The Potter's Hand

Darlene Zschech sings a beautiful song called The Potter’s hand.  One of the lines of the song says,

“Teach me Oh, Lord to Live all of my Life through your eyes.”

We have to always remember that God sees us like a Father.  He loves us, He wants the best for us, He watches over us.  He also cares for us like a Mother.

He knows our weaknesses, insecurities and failures.  He knows our passions, our longing and our strength.  He is the Lord over all our desires.  He has watched our mustard seed of faith grow and develop. 

He realizes that sometimes our expectations for ourselves are higher than His.

He is always with us, like the Dad that goes to all His son’s football games, cheering and rooting him on when He scores, and putting his arm around his shoulder and speaking words of truth and comfort when he fumbles the ball.

God is first and foremost like a Father, like a Mother, like a Loving Parent.

He has cradled us in the womb.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  We bear His image, the image of God, male and female He created them.

We have to ask our loving Father, and our caring Mother to give us eyes to see ourselves like they do;  Full of Hope, Full of Trust, Full of Faith.

Prayer to enter in...

Dear God, give us eyes to see ourselves like you do.  Give us grace to love ourselves like you do.  Help us to slow down, pause and be in our lives, all of us! All the time. Thank you for my past, my present, and my future.  Thank You for your goodness to me in everyday In every way. You are my Morning Star. You are my firm foundation. Nothing can separate me from your love and your power at work in this crafted life. For you are indeed the Potter, and I am the clay.

In Jesus Name, I Pray...

The Promise Land

“A land flowing with milk and honey…”

God is always about bringing us up and out to a place of more freedom.  There are so many ways we can feel stuck in our lives; Stuck in addiction, Stuck in depression, Stuck in poverty, Stuck in isolation and timidity.  We are a stuck people, but the good news is that God’s heart for us is more freedom.

We’ve heard this many times before when we have been waiting on God for a long time for something, but how often and how long has God been waiting on us to take initiative for our own deliverance.

We can seek counsel. We can seek prayer. We can change our mindset and begin to think out of the box for our lives.  There is so many things that we can do to get out of our own stuckness.

Yes, we need God to empower, lead and direct us.  He’s always willing to show up and speak into our lives if we let Him.  God will show up often unannounced and often unrecognized.

The best place to start is on your knees… 

The Bible says, “A broken and contrite heart, Oh God you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17

But even God does not leave us solely in a broken place.  He desires for us to experience wholeness.  

There are always two sides of the coin in the Gospel story.

Go learn what this means, “I Desire Mercy, not Sacrifice.”  Matthew 9:13

The promise land is not a place that we arrive to with a final destination here on earth.  We are always being led out and brought forth to spacious places filled with longing and delight.

The Story of Friendship...

Friendship is truly a gift.  I believe every friendship has a story.  What makes one person choose another as a friend and that person choose them back?  It’s a mystery, but I believe friendship is nothing more than sheer grace.

I was reminded this night of a friendship I started in middle school.   It was a big transition from elementary school to junior high and I felt it.  I needed a friend, and God gave me Jill.  She was new to the area and would wear skirts everyday to school and that was strange.  This got me interested in her right away.  She seemed different, and being the only Latina girl in a predominately white environment, I always felt a little “in a class of my own.” So, I was attracted to her, and somehow we connected in the Library over books and the Dewey decimal system- and Voila!  A friendship was born…

I can think of another friendship that occurred when I was much older and in need of a friend.  We just clicked- the same age, love for God, love for clothes…It was a match made in heaven!

So special friendships are, but they may not always last forever, and for different reasons friendships can drift apart and that’s ok.  They may have served a time when you really needed each other.

The Good News is that God can always build new friendships.  They can come when we least expect it, but always when we most need it.

Make room, and trust that God will bring you a friend.  It will be a new story, but no different than two people that find each other at the right time and see something in each other that makes them want to draw near.

Intimacy

We were created for Intimacy.  The best definition I have ever heard of this is: To Know and Be Known.  This is the foundation to relationship.

We long for intimacy in our marriages, our families, and our friendships.  Intimacy is a place where we can come just as we are and we are accepted.  Church and other places of community is where intimacy can be shared between people and God.  We need intimacy.  We need acceptance.  We need love.  This fuels us to do the work. 

Intimacy is also a safe place; a place where we can run to and a place where we can return to often.  It is a welcoming place; A place of hospitality and freedom to be who we are!  We don’t have to compete.  We don’t have to perform.

Intimacy is a place of Joy because we know that we are loved, and we feel the security of that love and that security gives us the courage to go out and conqueror the world!

It all goes back to Jesus.  All that He did in this world was because of the intimacy that he shared with His Father.  It was the key to His success.  It was the key to His life and death.  And He took along 12 men and formed an intimate circle, in which he shared with them the love and intimacy he had between Father and Son.

And there were women, too that He invited into His circle, and delighted in them and gave them a job to do, and even revealed His Glory to them in resurrection power!

