WHIRLING DERVISH OR CHAMPION RACECAR DRIVER?

WHIRLING DERVISH OR CHAMPION RACECAR DRIVER?

Two painters were teamed up on a small six-foot scaffolding. I looked over, and my friend Karen was ducking and trying to move away from the flailing arms of her partner, Jill. Jill was high on meth and jumping erratically all over the scaffold, arms and legs going in all directions. Sometimes we act like Jill. We get ourselves going in so many directions that we aren’t moving forward, but only whirling in circles.

Racecar drivers take charge of their lives and move with determination and diligence.  The dictionary definition of diligence is “a constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken; persistent exertion of body or mind.”

But we have to remember that we can’t do this alone. If we want to be a racecar champion, all the human effort we make is only empty religion and rules, if the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ aren’t involved in the process. 

Jesus told the disciples: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send, shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).

How does walking by the Spirit of God work? The Lord leads us to something that resonates in our hearts; we connect with it, acknowledge it, and make up our minds to pursue whatever small thing He’s asking. If He shows us a direction to take and we don’t listen, the Lord will sometimes let us go ahead and do our own thing until we finally wear out and come limping back to Him.

He’ll wait for us to wake up and come back to where we left Him. The Holy Spirit reminds us to go back to the idea He gave us before. Yep, the one we didn’t follow the first time He told us. The Lord is patient. He’ll wait a long time for us to “remember, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26b).

Each person’s journey will be different. John 16:13 tells us the Holy Spirit is present to guide us: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things.” WOW! How awesome for the Spirit of God Himself to take the time to show things to each of us, individually. That’s love.

Isaiah 48:6 says: “Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shown thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.”

How exciting and fulfilling it is if we take the time in our frenzied lives to take notice of what He’s doing for us and give Him some credit for it.

Job 8:7 tells us: “Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.” As we acknowledge the Lord in our daily lives, we grow spiritually, and we see even more. Walking by the spirit starts with small things, then expands.

Hebrews 11:6 says: “He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” How amazingly beautiful can the rewards be when they come from the Creator (Elohim) of all things?!

Love, Carolyn

QUESTIONS AND EASY CHALLENGES

1. What truth have you received from the Lord lately that has resonated in your heart?

2. Describe a time when you were going in way too many directions at once. How did it affect you?

3. If you think you might be going in too many directions now, what is one small change you can make this week to change that?

4. What good thing has happened to you recently? Have you acknowledged the Lord for the blessing?

5. What verse gives us hope that even though a beginning may be small, later it will be much more significant?

6. Where does it say the Lord will show us new things? Do you believe it?

My books are available on Amazon.

Life lessons from the Bible. Experience a wide variety of circumstances from the point of view of the Bible. The stories will give you new insight into the spiritual forces behind everyday events, both the forces of the true God and the forces of the adversary.

Learn practical ways to listen more clearly to the Lord and the stories will show you how to walk more intimately with Him. Gain the spiritual keys and weapons to be victorious in every situation, God’s way.

USER-FRIENDLY BIBLE PRINCIPLES FOR EVERYDAY LIVING: true life stories of how GOD works to make an ordinary life extraordinary.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=WINGS%3A+A+JOURNEY+IN+FAITH+

GETTING RID OF THE RATS

GETTING RID OF THE RATS
I went to check the front yard and found a five-inch dead rat out by the oleander bush—yuk! A couple weeks ago I discovered what looked like a leaf nest in the backyard oleander. I put out bait and killed the rat. Yesterday I started digging out leaves around and inside the hollow place formed by the branches. The pile was just a bit lower than five feet high. It was a mess digging all that out, but I’m making progress. Now that I know what needs doing, I can keep up with it. I have three oleanders, so it’s important to keep them clean. I had no idea of what was going on in my yard behind my back—no one told me it wasn’t okay to keep leaf buildup under oleanders!

