"Set Apart" Series, Part Two: Snub & Run

In Part One, I pondered if the set-apart life could really be done according to 1st Peter 3:8 & 9. Based on the comments received on the blog and on Facebook, it's obvious people are hungry for discussion on this.

For Part Two, I'm going to pause & ponder the rest of that passage in 1st Peter. Verses 10-12 (The MSG again):

"Whoever wants to embrace life

and see the day fill up with good,

Here's what you do:

Say nothing evil or hurtful;

Snub evil and cultivate good;

run after peace for all you're worth.

God looks on all this with approval.

But He turns His back

on those who do evil things."

I love the way this is worded in the NIV too. "Whoever would love life and see good days..."

Do we as believers in Christ really desire to love life? Do we want to embrace it? Not love it and embrace it in the sense that we love life more than we love Christ, but do we love the life that God has given us to live by the power of the HOly Spirit--that life mentioned in John 10:10--"life to the full."

I think the two verses build on one another:

"The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy,

but I have come that they may have life & have it to the full."

We already have life to the full living in us, but whether we live it out to the full or not is a whole different story.

Sometimes we are content to be discontent with life. "The world is falling apart..." "I can't wait to be in Heaven..." True. But I don't want us to get to the point where we allow our thinking on the ick Satan is doing to rob us of Christ's fullness alive in & available to us today.

So if we truly desire loving Christ's life in us, this passage shares how to do that. Peter chooses to go back to the advice given in Psalm 34:

"Say nothing evil or hurtful;

Snub evil and cultivate good;

run after peace for all you're worth."

Sounds so easy, doesn't it? I can't think of anything I pray about more than God helping me in these areas. My words come from the overflow in my heart, and folks, it ain't pretty in there a lot of the time. If my spiritual life could be measured by how much time I spend in the Word, I would get an "A" for sure. But if it were measured by how much time I live out the Word, well, I'd never graduate!

But we don't ever graduate, do we? His grace gives us opportunity after opportunity to live life His way. He loves us that much.

I love the picture in my head when I read "Snub evil." There's no major rant, no violent declaration. Just snub and run on ahead. God in us is too good to spend time chewing out evil. We hold our heads up high, realizing we have the Word of life in us, and we go on to "cultivate good & run after peace." HE is the Prince of Peace, and when we run after Him, evil runs the other direction.

Don't mean to trivialize the power of evil. In every post on a passage of Scripture, there is another passage to give it more depth or light. Sometimes we are faced with a horrible battle with evil, and the Lord gives us more intense training in our faithwalks. We are to stay aware and on our guard against the devil's schemes (1st Peter 5:8). We are to fight with spiritual weapons (Ephesians 6). But I would still argue that if you are running after the Lord, you will be fully aware and armed when those intense battles come.

Please don't be intimidated if you are not to this place on your Christian journey yet. I've been a committed Christian since childhood, and I'm still not. But the question is, do we have the want-to? And if we're at a place where we have the want-to, are we willing to go about it God's way? We can't get there on our own.

"'Not by might, not by power, but by MY Spirit,' says the Lord." Zechariah 4:6

"...apart from Me, you can do nothing." John 15:5

I can't leave the topic without the last few points of the passage. They are key:

"God looks on all this with approval.

But He turns His back

on those who do evil things."

When we live life HIS way, He approves. When we do evil, He doesn't. He's holy. Yes, there's grace and forgiveness when we repent, thank goodness, but if we struggle with the same sins on a repetitive basis, we are wise to remember He is holy and that He hates sin. Often I have to get to the place where I've grown to hate my sin so much that I am more submissive to Him than ever to help me turn from it. Inevitably, when I do, it's hard and uncomfortable. But it's worth it in the end, because "life to the full" is so much sweeter than life to the comfortable. Full life keeps on giving and flowing. Comfort-driven life not only has limits, but also begins to deplete.

Wild stuff, but true. What are your thoughts?

RUN!!!

Have any phrases that repeat themselves over and over in your mind? I have many. One that comes up a LOT is the line from the movie Forrest Gump which his friend Jenny says every time he’s in trouble. “Run, Forrest, Run!”

