Midnight Psalms

Nov 4th midnight

 Psalm 96

"Sing to the Lord a new song." 

One we haven't sung before 

because there are new experiences, 

new heartaches, new troubles we haven't known before. 

Our song is new....it's different. 

But we will sing it. 

God is doing things we've never seen Him do before. 

It makes us walk in deeper faith and trust. 

We cling to Him 

because everything 

we've ever thought of as strength in our lives

 has crumbled in our hands.

 We were heading strong towards a mark 

and precious things were crushed and stolen

 from those You entrusted us with.

So our song is now a little more humble, 

a little more contrite and dependent on God. 

Our need is so much greater, 

our cry is more desperate. 

There is no more of our own strength. 

"Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering and come into His courts."

I'm remembering the glory that is due the Lord tonight 

and laying down a precious offering. 

A costly offering, 

but I know He will consume it 

with great mercy and grace. 

I'm laying this precious thing, 

this pearl, down on Your altar. 

I offer this to You for Your will and purpose. 

Breathe new life in and cast all that is evil out. 

Your mercies are new every morning. 

Great is Your faithfulness, Oh Lord.

Some morning I want to wake

 to a new song 

of victory

 over what was restored 

and given back ten fold.

I waited patiently for the Lord;

    he inclined to me and heard my cry.

 

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,

    out of the miry bog,

and set my feet upon a rock,

    making my steps secure.

 

He put a new song in my mouth,

    a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear,

    and put their trust in the Lord.   Psalm 40:1-3

For the Lord your God is living among you.

    He is a mighty savior.

He will take delight in you with gladness.

    With his love, he will calm all your fears.

    He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.  Zeph 3:17

I'll wait for You.

Remember

A prayer for our wandering loved ones. 

Our wandering journey to the Promised Land sometimes takes us through a violent, stormy parting of sea, but God always goes before us. I'm remembering when He's done it before, His mighty power, set in motion through nights of prayer and choosing to trust Him to work in our loved one's life, surrendering them to Him. I opened the Bible this morning, worried and desperate for answers and this was my Psalm for today. 

Oh, and I should mention that my word for the year 2020 is Remember. 

And my prayer word for her is Promised Land. 

Psalm 77

1 

I cried out to God for help;

    I cried out to God to hear me.

 

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;

    at night I stretched out untiring hands,

    and I would not be comforted.

I remembered you, God, and I groaned;

    I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.

 

You kept my eyes from closing;

    I was too troubled to speak. 

I thought about the former days,

    the years of long ago; 

I remembered my songs in the night.

    My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

“Will the Lord reject forever?

    Will he never show his favor again?

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?

    Has his promise failed for all time?

 

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

    Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”

Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:

    the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.

 

I will remember the deeds of the Lord;

    yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

 

I will consider all your works

    and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

Your ways, God, are holy.

    What god is as great as our God?

 

You are the God who performs miracles;

    you display your power among the peoples.

 

With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,

    the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw you, God,

    the waters saw you and writhed;

    the very depths were convulsed.

The clouds poured down water,

    the heavens resounded with thunder;

    your arrows flashed back and forth.

 

Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,

    your lightning lit up the world;

    the earth trembled and quaked.

 

Your path led through the sea,

    your way through the mighty waters,

    though your footprints were not seen.

You led your people like a flock

    by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Love like a waterfall

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

I read this from Psalm 42:7-8 this morning. The wind here today is roaring like a waterfall, so I've been enjoying the thought of sitting by God's waterfalls, waves and breakers of understanding and love sweeping over me.

He knows the deep places of our souls, our longings and aching.  He understands and directs His love toward us like waves and waterfalls. Amazing.

New Living Translation:

I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.

Full of?

Beth Moore quote.

God's fullness is about being full of the right thing....recognizing the wrong things.

Filled to the measure

Fullness sounded like such a great word a few weeks ago.

Then I was listening to or reading something about 2 weeks ago....I can't remember where... I was instantly taken away in thought about it. The thought was that in order to be filled with one thing you have to be empty of all else.

If a cup is full of water, that means there is no tea in it. It is filled with water.

I realize of course, that this will not be easy. The emptying has begun and it seems to be emptying through my eyes. Leaking, pooling, downright weeping. No point in wearing eye makeup these days. I'm being emptied.



Paul asked God to bless his friends with the fullness of God.
  

For this reason I kneel before the Father,   

from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  

 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you 

with power through his Spirit in your inner being,   

 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  

 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, 

to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,   

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge

—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19

I love that.  I guess I still think it's a great word. 

