My Mortifying Morning

I had a challenging morning. Yesterday my van broke down and a dear friend loaned me her car because I had an interview scheduled this morning. As I was on my way to the interview I realize the address I had for the interview location is not correct, my GPS was not finding it. So I'm starting to get a little nervous. As I'm scanning the road, I hear this strange sound coming from the back of the car. I look in the back seat and see a Madagascar cockroach crawling along on a paper grocery bag. You might wonder how I knew what it was. . . . years ago I had taken the boys to a week long Science camp and one of the activities at this camp was that the boys could let these Madagascar cockroaches climb on their hands. I don't think my boys did that, and I for sure know that I did not, cockroaches top my list for most disgusting critter. They make me a little crazy, I am not sure why, but I have such a fearful reaction to them. Thankfully they do not reside in our house so it's not usually a huge issue. Seeing this humungous roach almost did me in. I'm thankful I did not swerve and crash on the road as it sent me into an even greater panic. I quickly pulled over and called a friend that had referred me for this job, and he was able to give me the correct address so I was able to quickly find the location. I bolted out of the car as soon as I possibly could and went in for my interview, distracted. . . thinking of the car ride home. I managed to get through the interview and told her about the incident for some comic relief. She told me there was no way she would get back in that car if it was her, but it was me and I had the dilemma of figuring out how to get that gross thing out of the car.

I opened the driver side car door and immediately saw it crawling along the bottom rim. I slammed the car door, hoping it does him in, but it doesn't and it's still crawling along. I tried a few more times when the thought entered my mind to open the door on the opposite side. When I had bolted out of the side of the car that I saw the first one on, lo and behold I saw the original guy, realizing the one on the driver door is critter #2! Now I have two Madagascar cockroaches to contend with on opposite sides of the car. At this point, prayer is happening, and I need a way out of this situation which feels like a total nightmare! If I was on any type of surveillance camera it would be pretty comical. I kept going back and forth and slamming the car doors. Amazingly I was able to get the one on the passenger side to fall off onto the concrete. It flipped on it's back, but quickly recovered and crawled under the car. Continued fervent prayer. Have I mentioned how much I completely hate roaches of any kind?

With added determination I open the car door on the driver's side to see the guy continuing to saunter along the rim. I walked around the parking lot looking for a stick to flick it off, but all I could find were flimsy twigs that were of no use. I spotted a discarded windshield wiper in the parking lot, picked it up, and folded it in half to get some leverage. It took me a few try's but I was finally able to flick it out onto the pavement to join his counterpart. Wondering if there were any more in this roach coach, I did a quick scan and did not see any so I hopped in and headed home as fast as I possibly could. It was a very long drive, much longer than the way there. I drove the rest of the way home hunched against the steering wheel and praying. I could hear more ruffling so I was pretty sure there was more. . .  . I was so done when I got home and it was only 10:30 a.m. I sent Jacob, our resident critter catcher, out to investigate for me. We scoured the car and found a dead one and another live one. Using a garden glove, he was able to get the hiding roach out and put an end to it's life. I paid him to vacuum the car out for me, just in case.

I texted my friend that had so graciously loaned me the car and she immediately called me back apologized profusely and realized that another friend of hers had returned the car to them this week. He leads Science camps and uses the roaches, just like the one I had taken the boys to years ago. In fact, he was the same teacher of this camp I had taken them to so long ago.  I guess he forgot that he had them in their car. Yeah, we got a good laugh about the irony of it all.

It was a morning I will never forget (it probably took a few years off my life) but it also showed me that fear does not have to get the best of me. When I was driving home and praying that none of them would fall or crawl on me, I told myself that they would not hurt me if they did happen to get on me. I survived and learned a lesson in fear. So how was your morning?

The Struggle is Real

A casual glance through the Social Media minefield of distraction and curiosity can give me a false impression that I am the minority in the struggle of life right now. It's why I try to limit my time there to specific groups that I can be real with. It can provoke me to envy which is not something I need to add to the already-there-struggle.

In reality, everyone has something to struggle with, none of us are immune. For me, this season has been difficult and the struggle is real. God prepared me for this season. I think something in me had been slowly waking up. I like to think I was waking up to truth, to being fully human and whole. God used so many things to get me to that point. I immersed myself in Bible study, it was the way I coped with the insanity of a life situation I was in. One of the many studies was a precept study on the entire book of Romans, my favorite book in the New Testament. Wayne Barber explained the in's and out's of that book so well that I could not write fast enough to take notes. Thankfully, another gal in the class made a transcript of most of the sessions. I devoured them and seeing the meaning in it's full context, gave me the courage to stand on truth. So much of the verses that were emphasized to me in life were verses taken sorely out of context, used in a way they were not meant to be used. I did not know it then, when I used those same verses to pound myself with.

