Morning Prayer

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” -Lamentations 3:21-26

Oh Great and Merciful Father,

I thank you for hope and for the anthem in the verses above. I thank You that You are steadfast always and can therefore be trusted. I thank You that Your mercies never end and each morning as I wake, Your mercy covers me. Like a waterfall and the constant downpour of water is Your steadfastness and mercy. I thank You that even when I have strayed or sinned that the blood of Christ has already washed over all my sins and I find cleansing anew. My defilements are erased, Your wrath has been abolished and I am made pure and blameless before You. Thank You for teaching me to be quick to claim the blood of Christ over my life rather than wallowing for weeks in self-pity and shame, hoping that You may find favor and value in me eventually. Thank You for teaching me to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence rather than cowering away in shame and in my drawing near receiving instant mercy and finding grace rather than condemnation. I pray for those of my friends and family who have been slow to learn this lesson that they too this morning would draw near to You rather than running and hiding. I thank You that in my drawing near, I see the great cost that Jesus has paid and how the great act of love makes me more than ever want to honor Him with my life and to flee from sin not Him. I thank You for your faithfulness, that You are steady, You are a Rock, that You don’t take risks so I can. Thank You for being my Portion, for the only well that will satisfy. My hope is only in You. May my eyes not drift to lesser affections. I lift up friends and family members who are still running to wells that will not save or satisfy or give them value. Thank You for Your goodness and for letting things go slowly so that I know my hope and trust and provision and direction are from You. Help me to wait well and in my waiting to find more and more of You and Your salvation.

Father, show me Your purposes for me today in this time and in this place. Open my eyes to the people You are working in and help me to point them to You.  Also, may Your voice be the loudest in my mind and heart drowning out all lesser voices, especially that of the enemy.  

“Oh God be my everything, be my delight

 Be Jesus my glory, my soul satisfied.”

6,000 Gifts

6,000 gifts and still counting.  Check them out here when you have a chance.  You may be one of my gifts!

Of Dreams, Lies, & Blue Berets

I often have pretty vivid dreams.  A funny one I had recently involved me on an espionage mission.  We were trying to recover a piece of paper and replace it with a fake.  At one point, our mission required that my partner put on a monkey costume and ride a bicycle while eating a banana.  I woke up one or two times from this dream but was able to drift back into the dream because "I just had to finish it."  In the end, the monkey suit worked and we successfully replaced the papers.  Surprisingly the dream was not stressful and I awoke amused.  

A few nights ago, I had another vivid dream but did not awake from it amused.  In this dream, my mom told me she had a special gift for my birthday.  She then told me a story of a little girl who had lived overseas for most of her life with her parents in Spain, Germany, and France.  The next day, my mom unveiled my birthday gift.  We were in a clothing store/church and my mom had left little clues all over the store.  The actual gift was a video of pictures of this little girl growing up in these countries and wearing a blue beret.  As the video progressed it revealed that my mom was the little girl in her story.  The birthday surprise did not bring me joy.  My first reaction was to walk away and weep because my mom had deceived me about her childhood.  My mind was blown.  My mom suddenly became a stranger to me because everything I knew about her childhood was false.  I was trying to rewrite the past in my brain.  I eventually began to ask my mom about why she had grown up with others and not my actual grandparents.  She told me my grandparents couldn’t afford to raise her so someone else had raised her overseas giving her a much better childhood.  I continued to weep over the lie I had believed my whole life.  

I slowly began to wake up from the dream.  I awoke frustrated and angry about the whole situation.  As the morning light connected with my mind, I realized that it was just a dream.  The whole thing was false, a mere dream.  My mom hadn’t deceived me.  Her past is true to the past I have always known.  She was raised by my actual grandparents and has lived in either Ohio or Tennessee her whole life.  Not France, not  Germany, not Spain, not donning a light blue beret.  As the truth began to dawn in my mind, my frustration, anger, and desire to weep melted away almost instantly.  There was no need to be upset because the whole thing was a farce, an upsetting dream.  

Usually when I wake up in the mornings, my mind begins racing with a plethora of thoughts.  That morning was no different.  My next thought following the realization that the dream was false was to connect the dream to reality.  I realized that the enemy finds chinks in our armor.  He enters our minds and plants lies in our heart.  We believe those lies until we awake to truth.  Eventually the fog lifts and we slowly realize those lies were a farce, a trick of the enemy.  Sometimes we weep at the deception, sometimes we recognize the lie but it takes a bit of waking to convince ourselves and to shake the inner frustration and doubt.  Sometimes the lie runs so deep that we never quite shake the fact that it is a lie.  I guess this is why there are so many exhortations in the Bible to be sober-minded, watchful, and awake.  

