Pikachu, Pikachu! Daddy’s girl, Daddy’s girl!

This morning I was helping my eight year old grandson, Owen establish his own blog where he intends to publish original Pokemon stories. Now I have to confess, I know very little about Pokemon.  But as we were researching, we discovered another Pokemon themed blog by a guy named Bob who explained something very amazing about Pokemon.  Bob states: 

“Each Pokemon has a name.  If you don’t catch what the name is, the little monster will helpfully tell you all the time.  That’s how they communicate.  Dogs bark, cats meow, Pokemon say their name.  They say it happily, sadly; they can say their names with more inflections than a surfer can say  ‘dude’.” http://radioflyer1980.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/pikachu-gesundheit/

So I asked Owen these questions:  Does a Pikachu say “pikachu, pikachu” because he is a pikachu?  Or is he a pikachu because he says “pikachu, pikachu”? Owen says, he’s a Pikachu first, and that’s why he speaks his name.  It’s all about identity.

What do I speak that lets people around me know who I am, even if they have never met me or known me?  What do my words say about who I am?  Do I walk around saying “life stinks”, or “woe is me”, or “why do the other people always win and I always lose”.  Do my words and inflection communicate that I feel like I am worthless or unloved?  Sometimes, regretfully, they do.

But that is not who I am.  So I need to take a lesson from Pokemon and start reminding myself of who I am and make sure that my words communicate that not only to those around me, but to myself as well.  Let me start here and now with these words, “said”, as Bob suggests, with a joyous, exuberant inflection, (can you hear it?): “Daddy’s girl! Daddy’s girl”. 

That is who I am.  I am a child of the Most High God, adopted into his family, precious to his heart, with all the rights of sonship/daughership including an amazing inheritance guaranteed by the deposit of his Holy Spirit living in me now.

What’s your name?

Disarmed and Dangerous.

God just did some amazing things in my family, and totally blew me away.  I was left feeling disarmed before God.  Which means that prior to this week, I was armed before God.  Let me explain.

Did you ever want something really bad, but you were afraid to ask for it, much less to hope for it?  It’s like you were holding yourself back from really going all out for what your heart was craving, because you just knew you’d never have it.  It’s like arming yourself against disappointment.

Sometimes I arm myself against disappointment, even in my prayers.  I may pray the religiously acceptable way of “Your will be done”.  That, after all, is a biblical way to pray, right? Jesus himself prayed that way in the Garden of Gethsemane.  But sometimes, if I look deep into my own heart I find that I am praying that way because I am believing lies that trap me more often than I care to admit.  “Heal that person, if it be your will,” I pray, when I am too fearful to ask for total healing based on God's word that says “By his stripes (on the cross) we are healed.”  I know he can heal, but seem to waiver on whether he wants to or not.  Such capriciousness is not what a good God looks like.  So I realize I am acting on the belief that God is not good, or that he doesn’t care, which means he doesn’t really love me. 

So when God did some major healing work in my family recently, I found myself dropping my defenses before him.  I realized that when he does things his way, the results are astounding.  I realized that I had no reason to hold myself back in safe praying, safe living anymore.  I could trust this amazing God to do what I never imagined would happen.  And do it without any help from me! 

I want to be the trusting child who comes before her daddy, asks for big things and trusts him to do big things.  He has shown me who he is, and now asks me to trust him for tomorrow, and the weeks to come.   

Come Alongside: This marvelous thing called prayer!

Recently a girlfriend I look up to asked me to come along on a speaking engagement she had, to support her and pray for her and share as I felt led.  I was so honored and blessed to be invited to be her “right hand gal” that day, and rejoiced with her when her words opened so many hearts that day.

I was reminded today about how God also invites me to come along with him on his “engagements”, to support him and pray with him about what he is doing.  I am so honored that he trusts me with the things on his heart, just like my girlfriend.

When the prophet, Daniel was in captivity in Babylon he understood from the prophecies of other prophets before him that the 70 year captivity was nearing its end.  Instead of just sitting back, relieved that God’s people would soon be going home to Israel, Daniel fasted and prayed for the exiles’ release from Babylon and return to Israel.  Why would he pray for what God has already promised and agreed to do?  In the natural, that scenario is quite odd.  If your friend tells you she is going to take you to a concert for your birthday, you don’t ask her or remind her again and again to take you to the concert.  But that is what Daniel did.  He took the prophecy, the revelation of what God intended to do, as God’s invitation for him to come alongside and pray the thing through.  So it is that God puts the desires of his own heart on those ones who are seeking him, and they get to pray in those things to completion, and then rejoice at the outcome.

So we sing and pray, “Break my heart for what breaks yours”, oh, God, and we will rejoice with you as your will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Say What You See

Nanette caught the bug.

My friend, Nanette has attended only two weeks of “sewing class” at my home on Monday nights, but she has definitely caught the bug.  Although her only sewing experience was in home ec. class a thousand years ago, she is piecing together blocks for 3 different quilts at the same time. 

I saw the first set of blocks all sewn together, bright orange and yellow lion and tiger blocks with a brown and black starry print in between, and it was amazing.  I love that first glimpse of what a finished project is going to look like, and the excitement that wells up inside.  I imagine that Nanette is experiencing that “quilting high” right now, standing back and looking at what her two hands have done in so short a time.  What Nanette may not yet know is that there is still a lot of work before the quilt is done.  Hopefully, the glimpse of what will be is enough to keep her going to the finish line.

These thoughts about Nanette and her quilts were going through my mind this morning as I prepared the binding for one of my own quilts.  God has just done some amazing things for me, things that I have been desperately crying out for in prayer.  Not that the entire situation is completely resolved, but the amazing changes that have happened in the past two days have taken my breath away.  The Father brought Nanette and her amazing accomplishments to mind this morning and asked me the same questions I was asking about Nanette. 

