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Living, Laughing and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/10/2005 12:12:25 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
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Welcome to my blog!! As I have never blogged before, I hope most can be patient with me, I also hope my stories are interesting enough for others to read, and as my title states that what I do here will be to the glory of God. I am so grateful for all my new friends here at CW. On with my journey.....
Psalms 115:1
Not to us, Lord, not to us,
but to Your name give glory
because of Your faithful love, because of Your truth.
Jeremiah 13:16
Give glory to the Lord your God
before He brings darkness,
before your feet stumble
on the mountains at dusk.
You wait for light,
but He brings darkest gloom
and makes thick darkness.
Matthew 5:16
In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven
Philemon 1:6
I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ.
< Message edited by karlie -- 5/19/2005 11:29:10 AM >
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/10/2005 12:37:55 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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My Testimony
I guess this is a good place to start. I was saved on Easter morning in 1982 (I was 17) at my older sisters small country Baptist Church. I remember the message as if it was yesterday. The pastor was an elderly man and spoke of when he was a child and would worry about his mother leaving him...only when he realized that Jesus would ALWAYS be there for him, no matter what, did he find peace. I remember he cried when he spoke of his mother and his message of the peace of Jesus moved me. I walked up the aisle and gave my heart to Jesus that morning as did my little sister.
My sister lived in another town a couple hours away, so when we came home, I wanted to find a church to go to. Within the next couple weeks we had a visit from some people who were starting up a church in the neighborhood and my sister and I became members and were baptized. We first met in an elementary school next to where the church would be built. We helped to build our church (I even worked on the roof!) and I grew to love my church family dearly. After I graduated from High School, I got the silly idea that I could control my life much better than God could, so I started to drift....I got pregnant and left the church for awhile....I returned when my daughter was about 3yrs old. I became active again and felt closer to God than ever. Then the church split happened. It was devastating to me. I loved these people so much and here they were putting each other down and back-biting....It was like going through a horrible, ugly divorce. It scarred me, and the result was my loss of faith in people. I still loved the Lord, but I wanted nothing to do with the family of Christ.
It took several years for me to deal with that. I would go to church on occassion, when my Mom would be singing a special in the choir, or for Christmas and Easter services, but I didn't want to invest myself in the people at church. I got married (to a buddhist) had two more wonderful children and I felt empty. I decided to return to the church in 2004. My dh wanted to know why I wanted to go to church. I told him simply, "I have been blessed, with you, with the kids, with my life...I need to give back to the Lord". He accepted that and I have been actively growing in Christ ever since. I am now "at peace" with Jesus, and I love my church family. I now know that I can't handle anything on my own, I don't know best and I have to put it ALL in the hands of Jesus. God is good - ALL the time!
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/11/2005 2:16:30 AM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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humility and skunks and older sisters
Got a little lesson in humility today. Actually, it was one of our Sunday School lessons several weeks ago and I have been working on my own humility, I just got to put it into play today.
I was awoken from my nap (okay, it was my kids naptime, but I was napping with them) by the doorbell this evening (we laid down late). It was the husband and wife that are on the same praise team I am on at church. They actually came to visit with my husband since I made him go to church Sunday as a Mothers Day "favor" for me. He works nights so he was not home, but I was glad to see them.....so dispite the fact that my living room was a wreck (really shameful) and I didn't look at all "put together". I invited them in and visited for awhile. I could have shooed them away and explained later how messy the house was and how embarrassed I was (I'll probably do that later), but we had a nice visit despite our toy filled surroundings. I joked and said "ya know, it's not usually this neat in here." I only hope they weren't horrified.
Later while cooking dinner, I noticed a strange aroma looming about. A skunk had gotten spray happy somewhere outside and the odor was getting sucked in by the air conditioner. This happens every now and then here. I hate it...but there's not much you can do.
Since rededicating my life to the Lord, I have found it so much easier to let things go. I don't take things so personally anymore. I don't get people who are so eager to blame, who go into a rage when someone cuts them off in traffic, people who can't take a joke. My oldest sister is one of those people, and it has crippled her socially and emotionally. She can't hold job because she says she can't work with other people because everyone is so inept compared to her (?!?  ?!?). She is 50 and lives with my mother and is sucking the life out of her slowly. But she knows it all....she won't go to church or seek psychiatric help (she often threatens to take her own life if things aren't going her way) because she says she likes the way she is.