“Be sober-minded; be watchful.  Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” -1 Pt 5:8

My Cup Overflows

My last post was called Stabundance and it was based on a verse from the Bible.  The verse explains that God is my stability, abundance, and treasure.  Since I have been more aware of these things, I am finding them more often.  The last two weeks can only be described by the word abundance.  I will do my best to recount all the evidences of abundance:

1.  My kind roommate asked if I wanted to take a road trip to Illinois and pay for all the gas to

     get there.

2.  I managed to have a week with no work freeing me to take her up on her offer.

3.  The weather on the drive there was beautiful.

4.  And I got to listen to audiobooks while driving.

5.  I had a really sweet conversation of truth with a good friend.

6.  I got to watch the sunset as I sang praises.

7.  My black tank top found.

8.  My friend Jana gave up her bed for the week so I could get some uninterrupted rest.

9.  A restful introvert morning to read and meditate.

10. A chance to visit with my friend Hannah.

11. Dinner provided by a college student.

12. Getting to discuss my passion.

13. Loving that video of Zekey reading the book and watching it again and again.

14. A whole day to rest and read and paint and blog.  Sweetness cause "He restores my 

       soul."

15. Getting to discuss my journey and passion again.

16. Dinner provided by Jana.

17. Jana taking a vacation day to hang with me.

18. Watching falling snow all day.

19. Leftovers for lunch.

20. Finding knobs for my cabinet.

21. Jana treating me to my first ever Vietnamese meal.

22. And treating me to an All Sons & Daughters show.

23. Worshiping with All Sons & Daughters and Peoria believers.

24. In a really cool old ragtime theater.  (I Geek Architecture.)

25. More time with Jana and chilling on the 4th day.

26. More leftovers for lunch and dinner.

27. Seeing Hannah a second time and mutual encouragement.

28. Leaving Peoria by sunset.

29. Saying goodbye but also the reminder that in the new creation, there will be no more

       vacation blues or sad goodbyes but only ever increasing joy.

30. More time in the car with my roomie.

31. Our route traveled straight through Jodie’s city and I got to see her in person for the first 

       time in 4 years.

32. Finishing the trip and having only spent $20 on the whole thing.

33. Coming home to 3 small checks. 

34. A restful weekend to add to one of the most restful weeks of my life proving that He does

      indeed "lead me beside still waters." 

35. Realizing I have some cash from selling stuff on eBay.

36. A chance to prepare for and share more about my passion.

37. And 34 people showing up to hear about my passion. What!?!?

38. So many yummy meatballs I may not be able to eat them all.

39. And not worrying that I don’t have paying work right now but trusting God will provide for

      His work and for my needs in general.

40. And finding my income tax refund. "I shall not want."

41. And another 2 checks from people who believe in me and my passion.  "He makes me 

       lie down in green pastures." 

42. Did I really just get randomly paid for doing what I love and would do anyway?

Thankful.  Thankful.  Thankful.  Thankful.

He is my abundance.  And I am thankful.

"My cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  

Hopefully I won't have spiritual amnesia and forget this so quickly.

Stabundance

This sermon has been blowing my mind lately.  I know, I know, I know.  I just wrote about this very topic in my post, Like Drinking From a Colander.  But like I said, the sermon is blowing my mind and shifting my thinking.  The idea that we try to run to different wells, namely ourselves, others, the world, and religion, makes so much since in how I am now viewing reality.  I look around me and I see broken people who search for fulfillment in all the wrong places and find themselves empty.  I look at my own life and see how I try to medicate myself with things other than Jesus and find myself eventually empty and miserable.  

The last several months have been difficult for me.  There have been no major tragedies or trials in my life but at the same time, the Father has been stripping away, little by little, all the things that I look to instead of Him.  He has dwindled away my savings account and my income to a point that I MUST rely on His provision rather than my own resources.  He has taken my plans and tossed them into a blender and turned the speed onto high.  He has taken away stability and consistency and predictability from my life or at least the false sense of those things.  

Amidst the stripping, He has replaced all of this with a word:  Stabundance.  Actually I made up this word after I found a treasure of a verse.  I know that I used this same verse in a recent post, but again, God is blowing my mind and hammering things into my heart.  