My two favorite NT verses are the No Condemnation verse of Romans 8:1 and how God works all things for good...The No Condemnation one was pivotal for me to finally stand up and firmly stand on that foundation. The God working all things for good keeps me there. It's been the biggest struggle of my life.

As I am in a difficult season, I need to intentionally pull back my focus to see the overall picture. God has brought me into the paths of some amazing, inspiring women for which  I am incredibly grateful. He has put relatable women in my life. I have a small support group which is so helpful. But pain, deep heart-wrenching pain is isolating. It's debilitating. I don't always handle it well. On a good day, I cling to the verses like the solid truth of Romans 8:28. I don't see it as a sugary Hallmark-card platitude, but truth that pulls me out of my hyper-sensitive, circumstance-focused lens to see the big, eternal picture. That's a good day. I acknowledge that I don't like the pain, any pain, that I am really tired of the pain, but I know God says there will be pain, so I can almost embrace it and see the big picture in it all.

On a bad day, and I've been having more of them lately, I get really angry at God. I have a temper tantrum like a two year old. I'm cynical of all church, Christians, and well, people in general. I loathe myself, I think that is the most painful. When I think so lowly and not as in humble of myself, it's hard to reconcile in my relationship to God. It adds to the anger.

Thankfully, I don't stay in that pit of despair for too long. I have kids that need me, friends to encourage and support, work to attend to, and a fellowship to be a part of. God's love draws me to repentance, to confession and restoration. Still, it's a long path to healing.  I've been actively searching, applying and interviewing for work, either to supplement, or to replace what I am currently doing. It's humbling, very humbling. I can feel the rejection to the core. Confidence has never been my strength so it's a test of faith to not give in to absolute depression.

I'm currently reading Brennan Manning's memoir, a man I greatly admire. I love that in the foreword of the book Philip Yancey (another great writer) writes how as you read this book you may be tempted to think: "Oh, what might have been....", since Manning struggled greatly with alcoholism. He urges us to reframe that thought to "Oh, what might have been ... if Brennan hadn't discovered grace."  Brennan Manning is notorious for proclaiming a gospel he believed with all his heart but did not always live. I can so relate.

He has a quote from a monk named Thomas Keating that rang true for me: "The cross Jesus asked you to carry is yourself. It's all the pain inflicted on you in your past and all the pain you've inflicted on others." I'm so glad that's not the end of the story, that it doesn't end with me carrying that cross, or any cross, alone on my back with no one to help me carry it. It's living like Brennan Manning lived,  all is grace. Like how Rich Mullins lived, a self-proclaimed Ragamuffin, who struggled to accept God's love. He is my favorite song-writer because his songs tell that story. His struggle was also real and relatable. Both Brennan and Rich wrestled it out, their tendency to sin, their struggle to stay in that Truth of God's agape love, yet their valiant, refreshingly honest perseverance and admonition to hold to the furious longing and love of God, even when they didn't feel very lovable. God's love is real and will.... be..... realized in full, in due time. Until then I can live in the "Here I'm tested and made worthy, tossed about but lifted up, in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God" season as Rich Mullins sings in "The Love of God".   It is a struggle that is real, but I'm not alone in the struggle and neither are you.

Salvaging Seeds

I went to a night of praise last night. It had been a hard, stressful week. As I sat there and soaked in the words being sung, saying He is a good good Father, it resonated deep within me for all the things the songs said were true, the truest things I know and yet I felt detached at first. It was a battle to quiet my mind and to concentrate, to give into the truths and let go of any lies. I felt convicted, God has done so much to show me His faithfulness and yet I continually stress and doubt and give in to anxiousness  which can easily lead to me leading the way instead of a confident faith in Him, His Word and His promises. I'm not one to say I get visions, but occasionally I do feel God gives me little visuals that help me understand my struggle. As the praise continued I raised my hands in faith, offering Him the praise He is due, regardless of my feelings. I thought of the passages in Scripture that describe a mustard-seed sized faith. So much of my struggle right now is sorting the good and bad seed. In thinking on those verses, I pictured a damaged seed.  I thought of the words by Dale Fincher, founder of solution.org-a site devoted to spiritual abuse. "Twisted doctrines produce twisted seeds of spiritual abuse."