Often, when I think of running in the spiritual sense, I picture resisting evil or fleeing for cover or safety when I’m in trouble. Verses like these come to my mind:

“…they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31b

“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance…”  Hebrews 12:1b

In other words..."Run, Laura, Run!"
I’ve become a pretty strong runner spiritually, even though sometimes I sprint in the wrong direction, forcing the Lord to help me out of the woods. But lately, He's reminded me to race with a different end in mind.

My friends regularly get a chuckle out of the fact that I call myself a female David. “I’m Davidia,” I’ll joke with them. That could seem like I’m bragging, because after all David is known as the man “after God’s own heart.” But that’s not the part of David's character I'm referring to. I’m talking about his high highs and his low lows. I mean, is there anyone else in the Bible that expresses his gut feelings—praise ones or depressed ones—to the Lord so vulnerably and vehemently? When it’s praise time, the goin’ is good. But when it’s down in the dirt time, it ain’t so pretty. (Bear in mind, though, that David almost always praised the Lord even in the midst of his low moments…this is not a quality of his that I’ve mastered yet).

It’s no wonder I run to the Psalms whenever I need company with my mood swings. Sometimes, Depression surfaces from somewhere within me, and I know I need to run fast and hard from it. The Lord is teaching me, though, that it’s not really about what I’m running FROM, it’s about who I’m running TO. 

I’m not running from my depression, I’m running to the Maker of joy. 

I’m not running from temptation, I’m running to the God of righteousness. 

I’m not running from my own personal prison. I’m running to the One who set me free.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

"Run, Laura, Run!"
How about you? Are you running from or to?

At one point in the movie that I mentioned above, Jenny says something to Forrest as she is getting ready to hitch a ride away from him and her problems for the dozenth time. “Listen. you promise me something, okay?” she begs. “Just if you’re ever in trouble, don’t try to be brave. You just run, OK? Just run away.”

Amen, Jenny. I couldn’t agree more in the context of this message. It’s not about us being brave enough. It’s about Him being strong in our weakness, for “God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.” (1st Corinthians 1:25b) So, just run, okay?

Run to Righteousness. 

Run to Joy. 

Run to Forgiveness. 

Run to Truth. 

Run to Grace. 

Run to the Lord.

Run, Believer, Run!

“The name of the LORD is a strong tower; 

the righteous run to it and are safe.” 

Prov. 18:10

This is a devotional sent out via email to my lovinthearts.com subscribers. If you would like to receive these in your inbox, simply click here and add your email address. http://www.lovinthearts.com/SubscribeForm.html


All Scriptures are taken from the NIV unless otherwise noted.
Quotes from Forrest Gump were taken from imdb.com.

There's Gain in the Pain/A Study on Contentment

God’s been doing a work in my life. He’s in the process of re-ordering my priorities. I’ve had to give up, let go, press on, fight through, and beg to survive it all emotionally. But the obedience has been there.

Or has it?

When my son was eight years old, he obeyed so beautifully. The reason I say “beautifully” is because he not only complied the first time we asked him to do something, but he did so cheerfully, willingly and calmly. As his freedoms have increased and the innocence of the younger years has decreased, that’s changed a tad (much to be expected with a teenager). He still obeys, but often he’s irritated about it. Resistant. Reluctant.

It’s the pattern I’ve noticed in my spiritual life. I’ve been on the track to Godliness, growing up in Him for awhile now. Not a day goes by that I don’t spend time in His Word, talking to Him, preaching of Him or serving with Him. He is my constant help. And I obey, but often I’m irritated about it. Like a spiritual teenager, I'm Resistant. Reluctant.

I hold back from complete surrender.

After a few weeks of asking, He finally showed me why. My agitated resistance is caused by an unwillingness to suffer—to experience discomfort. I looked up the word “suffer,” because I thought, Lord, I’ve got it so good. What do I know of suffering? Here’s how the definition read in Merriam Webster online:

transitive verb
1 a: to submit to or be forced to endure b: to feel keenly : labor under
2: undergo , experience
3: to put up with especially as inevitable or unavoidable
4: to allow especially by reason of indifference
intransitive verb
1: to endure death, pain, or distress
2: to sustain loss or damage
3: to be subject to disability or handicap

Wowzer. To experience true contentment in Christ, I need to be willing to suffer—to put up with, to undergo, to sustain loss or damage...to submit. I need to endure the pain of dying to my own wishes.