“and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.”

Stability + Abundance = Stabundance

God is my Stabundance.  He is the only truly stable thing in my life.  He will not waver.  He is likewise my abundance.  “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines,” nor money in the savings account, nor a specified, stable, and secure future laid out before my eyes, God is my abundance.  He is my abundance of things that matter like salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.  He is my treasure.  Nothing or no one on earth will ever be my treasure.  Others will disappoint or fail me.  Others will sin against me.  Others will crap out on me but not God.  He is Stability.  He is Abundance.  He is Treasure.  He is Stabundance.  Once I truly figure that out, I will want for nothing.  I will be able to sing out with all my heart the words that Paul wrote to the Romans:  

“for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And this new thought has transformed the way I pray for others.  In a recent situation, I was praying for ****.  Previously I would have asked God to take him out of his hurtful situation and make things better for him.  Instead, I began to pray that he would so come to know that God is his treasure, well, and stabundance that he then allows God to come and fill all of his cracks and crevices in his heart.  If he comes to know that God alone is his well, all the sufferings of this present time will be worth it.  If God were to just eliminate the pain and leave him thinking others or the world or religion is his well then he will continue down the path of emptiness.  

I have also been praying for ****.  Again, she is in a really hard spot.  She is discovering that certain wells are dry.  I have begun to ask for her as well that Jesus would become her well, her source.  

For my own life, I have been praying that I would learn effectively and eternally that God is my stability and source and treasure and He is trustworthy.  If I can get that reality established in my personhood, then this season of stretching and stress will create something so glorious and beautiful which will in turn bring exaltation for the remainder of my days on earth and eternally in Heaven.  

Listen to God’s own words about Himself:

“Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 

‘I am the first

and I am the last;

besides me there is no god.

Who is like me?

Let him proclaim it.

Let him declare and set it before me,

since I appointed an ancient people.

Let them declare what is to come, 

and what will happen.

Fear not, nor be afraid;

have I not told you from of old and declared it?

And you are my witnesses!

Is there a God besides me?

There is no Rock;

I know not any.” -Isaiah 44:6-8

He is first.  He is last.  There is no other god.  No one is like Him.  No one can predict the future except Him alone.  Don’t be afraid.  There is no other Rock, no other Source, no other Well, no other Stabundance.  

Isaiah Goodness

Over the past several years, I have grown to love the book of Isaiah.  I used to check out while reading Isaiah in my “through the Bible reading plan”, reading it out of obligation but not really understanding it.  I think the book requires a good understanding of the overarching story of the whole Bible.  This understanding for me has come after multiple trips reading through the whole Bible.  

Anyway, this trip through Isaiah, there are several chapters that jumped out at me and I had to read them several times because they were so good.  I am currently stuck in the goodness of Isaiah 41.  In the passage below, I have replaced Jacob/Israel’s name with my own name because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is my God too.  As I read through the first time, I almost imagined God speaking these words to me loudly and with foreknown triumph, declaring my identity and the hope-filled reality of my situations:

But you, Candace, my servant, 

Candace, whom I have chosen, 

the offspring of Abraham, my friend;

you whom I took from the ends of the earth,

and called from its farthest corners,

saying to you, ‘You are my servant.

I have chosen you and not cast you off’;
fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (vs 8-10)

Who is this that has chosen me and took me from the ends of the earth rather than casting me off?  

"I the Lord, the first,

and with the last; I am he." (vs 4)

The Lord who was at the beginning and will be at the end.  He knows all and His power and sovereignty overarches all.  This God makes the coastlands afraid and the ends of the earth tremble. 

For I, the Lord your God 

hold your right hand;

it is I who say to you, ‘Fear not, 

I am with you.

Fear not ... I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; 

your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. (vs 13-14)

When the poor and thirsty need water or when my soul is parched:

“I the Lord will answer them;

I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” (vs 17)

He will create rivers for them in places where there are no rivers and fountains in places where there are no fountains.  He will bring a pool of water to the thirsty wilderness and springs of water to the desert.  

He does all of this:

“that they may see and know, 

may consider and understand together,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

the Holy One of Israel has created it.” (vs 20)

Sand Lilies - able to grow in the most adverse conditions OR
like water provided in the desert.

Birthday Series - Celebrating Kyla

Continuing in my birthday series, my next post is in honor of my oldest niece Kyla.