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus said "Because of the littleness of your faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "move from here to there" and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you." I wonder how damaged seeds play out in that scenario? Probably not well. I did a quick search of "damaged seeds" and skimmed through it to find some instructions on salvaging damaged seeds. I'm no farmer but several things stood out to me - "the first thing you must do is determine how valuable the damaged seeds are."  The steps are fairly straight-forward:

Step 1:  Remove the seed pods and as much chaff as you can.
Step 2:  Lay the seeds out on the drying screen.
Step 3:  Blot the seeds with paper towels if they're really wet. (more drying)
Step 4:  Put a fan on them to further dry them out.
Step 5:  Last step. If germination is already taking place, you have two choices: 1.) Plant the seeds          
              2.)  toss them!

Could it be that I am in the salvaging the seed process and if so, what step am I on?

The boys and I worked on pulling weeds in our backyard today and earlier in the week. It's a sweat-breaking job because not only have many weeds overtaken our yard, lots of tree saplings have as well and they are hard to tear out. It felt so good when I was able to win over the stubborn, thick roots and get it pulled out. A lot of the cleaning up required disposing of the chaff, the dry dusty mess. It seems so representative of sorting truth from lies. Some lies are subtle and can even be used in a way that twists the truth and context of scripture.

As I continued to worship and dig into to the truth of His promises I was confronted with one of my hindrances, a fear of hoping. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." That has been a bittersweet word for me for a very long time, feeling deferred. It's dark and painful, but that mustard-seed size faith again is in the process of being salvaged. Am I on Step 1 or 5? I guess I will know when germination takes place. Only God, the Master-Gardner sorts the good and bad seeds that have been planted along my life path. I know I am removing as much chaff as I can, soaking in the Truth, allowing it to untwist what was twisted and distorted. Lots of drying, it doesn't sound pleasant, but necessary. So necessary it requires three steps. I can trust Him, He is Worthy of my praise and my obedience. He is leading me into all Truth. I left the evening receiving the exhortation to walk in confident trust. He wants truth in the most inward parts and I'm yielding to the process.

Pondering Steve Jobs

At the beginning of a recent message I heard at church the Pastor read a quote from Steve Jobs: "The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it." The message was from a series called "Christian or Disciple?" and was an excellent series. The word "Christian", the Pastor points out, is only used three times in the Bible and the definition is not to be found there. However, the word disciple is and is described as a follower or an apprentice, someone who chooses to follow a Master.  His point was being a disciple is not just about believing, but about how you treat and love other people and the world. The Pastor agreed with Jobs quote. I have not read the biography this quote came from, but it is on my list of books I want to read. He was the founder of the company I work for so I have an invested interest in learning about his life,  a respect for what he accomplished, and the vision and standard he established in technology. His life continues to impact people around the world. I did do some further research on the specific quote and thought it was interesting when I read some quotes that lead up to his opinion on Christianity:

"…Jobs’s parents wanted him to have a religious upbringing, so they took him to the Lutheran church most Sundays. That came to an end when he was thirteen. In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church’s pastor. “If I raise my finger, will God know which one I’m going to raise even before I do it?”

The pastor answered, “Yes, God knows everything.”

Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, “Well, does God know about this and what’s going to happen to those children?”

“Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.”

Jobs announced that he didn’t want to have anything to do with worshiping such a God, and he never went back to church. He did, however, spend years studying and trying to practice the tenets of Zen Buddhism. Reflecting years later on his spiritual feelings, he said that religion was at its best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma. “The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it,” he told the author of his biography, Walter Isaacson. 

I can't help but be curious as to what some of Steve Jobs "received dogma"s were to him. Was it just the over-all view of God allowing unimaginable suffering that turned him off or did he have some experiences with Christians and the dogma that goes along with Christianity? Maybe it was a mixture of both?

In the message from the Pastor he pointed out some ways the dogma of church-people, or what is commonly called as "Christians" can short-circuit the message of reconciling love that Jesus gave as a command to His disciples to the world. His command to love others as He loved them. To make disciples with the only avenue of that path being love. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus did not call His disciples to impose His values on all nations, threatening them, harsh words, not sharing gospel with love but coercion, or standing in superior judgement over the world. Instead, Jesus emphasized to love the world as He loved His disciples, in a humble, serving way. So it's not surprising that many in our world today, like Jobs,  are not drawn by the love that represented the Christ that is to be in Christians.