And then he concluded the prayer with this:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, 

according to his power that is at work within us,   

to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus 

throughout all generations, for ever and ever! 

Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

For His glory, according to His power, immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.....throughout all generations. Forever.

I may have to buy stock in the Kleenex tissue company.

Gracious Blessings

  So the Word became human and made his home among us. 

He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.  

And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son...

 

 From his abundance [fullness] we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

John 1:14-16

Our first Sunday service of the year, the floor was opened up for testimonies on what God had done in our lives in 2013. One by one, my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ stood to honor God's gracious blessing in their life. My tears would not stop flowing. 

He's been so good to them....to us.... to me...

....I'm not talking about our great circumstances, material wealth or ease of life, but because of God's work, guidance, care and favor in spite of our circumstances.... because of His abundant grace in our lives.  And it is absolutely radiant in these dear people. 

"From his abundance [fullness] we have all received one gracious blessing after another."

We have all received one gracious blessing after another. Look around and you'll see God's grace in the lives around you, as well as in your own. Then take time to acknowledge it, honor Him. It's kind of like treasure hunting.

It's been 3 weeks now and I can't seem to keep my eye makeup on through a worship service since then. There is a real connection between gratefulness and sincere worship...looking back to remember what He's done, acknowledging His work and His grace in our lives. Then worship flows.

In health or in warfare, there is fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord

Is January zipping by for everyone or is it just me! I need to get back in the habit of posting here, but I'm not making any promises....or resolutions.

I'm just not a resolute type of person I guess. There are many things I should be resolute about, but, ehn. So a few years ago, I gave up making New Year resolutions and began asking God to give me a word for the year.

I began this spiritual practice at the end of 2010, being challenged by a group of other pastors' wives I am involved with. Here is my little history of what God's shown me in the past few years....

2011 Joy ....coming after a few terribly stressful years. The housing crisis hit and we were devastated and humbled by it. I lost 2 jobs because of lay offs.  I felt very unsure of myself and vulnerable. These, along with a lot of other things that involved loss, just made it a difficult series of years for us that led up to 2011. In fact, when I got this word after praying for one, I kept rethinking it. I was in such a state of being humbled and vulnerable that I kept thinking it was just wishful thinking and not something from God. But it was, it kept being confirmed to me and I finally, thankfully, accepted it.

Even though it wasn't a perfectly happy and pain free year, God developed an inner peace and contentment throughout that year that I truly realized the truth I did know in my head, I just wasn't practicing it. Joy comes from within, from being submitted to the Lord, grateful and obedient to Him, not from outer circumstances. The word could have been trust, because I was learning to trust what He was doing in our life, but that was the process....the gift was accepting joy.

The beginning of that year found us packing up our home and moving to a very cheap rental house, wondering what would come next. But it was a freeing time too. We no longer had a huge house payment and I did not have to work. We could afford for me to stay home again and it was...joyful. We were content to live in that little rental house and had plans to be there for as long as we could foresee. But the end of the year found us moving into a large, beautiful home owned by a generous person who charged us less rent than the cheap rental house. We learned to be content and find joy wherever we were. It was kind of an amazing journey of letting go of stuff and trusting what God was doing.

2012 Health ....not striving for health (which was my first thought), but a gift of... an answer to a lot of different health problems that did not seem connected. I was beginning to feel very worn down,  used up and in pain a lot. In February an ultrasound for female things showed that I had a left kidney full of stones. Even though I'd had numerous kidney stones before, I had no idea that was where my pain and problems were coming from. After a grueling 2 lithotripsies and an emergency hospitalization, I remembered an old friend's kidney stone problem was caused by an overactive parathyroid gland, so I mentioned that to my doctor. One simple blood test later, I ended up having one of my parathyroid glands taken out and wow, what a difference! I'm so thankful.

2013 War. Scary word, but I was invited to join in the spiritual warfare that was raging against my family and our church. The word Victory was popping up all over the place, even the day after I got this word, so it was a very hopeful time, even though it was a very hard year....the hardest of my life. There were many victories too. Trust me.

This is the main reason I have not blogged very often this year. The things going on in my life and head were a little too personal and not really about me, so I could not share.

2014 Fullness

 Are you kidding me! Bring it! I am ready. Already I am hearing this word pop up in my husband's sermons....even before telling him my word. And see it all the time in my devotional time.  I made a Pinterest board on it. The verse I'm mainly focused on is Psalm 16:11...