When We First Met

Kyla was born in 2004 inducting me into the wonderful world of aunthood.  I was almost 22 at the time.  I remember getting a call from my mom on the day of her birth asking why I wasn’t at the hospital.  In the midst of delivery day chaos, my brother forgot to let me know my sister-in-law was being induced.  I eventually made my way to the hospital and met this little girl who captured my heart and made me love being an aunt. 

My Earliest Memories (After her birth of course)

I remember babysitting her for an hour or two when she was about six months old.  She slept peacefully until I tried to eat a bite of dinner.  Each time I tried to take a bite she cried.  My brother lived in my same city for the first 2-3 years of Kyla’s life.  This meant she and I became close.  She has always been a methodical and organized child.  I remember her placing dominoes in a long methodical pattern.  My brother and I would remove a piece causing her to become quite frustrated at her interrupted designs.  This behavior was a first indicator that she was a lot like me. 

   

My Favorite Memory

Several years ago we were at Thanksgiving dinner and Kyla was sitting in my sister’s lap.  We each went around the room telling something for which we were thankful.  When it came to Kyla’s turn, much to my sister’s chagrin Kyla grinned really big and proclaimed she was thankful for, “Aunt Candace.”  It made my head swell a bit.  

  

Nickname

-Mini Me or Little Candace

Facts About Her/Ways we are Similar/Things I Love About Her

-She has a sweet raspy voice.

-She loves school and wants to go even when she feels bad (A similarity).

-She is really smart and thinks logically.

-She is quite bossy (Unfortunately another similarity).

-Her middle name is Faith.

-She thinks of others first and often finds ways to make gifts for them.

-She is resourceful and efficient, and at an early age knows how to do things in cheaper ways.  

-She loves to do the same thing over and over.  One time when she had learned how to do stairs, she wanted to go up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs in my apartment building.  One time we made a swimming pool and slide out of legos and she wants to do this every time she comes to visit.

-She LOVES ice cream.

-She also LOVES McDonald’s.  

-She is such a picky eater and you can’t rationalize with her to try new things. (I was just like her as a child.)

-She is one of the loudest people I know.

-She easily makes friends with strangers.

-She seems to be an extroverted version of me.

-She is the messiest eater.

-She loves to give hugs.

-She loves being tickled.

-She teaches me about the way God sees me and how I misunderstand Him. 

Favorite Kyla-isms

“It’s ruined!”

“Silly like a popcorn” 

“Easter is about Mordechai”

“Beauty Shopped”

“I’ll never get in, I’ll never get in.”

Like Drinking From a Colander

The other day I was asking God how I should pray for a certain individual with some lazy tendencies.  In the praying, I was seeking to understand not the behavior but the root causing the behavior.  The next day I listened to a sermon where the speaker happened to mention laziness and the root usually being fear.  Often people who appear to be lazy are actually crippled by their insecurities and fear that if they really put themselves out there they would fail.  Instead they do nothing. 

As I talked this over with a friend, I explained how I cannot fathom the idea of doing nothing.  I have always been a doer, trying to exhaust all means available to accomplish an end goal.  Not trying has never occurred to me because not trying means I will indeed fail.  As I discussed this further, I realized that my method of action is just as sinful as the inaction of others.  They hold on to fear and refuse to trust God with the outcomes so they do nothing.  This is sinful.  My tendency is to jump into action and seek out all of my available resources choosing to trust in myself rather than God.  This is equally sinful.  Both demonstrate a lack of trust in an all-wise and all-powerful God.  

The Spirit keeps bringing this sinful tendency of mine to light.  The sermon mentioned above is from a series by Matt Chandler called Recovering Redemption.  I went back and listened to the first sermon again.  In the first sermon he explained that things have gone wrong and we all know it.  There is a gnawing in our guts that the world is not as it should be and we try to either insulate or rescue ourselves from it.  We run to four wells to find satisfaction and fullness of life.  The four wells include:

1. The Well of Self

2. The Well of Others

3. The Well of the World

4. The Well of Religion

The Well of Self

Chandler pointed out that we frequently think if we can get to a better version of ourselves then it will solve all of our problems.  If I eat enough spinach I’ll never get cancer and never die.  If I can just workout enough to have a good body then finally someone will love me and cure my loneliness.  If I finally make this much money then I will be secure and won’t have to strive.  If I can just finish my to-do list then I will be able to rest.  All of this is like trying to drink water out of a colander.  It will never quench my thirst.  Oh how frequently do I turn to the well of self.  I make myself a god thinking I can figure things out on my own.  I am embarrassed as I recognize all the times I run first to my own resources to solve a problem rather than first approaching God and asking for His wisdom and help.  Why do I keep Him as a last resort?  He has all knowledge and I can’t even see what the rest of the day will hold, yet, I think I am a better god than Him.  I do this with finances, with relationships, with health issues, etc. and eventually I come up empty and frustrated.  

