Facing the Giant

Whenever someone asks me about my husband's job, or his schedule, my answer is almost always followed by them saying, "How do you do that?", or "I could never do that!", or "You must be such a strong woman!", or "That must be so hard!"

My husband is away more than he's home;  it's just the way it is, and while there are days, or sometimes weeks, that are really difficult, somehow the kids and I make it through...one day at a time.  You see, God has an amazing way of giving us exactly what we need for each and every day.  Some days there is nothing left at the end of it, but His mercy is new every morning.  For forty years the Israelites awoke to manna from heaven to feed them, so too I awake each day with my fill to get me from sunrise to sunrise.  That's how I do it;  step by step with faith knowing that today, and only today, is what matters. 

I meet with a small group of military wives once a week while our husbands are away.  We've been focusing our discussions on the book of James, and for the past few weeks we've been really meditating on faith and deeds;  how the blending of our beliefs and actions attest to the faith we have in our Savior.  James 2:26 says, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." 
This doesn't mean that without action we don't really have salvation;  it just means that without action we can't produce fruit, we can't sow seeds, and while we are still attached to the body, we're not much good to it. 

Throughout this discussion we started talking about examples of faith in the Bible.  A question was posed asking what man or woman of faith was our favorite example from the Word.  I was stumped for a while, and as the roll call of names started filing through my mind I thought, "How in the world can you pick just one???"  Reading Hebrews 11 alone you have more than a handful of amazing examples of faithful men and women to choose from.  I was bothered by having to pick one (not that I had to, but the question was out there, and I wanted to answer it), but then I realized that David kept coming to my mind. 

In Hebrews 11 David is listed among those the author "didn't have time to tell about...", but as faithful nonetheless.  Let me tell you what David means to me, and why he is the answer to my favorite example of faith as it applies to my life. 

David was a shepherd boy who was chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to one day become the king.  God had his hand on David from the beginning, and as David's life unfolds throughout scripture we see that he was very human, and very faithful.  I am amazed at David's heart of praise for God;  in the victories, in the midst of battles, and in the throes of sin and its consequences David's faith never wavered.  There were times that He felt God's face turn from him, but even then he held on and praised His Name.  I love it, but my favorite part of his story comes when he was just a boy. 

We tell our kids the Sunday School version of David and Goliath;  there's a cute little song about it, and there is a VeggieTales version of it where David is an asparagus and Goliath is a big pickle.  We down play it and over-talk it, but have you ever stopped to think of that little boy standing in front of that gigantic, fearsome man, preparing to fight to the death?  I know for me, I often don't think of these biblical figures as real flesh and blood people;  they are stories, and I am so far removed from that time in history that they almost seem like fairy tales, but they're not.  Those people in those stories were really;  they were just like you and me.  They had feelings and fears;  they loved and they despised.  They felt pain, they felt cold and heat, and they breathed in and breathed out the same as me and you. 

In 1 Samuel 16 we read of Samuel anointing David;  when Samuel was searching for God's chosen one (David) the Lord said to him, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him (speaking of David's older brother).  The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."  As soon as Samuel saw David he knew that David was "the one" despite his age or small size. 

A short while later the Philistines came to wage war on the Israelites;  the two armies occupied hillsides facing one another.  Imagine the tension that was building between these two;  the hatred, the waiting... 

The bible says Goliath was over nine feet tall;  he was clothed in armor from head to foot.  Goliath boldly paraded in front of the Israelites for forty days, and for forty days he tormented them.  They were at a standstill;  the Philistines knew no one could defeat Goliath.  They had it in the bag, and yet they waited, and waited.  The bible says that every morning the armies would line up and face each other; Goliath would step forward and Israel would cower.  Here was a people who God had protected and gone before over and over and over again, yet they still feared; they still didn't trust Him. 

Who would've known that on the fortieth day David would enter the camp?  When Samuel had anointed David the bible says in 1 Samuel 16:13 that, "from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power."   With God's Spirit, David was bold in his actions, and he never doubted that he and his people were squarely in the palm of God's hand. 