You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Psalm 16:11 NAS

Fullness only comes from God, so I am eagerly anticipating this year and what He will show me. God is so good to us in that group of women I meet with, giving us a little glimpse of the year, a little prophetic word to hold on to, to anticipate....  Each woman has a story to tell about their words. He is active and working and teaching us so much.

Signs in the Sky

I would never have classified myself as a signs and wonders type of person. I mean I always knew God could perform signs and wonders if He wanted to, but I didn't think they were necessarily something for my daily life.

But y'know what? That is changing. It's not that the signs and wonders weren't there before, it's that I didn't recognize them. I wasn't looking or expecting anything. God is working all the time, all around us. He wants us to join in and notice......to be grateful and mindful of His power and presence.

A couple of weeks ago, Maggie and I were driving in to Albuquerque for a driver's education practice and I looked up at the mountains that divide Albuquerque from our East Mountain area. I always look at them when we're driving and since she was driving, I was really looking. It's a beautiful view of the green covered sweeping mountain ridge, lately with patches of yellow aspen. Right above the top of the ridge--I kid you not!--was a semicolon. It was made from a couple of small clouds. It was the only patch of clouds I could see, sitting there all alone in a perfect backwards semicolon. I even pointed it out to Maggie and she said yes, it was a semicolon and added that I was weird. (I was a little excited, that's all)

Punctuation in the sky.

It gets your attention. It is weird.

I dropped her off to drive with her instructor and then I had to google semicolon to see what it's purpose is because, clearly it was a sign of some sort.

--A semicolon is used to join 2 independent, yet somewhat related, statements.
--Semicolons are described by writers as old fashioned, middle class, and optional.
--Semicolons can be used to link transitional phrases.
--Semicolons are used to separate words of opposed meaning.
--They also allow for a rapid change of direction in a sentence.

 In full time ministry lifestyle, we are constantly praying for God to put a kind of symbolic semicolon into people's lives.

Charlie used drugs to escape the emptiness of life; when he turned his life over to Christ, he was set free and now has direction and Hope.

Susan's life was all about fighting for cause after cause; God showed her true purpose in life, to let Him love others through her.

Our church has been prayer walking together at least once a month in different neighborhoods. It is amazing what you are led to pray for someone by just walking by their property. It gets very personal and it's obvious that people need a semicolon these days. The last 3 uses listed anyway.

--To link transitional phrases.
--To separate words of opposed meaning.
--Allows for a rapid change of direction in a sentence.

On October 31st we will be taking the children of our church trick or treating in a neighborhood near our church. As the children go to the doors, the adults will be covering that household in prayer. The children will hand the person answering the door a small gift bag with a little gift and a card that tells them we care and have prayed for their household.

We want to see that huge semicolon inserted into people's lives....transitions, radical changes, true Hope where there is now only emptiness.

Snapping back

This past week my mind has snapped back into action. Toward the end of last year, I asked God for a word for the year. I do this each year, the past few years and it is amazing what God shows me. It opens my eyes spiritually. The word He gave me for this year is war. NOT a lackadaisical kind of word....not one you really look forward to having for a whole year.  Not a real pleasant word. But then I thought about how God works. I remembered I had a  Pinterest board about it. Just looking at the pins on that board, mostly Bible verses, I feel strength to jump back in....because I got lazy and the enemy gained ground.


So anyway, being snapped back into action and all. I was reminded like a slap in the face, that I am in a year of warfare. And war is proactive. There is nothing passive about it unless you want to get creamed.

And I don't want that.

So I am stepping back on the battlefield today, right now. I thought maybe someone who reads this may need the same encouragement to get back in their armor. We are all involved in this battle. And it is never in vain. We must fight for each other.

God help us.

The Dovecot

I love it when I'm doing something ordinary and something extraordinary happens.

My sister Julie asked me to send her Hannah and Bradley's new address. They are on their honeymoon, so I was trying to figure out their house number on my own. I looked it up on Google maps and then clicked on the street view option. I couldn't see the house number but while I was looking at it from different angles something else jumped out at me.

So I took a screen shot of the Google map view.

In one angle of the street view, there are two birds (they look like doves) taking flight right in front of the one eave on the house. It is a tiny, tiny house....400 square feet I think. When my sister Julie saw it last week, she said it reminded her of the little cottage where Meg and John Brook live in Little Women. They called it the Dovecot.

I love how symbolic it is that the doves are just taking off in flight, just like the newlywed couple.

Many, many blessed times and years to them.