Was Jobs turned off by a God that allows incomprehensible suffering? This is understandable. It is not an easy thing to reconcile what God permits when He has the power to stop it or change it. There is probably not a person alive, Christian or non-Christian that has not grappled with the reality of pain and suffering. It is something I have wrestled with much. I don't claim to have a grasp on understanding all the why's. On a bad day I can get caught up in a tidal wave of why's and it's all too easy to get sucked under. On a good day I'm thankful for the freedom that lies behind the puzzle of suffering, for it does seem logical to equate the free-will of man with at least some of the responsibility of pain and heartache. God could of made us all so that we were wired to submit to Him, but would there be much freedom and relationship in that? God had to give us freedom, knowing what we might do with it. He could of made us puppets, but instead He made us persons. Our questions reflect our divine, inbred desire to grow. They can lead us into relationship with Him, which is entirely different than religion, which can turn into the dogma that might have been very unattractive to Steve Jobs. 

In his book "The Problem of Pain", C.S. Lewis says: " We can, perhaps conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became as soft as grass when it used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void; nay, if the principle were carried out to its logical conclusion, evil thoughts would be impossible, for the cerebral matter which we use in thinking would refuse its task when we attempted to frame them....Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself."

So I can relate to Jobs questioning of God. I don't think it is a bad thing. In The Bible Jacob is esteemed for wrestling with God and not punished. It was then that God changed his name from Jacob to Israel. Later, close to death, Steve Jobs told Isaacson he'd been thinking about God and a possible afterlife. But then he paused for a second, Isaacson recounted. "Yeah, but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone," he said, pausing again. "And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices." Unfortunately, I don't think it's as simple as on-off switches when it comes to the afterlife.  It's worth pondering. It was just that kind of questioning that lead me into the most important relationship I've ever had and ever will have. A relationship of love that I have spent a lifetime questioning, receiving, wrestling and growing in. It is His love for me that matters and my love for Him.


http://hopechurchchandler.com/sermons#series_47

Yoga, Harry Potter, and D & D

Yes, Yoga, Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons, gasp! Things that were taboo to me for a very long time have been recently introduced into my life and I am finding that they are not near as unclean as I was made to believe. Call it a spiritual-mid-life-crisis, but I've been examining, questioning,  and investigating and I've gotta say I've been pleasantly delighted.

Yoga, I recently joined the Y since I live within walking distance and my work now reimburses me for some fitness costs. The first class I tried was Zumba, I tried to nonchalantly hang in the back row, but my lack of coordination with dance moves had me feeling a little self-conscious. It was fun and I enjoyed it until later when I realized I had hurt myself with all that dancing and swinging the hand weights around! I figured yoga might be a better choice for me, but I had been warned against yoga for it's eastern influences and philosophy. I had a fondness for my yoga teacher from the get-go. She is an older hippie-looking gal with gray hair and an affinity for the Beatles and Pink Floyd music which she plays during the class. I loved her quirkiness and her calm, soothing, relaxing voice. It felt good to stretch and to focus on relaxing and breathing deep breathes. I'm an anxious person by nature so learning to breathe deep goes against my grain. I love her class and find I really enjoy yoga. She does says some things about emptying your mind and the likes of that, but there is no chanting or weirdness. Unless you think doing the child's pose to a Beatles song is weird.

Next up, Harry Potter movies. Big no-no as I was told it's bad magic that involves witchcraft. We've only seen the first two so far, but I have to say they are delightful and the magic isn't dark and not majorly different from my favorite Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Narnia series. They are family friendly movies which are getting harder to come by these days when you want great acting and all the things a big budget can afford. We plan to continue to watch them to see what adventures in Hogwarts School await them. We've enjoyed having a good series we can watch together. We laughed quite a bit in the first two and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Now on to Dungeons and Dragons. When my son came home and told me he played D & D at a friends house he was wise to add-on an addendum that it was not anything evil or satanic, but that it was a role-playing game that involves a lot of creativity, adventure and improvisation. I quickly took to researching it and found that there was quite a bit of negative publicity about it that was controversial. It made me leery, but I trust the family that owns the game and know they would not play it in a way that would make it dangerous on any level. I also know my son is discerning, but as a parent it is my job to be wise and look into things. He's played the game only a handful of times, and has communicated clearly to me exactly what is involved in playing the game and they play by their own rules which involves creativity and fun entertainment. It does represent the battle between good and evil, but in the end no more than a personal adventure in a Lord of the Rings-like universe.

