Sharing the Power

Last night, we attended a wedding - amazing, beautiful, and a bit fearful with Hurricane Irene barreling down upon us. During the evening, Tony texted his cousin who lives a block away from the event: 

"How about us and 50 of our closest friends spending the night by you ;D LOL" 

To which cousin Dean graciously replied, "NO problem. Come on over." 

Well, we and our friends braved it home in the downpour, arriving safe and sound. The next morning, checking facebook, I saw Dean's post: 


"Anyone have a generator I can use? Powers been out since 3AM. Basement is a pond, I saw a Carp down there... NJ has been sold out of generators for a week."

He had no power and a flooded basement. We had plenty of power, a dry basement, AND a working generator. So Dean came over to our place and borrowed the generator to pump out his basement. 

You might say - he shared our power. 

Kinda like how the Lord shares His power with us…

And how we can share His power with others.

 

The LORD said to Moses: "... I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone." Numbers 11:17

When the Israelites' grumbling caused Moses to cry out to God, "I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me" (v. 14), God ordered Moses to convene 70 of Israel's elders to share Moses' burden, and to share the power of the Spirit. 

God shares His power of the Spirit with us. And when our burden is too heavy for us, He spreads the power around so that we don't have to carry the burden alone. When we let our need be known, God provides trusted friends with power to help bear that burden with us. God's power is perfected in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). And when someone we know is carrying a heavy burden, we receive power to help them bear their load. 

In taking some of the power and putting it on others, we don't lose power any more than a candle loses its light when sharing its flame with another candle. The light just increases as it's shared. Just like love. And just like the power of the Spirit. 

Later on, we heard from Dean that driving back from our place, he stopped at Home Depot for a plug --- just as a shipment of generators arrived! Planning for the future, he bought one. Once home, Dean learned his neighbor needed a generator and so he shared ours with him. Way to share the power!! 

Taking It Back

The prayer jar in our church is filling up! Each time that God answers a prayer, members of our church take a small glass stone out of the small bowl and put it in the tall jar. It's a lovely visual reminder of God at work.                                        

Sometimes someone (myself included) will accidentally reverse the process and take a stone from the large jar and put it in the small bowl. Ooops!

Sometimes in life, we do the same thing. We give our situation to God and think we leave it in His able hands, but we tie an invisible tether to it. God answers a prayer, provides a victory, frees us from a worry. Then we tug on that tether and bring that sin back into our lives or that worry back into our hearts. 


This reminds me of a quote from Corrie ten Boom and a poem I read on a bookmark:


The quote: 
"When God buries your sins in the deepest sea, He posts a sign that says 'No fishing allowed.'" 


The bookmark: 
Broken Dreams
As children bring their broken toys 
with tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God 
because He was my Friend.
But then instead of leaving Him
in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help
With ways that that were my own.
At last I snatched them back and cried,
"How can You be so slow?"
"My child," He said,
"What could I do? You never did let go."



Whether it is sin given over to God or dream in need of repair, when we give it to God, we need to GIVE it to God and LEAVE it with Him, trusting Him because He is trustworthy. Forgive me the cliche, but it's just so true: Let go, and let God. 

ps - Thank you for your prayers! Still waiting for final test results, but AJ's back to his old self. And my dad's out of ICU. He still has a long road ahead so please continue to pray. Thank you so much. 

The Doubt Monster

Everywhere I turn, it seems to be the topic of the day. Doubt. I was drowning in the “I don’t have what it takes…” Bloggers like Chatty Kelly and Jody Hedlund are addressing it today. Renee Swope’s new book “A Confident Heart” released this week. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s high on my list.

Doubt is the enemy's tool. It affects everyone. And it can affect any area of our lives. Are we a good enough mom, wife, friend, writer, speaker, worker, fill in the blank. It has us focus on whatever will take our eyes off God - our weaknesses, other's strengths.

After Adam and Eve sinned and hid in fear, God’s first question to them was “Who told you….?” He hadn’t told them to be fearful, ashamed. They were listening to the voice of their enemy.

All that God asks of us is to be obedient. To seek, to love, to serve Him and His people. When our eyes are squarely on Him, our doubts fade in His light.

Years ago, I had a strange experience. I was to speak before a crowd of fellow employees at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Every cell in my body trembled in fear. I had asked for prayer from trusted friends, telling them my session would begin Wednesday at 8:00 am. It was Wednesday at 7:55, and as I drifted to the podium, I wondered how I’d be able to utter a single word, so filled with fear and doubt was I.