“Then He (Jesus) said to the crowd,
‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways,
take up your cross daily and follow me.
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.
But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
(Luke 9:23-24, NLT)

Does any of this resonate with you? What does “you must turn from your selfish ways” mean to you? Is there anything you’re clinging to other than Him as your source for life?

The cross was all about true, deep, perfect love...but it was also heavy and painful. Non-resistant. Willing.

So are we really walking in willing obedience?

His Word tells us that Godliness is worth striving for, but we gain so much more when it is accompanied with contentment. Godliness is a beautiful thing when it’s lived out of the overflow of the believer’s heart. But add contentment to the equation, and you’ve gained a whole bunch that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. Stuff like peace and joy and true satisfaction. All of this comes from a life that is willing to surrender, my friends, even if pain is involved. Ouch—it hurt just saying that.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have legitimate concerns about something or that we aren’t angered with the unrighteousness of the world we live in. 

But it reminds us that we have no bone to pick with the one true God of the universe.

Here’s what the Lord showed me after doing a short (and incomplete) study on the subject:

Discontentment comes from:
• a bored heart (Ecclesiastes 1:7-9)
• a restless heart (Psalm 131:2)
• a contentious heart (Proverbs 15:18, 22:10; Titus 3:9)
• a comparing heart (2 Corinthians 10:12)
• a self-important heart (Matthew 23:11; Colossians 3:3-4, 12; 1 Peter 5:6)
• an unwilling heart (Isaiah 26:7)
• an ungrateful heart (Philippians 4:11-12)
• an unsatisfied heart (Ecclesiastes 4:6; 1 Timothy 6:8; Luke 3:14)
• an ungodly heart (1 Timothy 6:6, Proverbs 19:23)
• an untrusting heart (Hebrews 13:5, John 14:7-9)

I’m sure there are many more, but this is just where the Holy Spirit took me as I searched the Word. Do any of these describe your heart right now? There is no doubt in my mind that contentment is one of the vulnerable areas the enemy is quick to attack. It is a root of many evils in our world today. It’s what has our nation crying out for “change,” the masses in panic over the stock market, our kids asking for more and their parents searching for significance, success and the fountain of youth.

I’m not content to live with discontentment anymore. You with me? Even if pain is involved in the process, I want to gain the Spirit-filled life the Lord has offered me as I willingly surrender my resistance to Him.

Lord Jesus, You are the perfect shape for the holes in our hearts. You are so willing to be our all as we turn to You to meet our needs. May we call on You, depend on You, have joy in You this day, and every day, as we put our trust in You for contentment. In Jesus' name, Amen.

In the Key of HE,

More Deep Devotion

Okay, well I gotta do it again. My heart is stirred by what I read in my devotions this morning, but it is deeeeeep and uncomfortable. Read at your own risk. ;)

This is from "Meditations on The Heart of God" (pg. 31) by Francois Fenelon, which my good friend Whitney nudged me to pull off my bookshelf and read. To think all this incredible stuff has just been sitting there dusty, waiting to be re-read. I've been missing out. Anyway, here 'tis:

Do this, and you will live. (Jesus Christ, in Luke 10:28b, RSV)

"We often say we would like to know what to do to advance in virtue--but when the Spirit of God shows us what to do, we often lack the courage to carry it out. We have a strong feeling that we are not what we ought to be. We see how our burdens grow day by day. Yet we feel we are doing a lot just by saying we want to be delivered out of ourselves.

"Let us count it as nothing if we say we are willing to follow God, and then do not go as far as sacrificing the things that stop us from walking in God's ways. Let us not hold the truth captive through our unrighteous half-heartedness."

Those last two lines are the kicker, aren't they? Listen, this stuff is not for the legalist. If you struggle with legalism, you may want to consider letting the Lord help you with the issue of freedom in Christ first. But if you have been a Christian awhile, have set aside legalism, and you've been walking free in the Spirit, then this is for you. It's for me too. It's where I am.

I want the deeper life because I love the Lord. I want to be righteous because I love the Lord. I want to live whole-heartedly devoted to Him, because the Spirit of God is pressing the matter within me.

Is He doing the same in you?