I don't want to be a legalistic Christian. I think it can be a tendency in any Christian's life, it's something we need to be on guard for and it's honestly something I've been examining in my own life. Legalism can put the focus on the external to the neglect of the internal. Jesus had more conflicts with legalists than any other group. It also seemed to look like Jesus did things to purposely provoke the legalists of His day. Was it a coincidence that Jesus often healed people on the Sabbath? He was pretty obvious about violating many of the Pharisee's man-made rules whereas he could've been a little more subtle about it. There is freedom in Christ, yet we are called to be discerning and avoid evil. Yoga, Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons were things I was told were evil. To some people they are evil. To me they are a way to stretch and relax, a good movie series and a game my sons says will make family nights a lot more fun.

Wisdom from "Screwtape Letters"

My son was reading "Screwtape Letters" last school year for one of his home school classes so we  read it out loud, one chapter a week. I have read this book several times and we even own the dramatized Radio-Theater version with Andy Serkis voicing Screwtape as well as he voices Gollum in "The Lord of The Rings", in a guttural, evil voice as only he can do. If you are familiar with this book then you know the premise: Screwtape is the Uncle to Wormwood and is a senior demon to his novice nephew. The book is a compilation of these letters from Screwtape to his nephew who's been tasked with securing the eternal damnation and everyday demise of his human "patient". Thankfully the chapters are small because there is a lot to think about in the ways the enemy tries to get us "patients" off track! Each chapter gave me more than enough food-for-thought for one week.

There are so many nuggets of wisdom that C.S. Lewis has brilliantly dramatized for us via this diabolical comedy of sorts. For example, Screwtape writes: "There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy....our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them." This stood out to me in blazing clarity because I can so see this thought pattern in my own life. It's one of my biggest struggles, to not give in to anxious thoughts because I know it does just that: barricades my mind from trusting in God. It feeds on all the "what-if" questions that I can get caught in a mind-spewing cycle of anxiety and fear. It's the opposite of trust and rest which is why it works so well with little effort made to call attention to it.

In another letter Screwtape tells his nephew-in-training that His boss and our enemy are revolted in us humans because we are half-spirit and half-animal. As half spirits we belong to the eternal world, but as animals we inhabit time. "This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change." The enemy is aware of our strengths and weaknesses and our tendencies to repeat a pattern  of some sort of peaks and valleys. Work, affection for friends, physical appetites all go up and down "As long as he lives on earth, periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty." He goes on to tell him that this is merely a natural phenomenon which will not do them any good unless they "make a good use of it."

He tells him that they must do the opposite of what the Enemy (God) would want to make of it, knowing His intention to get permanent possession of a soul, the Enemy relies on the valleys even more than the peaks. He explains their logic this way: "To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of it's will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at His expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men and His service being perfect freedom is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself-creatures whose life, on its miniature scale will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and will be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself; the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct."

He goes on to say "Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless." This is so profound for me because it was this way of logic that brought me to truly want to know God as I started to explore this "Higher Power" I came to believe was God as I set about  to turn my life over to Him in my early twenties. I was, at the time, working through the Twelve Steps in a support group and was working on Step number Three which in secular words is "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God".  I could not move forward until I knew "Who" my God was and I had been taught from growing up in the Presbyterian Church where my Grandfather was an elder that God was the God of the Bible. I began researching this God and for whatever reason, this became the deciding factor for me, the logic that won me over was the realization that God gave me a free will, where He could have just simply, not.

Screwtape further explains to Wormwood that God may override the relationship with the patient with "emotional sweetness" at first, but that "He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws....He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs....Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. " He takes away His hand and "if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles."  He goes on to tell his nephew that their cause is "never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

That's encouraging to me. This is what faith is, looking out over a universe where God is not always visibly seen. We all can have moments where we feel incredibly alone and God feels strangely distant, where we ask "Why?" a million times, yet we still seek Him out, still desire to obey Him, we hang onto maybe a mustard-seed-size-faith. He invites our wrestling, understands our cursing when things just seem too hard, and gives grace that only He is qualified to give. It's His grace and love that helps me hold onto hope. The enemy wants to take that from me, but "Screwtape Letters" reminds me that hope is worth holding onto. No matter how sneaky the enemy is there is wisdom in knowing what we are up against and that God's goal is me united to Him, but still distinct and that even when I'm stumbling, He can be pleased in my perseverance in faith, no matter how small. Such insight and truth C. S. Lewis was able to articulate! No wonder I return to his writings again and again.