With the uplifted straight arms of the thin branches, it makes a perfect “fence” with the inside full of leaves. Then a hole can be made in the leaves. The hole goes in the top of the pile, then comes out at the bottom, so the rat can forage for food and water and the oleander makes the perfect home. I had no idea of the vermin that was trespassing on my property!

Sometimes spiritual rats enter our lives and we don’t even know they’re there. Things like unrighteous anger, jealousy, ungodly sexual cravings, and any number of other not-so-great things. They make themselves at home in our lives and begin to take over. So, what do we do?

We put our gloves on, get our tools out, and go for it. We start to tear away at the nest and break it apart.
At first, it’s so messy looking.

In the rat’s nest out front, there were the craziest things. Being on a busy street, and providing a place to sit, there were the expected things: Big Mac wrappers, beer cans, and plastic bags. But then there were the oddball things: a box cutter, an ID card, a couple of big rocks and a piece of granite countertop.

Like the rat’s nest, when we decide to clean up a potential spiritual problem in our lives, it seems to always start off messy and irritating. We start to clean up and other garbage gets in the way. We need more effort, more tools, and more time, but thank God we get started anyway. When I was pulling out leaves and other junk, I had to even cut some of the olive branches to make a clear path to get to the real mess that I was after.

And some rat nests take more time. I thought I’d have my physical rat nest cleaned up in a couple hours. Wow was I wrong! Instead of a couple hours, it’s more like a couple of days, maybe even a couple weekends—yuk!

But I’ll get it done. Where would I be in a month if I didn’t start now? Where will we be in our spiritual lives if we start to clean them up now? God’s Word says: “Though your beginning was small, your end will be very great” (Job 8:7).

There are five keys I see in this Rat event, that work for physical infestations and spiritual ones as well: 

1. RECOGNIZE that you have a problem. “So that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Cor. 2:11).

2. OBSERVE. Don’t be afraid to look the problem in the face. “And he answered, ‘Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them” (2 Kings 6:16).

3. BELIEVE what you see. Don’t try to ignore what you’re seeing, especially if the Lord shows you twice.

4. ARTICULATE it. Say what the problem is, aloud, or write it down, until you feel like you really have identified it. “And the Lord answered me, and said, ‘Write the vision, and make it plain’” (Hab. 2:2).

5. DO what needs to be done to get rid of the rat. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (Jas. 1:5). “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

Even Jesus had a rat in life. Judas Iscariot was one of His disciples. The other disciples didn’t recognize that he was a problem. Even up to the last minute, they didn’t RECOGNIZE, OBSERVE, BELIEVE, ARTICULATE, or DO. I’m not even sure Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas was going to choose to be a rat. In this situation, God’s wisdom was for Jesus to confront Judas and then let Judas decide what he was going to do. As we know, Judas decided not to repent but took his life instead.

On a personal note, of the five keys I’ve listed, number 3 was the most difficult for me to learn. I grew up in a church that taught that there was no devil, that everything came from God. So, when I saw bad things, I chose to try to ignore them. It was hard for me to BELIEVE that the Lord would be showing me bad things. But I learned that we need to believe what we see. God can’t work in us to get rid of bad things unless we are willing to acknowledge that they exist.

We always have the victory in Christ. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Rom 8:37).

Gotta go tear down more rat nest.

Love, Carolyn

FREE thru Tuesday:

WINGS: A DEVIL ON EVERY DOOR KNOB: And the Faith to Know What to Do About It Kindle Edition

Six true stories of encounters with demons and answers from the Bible on what to do about them. Learn how to recognize certain devil spirits and the wisdom of whether to pray, turn away, confront them head-on or send them to outer darkness. These are six sample stories from the 58 chapters in my new book, WINGS 2: JOURNEY WITH JESUS - A ONE YEAR WEEKLY WORKSHOP IN CHRISTIAN LIVING.

https://www.amazon.com/WINGS-DEVIL-EVERY-Faith-About-ebook/dp/B01IJ95MME/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1537962067&sr=8-16&keywords=wings+carolyn+molica