I pray for her salvation. I used to hate her....and it is hard to even like her, but if anyone needs the love of Christ in their life - it's her. Let the skunks make the stink - I have God to keep me and guide me.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/16/2005 7:46:36 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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Thankful
I took a LONG drive halfway across Texas this weekend. I thought about how I take for granted Gods creative works. It was a lovely drive. Full of farms with cows, horses and the occasional buzzards. I went from the relatively flat plains to the piney woods and those tall trees always put me in awe.
Thank you God, for giving us such a lovely planet to live on. For the nature and weather and all those weeds that are so pretty on long drives but not so in our back yards. I love the work of your hands as much as I love You.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/18/2005 10:34:08 AM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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All about moi
I was reading over my previous entries and noticed I hadn't really done a "get to know me" post. So here is a little bit about myself.
I am almost 40 (and I'm okay with that). I grew up with 5 sisters and 1 brother and 2 parents in a very crowded and sometimes disfunctional household. My father was an alchoholic, though he never admitted it. He was never a mean drunk, he would usually get either very goofy or very serious with us when he was drinking (not many spankings in our home - we dreaded "the lecture"). He passed away when he was 55 and though he was not a perfect dad, he was a fairly decent man and I miss him terribly.
Growing up I was the second to the youngest, always eager to please, as some of my other siblings were trouble makers. We were a military family and pretty much everyone got to see the world except for me and my little sister. We were both born in Alaska and moved to TX when I was 3. Been here ever since.
I met my husband when I was 30 - though he had lived around the corner from me all my life. We married when I was 33 and I love him dearly.
I am involved in the childrens ministry at my church, I run the childrens choir and I have a lot of fun getting the kids to sing and sign. They are not always cooperative which makes it more of a challenge, but that's okay, it is what the Lord wants me to do right now, so I do it with a cheerful heart. I am also on a praise team at my church helping to lead the worship music every other week. I love to sing.
I have 3 kids of my own...an 18 yr old, a 4 yr old and a 2 yr old. They keep me humble, and are very entertaining. I love being a Mom. After we had our 2 yr old, I was able to stop working to stay home with the kids. This was important to me, because I did not want strangers raising my kids getting to watch them grow and develop.
So that is a little backround on me. I tried to make it as brief and painless as possible. 
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/19/2005 3:16:04 AM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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Grandma Bea
This is what my children call my Mom.
This is the woman who raised seven (sometimes unruly) children to some degree of success. We have put this woman through the wringer many a time and she still loves us despite it all.
My Mom has a disease called Chron's Disease. Because of this, she has been hospitalized and operated on numerous times. About 11 years ago, she almost died and spent the better part of three months in the hospital. I was living with her at the time and went through some of the worst moments with her. I changed wound dressings, cleaned up accidents, I even created a medication spreadsheet for her to follow when she was taking 13 different medications a day. She would often say I should go into nursing (these tasks were easy for me because she was my mother, I don't know if I could do it on a daily basis for strangers). Eventually, after coming home with a feeding tube in her nose, she recovered and now struggles daily with other issues such as her weight (she weighs about 100lbs - probably a little under right now) and keeping properly hydrated.
Now she has a new struggle. After a morning trip to the ER, she found out she has shingles. I will do my usual research on this and help her get through it. It kills me to see her in pain, I know God has a reason for getting her this far in life so I will pray to Him for the virus to run its course quickly and as painlessly as possible. I love this woman so much I can't even imagine life without her.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 5/28/2005 2:09:58 AM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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Sisters and Brothers
I have five biological sisters, and one brother. I love them all, some maybe a little more than others. I am the second to youngest with the oldest being ten years older than me. We have all been through a lot together and in our own separate lives.
One of my sisters had to have knee surgery when she was a teenager after falling from a horse, this is the sister that lead me to the Lord. She has always been a blessing to me. I remember when she had the cast on her leg, we were sharing a room and she would play Marty Robbins albums at night to help me fall asleep (I was probably around 10 yrs old at the time).
Christmas mornings when I was little, another sister would wake me up at 3am so we could go get a stick of gum from our stockings and check out the gifts under the tree, we wouldn't open them, but we would look and see who got the biggest, the flatest, the strangest shape, the prettiest wrapping, etc....we would put Christmas albums on (very quietly) and sit in the dark with only the tree lights on and chew our gum and look at the tree and gifts and just enjoy the moment. Then we would go back to bed until it was time for everyone to get up.