Practicing His Presence and Pomegranate Juice

The thought that God implanted  in me early this morning is to start each day expecting suffering. This is the opposite of my default thinking, where I unconsciously expect things to go smoothly and get irritated and insulted when things start going wrong. If I expect it, maybe I won't be so thrown off when irritations, big and small ones, come throughout my day.

I'm currently reading Brother Lawrence's "The Practice of the Presence of God", and it's inspiring how simply and humbly he strived after continual communion with God, stating: "This King, who is full of goodness and mercy, doesn't punish me. Rather, He embraces me lovingly and invites me to eat at His table. He serves me Himself and gives me the keys to His treasury, treating me as His favorite. He converses with me without mentioning either my sins or His forgiveness. My former habits are seemingly forgotten. Although I beg Him to do whatever He wishes with me, He does nothing but caress me. This is what being in His holy presence is like. "

This attitude overflows into every part of his life. I aspire to have the same expectation and surrender. To be able to say as he does: "It seems that a tranquil soul and a quiet spirit come to me even while I sleep. Because I am at rest, the trials of life bring me no suffering. I don't know what God has in store for me, but I feel so serene that it doesn't matter. What do I have to be afraid of when I'm with Him?"

Personally, I think one of my strongholds is anxiety. By nature I am not a sound sleeper, but anxiety is not something I can blame on genetics and anxiety has its contribution to my lack of continual rest. I am convicted that it boils down to a lack of trust. and maybe even a lack of thankfulness since God says to be anxious for nothing, but in all things be thankful and His peace will guard my heart and mind. I can lack in the area of a peaceful heart and mind. Going back to God's admonition to me this morning to expect trials and trouble. He tells me I will have it, so maybe if I expected it each day, and was yielded to the fruit and conforming it can bring, I would be less anxious and more peaceful.

Brother Lawrence exhorts us to humility, "as if you were a poor man knocking on the door of a rich man" and fixing your attention on His presence. Thankfully, I have a few examples of this in my own life, times were I was able to remain abiding in the Spirit when stressful or anxious thoughts or situations presented themselves. I wish I could say it was a way of life for me by now, but it's not. I get distracted from this truth and discipline all too easily.

An example of this in my own life that stands out is Pomegranate Juice. I rarely buy it because it's so expensive but on this particular day I did because I had a coupon. When I got home from my shopping trip and unloaded all my groceries, I discovered it was missing. Of course I quickly went into irritated mode. I called the store where I had been to see if I left it there and was quickly and abruptly told they did not have it and there was nothing they could do for me. It was then that I realized other items missing and all the more certain I must've left a bag of my items at the store. I vented my circumstances to God, after all He knew our budget concerns and my by-now-insistent craving for my precious Pomegranate Juice! I prayed for a more compassionate and helpful customer service agent, but also for His will, knowing this may be one of those live and learn experiences to be more aware of getting all my groceries and having to take the loss. When I called back I did get a different agent and she tracked down my left bag of groceries for me with  little effort. This is such a small example, but it stands out to me because I was able to remain in the Spirit and have joy and not go right into condemning myself mode. It also is an example where I was able to yield to whatever the outcome would be. It may sound small and silly, but it was a victory for me that day in my mind and holding it captive.

It's also humbling to me to realize I need more of these examples to get it into a practice,  a practice of moment-by-moment yielding to His Presence. Expecting trouble in this world, but taking courage knowing that He has already overcome the world and some day, the suffering will cease. So I'm glad I got the Pomegranate Juice I paid for that day, it really hit the spot, but I'm more thankful for the example of remaining in His presence to spite my circumstances. I pray I will learn to continually seek His attention in the big and small problems of life and to train myself to dwell in His presence all day long. 

We will make mistakes that cause inconvenience and hardship, we will have not-so-very-helpful Customer Service agents, we will have difficult people to contend with and circumstances that do not have easy answers. We will suffer in this world, but for those of us who look to Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we can remain In His Presence, abiding in Him, trusting in Him. And maybe every once in awhile we can have Pomegranate juice too.