Psalm 86:11 (NIV)

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

Father God, I'm almost speechless. I'm in awe of Your goodness, even at a time in my life when my groanings are louder than ever. I have need for nothing. You have given me every single thing I need, and to be honest, most of what I want as well. But Lord, You have placed this restlessness within me for a deeper fellowship with You--not an anxious restlessness, but a holy one. Lord, help me to mean it when I say I want You to lead and direct my ways. Help me to tell the truth when I offer to be a living sacrifice for You. Replace my timid spirit with Your spirit of power. Substitute my selfish heart with Your heart of sacrificial love. I pray that You would do the same, Lord of all, with my brothers and sisters who answered a "yes" to the question above. May we fully rely on Your Holy Spirit in us to do this work. In Your magnificent name I pray, Amen.

In the Key of HE,

The Great Gain

My life sings JOY over Word-Filled Wednesday!!!!

In a world where happiness trumps holiness,

where wrong feels right and right is all about feelings,

where money, money, money 

keeps us singing, spending, striving,

where "enough" is NOT

and "plenty" is relative,

God's Word interrupts...

Father God, You define enough, and it is You. Thank You for giving us everything that we need for life and for Godliness, and for the working of the Holy Spirit to produce contentment with our circumstances. Lead us to confess our sins, to turn from them, and to surrender our very lives to You this day. 

In Your all-sufficient name I pray, Amen.

For more beauty mixed with Truth or to join in on this meme, go here:







In the Key of HE,

Burn It, Baby!

Hey all, some of the readers of my blog may not know that a huge part of my Lifesong--where my love for ministry writing was really born was from a totally separate devotional ministry where I send out devotionals and fiction stories from my Lovinthearts.com ministry website . I thought I would post one from last year, and I hope it ministers to you today.

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Burn It, Baby!

As a little girl growing up in the Midwest, I have memories of the smell of burning leaves. In the fall, people would rake their massive volume of leaves, sometimes multiple times a week, but instead of bagging them, they would put them into piles for burning. It was a unique odor that I will never forget…not a bad one, just distinct.

One day, I was going with my Mom to my aunt’s house in “the country,” and I smelled the most horrible odor. This was AFTER making it past all the OTHER odors that one survives as she drives through the rural areas of southern Illinois (maybe to do with cows). Anyway, it was something burning, but it wasn’t leaves, and it stunk to high heaven! I pinched my nose and asked my mom what that hetrocious smell was as I gagged through the little air I allowed to come in through my mouth. She said, “Someone’s burning trash!” I had no idea that people could burn trash, but she went on to let me know that this was a regular act for country folk.

This memory came to my mind as I was reading this morning, and you know what, the smell even came back with it! YUCK! I’m glad it did, though, because it gave me a tangible grasp on this passage of Scripture from The Message:

Matthew 3:11-12
"I'm (John the Baptist) baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The Main Character in this drama—compared to Him I'm a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false He'll put out with the trash to be burned."

Imagine that! When we were saved, He lit a fire within our souls …the Holy Spirit. His role was to change us from the inside out…so the flame lit inside of us shines brightly on “Christ in us” while burning the “trash” at the same time. He took up that stink, so that we would be clean before Him…Do we get that? Our souls are spotless before the Lord because He did some sweeping, raking and burning.

Our goal as Christians is to keep living in Him, in a deeper and brighter way each day. The salvation part is covered, but there is still sanctification to be done. The cool thing is that we have the perfect Source of life within us, and we have access to that Source as we keep ourselves plugged into it.

When the Lord is our starting place for energy, for purity, for holiness, for light, for joy, for peace, for fullness, for pleasure—when HE is the supply of all those things—THEN and ONLY then, will we have success at living the Kingdom life here on earth. There is absolutely no way to do it on our own.

John 14:19 says, “Because I live, you will also live.” Because He did not give way to sin or to death, HE LIVES! When we draw on His life, He gives us the ability to say “no” to sin and death for today. As we repent and submit, He takes out the trash in our hearts and minds and burns it, baby! And I’m sure it stinks to high heaven. After those ashes comes His beauty as He reorganizes our priorities with His own.

What a wonderful opportunity for us to recognize His work in us today, friends, and to praise Him…to fall down and worship Him…to submit to Him. I’m ready for the Main Character in my drama (and there’s always lots of it) to do some igniting in me, how about you?

