Love this twitter from Derek re: discipleship.........To lead every person into a journey of discovering God, hearing his voice, and adjusting his or her life according to the scriptures ...
course I love he and his wife, their hearts for You....over in SA mentoring young Khosa men and women into lives about You so they can lead their villages into the same. It is so freakin exciting to read about their journey's...to know that their hearts are so sold out for you they are living in extreme circumstances in a 'saved' territory leading them deeper into seeking who YOU are, into full a blown relationship with Christ, with the God of the universe...to be led by Your Spirit...Your Word ....it seems exciting there and here.....I so yearn to give exactly that.....to walk with people into seeking You with their whole hearts, minds and souls.....

so this verse this morning....I loved it and while I want to stick in the whole of Romans 9 this one in the message translation excites me no end....

Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:

If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered

and the sum labeled "chosen of God,"

They'd be numbers still, not names;

salvation comes by personal selection.

God doesn't count us; he calls us by name.

Arithmetic is not his focus.

Proverbs 4 - 6; Romans 8

Had a lonely morning with noone from my 'group' showing up this morning. Trying not to get caught up in it being my fault (all about me) but honestly struggling with that. Wanting always wanting to BE an encourager and feeling more and more that I drain the people around me. Hearing 'be still and know'....believing that in that knowing I could become more loving...fighting the urge to be heard ...wanting desperately to BE more loving..GNO tonite wanting desperately to love them and afraid I will walk in needing their love....
So Abba a day of looking to You and only You, Your Son, allowing Your Spirit to take me where I NEED to be...........praying to follow wherever You lead.

Romans 8: 22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

:)

Proverbs 1-3; Romans 7

I don't dream anymore....
I don't know that I ever really have. I went through a period of time where I thot I was creative and maybe if I tried..but I don't think I am creative enough to dream.
I am not dissatisfied or dreamless and stagnate...I don't think anyway.

I am surrounded by beauty....my kids, my grands.....I am surrounded by beauty and brokenness and see the beauty there more than I ever have. I love to encourage those that are broken, have been battered and bruised by life. I love to encourage them to find YOU. I love to watch the beauty come alive when they realize You were never lost. I love to be a part of transformation that comes in that discovery. If I did dream it would be for more and more of those experiences, those contacts....that in those discoveries there would be more and more people seeing the beauty in brokenness and that we would become a people of You...that maybe I get to play a small part in anothers discovery....experience.....their touching the lives and experiences of others......I pray to become more prayerful about that...to become more intentional about my relationships and that in that prayer and intentionality You will do what You do so well.....so maybe i do dream....:)

Proverbs 1: 7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. Having been a fool I pray to come into contact with more and more like me and that I wouldn't be discouraged by their walls and walk with them towards discovering that fear.....I wonder.....where is my fear right now?? I wonder if my lack of dreaming indicates that?? I wonder how I can give away something I don't have?? I wonder

Proverbs 2: 1 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,
3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
And here it is, years of reading Your Word.....learning to listen now....to be obedient to all that you command...whoa command....I have found the hidden treasure now what am I doing with it??

counterintuitive today in every thot, every action .......Proverbs 3: 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

and then all of Romans 7.....much making sense today...I will Abba hold all this deep in my heart and in that holding trust wherever it is You lead.....I will follow today Abba...I will in the holding and yeielding trust and follow....yikes

1 Kings 10 -11; 2 Chronicles 9; Romans 6

1 Kings 11: 9 The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. 10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD's command. 11 So the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. 12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 13 Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen."

This seems unfair......
Probably because it scares me so.....that my children and Grands will suffer, have suffered because of my choices......
To be that old lady who just in loving You loves others......weirdly so perhaps......maybe doesn't even look that loving...maybe just looks weird.....that's why I love that sidewalk prophets song so much 'these are the words i would say'......

Be strong in the Lord and,

Never give up hope,

You're going to do great things,

I already know,

God's got His hand on you so,

Don't live life in fear,

Forgive and forget,

But don't forget why you're here,

Take your time and pray,

These are the words I would say.

You know IF I did that, and didn't give a flip what others thot.....except it would look more like 'not caring' as opposed to not give a flip (there would naturally be a lack of hardness to it)....

I live in fear....I care too much to rock the boat or appear judgmental (even tho I am) ...when You promise to be with me and Romans 6: 19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Your slave......why will I not just recognize that role?

1 Kings 9; 2 Chronicles 8; Psalm 136; Romans 5

home...I love LA but home ______....
Time w/daughter and hubs always good, not so much restful and the thing is I LOVE that I really do Love LA, I just love home more......
LA is edgy, risky, diverse, fast.....as much as I love going I love coming home all the more.....
love a taste tho and pray to live RISKY here......to seek out diversity.....quit seeking out my own comfort so relentlessly....and the thing I don't think I know that's what I do...it's so in me....and yet this constant prayer to live RISKY......

I love that my Grand will be multi -cultural....be raised around loving examples of so many different cultures....I do pray for Mom and baby to be YOUR lights....to in that diversity be a light, to remember all that she knows of You....to be grateful that where You have her is where she's always wanted to be...steeped in diversity and out of the norm...for her to THANK YOU for all of it, for knowing her heart so well....for knowing how discontent she would be in a life w/out challenge and change and risk.....please Abba help her to give her child in the midst of so much diversity a centeredness in YOU.........

