce a pattern that becomes harder and harder to break. If we persist in sin with the thought that one day we will get right with God, we should remind ourselves that God may still be there to forgive and restore but we may not be.

A pearl to string:  Always have an emergency plan. First, run from the temptation. Second, when we fall, we need to return quickly to the grace and mercy of our loving Father, seeking His forgiveness. A fall into sin will not cause us to lose salvation, but it can damage our relationship with Father and have earthly consequences which haunt us the rest of our lives.  In other words, flee from temptation. But if you fall, rush back in the waiting arms of your Abba Father.

Stay safe in His Word,

                                Lyndi

Your Emotional Realm

Scary subject matter isn't it?  I've long  danced to the tune "why inject facts into this situation, that will just mess up a good emotional outburst".  Ever noticed how women can go from A to Z and men go from A to B.....what is up with that?  Coach Wonderful doesn't like me getting historical either. Good grief I only have two reaction it's either historical or hysterical. It is what it is or is it?

If any of us have been on planet earth more than three minutes then we have developed habit patterns in our emotional realm from the way we responded to the world around us. Some people burst into tears at any moment over anything and others almost never cry. Some are happy – happy – happy all the time and others never really “feel” happy. Some stay in an undercurrent of rage and, at the drop of a hat, can fly into anger and rage, which often seems shockingly ridiculous over something simple going wrong. In each of those cases, people have developed that habit pattern of reacting in their emotional realm to the things which have come their way in life.

One of the most powerful and sweetest gifts we have as Believers is the ability to forgive and how it affects our lives. Walking with an awareness that Jesus is living in me, empowers me to have my memories of my life up to this point, WITHOUT THE EMOTIONAL PAIN CONNECTED WITH THOSE MEMORIES. That would not be possible without forgiveness.

A pearl to string: People who live in emotional extremes have never learned how to control their emotions but instead let their emotions control them. I love how the Message states in Romans 12:15, we are to "Laugh with our friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down".  The only way I can do that is to allow myself to feel happiness and sadness with people when they are experiencing it. If I am continually all wrapped up in myself, and the way I feel, I can’t do that. Our emotions have been given to us by God because we are human beings. They are in our soul and help to make us who we are. It is good to have them. We can learn to control them instead of them controlling us.

Galatians 5:16 in the Amplified Bible says: “But I say walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God).”

Leaning on Him,

                      Lyndi