Let’s go to our Starting Place:

LORD JESUS, YOU ARE OUR SOURCE, OUR PROVIDER, OUR HELP. WHEN WE’RE TIRED, YOU’RE OUR ENERGY. WHEN WE’RE WORRIED, YOU’RE OUR PEACE. WHEN WE’RE CONFUSED, YOU’RE OUR COUNSELOR. WHEN WE’RE ATTACKED, YOU’RE OUR DEFENDER. WHEN WE’RE WEAK, YOU’RE OUR STRENGTH. WHEN WE’RE ANGRY, YOU’RE OUR CALM. YOU AND YOU ALONE DO ALL THESE THINGS IN US, AND YOU DO THEM WELL.
HELP US, FATHER, TO TRUST IN YOU TODAY, TO MAKE YOU OUR SUFFICIENCY.
IN YOUR NAME WE PRAY, AMEN.

In the Key of HE,

Flowers On The Ledge

I was looking out the balcony of our hotel room in Vail. Draped on top of the ornate metal railing was a beautiful rectangular planter of reddish orange flowers. I was easily distracted by them, especially since I have a black thumb and can’t seem to make my own flowers live when I’ve planted them in the past. In front of the balcony was a huge waterfall. It made looking directly out of the room a very pleasant experience. 

The thing that struck me as I sat out on the patio to enjoy the beauty my second to last day, however, was that the flowers were right at eye level. They were the only thing I could see. I thought to myself, What’s the point of just having a view of the flowers? While they were very beautiful, I couldn’t see the waterfall very well or even the glorious mountains in the background. The flowers were gorgeous, the waterfall was refreshing, but my view was obstructed from the grandest scenery of all!

This caused me to remember a phrase that my friend Dan has quoted several times in the recent past: “Good is the enemy of best.” I think that is the case in my life sometimes. How often do I miss the big picture of the faith by focusing in on the good but lesser things of the faith? Are my priorities in line with what Jesus would want for me as His follower? Luke 10:38-42 comes to mind:

“As Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’

“’Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’”

Martha was doing what was good, but Mary chose the better….can we say the same? Are we too busy doing good stuff to sit at His feet each day?

Volunteering at church is good. Doing Bible Studies is good. Doing your best at work is good. Keeping yourself in shape is good. Enriching friendships is good. Blogging about Jesus is good. It’s all good, unless it becomes the rival of choosing that which is better…

Let’s do the good stuff for God AFTER making the time to do the “one thing that is needed”: sitting at the feet of Jesus. Good doesn’t have to be the enemy of best in this case if we make our worship of the Lord our greatest priority.

What represents your flowers on the ledge? Go ahead and water them, but step on your tip-toes if needed to make sure your view of the better things is not obstructed. When you are looking from His high view, it may change the way you are looking at what’s right in front of you…

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9

In the Key of HE,

At the Well of Titus 2

I'm participating in an incredible new meme on Mondays created by Chelsey at Joyfully Living. It is called "At the Well: In Pursuit of Titus 2." Please click on this beee-auteeful button if you would like to find out more or participate. It is a privilege to be a part of:

Today's discussion question is as follows:

What does being a Titus 2 woman mean to you?

I've prayed about this question as I've pored over the verses. Chelsey is not asking me, "What does Titus 2 mean?" or "What does Titus 2 teach?" She's asking, "What does being a Titus 2 woman mean to me?

Depending on what mood I'm in, I could answer this question in a hundred different ways. It's an incredible question. But here's my brilliant answer for today.

To me, being a Titus 2 woman means
being a woman who waits at the well.

To keep from slandering, to run from addictions, to teach and train younger women and children, to be self-controlled, to be pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to my husband...to be all those things makes me want to find a brown paper bag to breathe in really fast requires my willingness to wait on the Lord at the well. See, when I come to Jesus empty, thirsty, useless, needy and dependent, He will be my source for Godly living. It is His grace and His gift of salvation that makes it so:

Titus 2:11-14, NIV says, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

I've played the tapes back time and again in my mind. Whenever I've tried to live righteously without Jesus as the source of it, I've capital-F Failed. Whenever I've depended on Jesus and trusted Him to live righteously through me, I've walked in VICTORY (and by the way, it IS possible to live in victory even when I'm having a bad day, or going through a season of trials...it doesn't mean I'm all smiles. It just means I'm God-strong).

I wish I could say that I am that Titus 2 woman at the well every single moment of every day, but...well, I wanna be. And I want to wanna be more than ever before.