So today Abba I pray......to listen....to tune into Your heartbeat here.....a listening to You...conversational prayer.....to hear You and respond lovingly....obediently.....immediately and lovingly....

'Your love endures forever'

I want to live risky Abba.....counterintuitively RISKY

cuz I am headed to

to see

and

(btw pic is one I swiped off line.....just for point of story, but still!!!)

HOPE without expectation...........
Plans without putting them in concrete.....

a trip to LA....multiple trips.....

vacation.................?

wedding in Colorado...............

South Africa........

mentoring / discipling women....

being in the delivery room.........

Holidays w/a new grand baby......
living counterintuitively...

There is much swimming around in this brain, this heart......hoping and giving each hope to You and learning that in the giving there is much freedom.....

I love LA...I really do, to visit. Stepping off the airplane you are hit w/an almost physical blast of energy....I do believe it is a place of influence. This trip to help my pregnant daughter wrap her brain around a nursery, what a blessing...what a freaking miraculous blessing....I am a fan of all things Hollywood, have been forever....dreamt forever about going there (and now this is like my 5th trip).....TV, movies, celebrities.....I believe we are a media driven society and that we can influence people in and through the industry. Now am I happy my Grandchild will grow up there...not so much, it's so far away..... I understand why and hope and dream mom and dad will be so caught up in You that they will not fall into other traps....I believe in You those traps are absolutely ineffective and hollow threats, without You probably as deadly as any around. It is an influential city and a very lonely one.....So how do I pray.....I pray that You are so real to followers of Christ there that they in living vital, risky lives there influencing in that vitality and risk, more and more to Your Love......
Vacation....I don't know Abba, I think I need one......but as in most things I could be so totally wrong about that....
Wedding in Colorado.....flying w/in-laws....I so desire to BE servant hearted to not worry about what everyone else is doing and just .........love and serve them....and YOU know how much of You I am gonna need....
South Africa...Dan's return in July for 2 weeks, how jealous I am. Not incapacitatingly so....I am praying that if that is going to have traction in our lives he feels it stronger and stronger. I am praying about so much over there, who's already there and who desires to go. Praying for hearts so devoted to You that the things that happen there, here and in and to people takes them/us deeper and further and riskier that we ever dreamed.....
mentoring / discipling women.....what does that look like Abba? How can someone who's never been mentored be trusted? How can I get past that this is what I have always wanted to do and follow wherever You might lead? How can I give away this incredible journey???
being in the delivery room......oh to be wanted there is incredible...this child has not wanted us too close to any big moment....and now to be wanted there and to see the impossiblity of it...ahh what do I do with this Abba? Praying and hoping and trying to not to get demanding about it...:)
Holidays w/a new Grand....Wow...just Wow...last year convincing ourselves, well it's not gonna happen anymore, the sharing of holidays with our kids, giving them the freedom to be where they need to be and then BAM looks ...well......heck it's only May who knows how it's gonna look....hoping without expecting anything.....
living counterintuitively....really all the above I think about differently. I don't know how this dependence on You has come about. There's really nothing hard in my life.....we have grown in our faith....to watch my husband...I mean this was a man who was never going to travel out of these United States, watching him prepare for a 2nd trip to South Africa...18 hours on a plane?? We give like we always prayed to and we pray to give more.....that's weird, I've always been pretty selfish, still am, You've just provided us w/funds to give..how........we / I am awed this morning Abba by You in our lives...by YOU in the lives of the people around me...by You awed and so very grateful.....
2 Thess. 2 Stand Firm
13 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

James 4:1-3 I fight because I continue to want what I want. And then I don't get it so I kill the desire, but I still want. So I do whatever it takes....I don't get it because I don't ask.....and if I do ask it's not with anything right in my heart.....



Help me love

to stop fighting for what I want

to be still and know and in that knowing counterintuitively move.....



I will pray this today....I will listen.....

'life is too short to live afraid.'...line from Private Practice last nite
attending the funeral of a friend this evening
going to LA next week
worship
obedience
'they'll know us by our love'
counterintuitive living

that's the way my brain is working this morning, my heart soft and yielded to all of it, right now ....a desire to live on fire, a fear of weirdness,
a bigger fear of dying without giving away all that You have given me......to live in a knowing that what what You ask is not impossible....always hard but never impossible because it's You.....

James 3: 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

2 Samuel 21 - 23; 1 Thessalonians 1

The weeks are kind of running together and yet with so much going on and trying to experience each moment I fight that running. Had a Mother's Day for the books, riding bikes with all but Dara and Juno....picnicing and riding bikes, catching tadpoles and crawdads and listening to the Grands laugh. At one point Millie was on my lap playing a game with my phone and her laughter is now a permanent happy place to go....
I wonder that my Abba wants to hear us that much...our laughter, our pain, our frustrations. That as much as I enjoyed Millie HE enjoys us...that thot makes me hurt so good and drives me deeper and deeper into discovering everything I can about Him....and as painful as it is allowing His Spirit to reveal more and more of me to me......