My little sister was my buddy in High School, she could always be trusted with the biggest secrets and (being much smarter than I) would often help me out by proofreading (and sometimes laughing hysterically at) my term papers and reports. She was always a lot of fun without even trying.
My brother is a mechanical genius. When my first cars' engine froze up, he literally took the engine apart, laid the pieces on a sheet in the front yard and figured out what was wrong with it, and fixed it. I remember crying when I saw all those pieces on that sheet, thinking, he's never gonna get that back together - but he did.
Most of my siblings are somewhat far away now, I keep in touch with them all and visit whenever I get a chance, I feel blessed to have such a close-knit group to have grown up with. My memories are many and mostly pretty happy. Not that we didn't have our dysfunctional moments.
I also feel blessed by all of my sisters and brothers in Christ. Too many to count or name, and so many here at CW....I can hardly wait till we are all able to meet in heaven and give some proper (((((hugs))))) to each other. You all keep me lifted up every day and I thank God for each and every one of you.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 6/5/2005 2:14:40 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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~Ode to a dear friend~
I have a friend who is very close to my heart. I feel like we've known each other forever, but it's really only been about 24 yrs. A lot of readers here may know her, as she is the one who brought me to this site. I'm talking about our dear sister in Christ, miss Landabee.
One of the first things I remember about her (we met in Jr High) is her telling me once that "you really shouldn't wear that, it doesn't flatter you" LOL.....I don't even remember what I was wearing, and I didn't take offense - it's just the way she is, she tells it like it is and that's one of the many things I love about her. We've gone through good times and bad times together....managed through a few rough patches in our friendship. She is more like a sister to me than some of my real sisters. I would walk through fire for this woman, and I can't say that about many people. When she hurts, I hurt. And when we laugh, we laugh loud and hard.
She is an anchor for me, she has always been a beacon of Gods love and light, even when I didn't feel too close to Him. I thank God for her every day and pray I can be as much a blessing to others as she has been to me.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 6/20/2005 12:50:04 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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MALACHI 3:3
Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."
This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what
this statement meant about the character and nature of God.
One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver
and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.
That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to
watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for
her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the
fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed
to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were
hottest as to burn away all the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot then she
thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and
purifier of silver."
She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in
front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.
The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the
silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it
was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames,
it would be destroyed.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith,
"How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and
answered, "Oh, that's easy - when I see my image in it."
If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has
His eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.
Pass this one, because right now, this very moment, someone needs to
know that God is watching over them. And, whatever they're going
through, they'll be a better person.
__________________________________________________________________
I rec'd this message in my email from my SIL....it really touched my heart. I love the fact that God is always working on me. It is also great to know that he is always with me through the "fire" of my worldly existance here.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 6/20/2005 2:03:23 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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Knoxville Airport
***Every now and then I receive an email that stands out and feeds my soul. This is one of those....I want to share it with everyone I meet.
_________________________________________________________________
Beth Moore
Apr 20, 2005
Knoxville Airport -
Waiting to board the plane: I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord.
I say that because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you.
You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least of which is your ego...
I tried to keep from staring but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones. The strangest part of him was his hair and nails.
Stringy gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long. Clean, but strangely out of place on an old man.
I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting.
Then, I remembered reading somewhere that he was dead. So this man in the airport... an impersonator maybe?
Was a camera on us somewhere?....
There I sat trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.
I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing. I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind.
"Oh no, God please no." I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, "Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!"...
There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, "Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane."
Then I heard it..."I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair."
The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, "God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm you're girl! You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am on him. I am going to witness to this man."
Again as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. "That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair."
I looked up at God and quipped, "I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane, How am I suppose to brush his hair without a hairbrush?"...
God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: "I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works." (2 Tim 3:17) I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies.
I knelt down in front of the man, and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"
He looked back at me and said, "What did you say?"
"May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair? To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that. At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"
At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If you really want to."
Are you kidding? OF course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, "Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush."
"I have one in my bag," he responded. I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but I must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls.
Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull. A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair.
I know this sounds so strange but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while. The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's.
His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's. I slipped the brush back in the bag, went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knees, and said, "Sir, do you know my Jesus?" He said, "Yes, I do." Well, that figures. He explained, "I've known Him since I married my bride."