Then something weird occurred. Really weird. It all happened in a nanosecond. I felt a tingling on the top of my head, like when someone pretends to crack an egg on your head. The tingle moved down from my head past my shoulders, past my arms and torso, down my legs, and out my feet. Picture a thermometer with a pinhole in the bulb and the red liquid leaking out the bottom. The tingle was fear, and so tangible was this feeling that as it left my body, I looked down because I thought I’d see a puddle of fear on the floor. All I saw were black and white tiles. As my eyes swept back up, they glimpsed the wall clock – which read exactly 8:00 sharp. In that instant, I simultaneously remembered 3 things - my praying friends, my mentioning 8:00 am, and the Scripture verse that says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” God is perfect love, and He supernaturally removed my fear.

I’d like to say that ever since that time, I have never experienced fear. But that would be a lie. What I do know is this – He CAN supernaturally remove my fear – if He wants to. So if He doesn’t, it means that the fear is there for a reason - most likely, so that I keep tethered to Him, focused on Him, in communion with Him, dependent upon Him rather than myself.

All the self-doubt that’s so prevalent and so destructive is just a tool in Satan’s arsenal, seeking to hinder the work of God. If only we can just remember that yeah we do have weaknesses, but it’s in our weakness that He is strong. He gets all the glory when imperfect people do amazing things. When we think we have it all together, we are at our weakest point.

Of course, that's my sermon for today. Tomorrow I may just be a pile of doubts again. ;)

Prayer request:

Thank you in advance. I’m so grateful for this community of prayer warriors.

Please keep my family in prayer – so much going on:

My dad is in ICU. He had emergency surgery last night to repair a ruptured fistula in his arm – the arm used for dialysis. This is one of many serious issues he’s facing, including cancer. In addition to his physical issues, please pray he'll know God's presence and peace. 

My son has been running a fever for the past 3 days, a week after his return from Uganda. I don’t even want to think of the possibilities.

I’m supposed to attend a 4 day writers’ conference starting Wednesday followed by a family vacation. A lot to prepare for both, assuming I can even do either one now.

And I will be sharing this Sunday’s message in church since my son is unable to do so. He was to share a message from his mission trip. So I’m preparing for that now. I’ll share from a chapter in my WIP book.

Can I just say “Oy vey!” 

Here's The Latest!

Here I go asking for you to keep me accountable and then no update for almost a month! Please accept my humblest apologies, but what a month it's been! Crazy busy, but all good!  

Right after my last post, I served 5 days at the Touch The World training camp, teaching child evangelism and kids Bible stories to youth going on mission trips to Haiti, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Uganda. It was exhausting. And exhilarating. [btw- my son just got back from Uganda. He'll be sharing with you in the near future.] 

I spent the following week preparing the message for our church’s Sunday morning sermon. I was week #2 in a four part series on John 11. We four each shared a different aspect of the raising of Lazarus story. My assignment - Mary and Martha. Click here to listen to the message for a different perspective on these two well-known women of the Word. Hint: “Martharization”  [click on download, not streaming]

The following week took me on a trip to Phoenix to visit my mom’s sister who has terminal pulmonary fibrosis. It was the living definition of “bittersweet.” My aunt has survived 2 years beyond expectations, but it is not without increasing difficulty. Despite that, my mom, sister, and I had a wonderful time with our extended family. Hours were spent reminiscing, laughing, eating, driving, eating, swimming, eating. Did I say we did a lot of eating? Please keep my aunt and her family in prayer during this difficult time. Thanks.

As for writing, I'm working on refining my book proposal which I hope to share with an interested editor or agent at the Philadelphia writers' conference in August. Looking forward to connecting there with blogging friends Jeanette Levellie and Susan Reinhardt. If you’re a blogger, maybe you and I will connect face to face one day! If you’ll be at the conference, please be sure to let me know.

Well that’s the latest news. I will tell you - after the writers conference and a [long overdue] family vacation, be on the lookout for the promised “i am” series featuring a wonderful cast of characters!

Still need that accountability though. It's so-o-o-o-o easy to get distracted. 

Hope you're all having a fantastic summer! What's new with you? 

And if you listened to the message - has your view of Mary and Martha changed? If so, in what way?