What Are You Doing?

What are you doing? I fell asleep with this sentence dancing across my mind last night. This tango of thought was center stage due to the ordering of my life. All my life I have had a well rehearsed plan of action that I danced around to the tune of someone else's beat. There comes a time when you must take the lead. And for me...that time is now.
Thus the question. What are you doing?

Ah! What am I doing? A question to which I am not sure how to answer. The doing part I can manage quite well, since laziness has never been an issue. I have had many others, such as procrastination, fear, selfishness, and the list goes on. But not true laziness that caused me to waste time, money, or effort on the behalf of someone else and their interest. But the dilemma is when I am doing something for or about me.
But, I digress! The question still awaits an answer. What am I doing?

So here I sit......thinking. As I mentally walk around this question I have to view it as though I am advising someone else. What would I tell someone else?

Make a plan and execute the plan. Easy. Right? NO.
So maybe I need to look at what I am not doing to decide what I am doing.

Here is what I am not doing.

1. I am not running ahead of God, looking back to see if He has caught up to me and my plan.
2. I am not fretting about things that I have no control or authority to change.
3. I am not waiting to see how I feel about His word before I move in obedience to His word.
4. I am not looking at another person to do for me what only I can do through my choices.
5. I am not leaning on my own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

There is my answer. What am I doing? I am in the process of trusting God with all my heart.
Simplified this equals....
Always do the right thing and expect God to do His part.
You can do this. I can do this.

~Debbie


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Faithful

The older I become the more I value faithfulness. Repeatedly, it is a virtue that is needed on a daily basis. Life has a way of throwing curve balls and it is necessary to have someone watching your back, your front, and your sides!
There is a blessing that one receives from being faithful. The Lord promises that if you will be faithful in little that He will promote you to greater authority or ruler over many things.
In the natural, the first thought is that promotion is realized in the physical realm. But as you think on it and experience the reward of this you come to realize it is a spiritual reward as well.

The act of faithfulness in any area cost you something. Yes, there is a price to be paid.
Faithfulness requires commitment.
If not to the person or situation, then most certainly to God's word.

Matthew 25:21 ends with joy, but the process of faithfulness usually starts with tears or anger.
It is hard to be faithful.
To continue to believe the best, to do the best, and to keep pressing in and on regardless of the circumstances. But, I want to encourage you to do just that.
Be faithful.
There is a reward.

God promised and He can not and will not lie.
1Samuel 15:29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.

Matthew 25:21
His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

~Debbie

Our Cross

Our Cross
Take up your cross and follow me. I for one am glad that His cross is empty and that He is risen! But today I am contemplating "my cross" as His disciple. What about that cross? He carried His cross and rose in victory to sit on the right hand of the Father. But we are still here.

My cross. Well on all accounts that just sounds awful! Who wants a cross?
Oh, yes, a beautiful ornamental cross that we can display as a jewelry accessory. But a cross that I need to carry and not even on a trail of my choosing? Wow! Sounds like that might be difficult.
As followers of Christ we each have a cross to bear that is ours in particular.
And even as the man conscripted to help Christ carry His cross to Golgotha we too have help when the load is too much to bear because of the task set before us.

Matthew 16:24
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

My cross appears to be the things in life that cross my path that I must walk out to the glory of God and the continued growth I experience as I obey His word in my everyday life.
Deny myself is what I am doing when I refuse to do what I want to do naturally and do instead what I believe God's word tells me to do in any given situation according to His written word in Scripture.
And sometimes the load is bigger than my faith or my natural ability and I stagger as I walk the path of obedience assigned to me.
And yet, the Lord will send me a helper to accomplish the carrying of the required load. Sometimes my helper is another person who helps shoulder the load physically or points my eyes heaven wards. It is easy to become over whelmed with the difficulty of life when your eyes are not lifted upward.
Following Him is what happens as I lay down my will and pick up my cross.
Not your cross
Not His cross
My cross.

~Debbie


Matthew 27:32
And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.

Marathon=Focused Intensity

Are You Thirsty?
© Debbie Turner Chavers

Sometimes life seems like a marathon. On some days I train hard and yet forget to eat and drink. I find my strength is feeble and the road seems too long.
And yet....there is a cool spot of shade and running water just ahead. There is a spring of living water that beckons and with the last of my resolve I push through until I fall in an exhausted heap of need beside the still water of His presence.
My soul hungrily devours His presence, until peace replaces my need and strength floods my soul.
I have watched others running with all their might toward a goal of dubious value and yet they knew they had to train, and strengthen their body's endurance to last until the finish line. There are people who will stand on the side lines to cheer them forward and hand off a cup of water to help them on their journey. There is an inner urging to keep moving toward the finish line.
A focused intensity.

There is a need to focus our intensity. It is easy to lag behind and lose focus of why you entered this race of your faith. The marathon of life makes many demands upon your being. It is necessary to renew your strength and refocus as you run. The Lord is in the race with you. He is encouraging you onward and hands you a cup of living water as you thirst. The race has a beginning and an end. He sends you off, He provides for you as you run, and He waits at the Finish line for your triumphant entry. Do not give up.

Be in it to win it.

~Debbie


Philippians 3:14
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus

1Corinthians 9:24
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.