The Well of Others

Chandler continued that as humans, we seek out others to complete us.  We seek fulfillment in friends, spouses, and children.  He explained that men and women make crummy gods.  We all know it’s true and yet movies are made, stories are written, products are marketed and sold, dating websites exist all this is to convince us that if we just find “the one” then we will live “happily ever after.”  Fullness of life is found in Jesus, not in others.  When we have expectations that a person will fill all the cracks and crevices of our heart, it puts an impossible weight on them.  They will bring us happiness for temporary periods and we will find ourselves again with angst and ache.  God has been showing me that after I have exhausted all of my own means, I tend to run to others.  In a crisis, I call my mom or call a close friend or complain to my roommate.  I seek their advice, their wisdom.  Again, I use Him as a last resort.

The Well of the World 

Chandler explained that new stuff makes us feel better.  Getting new things has a drug-like effect on us.  We get a new car and suddenly we feel like a better human being.  In actuality we are the same person but now have debt.  Additionally everything we own will eventually find it’s way to either a garage sale or the dump.  We also run to food, sex, drugs, and entertainment in order to find pleasure, satisfaction, or a chance to numb ourselves from reality.  Again, when we set these things up to be gods, we put a weight on them they can’t bear.  Each of those things was meant to have a certain level of joy but we have perverted each of them to a place where the joy is only temporary and we are left again with the gnawing.  In my life, God has been showing me how lately I numb myself with food and entertainment.  I seek out those things when I am bored or frustrated.  I use them to insulate me from my reality and I have been miserable.

The Well of Religion

Chandler defines this well as “trying to appease a deity.”  He explains that in religion we hope that we can do enough to put God in our debt so He has to let us into Heaven.  We think we can tilt the scales in our favor by obeying some commands then our souls will be at rest.  In religion, we compare ourselves to those around us and find examples where we can toot our own horn hoping God will notice our superiority.  This well is like the well of self only with a religious cloak.  It’s still an effort to save ourselves only with external religious practices.  

As I have been meditating on all the wells I run to instead of God, I am learning that I will not find rest or satisfaction or answers to my angst outside of Jesus.  Every time I turn to one of these wells, it's like I'm drinking from a colander.  I find a bit of satisfaction or joy but it quickly fades.  I must turn to him rather than myself or others or the world or a facade of good deeds.  He is the only one who can fill all the cracks and crevices of my heart.  With all this stewing in my soul, I read Isaiah 30.  In it I found that the Old Testament people also tried to drink from the wrong wells.  Below are the things that stuck out to me from the passage: 

1- They were (I am) stubborn children who carried out not God's plan but their own.

2- They went to Egypt without seeking God’s direction, looking for shelter and protection from Pharaoh.

3- Turning to the well of self or others yields shame and humiliation.

7- Help from Egypt (or others) is worthless.

9- They were children unwilling to be instructed by the Lord.

13&14- Rebellion results in protections demolished.

15- In returning to the well of God and resting in Him, we can find salvation.  When we trust Him, He is our strength.

18- God waits to be gracious to us and longs to show us mercy.  We are blessed when we wait for Him to act.

19- He will be immediately gracious at the sound of our cry indicating our return to Him.

20- At times He afflicts us.  He does not do so to be mean or to hide and watch us suffer.  He does it so we will see Him as our source of joy and goodness.  He does it to get our attention that something in our living is wrong.

21- He punishes us so we will listen to Him as He guides our path.

22- When we finally choose to trust Him completely, we will gladly smash and scatter the tiny idols and trinkets and things with which we numb ourselves.

23- He will provide blessings of sustenance when we seek Him.

26- He will bind up and heal the wounds that He inflicted in order to have us fall at his feet alone.

Oh for the day when I will run to God first for problems and satisfaction and joy.  Oh for the day when my actions and doing is all lived out in the power of the Spirit and not self.  I end with a verse that has anchored me this week:

“and he will be the STABILITY of your times, ABUNDANCE of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s TREASURE.” -Isaiah 33:6