Psalm 57:2

I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me. (NIV)

A month away from home capped off by four days on the road has given me plenty of time to ponder my purpose - not figure it out, mind you, but ponder it. I know, I know, my purpose is to serve and glorify God through worship and obedience. That's everyone's purpose. I want details. How exactly am I supposed to be accomplishing this?

Apparently I'm not the only one who wants me to discover my purpose. In the past few days I've been bombarded with messages about this very thing.

The other day I started reading a book I've had for months but had not yet touched. I first picked up best-selling author Debbie Macomber's Knit Together: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life because I saw it in a display of knitting books. I love knitting...well, I love the idea of knitting. I inherited my dear departed mother's innate ability to buy yarn and begin projects. Upon my death Genny may well be presented with a huge plastic tub of unfinished needlework, as was I....but I digress. Saw the book in the window. Thought, "Oh, isn't that neat? She knits. She's a Christian. I'll take it." (and this and this and this... but that's beside the point) Really didn't expect much. I'd read a couple of her books and found them a little too fluffy for my taste. OK, perhaps, for an occasional, feel-good diversion, but that's about it. Fast forward a few months. I finally get around to starting the book, and find it's anything but fluffy. It's as if every word was written just for me, right now. In fact, I find myself having to put it down and only read a bit at a time because, what might some other time be no more than a nice little bit of encouragement, is so powerful and convicting and personal to me.

So yesterday while I was sitting on the beach taking a break from attempting to discover my specific purpose, I studied a couple of my scripture memory verses, including Jeremiah 29:11, which I repeated over and over. When I was ready for more of the book, I plunged back in and what did I read on the very next page?

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

And yes, I typed that from memory ;-) (except for the punctuation!) Anyway, this is good. God knows his plans for me. Awesome. But if I could just have a little hint, Lord...

Well, here we are at today, and the verse I had planned on using for my scripture memory didn't really sit right with me for some reason. I visited the Liberty Bell earlier this month and thought it might be neat to memorize Leviticus 25:10, a portion of which is inscribed on the bell. But when I looked up the whole verse it just didn't seem pertinent or inspiring. (One of Beth Moore's hints for scripture memorization is that you choose a verse you need so it's meaningful and nourishing as you meditate on it and commit it to memory.) So I logged on to the LPM blog kind of aimlessly hoping for something to pop out at me that I'd be inspired to memorize. Sure enough, there's Beth quoting Psalm 57:2 and telling me how God always fulfills his purpose for me. OK, I hear you, Lord...

So for now I'll rest with that. I may not be clear on my purpose, but God is, so I'll cling to him, hoping for a glimpse and knowing that His purpose for me is way beyond anything I can imagine on my own.

Been meaning to get to this one...

...for a while. No explanation required.

"Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips."
Psalm 141:3 NIV

It is what it is

This summer I'm joining Beth Moore and hundreds of others via her LPM blog doing a new Bible study by Jennifer Rothschild entitled "Me Myself & Lies: a thought-closet makeover." It's based on her book "Self Talk, Soul Talk: What to Say When You Talk to Yourself," and it helps up explore "the things we commonly say to ourselves and teaches us to practice godly and biblical self-talk." Having completed only the first few days, the study has already had a profound impact on me, and through it God has made quite clear what my next memory verse should be:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Week One, Day 4 deals with worry, which Jennifer defines as "fixating or meditating on what if rather than what is." As an exercise participants are presented with a drawing of two closet doors. On the first we're asked to write a list of "what if" temptations to worry. Not much thought required there for me - it takes mere seconds for me to jot down an entire repertoire of worries that can easily occupy my mind. Then on the second door, for each of the "what ifs" we noted, we're asked to write the corresponding "what is" - the truth from God's Word - that can fill our meditation instead. On that door I could only come up with one truth: Jeremiah 29:11. For every worry I can think up, God answers me with the same words:
"I know my plans for you."
"But what if..."
"...I will see that you prosper..."
"But I don't think I can..."
"...I will never harm you..."
"If only I hadn't..."
"Don't worry about that, just think about the possibilities..."
"Lord, I try so hard, but I just keep failing."
"Don't give up. You're future is secure and exciting with me."
"You're right. Thank you, Father. You always know what to say to make me feel better."

Better than lemonade in the desert

I read this verse the other day in the One Year Bible:

"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord..." Acts 3:19 (NIV)

I just love that, don't you? I love the words "wiped out" which remind me that forgiveness involves a measure of forgetfulness. When we truly repent, God doesn't just overlook our faults, he erases them completely and gives us a fresh start (over and over and over again!) The Psalmist tells us "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:12), and in Hebrews we read God's words, "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more," (Hebrews 8:12) and a couple chapters later, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." (Hebrews 10:17) I am so easily exasperated by forgetfulness in others, but it looks like I need to rethink that....turns out selective memory is a Godly quality!