David came to the camp that day to deliver food to the Israelites, and to check up on his brothers;  he was too young to join the army, and he had stayed home to tend to the sheep while his brothers were away.  He arrived just as the armies were lining up, and in his excitement he ran to the battles lines to see his brothers.  It was at that moment that Goliath appeared across the valley, and it was at that moment that the whole of the Israelite army ran in fear from this giant of a man.  As David set out to discover who this giant was and just why no one was willing to stand up to him, he found himself in the tent of King Saul:  "David said to Saul, 'Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.'  Saul replied, 'You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.' But David said to Saul,'....the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear (while tending sheep) will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.'"

David, small as he was, was confident that God would deliver him;  while grown men cowered, this young boy stood up.

Saul tried to clothe David in armor, and respectfully David declined;  he took his shepherd's staff, a sling and five little stones, and stood before Goliath.  Goliath taunted him, dismissed him, and threatened to feed his flesh to the birds.  David stood his ground.  I imagine in that moment he had fluttering inside of him. I think of the father in Mark chapter 9 who said to Jesus, "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!"  David trusted in the one true God, but he was a human boy with human feelings;  he wasn't a fairy tale character devoid of emotion yet he stood there boldly with God by his side. God gave him the power and the belief to overcome fear. Seeing David's boldness Goliath was enraged; in his fury he started to run towards David.  David took one stone, put it in his sling, heaved it at the giant, and killed him.  He didn't have armor, he didn't have a sword, he didn't have an army with shields and weapons of every kind backing him up;  he had a stone, a sling, and the God of Israel on his side...that's it. 

I love David;  I love that when everyone else cowered away he stood up and fought.  He was just boy, but God's spirit was with him, and with that nothing was impossible for him. 

My friends and I are facing a giant right now.  In just a few weeks our husbands will leave on an extended deployment.  What that means is that the usual six month deployments that we are used to is not what we're facing.  We're looking at about 9 months without our husbands;  while our community has it "easy" compared to some in the military, that's still an incredibly long time to be away from your loved one;  that's still an incredibly long time for 3 little boys to be missing their daddy.  It's a giant, and it's standing there before us just waiting...  We're at a stand still; when our husbands return home next week we will have a short reprieve before we step across that valley and come face to face with the inevitable. 

On my own I'm not strong enough, but the Holy Spirit is with me in power, and though I'm small and I'm weak He is more than strong enough to walk me (and all of my friends and our husbands) through each and every day that we are apart. 
That's my giant; it's glaring, it's taunting, and it's not going away until we deal with it head on.  That's the way giants are;  they're ugly, they're fearsome, and they'll overcome you if you let them. 

Are you facing a giant right now?  Are you confident with where you stand?  Is your faith strong enough to enable you to step forward when everyone else steps back?  Do you trust that each day God will provide you with at you need? 
If not, check yourself, get on your knees and have a conversation your Savior; He is the giver of strength. You may not have an army who's got your back, you may be alone as you stand before your Goliath, and on your own you may be completely under equipped to fight any battle, but when you put your complete trust and faith in the one true God, and step out to fight the fight He has called you to...it's in the bag.  Face your giant with the boldness that comes from your God who's power is made perfect in your weakness. 

You are my King and my God,

who decrees victories for Jacob.

Through you we push back our enemies;

through your name we trample our foes.

I do not trust my bow,

my sword does not bring me victory;

but you give us victory over our enemies,

you put our adversaries to shame.

In God we make our boast all day long,

and we will praise your name forever.

Psalm 44:4-8

Psalm 42

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food day and night,

while men say to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

These things I remember as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God,

with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.

 

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

 

My soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan,

the heights of Hermon - from Mount Mizar.

Deeps calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

 

By day the Lord directs his love,

at night his song is with me -

a prayer to the God of my life.

 

I say to God my Rock,

"Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?"