2 Samuel 21, after giving over Sauls family members to the Gibeonites and vs.14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul's father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.....I am staggered and awed this morning that You are the same God I am seeking, not because I don't understand ( I don't) because thru Christ I am forgiven of more and allowed to seek You, know You, relish in being loved by You.....awed and staggered and totally not understanding but believing......and in that belief moving deeper and deeper into a life I never knew existed....

And then Thessalonians this morning....4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath....I generally in this pray for others this morning I am feeling it for me....I so want Your message ringing out from me.....I don't know how and yet I want to Abba....I want to be a believer motivated by Your Love......I want to spread this infection as far as I can.....So Abba a day of listening and loving as You lead.

New CPM Study

We are, have always been big proponents of Small Groups. Never been successful or fruitful with it and yet always drawn to the process. Now we have entered into a new way of doing it and it is exciting. I have been excited before and am prone to idealizing things anyway and it is frightening some times to always be so ready to follow something or someone and not have any of my own ideas....that being said this looks so promising.
It's a study they are using overseas to start churches....you read small passages of the Bible together and then talk about it, question it, let the group think massage it into a heartfelt..Holy Spirit experience and it was......well it was amazing. It was passionate with traces of true humility in people who had never engaged Your Word in a group setting. It concludes with an I WILL.......I will share this story, this experience, I will DO something that this leads me to....it's teaching/experiencing OBEDIENCE.....
So praying that people who have never experienced the applicability of Your Word be brought to a new way of being able to come to KNOW You and Your Word....to realize that You are in pursuit of them, waiting for them, loving them....that life with You is far better for them than a life apart...
It's frightening sometimes how passionately I feel this.....how Big You are and how insignificant I am and yet You love me...us. thank you Abba

A friend lost her baby in utero last nite....
Homelessness.........
Floods in Tennessee........
Haiti.............
terrorism.....
oil spills....
and I tear up when I think of orphans and widows ....Mama's in SA taking care of, feeding children without anyone to provide for them.....young women and men Christianized and yet needing mentors....men and women to make real with them, walk with them in Christ....a dream I won't nurture. There are people much younger and better suited to doing this....and yet I tear up dreaming of being a part of a movement to deepen their faith....dream of in their growth and deep faith seeing whole villages....what??
They already take care of their own as best they can...but to see whole villages live Acts 2...create Acts 2 communities.....and why, we can't do it here. We are a people..I am a person who watches out for me and mine. Oh I may occassionally enlarge my circle of peeps...the mine..... but to think that YOU created us for community, sacrificing everything for each other.....
ahhh that just while extremely exciting and attractive sounds IMPOSSIBLE.....
so what now Abba.....Can't help but think of the lyrics to Carlos Whittakers song We will Worship...scary to sing and yet to not seems in this moment unthinkable...

Save us from these comforts

Break us of our need for the familiar

Spare us any joy that’s not of You

And we will worship YouYeah,

we will worship You.

Here's the rest of the lyrics and go buy it here....
We fix our eyes on You,
You are God alone
We fix our eyes on You,
You’re our only hope
For all we have to lose is our very souls
We fix our eyes on You,
You are God alone
We fix our eyes on You,
You’re our only hope

For all we have to lose is our very souls
Save us from these comforts
Break us of our need for the familiar
Spare us any joy that’s not of You
And we will worship You
Yeah, we will worship You
Satisfy us, Lord, in Your unfailing love
Satisfy us, Lord, that You would be enough
We have nothing here, let Your kingdom come
Save us from these comforts
Break us of our need for the familiar
Spare us any joy that’s not of You
And we will worship You
Yeah, we will worship You
Hallelujah, HallelujahHallelujah, Hallelujah
Save us from these comforts
Break us of our need for the familiar
Spare us any joy that’s not of You
And we will worship You
Yeah, we will worship You

2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17; Psalm 2; Matthew 20

2 Samuel 7: 25 "And now, LORD God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, 26 so that your name will be great forever. Then men will say, 'The LORD Almighty is God over Israel!' And the house of your servant David will be established before you.

ahh David seems to so 'get it'......I know another big screw up is coming but here in this moment he seems to be so humble and recieves You and Your word, Your promises so succinctly.....

we live upside down and Jesus came to right us up? The things we believe after years of rubbing up against people and our own thots...and You, Jesus, Your Holy Spirit is out to shake them up....we take Matt. 20: 24 When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.".....and turn that, dirty that up into being doormats....something we can't/won't do.....we have to stand up for ourselves and the whole time You're asking for a knowing in our hearts of You that makes us WANT to be the least....I don't know how to do that Abba......I pitifully continue to try and appear to have it all together and fight for my place.....what the heck huh? Gonna end up crazy as a loon trying to balance that which you never promised balance to......and yet the alternative.....really REALLY believing all that You say makes me feel crazy now......makes me hopeless and defeated before I ever even bend to trying it......to allowing You to do something different in me....I'm just scared nah...I'm just stubborn...so Abba please break this stubborn heart, but do it gently....see stubborn to the freakin end and wanting to know what it will look like.....