How about you? What does being a Titus 2 woman look like to you? Go sign the Mr. Linky on Chelsey's page and give the question a poke or two on your blog. And we'll be women at the well of Titus 2 together today.

Where's A Soapbox When You Need One?

Mud-slinging--Mud-slinging—Brittney--More mud-slinging—Ew, now that’s just inappropriate—Obama vs. McCain—mud-slinging disguised as news—high-pitched beep—More inappropriate.

This is what I witnessed as I flipped channels one night. I couldn’t believe how negative, how cruel, how absurd it all was.

Where’s a soapbox when you need one?

“Anyone who leaves his car out of the garage with valuables inside needs a dunce hat. We don’t ALL need to spend money for security just because of a few (profanity along the lines of idiots) in our neighborhood.”

This was an email from our homeowner’s yahoo group about some crime in our neighborhood. Trust me, it got way worse from there.

Where’s a soapbox when you need one?

I could go on and on, and most surely would, if only I could find my soapbox. The problem is that there are too many soapboxes out there already. This has been the matter the Lord has placed on my heart over recent months as I’ve asked Him to clean me up from the inside out.

How does God want me to handle it when I have a complaint? What should my response be to the ‘mud-slinging’ this world--even the Christian one--has to offer me? He’s given me a voice. How does he want me to use it? How did the Lord God of Heaven intend for us to speak out on His behalf?

Here’s the general answer: His intention is for us to come to Him with our complaints first, giving Him the opportunity to show us how to respond or react, or whether we should at all.

“I pour out my complaint before HIM; before HIM I tell my trouble.” Psalm 142:2

“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in HIM and HE will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause shine like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for HIM; do not fret when men succeed in their ways…when they carry out their wicked schemes.” Psalm 37:5-7

If we go to our friends, our websites, our self-help books first, we miss out on an awesome opportunity to glean from His wisdom. He may lead us to a friend to help us sort things through. He may even provide us an outlet for our messages or our criticisms, but it will look a lot different after going through His filter than it would have looked if we had just blurted it out in the first place.

The specific answers about how to handle the world’s complaints, as well as our own, come from Him. Sometimes they are attacks on something we believe in, sometimes they are attacks that we believe to be true but not justified, and sometimes the attacks are personal in nature. His answer for us begins with humility.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you,
which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Romans 12:2

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:5

Maybe, just maybe, if we stop looking for a soapbox to stand on, we’ll find ourselves landing on our knees instead. It is there that we will be transformed in our learning and our thinking, knowing just what to speak when we stand back up and plant our feet firmly on HIs solid ground.

***All Scriptures quotes from the NIV.

(c) Copyright 2008 LauraLee Shaw

Live to Die

Warm tears streaked down my cheeks yesterday. It was the first time I had turned on the radio in awhile. See, music has always been a HUGE part of my life, but the last few years have been particularly noisy and crowded, so I find myself enjoying silence more and more. For instance, if I turn the radio on, then my kids just get louder to talk or play over it. As a result, I sorta quit bothering with it.

My husband likes constant noise. When he's home the radio is almost always on, so it's on all throughout the house and even on the back patio, and certainly in the car. But when it's me alone as of lately, my preference has simply been-----sweet silence.

As I was driving to a meeting last night, I prayed the Lord would help the time to go well, and then I felt led to turn on the radio. Weird! No, I need to pray, Lord. I need the silence. I need to think. The knob, quite frankly, did everything but reach out and grab my fingers. So I turned it on.

Above all powers,
Above all kings,
Above all nature
And all created things
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
You were here before the world began

I couldn't find a kleenex, but a fast food napkin would have to do. What is it about that song? It's been out for years, and each time I hear it, it still falls fresh on me. I was drawn to belt out the chorus with my mucky, weepy voice.

"Crucified, laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose trampled on the ground,
You took the fall and thought of me
Above All."

He lived to die.
He lived to die.
He was trampled on for me.
He thought of me.
Above all, He took the fall.
He lived to die.

It was in His dying, that I live in freedom today. I'm so glad He led me to turn on the radio and "give up" my silent moment. It was the most worshipful one I've had in awhile. And this morning, He continued, by leading me to 1 Peter 2:24:

He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.

Today, I want to live for righteousness and die to what my self wants. Just like He did for me. I certainly don't want to trample all over Him again. Not me. Not today. With His help, and my eyes on Him above all, I can live to die today.