"She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior." He said, "You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself. What a mess I must be for my bride."
Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?"
I said, "Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!" And we got to share. I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted because you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!
I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way... all because I didn't want people to think I was strange. God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.
John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 7/4/2005 12:41:07 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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in memory of my Dad
Okay, time to get blogging again. Since my last entry on my Mom I have been thinking a lot about my Dad. The anniversary of his death was a couple days ago, and I miss him terribly.
My father was my hero. I always looked up to him and also always had a healthy fear of him, we all did, which kept us pretty much in line. He never abused or hurt any of us - we got our share of spankings - yes, spankings! Now, I can only remember two times he ever spanked me, and after the last one he took some mathiolate (we called it "monkey blood") and drew a heart on the back of my hand and told me he loved me. I always felt safe when Daddy was home, and I always knew we would be taken care of. He spent 28 years in the air force, often working an extra job on the side, and he continued to work after he retired from the military.
This is not to say my Dad was perfect. Far from it. He was undoubtedly an alchoholic...he drank a lot, but he was not a violent or abusive drunk, he would sometimes get goofy, but mostly he would get introspective and tend to lecture us more than anything else. We all learned to deal with it and while looking back it must have been torture for my Mom, she dealt with it as well.
He instilled in me a sturdy work ethic - he never missed a day of work unless he was in the hospital. He made sure I always voted after reaching voting age. He passed on his love for photography to me and also his electronic/technical skills. (I'm the one who can re-wire a lamp and install a ceiling fan around here).
While he was not always vocal about his love for us, we could always feel it. He was a great provider, joker and mentor (aside from his tendancy to drink way too much).
My father passed away in 1988....he was on his way to the hospital as he was not feeling well and had a heart attack in the car on the way there, this resulted in his crashing into a Burger King along the way. No one else was hurt in the crash, but my fathers heart was just not strong enough to be revived.
I do not know if he was "saved", I know he was a devout catholic at one time and had actually considered being a priest at one time in his youth. I would like to think he will be in heaven waiting for me when I get there with open arms. I loved my daddy dearly and I miss him equally so.
< Message edited by BeckeyZ -- 7/4/2005 12:43:20 PM >
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 7/12/2005 11:37:28 AM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
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I often have to remind myself that I am here to serve my risen Lord. Especially when I get caught up in the whirlwind of busy everyday affairs.
When the kids are trampling on my last nerve and I'm blinded by stress and anxiety.
When dinner gets burned or accidentally spilled on the floor.
When trying to fix a broken household item I end up supergluing the piece to my finger.
A lot of people would say this is satan trying to weasle into my life. I don't think so though. I think it is my lack of seeking to glorify God...and when I am reminded of the love that Jesus has for me, all the bad stuff that tends to make me cranky, just fades away into the backround.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 7/25/2005 1:19:25 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
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my baby
Well, she's not my baby anymore....she will be three next week. I have so enjoyed being able to be here everyday for her and her brother. Getting to watch them grow up and develop their unique (and quite entertaining) personalities. I feel blessed to have such sweet God - loving children.
My little girl broke a trinket of mine this weekend, and she kept telling me "I'm sorry Mommy" over and over, even the next day. Her insistance on apologizing repeatedly started to concern me and I took her on my lap and explained to her, "I'm not mad, what you broke was just a thing and not important at all - you don't have to keep apologizing, because I have already forgiven you."
Just like our Father in heaven does for us. I have to remember this - once He forgives us of our sins, He forgets them. We don't have to keep saying we're sorry. We need to move forward and quit looking back dwelling on our past mistakes.
I hope I can instill this message into my children.
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 8/16/2005 9:39:36 AM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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work and worthiness
I have just started a part-time job at my church. I am so excited about it, it is almost silly.
Don't get me wrong, I have loved, LOVED being home with my children 24/7 the past 3+ years, but I somehow now feel "worthy" again. That is probably not the correct word to use, but I feel like I am contributing (at least a tiny bit) financially to the household and I also get a great personal boost from working.
I keep justifying this work decision in my head and I know it's dumb. Anyhow, it feels good and I know I am doing what God wants me to be doing, so YAY!!!!
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Learning is fun!