My bones suffer mortal agony and my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

 

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

Obedience

Before I had children, I was the kind of person who would judge those who did have children. I would look at those moms with their screaming, out of control kids and think, "My child will never...(fill in the blank).." Even after we had our oldest son, I still had those thoughts because he was so easy, and I honestly couldn't understand why some mothers just couldn't handle it.
God has a way of breaking us in our judgments, and I learned a big lesson when Micah was born. I have talked about Micah's unique personality in earlier posts, but here's the recap: he was the most difficult child to ever grace this earth (in my biased opinion). When God blesses us with stubborn, strong-willed children all of our judgment of others flies out the window, and we are left wrestling a screaming, thrashing child as we silently pray for God to deliver us from whatever situation we are facing at that moment.
When Micah was younger I left so many places with him tucked under my arm, screaming away; many times tears where rolling down my cheeks as time after time my strength was tested both physically and emotionally. I never gave up trying to do fun things, but more often than not we spent our days at home having left a friend's house or the park early because of a meltdown.
That was the way I chose to handle it; when he melted down down, we picked up and left...there was no reward of the park, or playing with friends if there was disobedience. Did that mean that my older son and I missed out on some things? Yes, but that's what it took to teach Micah, so that's what we did.
As time passed, Micah learned that the good things disappeared when his behavior was bad, and slowly, we were able to do more and more outside of our home. Today, he is an amazing boy, still stubborn and still loud, but kind and generous with his love and encouragement; there are days you can find him sitting in his bed pouting because he lost control of himself and is in time out, but overall he has learned that rewards come when he is obedient.
The journey was long, but the boy that he is today proves that the sacrifices, the tears, and my trusting in God's peace and patience was well worth it.
 
My journey through Leviticus is winding down, and this morning as I started on chapter 26 I knew that I would have to share it with you. The title of the first part of the chapter is "Reward for Obedience". I loved it, and I am continually amazed at what God is teaching me about himself through His word.
 
 

"Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord, your God.

Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the tress of the field their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through you country. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. You will still be eating last year's harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high."

 
So what does that have to do with us or my strong-willed child? God spoke these words to the Israelites, and they were very literal; when they obeyed Him he sent rain, He fought battles for them, the fruit of their trees and the crops in their fields were abundant. God rescued them from slavery in Egypt and literally broke them free from their bars; they were His people whom He called to live for Him within the frame work of His laws.

Because God can see the big picture at all times, there should be no surprise that He spoke these words for us as well. Many of us don't build alters and bow down to stones, but we do have idols, don't we? We don't always respect His church and we've allowed our sinful nature to invade our worship of Him...we do these things, and more; we struggle within ourselves between this world and His word...we all do.  We break his commandments time after time after time… But...if we choose Him, if we take our stand in this world for His glory, He promises to bring rain when we need it, and He promises that our lives will be fruitful, and that He will give us more than enough to meet our needs. Following Him doesn't mean we won't face trouble in this world, but when we obey His commands He will go before us and fight the battles that are impossible for us to fight on our own. When we chose Him, He dwells in us; as our obedience increases His presence in our life increases. We will never be empty; we will all have our fill when we choose Him. I love, I love, I love the last part of verse 12: "I broke the bars of your yoke, and enabled you to walk with heads held high." That's what Jesus did for us. He broke our bond with sin; we are no longer slaves of this world, and we can walk with our heads held high praising Him and giving glory to Him through every blessing and every trial because it all works together for our good when we choose Him.
 
There is punishment for disobedience; there is separation from His goodness when we choose to turn from Him. Chapter 26 goes on to talk about this, and about what that looked like in the lives of the Israelites; the punishment is the direct opposite of the rewards, but here's the good part: it says that if we confess our sins He will remember the covenant He has made with us.  There will be consequences of our sin, but because of Jesus, and through His death and resurrection, our punishment has been paid. Consequences can be difficult, and confession is so hard to do sometimes, but we will miss out on His blessing if we choose disobedience.  He promises to love us and forgive us, and little by little when we begin to choose Him again we can start to see His rewards, and see that He is good.
 
We are all strong-willed, stubborn children at times; we all kick and scream and fight with the Father who loves us so much. We want our way, and we want it on our own terms; little by little we learn that life just doesn't work that way. We are called, just like little children, to a life of obedience; many of us learn the consequences of disobedience over and over again, but God calls to us and says, "Choose Me! ... My yoke is easy, and burden is light!" With Him we can hold our heads up high, knowing that He dwells with us, and that we are more than conquerors with Him by our side. 