Intimacy with God and Intimacy with each other; that’s why honest and vulnerable people are so alluring.  We are like them, too. 

Jesus experienced intimacy wherever He went.  He was called to listen, to touch, to heal, to speak life, to encourage, to exhort, to be present.  He modeled intimacy for us.  And He was the safest individual anyone ever met.  People let their guard down, people were themselves, people trusted him.

“The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”  Proverbs 18:10

  

Be Yourself

It’s important to know yourself;

The ways in which you live, think, be in this world.

The ways in which you offer your presence in body, soul, and spirit.

The look in your eyes, a smile, a compassionate listening.

You are truly a gift to the World!

When you know yourself, others will know you, too.

You don’t have to try to fit in. 

Be yourself and watch others walk towards you.

The Promise...

My reward awaits,
in the promise of your hand.

You reach out to me,
by the Grandeur of Your Plan.

My Fears and Foes
may never understand.

But My Sweet Reward
is in the promise of your hand.

Your hand that carries me,
Your hand the nudges me.

Your hands of safety,
Enveloped up above.

Your hand abides me with me,
in the Promise of Your Love.

Shadowlands

Fragile

 and Loved,

I am.

Across

 the valleys

Of golden

 lands,

I stand.

A queen,

I remember

who I am.

Though

 barren,

By this

shadowland.

I remain 

true to

The Great

 I am.

He is present

To this heart

That flows.

It remains..

Flawed,

and Loved,

Broken and

 Whole.

Out of the Ordinary...

I think what kills us, what we hate, can’t tolerate is that we live such ordinary lives.  We would rather live in the heights and depths of our emotions.  We want our breath to be taken away!  We want the Glory!  But ask for the Ordinary- No way!

How can the ordinary become a sacred place within us?  Our mundane lives here on earth, here with our feet upon the dusty road.  We have to accept the ordinary as sacred.  Nothing more, Nothing Less. Nothing Spectacular, nothing out of this world! 

In our humanity, the place where we break the bread, drink the wine, and invite others to the table.

Jesus will always manifest himself in the ordinary sacraments of our daily lives like prayer, exercise, work and meals together. 

In Genesis, after God created the world, he said, “Behold it is very good!”  We have to experience the goodness of the Lord in our ordinary lives.

In communion, God blessed the bread, breaks it and says, “Be Satisfied!”

How can we be satisfied in the ordinary?  Somehow on the dusty road the disciples found that they were actually walking with Jesus.

We need to realize that Jesus is down here on earth as much as he’s up there in heaven, and we need to look for him to meet us in our ordinary days where he blesses, makes sacred, and tells us it is Very Good.

Consider the Lilies

Waiting is a hard but fulfilling discipline.  We wait for so many things: the leisure of the weekend, the coming of the spring, the fulfilling of dreams like purchasing that first home, and birthing that first child.  

We wait for the Glorious revealing of the Children of God, and Jesus the Son.  We wait spiritually and practically for promises to come to pass.

But what do we do in the process of waiting?  In a garden we plant seeds and take great delight when we see sprouts of growth.

It is a growing process while we wait.  But God enables us to experience the growth.  It’s just not one step to another.  Consider a pregnant woman, who watches her belly grow and take shape for 9 months until delivery.

When God moves you to the next thing, it’s because you have grown into it.  The waiting for that thing has been a process of growth in your life.  Growth is slow, but change happens. 

I’ve talked many times about the evolution of a butterfly; the process, the change, the dazzling transformation.  Such is our lives. 

I know you are waiting for many things, but consider that you are growing into those things, and take heart that they can happen.  

Nurture the seeds planted in your life.  Give room for growth.  Take delight in the sprouts that spring up and encourage you to move in that direction.

Never give up that all things are possible, and keep your eyes on the horizon and the one whom...

 “Considers the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”  Luke 12:27

The Business of People

I know it’s not a happy thought, but in some ways we are all alone. We came into this world alone, and we will leave it alone.  The only hope we have is that God goes with us.

Marriage and family can ease the loneliness for a season, but spouses may die or marriages break-up and children grow-up and move on.

The only true gift God gives to us in Life’s Journey are people.  The investment we have made in others is the only fruit that will remain.

Jobs, money, status, power is just a means to an end. Its people that count and its people that God values. 

And at the end of our lives, it’s people that we will remember and reach out to.

We need a new mindset, we need a new motive, we need a new vision.

Wherever and whatever God will call you to, it’s because he has specific people he wants you to minister to.

Don’t just go to work every day to bring home a paycheck to pay for the house, the groceries, and the vacations.

Pray that God will bring you into relationship with those he wants you to reach out to, to befriend, to value, to appreciate, to support, encourage, and even challenge.

God is truly on our side, and the good news is He’s on the side of countless of others that we may not notice, recognize, and overlook everyday of our lives.

God is now and always will be in the business of people.