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 8/26/2005 3:37:45 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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.......update.......
things are going really well right now. Almost too well, I sometimes have a hard time accepting God's blesssings graciously. I'm always curious if things are going so well, when is the ball gonna fall - is something bad happening in the backround that I don't know about? This is something I have to work on. God has blessed me richly, and I am very thankful. I have a good family, a good church, great friends and, at the moment, I don't really have a lot to complain about. That's great!!! God is good, and He has been very good to me lately.
Thank You, Lord, for Your blessings and grace. I hope others can see Your love through me, today, tomorrow and the rest of my days.
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Learning is fun!
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 9/8/2005 9:55:47 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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my Pastor
Please remember my Pastor in prayer. He is in the hospital having tests run on his heart.
I have been working at the church as his assistant for about 4 weeks now. I keep learning new things from him and he is a patient teacher. He also has a very good sense of humor, which is always a plus.
He is an incredible servant of the Lord and the more time I spend with him the more I see this. He's no saint and I don't see him as one. But he loves God with every fiber of his being and it shows. I respect that, so I respect him.
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Learning is fun!
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RE: Living, Lauging and Loving to the Glory of God - 9/9/2005 4:05:05 PM
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BeckeyZ
Posts: 5993
Joined: 4/18/2005
From: the sunny side of the street
Status: offline
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I wanted to share Max Lucado's message for this week....since I don't have everyone's email addresses, this is the easiest way to do so. He encourages the sharing of his messages at his site Max Lucado.com as usual, his message is eloquent and well put. Please read on......
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What Katrina Can Teach Us
September 10-11, 2005
(Special message preached at Oak Hills Church by Max Lucado)
Who would have thought we would ever hear this phrase spoken on a radio news report in America: “Today, about 25,000 refugees were moved from the Superdome in New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston.”
For days, we’ve watched the tragedy continue to unfold in Mississippi and
Louisiana and, if you are like me, you’ve wrestled with feelings of shock and
disbelief…feelings that, over the last five years, have become all too familiar.
We were barely into the new millennium when we saw towers falling in New York City and planes crashing into the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania farmland.
We saw bombs over Baghdad and witnessed the ancient land of Abraham become a war zone for his descendants. You’d think we had seen enough, but then came the tsunami--a roaring wave that sucked life and innocence out to sea.
And now the fruits of Katrina. A city sitting in twenty feet of water. Citizens hacking their way onto roofs and helicopters hovering over neighborhoods. Optimistic rescuers, opportunistic looters, grateful people, resentful people—we have seen it all.
And many have seen it up close. Katrina came to San Antonio in the form of 12,500 evacuees. Many of you are meeting them, feeding them, writing checks, and manning shifts. And you, as much as any, have reason to wonder…What is going on here? 9/11, Iraq, tsunami, Katrina. And I didn’t mention nor intend to minimize Hurricanes Dennis and Ivan and Emily.
Jesus criticized the leaders of his day for focusing on the weather and ignoring the signals: “You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—why can't you read the signs of the times?” Matthew 16:2-3 (MSG).
What are we to learn from all of this? Is God sending us a message? I think so. And, I think we’d be wise to pay attention. There are some spiritual lessons that I think God would want us to learn through this tragedy. The first lesson we see is…
I. The Nature of Possessions: Temporary
As you’ve listened to evacuees and survivors, have you noticed their words? No one laments a lost plasma television or submerged SUV. No one runs through the streets yelling, “My cordless drill is missing” or “My golf clubs have washed away.” If they mourn, it is for people lost. If they rejoice, it is for people found.
Could Jesus be reminding us that people matter more than possessions? In a land where we have more malls than high schools, more debt than credit, more clothes to wear than we can wear, could Christ be saying:
"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15)?
We see an entire riverboat casino washed up three blocks and placed on top of a house in a neighborhood. You see demolished $40,000 cars that will never be driven again, hidden in debris. And in the background of our minds we hear the quiet echoes of Jesus saying, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
Raging hurricanes and broken levees have a way of prying our fingers off the stuff we love. What was once most precious now means little; what we once ignored is now of eternal significance.
A friend and I attended a worship service at Antioch Baptist Church last Sunday night. Several African American Church leaders had organized an assembly to pray for the evacuees that have ended up in San Antonio. Many of them sat on the front rows…dressed in all the clothing they owned: t-shirts, jeans. Their faces were weary from the week. But when the music started and the worship began, they came to their feet and sang with tears in their eyes.