“I am showing you what I am doing, just a glimpse for now,” the Father told me. “Can you keep on trusting me that I can, and will give you the finished work?”

I am reminded of four simple words spoken by Prophet Chuck Pierce at a meeting in Manahawkin, NJ earlier this year:  “Say what you see.”   Pierce was urging God’s people to listen to what God is saying, and then to speak out, declare out loud what they are seeing.  I have given you a picture of some fabric blocks sewn together to help you imagine the beautiful quilt to come.  What are you dreaming about?  What do you see?  Is it a ministry to the homeless in Ocean County?  Restored relationships in your marriage and/or family?  A 24 day prayer journey throughout Europe? A community of artists releasing God’s heart through prophetic art?  Speak, declare it out loud so God’s family can join with you in trusting God to accomplish that dream. 

In our faith community may we continually remind each other of who we are – people entrusted with God’s heart and vision; and who we serve - the God who is in the business of calling into being things that are not, as though they were.  Let us be about the “family business”, which is, after all, the business of hope.

A Runner after God's Own Heart

My brother, Dave traveled to New Jersey this past week to participate in the Atlantic City Marathon.  He finished the 26 mile course in just under five hours, in keeping with his goal.  The larger goal on his mind, however, is to run a marathon in every state.  Atlantic City marked Dave’s 22nd state.

As I went about my business on Sunday morning, October 16^th, I kept thinking of Dave running in Atlantic City, praying for his safety, praying for his influence in that rather dark place.  I kept thinking that there was some significance to Dave making the investment of time and resources to drive from Michigan to New Jersey, some 600 miles, to run for five hours in Atlantic City.  “Please, God,” I prayed, make every step of his race effective, transforming in that place.

I was reminded of the promise that God gave first to Moses, then to Joshua: 

Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea. Deuteronomy 11:24

Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. Joshua 1:3

Could it be that the thousands of times Dave’s Nike running shoes hit the pavement in Atlantic City on Sunday, October 16, 2011, between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. that God’s “ownership” of that city and region was being established?  What can happen when a man after God’s own heart makes an investment in a region? 

So I pray this morning for Atlantic City, New Jersey, and for the other 22 states where this runner after God’s own heart has run, invested and prayed.  May God’s ownership of each city be established; may circumstances and atmosphere change over Atlantic City; may unemployment and poverty be abolished in this sad place; may crime diminish as the knowledge of God’s ways and thoughts become important to the residents there. May salvation come to Atlantic City, New Jersey, in Jesus’ name.

What Does Love Look Like?

I was reading this morning in John 13 about when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.  Knowing who he was, knowing he was God, knowing that the Father had placed all things under his power, knowing that he was about to be betrayed, knowing all these things, he laid aside his outer garments, girded himself with a towel and began washing the dirt off of his disciples’ dusty feet.

As I mused on the passage my mind kept coming back to a story I heard recently from a friend of mine who is a live-in caretaker for the disabled.  My friend told me that she and her then current charge were at odds and she had gone to her room to pray, and not allow her mouth to speak out of what she was feeling, hurt and rejected by the one she served.  Then she heard the elderly woman in the hall bathroom, crying softly.  My friend had to go to her.  She was as always, my friend’s first priority.  She found her charge standing in the bathroom covered in her own feces, tears of shame streaming down her face, helpless to clean herself up, and too ashamed to call the one she had been quarreling with to come and help her.

            “I have lost my dignity!” the lady wailed.

            “Since when does dignity come out of your rear end?” my friend countered.  “Your dignity is up here.”  She tapped her forehead and got to work cleaning up her charge.

            My friend was hurt, feeling rejected, but put aside all of that to love and serve the one God had placed in her life.

            “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34.  As missionary, Heidi Baker teaches, love the One, and then love the one in front of you. That is what Jesus did, even loving Judas who was about to betray him.  Loving Peter, who would deny that he even knew Jesus only hours later, Jesus, the Son of the Living God knelt down and washed Peter's, and Judas' dirty feet.

            Who would you have me love today, Daddy?  Make me ready, armed with knowing who I am to you, ready to serve and stoop down to lift someone else up, to clean up the traffic off of someone’s feet, or the waste of life off of someone’s body, to love as you love.

Sprinkled, Not Poured

Jesus said that we are to be the salt of the earth.  But as Pastor Glenn Swank of Barnegat Bay Assembly of God recently taught his congregation, if you dump the whole salt shaker on one bite, you ruin the steak.  So God sprinkles the salt, disburses his kids, his salt, like dandelion seeds propelled by the breeze, to add his flavor, his presence in many situations. 

As you walk the rows of tents at certain arts and crafts festivals, you may encounter some salt when you stop at the arched tent with a sign reading, “Lampworked Art Glass by Jim Spaloss”. It may be the gleam of the glass dancing in the sunlight that draws your eye to the sparkling beads and sculptures.  But you may well get more than you bargained for when you pick up the gold-streaked, pink glory bead, or run your fingers over the raised droplets on the glistening dew drop bead.  You may get a story about how God’s glory shows up in ordinary people, just like clear glass turns pink when fumed with 22 karat gold; or about refreshing dew that does not evaporate in the heat of the day; or about an artist who worships God as he sculpts glass. You may get a word of encouragement.  You may receive a prayer for your insomnia or your upcoming back surgery.  You may even get a hug from someone who five minutes earlier was a stranger to you.

Any or all of these treasures you may receive at this salt-filled artist’s booth, whether or not you make a purchase.  The sign reads, “art glass”, but hope is dispensed here.  Come, buy and eat, you who have no money.  Come feast on Jesus, for “the one who feeds on me will live because of me”. John 7:57