But my favorite part of the verse is "times of refreshing." It brings to mind such things as swimming in a cool ocean on a hot day, a frosty cold drink on a parched throat, or reading a book in a shady hammock. I've always been big on refreshing. (In fact one summer I actually taught my type-A friend how to do nothing! Couldn't believe she didn't know. lol) But you can be sure that "refreshing...from the Lord" is even better than anything we can humanly imagine.

A sober warning

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."
Colossians 2:8 (NIV)

This verse is used by author John Rosemond in reference to postmodern psychological parenting in his book "Parenting by The Book: Biblical Wisdom for Raising Your Child." Today marks the start of an online book club on my GottaWearShades blog, and this will be the first book we read. If you'd like to join us for some virtual discussion and see how parenting and fellowship and blogging can all come together, visit GWS for more info.

So how do we see to it that we're not taken captive? How do we recognize hollow and deceptive philosophy so we can steer clear? I'm reminded of something I heard years ago in small group Bible study. Lauren Blackburn related that people who are counterfeit money detection experts train not by studying examples of fake money, but rather by spending hours and hours examining every detail of the real thing. They know the genuine bill so well that the counterfeit is easy to spot. Her point was that this is how we should learn to discern lies, by submerging ourselves in the Truth, by studying and examining God's Word so much that we can detect the enemy's counterfeit.

If you are not currently involved in a Bible study, I encourage you to get started. Go on ChristianBook.com or Lifeway.com, narrow your search by gender, or topic or price or anything, and find something that appeals to you. The possibilities are endless. If you're stumped ask me - I'm building quite a library myself, and I even have some DVD kits I'm itching to lend out. Or participate online in a study of Proverbs, beginning next Wednesday on the GWS blog. Study all by yourself, or get together with a friend or a few, or join a Bible study class. God will bless your study, and he will give you a hunger for more. And all the while you'll be learning to recognize the world's lies by becoming familiar with the standard of Truth.

John 9:39 - Amazing Grace

I love it when God blesses my procrastination. Sometimes he shows me that pushing deadlines and putting off my "to do" list is actually his restraining hand at work. (Note: sometimes it's not!)

In Journey to Confidence: Becoming Women Who Witness, the author has us write out several verses that are useful in witnessing, and encourages us to commit them to memory so we can call them to mind by the Holy Spirit when given the opportunity to share the Gospel. "Great," I thought, "I'll use these as my memory verses for the next few months, and I don't have to worry about what to choose for a while." (As if I'm the one doing the choosing!) So I wrote them all in my index card book and was planning on posting Romans 10:9-10 on 15th...

...but Friday came and went........then Saturday came and went....I knew on Sunday I had to get this out of the way - both this entry and my quick sign-in post on the LPM blog, both of which are serving as accountability motivation on my scripture memory journey.

So on the 17th I got up at 6, got my first cup of coffee and settled in the family room with my One Year Bible, thinking I'd knock out the day's reading, then knock out this post. And wouldn't you know it, by the end of the reading God had given me a completely different verse to memorize! It comes near the end of the May 17 New Testament passage:

Then Jesus told him, "I have come to judge the world. I have come to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind." John 9:39 (NLT)

This verse jumped off the page at me, and I immediately realized its value in my "witnessing repertoire", if you will. You see, this scripture addresses the number one cause for my reluctance to share my faith, which is that I believe, mistakenly or otherwise, that most people think they're just fine, that they're "good people," and that that's enough for this life and the next. Who am I to suggest to them that they are lacking? That there's more? That they are unsaved sinners? Yet these are the very ones about whom Jesus is speaking here - those who think they see, who think they have it all under control, who believe that as long as they're less wicked than the next guy and do some good deeds here and there that everything will turn out alright for them.

What's more, I was once one of those wretches who didn't know she was blind till after she could see.

I now realize it's not my responsibility to convince people they need Jesus. Conviction falls under the Holy Spirit's job description. And according to Walt Larrimore and Bill Peel, authors of Going Public with Your Faith, I don't need to be an expert witness with all the answers to all the questions. I just need to be a material witness and testify to what I've seen and heard and what I know to be true. In this case, I know that Jesus said his purpose was to open the eyes of the blind. And I know that since I've been studying the Bible and walking with God, my life is so much easier and more joyful and more meaningful than when I thought I knew it all.

Wish I'd known this years ago...

...but at least I know it now and can teach my kids this and other biblical truths about choosing friends:

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
Proverbs 13:20 (NIV)

See my neat new widget on the right? This is counting down the minutes till I go to Houston for Beth Moore's special event for all the LPM Scripture Memory particpants. She claims that we're going to have to recite at least 10 verses to get in the door, but I have trouble believing that they'd actually turn people away. However, I'll be armed (with the sword of the Spirit!) and ready should I have to prove my eligibility. I've been reviewing and rehearsing all my year-to-date verses. Beth says they'll give prizes to those who can recite all 24 verses, and I'm planning on claiming my prize!

I've always been in awe of people who could quote chapter and verse, and now, thanks to Beth Moore's challenge, my accountability to you ThySpace readers, and my motivating countdown widget, I now have 9 verses under my belt - the belt of truth, that is! Hmmm, perhaps Ephesians 6 should be next...