They were rich. Are you that rich? Were all your possession washed away, could you still worship? Would you still worship? If not, you are holding things too tightly:
“Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:17-19 MSG).
Through Katrina, Christ tells us: stuff doesn’t matter; people do. Understand the nature of possessions. Be equally clear on:
II. The Nature of People: Sinners and Saints
We see the most incredible servants and stories of selflessness and sacrifice. We see people of the projects rescuing their neighbors, we see civil servants risking their lives for people they’ve never seen. My wife Denalyn and I toured a shelter supervised by one of our neighbors here in San Antonio. We met a family of some twenty cousins and siblings. One six-year-old girl told Denalyn about the helicopter man who plucked her off a third story porch and lifted her to safety.
That child will never know who that man is. He’ll never seek any applause. He
saved her life… all in a day’s work. We saw humanity at its best. And we saw humanity at its worst.
Looting. Fighting. We heard stories of rapes and robberies. Someone said, “The Heavens declare the glory of God but the streets declare the sinfulness of man.” The video footage in New Orleans has confirmed the truthfulness of that quote. Can you imagine not being able to sleep in the Superdome for fear that someone might try to rape your daughter if she went to the restroom in the middle of the night?
We are people of both dignity and depravity. The hurricane blew back more than roofs; it blew the mask off the nature of mankind. The main problem in the world is not Mother Nature, but human nature. Strip away the police barricades, blow down the fences, and the real self is revealed. We are barbaric to the core.
We were born with a me-first mentality. You don’t have to teach your kids to argue. They don’t have to be trained to demand their way. You don’t have to show them how to stomp their feet and pout, it is their nature… indeed it is all of our nature to do so.
“All of us have strayed like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own” (Isaiah 53:6).
God’s chosen word for our fallen condition has three letters- s-I-n. Sin celebrates the letter in the middle. “I”. Left to our own devices, we lead a godless, out of control life of “…doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it” (Ephesians 2:3 MSG).
You don’t have to go to New Orleans to see the chaos. Because of sin, the husband ignores his wife, grown men seduce the young. The young proposition the old. When you do what you want and I do what I want, humanity and civility implodes.
And when the Katrinas of life blown in, our true nature is revealed and our deepest need is unveiled: a need deeper than food, more permanent than firm levees. We need, not a new system, but a new nature. We need to be changed from the inside out. Which takes us to the third message of Katrina:
III. The Nature of God’s Grace: Inside Out
Much discussion revolves around the future of New Orleans. Will the city be restored? Repaired? How long will it take? Who will pay for it? One thing is for certain: someone has to clean her up.
No one is suggesting otherwise. Everyone knows, someone has to go in a clean up the mess. That is what God offers to do with us. He comes into sin-flooded lives and washes away the old. Paul reflected on his conversion and he wrote: “He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Our sins stand no chance against the fire hoses of God’s grace.
But he does more than cleanse us; he rebuilds us. In the form of his Holy Spirit, God moves in and starts a complete renovation project. “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3:20 MSG).
And what we can only dream of doing with New Orleans, God has done with soul after soul, and he will do so with you, if you let him.
The most disturbing stories from the last week are of those who refused to be rescued. Those who spent their final hours trapped in attics and rooms regretting the choice they’d made. They could have been saved. They could have gotten out… but they chose to stay. Many paid a permanent price.
You don’t have to pay that price. What rescuers did for people on the Gulf Coast, God will do for you. He has entered your world. He has dropped a rope into your sin-swamped life. He will rescue, you simply need to do what that little girl did, let him lift you out.
I mentioned my visit to Antioch Baptist Church last Sunday night. A local minister, Pastor L. A. Williams gave a message on this one verse: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord…” (Gen. 6:8).
The minister helped us see all the things Noah could not find because of the flood. He could not find his neighborhood. He could not find his house. He could not find the comforts of home or the people down the street--there was much he could not find. But what he could find made all the difference. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah found grace in the eyes of God. If you have everything and no grace, you have nothing. If you have nothing but grace, you have everything.
Have you found grace? If not, I urge you to do what that little girl told us she did. When the rescuer appeared on her porch, she grabbed him, closed her eyes, and held on. That’s all you need to do. And if you never have, and would like to, I urge you to reach for the hand of your rescuer, Jesus Christ.
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