As I think back on the early years of hardship, training and raising Micah, I see myself as a child of God.  I’ve been stubborn,  and I have turned from Him in the past;  in those moments the lessons were hard, and the reward was not there.  Choosing Him is a choice, and the more we buck His commandments, the farther we get from Him; choosing the world is deliberately not choosing Him. 
 
I was thinking about how this lesson can be applied individually and collectively in our lives.  It really speaks to every level of life.  God is the Maker and Creator of all; individually we are to choose Him, as families we are to choose Him, and as a nation we are to choose Him.  Disobedience on any level has consequences for us all.  I am so saddened by the condition of our nation…a nation who at its core was founded on Biblical principles.  That’s another blog for another day, but as our leaders kick and scream and turn their faces from our Creator in the name of protecting rights that were made up by men and abhorred by our Lord, we shouldn’t be surprised that the reward has left us, and that we are missing out on the great blessings that are set aside for those that choose Him. 
 
If we choose obedience as individuals, maybe we can start to change the disobedience in our nation, and maybe, just maybe, as our obedience increases His presence will increase as well. 
 
 

 

It's Friday...

Our church showed this video this morning...

I think it is pretty powerful and wanted to share it. 

No matter what you are facing right now, and no matter how hopeless some things in our world may seem, remember that Sunday is coming...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes when my words fail me, I look to those who have gone before...

"But amid all my sorrows, disappointments, losses, and crosses I have felt that I had a God to go to who has supported me out of His inexhaustable fullness, and His good Spirit has caused my mind to soar above all the waves of trouble in this transitory world, and with faith to view that glorious land of rest beyond this valley of tears." 

Eleazer Sherman 1821

Remember that this life is a journey; though heartache and trouble can threaten to destroy us, as believers we can rise above it all with faith that there is more to life than what we can see.  Turn to God in everything, and He will help you "to soar above all the waves of trouble in this transitory world";  He will give you a new outlook...a heavenly perspective. 

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18

Wait for it...

Every morning I start the day by pulling up the shades in my bedroom and looking out over my little garden.  I previously wrote about the sunflowers I planted by our picket fence;  one of my tiny seeds has now grown into an eight foot tall, magnificent stem with a gigantic flower just waiting to burst forth.  Some of the other stems are smaller, but just as amazing to me.  I look eagerly each day to see if it might be the day those glorious, golden petals open up.  This is what I saw today...

One of the biggest lessons I have learned in my short gardening experience is that it takes patience.  Things don't happen immediately, but every little leaf that grows, and every little flower that is produced is a miracle; they are a piece in accomplishing the bigger picture.  My little sprouts that started off with two tiny leaves, are now on the verge of becoming what they were always meant to be. 

I received a letter recently from a man fifty years my senior.  I have never met this man, but what he wrote me was a letter of encouragement to spur me on to become exactly what God desires for me to be.  The gentleman who wrote it is incredibly intelligent, wise, and very accomplished in both the field of education and religion; I am flattered that he has read anything that I have written, and I am honored to be able to learn more about God's character from him.  I wanted to share part of what he wrote to me with you;  it is a beautiful description of God's timing, and as I marvel at my sunflowers, and as I reflect on the fact that everything happens in His perfect time, these words stick with me each day, and they have blessed me tremendously.

Once I uncovered a definition of prayer that stayed with me: By prayer God disposes us in time to receive what He had planned to give us from all eternity.  To many people, that idea looks foolish and even cowardly, but to those who are willing to surrender and wait God emerges as silently and explosively as the sunrise.

 

 

 

I love the imagery of God emerging both silently and explosively at the same time;  something wells up inside of me and brings me to verge of tears as I reflect on what that has looked like in my own life.   

Looking at my sunflower today with it's one little golden petal sticking up, and seeing the rest just waiting for the perfect time to pop open, I saw my life as a child of God.  Slowly he grows us, teaches us,  and clothes us with wisdom.  Slowly, when we are faithful to Him, He reveals Himself; silently divulging one petal at a time until suddenly there we are...gazing upon our Creator in all of His glory, and in that moment we discover who we were meant to be all along. 

