Wake up my Heart!

Scripture of the Day: Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. If you want to hear how it can get stuck in your head, check out this link: http://slugsandbugsandlullabies.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/deuteronomy-65-track-4-sing-the-bible-with-slugs-bugs/ Yesterday I sang or tapped out the melody to those words/song more times than I can count. It was a rough afternoon of waiting and instead of worrying myself silly I said those words as a kind of mantra. More information will be coming on that later. But today my focus is on the fact that God loves me...and I love him and whatever crazy road this life is taking us down, we are in it together. Thank goodness!

Scripture of the Day: Matthew 24: 37-39a 37  Jesus replied:  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38  This is the first and greatest commandment.   39  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ First off, I apologize for not writing this yesterday! By the time travels were done, I was exhausted!  Due to a recent, tragic death in town, there has since been a "pay it forward" movement in memory of the man, and to help further the Kingdom by showing Jesus to others. This is largely happening in the form of paying for meals at restaurants and drive-throughs. There has been some concern that instead of this form of movement, the focus should be on the needy.  Focusing on the those in need is always terrific! But Jesus loved on everybody...even those who had more than enough. Paying for the person behind you in the drive through, or paying for a meal for someone at a restauran...

Scripture of the day: Psalm 95:8 “Do not harden your hearts  as you did at Meribah,      as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness," That may seem a strange verse to use this morning! Last night at our prayer service we did an exercise where we used examples from our own lives as to when we hardened our hearts toward God. It was incredible timing because my heart was feeling like it wanted to be hardened!  A sweet woman I went to high school with has a one year old daughter who had a liver transplant in December. She has been sick since she was 4 months old and they have just had a couple of months of reprieve. But this week there has been blood in her stool and she is back in Chicago. Either with an infection from the transplant or cancer, or something else.  My heart couldn't stand any of those options. It was trying to place guidelines on what God should  do in this situation (which was just to heal that little girl for good!...

Scripture of the Day James 5:7-8 7  Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.  See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting  for the autumn and spring rains.   A friend of mine said something last week that has stuck with me. "We live in a microwave world, but we have a crock pot God." The world isn't big on patience. It encourages getting what you want when you want it. Yesterday. It wants everything fast and gratification to be easy. The world wants to zap us into whatever is new and beautiful. God wants us to wait. He wants us to be patient and try to line up our walk with His. He wants us to sit on a "low" setting for as long as it takes for him to refine us. God likes us to take a slow study of His word and let it soak in. His answers may not be immediate and his timing doesn't always match up with our master plan.  It is hard at time to not buy in to the the microwave plan. But God...