 

God's timing is perfect, and as imperfect beings we sometimes get impatient with His schedule, but when we intentionally choose Him, and when we sit back and wait for Him to emerge, He shows us His beauty and enables us, as believers, to reflect that beauty to the rest of the world. 

 

Every leaf is a miracle, and every petal is a part of the bigger picture;  silently and explosively God appears when we surrender and put our faith in Him...just wait for it...

 

 

 

I am still confident of this:  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 27:13-14

The To-Dos, and the Must-Do...

My to-do list is quite long right now, and every day it keeps getting longer. School activities, housework, play dates, etc., etc. The list literally never ends; as it evolves and multiplies I accomplish one thing, and then add five more. Life is busy, and the more we allow it to be busy, the busier it will get. We can add so much to our day, and we can fill every little unit of time until we don't even know who we are anymore; we can become defined by our so called "commitments".

I have had no time lately to sit, relax, and enjoy the life God has given me. I'm a mom with three busy boys, I have a husband who's schedule is insanely unpredictable right now, and I have the responsibility of running a house, managing everything that comes in and goes out, and maintaining some sort of order in the chaos of it all. I have had no time in the last week and a half to spend worshiping, growing, and furthering my relationship with my Savior. This morning as I was reading my bible (something I admittedly haven't done in a few days), I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit on my heart.

I am still working my way through Leviticus, and while most of it is proving to be slightly dull, I find that I'm learning quite a bit about God's nature through it all. Leviticus is basically a guide book that was given to Moses regarding God's laws for the Israelites; it lays out, in much detail, how the Israelites were to rightly live for God, the role of the priests, the rules of the temple, and the rituals of sacrifice, etc. God is holy, and therefore when His people came to Him they were required to do it in a certain way.

What is jumping out to me about it all is that everything was so intentional, so orderly; every ritual, sacrifice, and cleansing took time, and it was all for the purpose of staying right in the sight of God, to live according to His will. Following God's law required that the Israelites took their time and gave the best of what God had given them back to Him.

As I said in my last post, we aren't required to sacrifice animals as atonement for our sins anymore; we don't have priests that declare us clean or unclean; we have Jesus Christ who became the ultimate and permanent sacrifice for our sins. When we believe in Him, in His crucifixion and resurrection, when we put our faith in Him, and when we confess our sins and lay them at the foot of the cross, His blood covers over them; we are clean in God's eyes when through Christ's blood we are forgiven. We don't have sacrifice rituals, and we don't have a curtain that separates us from God; we can come before Him at any time, we can approach His throne, and we can commune with Him in a very deep and spiritual way, but we need to give back to Him the best of what He has given to us. He requires our time; relationship with Him takes an investment on our part. I love that about Leviticus; I am in awe of the purposefulness of God's people. God required holiness from unholy humans, and He gave them very practical, very detailed ways of approaching Him. Wow... I'm wondering why today when we have a Savior and a God who are so accessible to us on a day to day basis we turn our backs on them. Why is it that the freedom we've inherited through the blood shed on the cross is something we so easily give away to the world instead of to Him? God longs for relationship with His creation, His children made in His likeness; He longs for it so much that He sacrificed His Son to give us a way to freely come to Him.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). God laid down the life of His one and only Son, and whoever simply believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

He gave everything to bridge the gap, and to allow us to approach Him and live for Him; in return He asks for faith, and for time to grow us, mold us, and use us for His glory. Is that so hard?

As I sit here typing, the roll call of to-dos are making laps through my mind, but my one and only "must do" is coming first right now. In Matthew 22:37 Jesus says that the greatest commandment is this: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." That's it, the first and greatest commandment, everything else can wait while you figure out how to do exactly that. It will take your time, and the best of what you have, but in return you'll gain peace and the wisdom to handle all of the other "to-dos". I'm not sure why I keep having to learn this lesson over and over again, but each time it rings truer and truer.

Are you giving back to God the best that He has given to you? Do you give Him priority, or do you just squeeze Him in when you can? I challenge you to put Him first, and to trust Him completely with your time, your energy, and your attention. When you do that, when you intentionally and purposefully serve Him, you will be blessed in ways you can't even begin to imagine.