Incoming artillery barrage from Satan: You’re not doing enough!

June 24, 2021

Maria Guilt, Holy Spirit, Joy, Philippians 2, Psalm 116, Romans 8, Satan, Shame, Spiritual Warfare , , , , , Leave a comment

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free. Romans 8:1-2 Berean Study Bible

Oh, the places we have lived and the friends we have made.  England, Virginia and North Carolina enriched us the most. We now live in Alabama. My former school colleagues, church friends, neighbors with whom I WANT to stay in contact now number in the 20s, I would imagine.  These are people for whom I still pray and feel close, but in different degrees. Deciding who is in my ‘inner circle’ has been challenging.  I have limited emotional energy and time to invest. I imagine that’s the same for you.

Add to those different groups of friends from our past, God has planted us in yet another community with new neighbors, church friends and colleagues at Mike’s office.

How have I organized those in whom I invest? There’s my mother-in-law with whom I spend 30 minutes twice weekly on a Zoom call, keeping up with her. Two grandkids I occasionally (depending on their schedules) teach either French or Spanish by Zoom. Then there are two close friends I’ve chosen to invest in. With one gal, I connect daily through Voxer, an asynchronous audio messaging platform.  My other regular friend and I leave lengthy video messages for each other once a week, using Marco Polo. They are the gals who are closest to my heart. 

Yet, I feel overwhelmed with how to ‘handle’ other friends. ‘Shoulds’ distract me and cause me guilt:  

  • I need to schedule a catch-up call with Jane
  • We should reach out to neighbors and get to know them over a meal
  • Martha is a young mom at church with whom I click, I should schedule a walk and talk.
  • I haven’t talked with my sister-in-law in a while; I should find a time soon to connect.

So, what’s the problem?  There is not enough time to schedule in all these people, given my other responsibilities. Plus, I feel guilty in admitting that these ‘shoulds’ feel like a burden.  The background music in my mind keeps playing the same-ole refrain, “Something is wrong with me that I don’t want to stay in touch with everyone; that’s selfish!”

This morning I woke up heavy with, “I don’t do enough to stay connected to people, past and present.”

Journaling my raw thoughts during my morning time with Jesus and my Bible always help me process what I’m feeling and thinking. The Holy Spirit always helps me sort through the yuk and bring me out into the light.

Here’s how once again, he came to my rescue. 

With relief, I wrote down exactly how I was feeling condemned and distracted.  Having finished reading the appointed scriptures for the day, I then opened up my Oswald Chambers app on my phone. The first whiff of freedom emerged. ‘Don’t worry anymore about yourself….’

Copying Oswald’s exhortation, I then wrote this conclusion: ‘Every time I start to think I’m not enough, recognize that I am focused on the wrong issue. Leave it alone and hop over to the most important issue: ‘Jesus, YOU did enough for me.  I am enough IN you.’

That triggered this idea: ‘What if I focused and meditated on your ‘enufness’, Jesus? Oh! Didn’t I recently read something about being sprung from prison?  Yes!  Here it is, from yesterday’s scripture:  Psalm 116:16 You threw open my prison door.

That truth set me to considering a daring suggestion that seemed to spring up from inside.  ‘What if I DIDN’T initiate contacts with my other old friends and new acquaintances here?  What if I just trusted the Holy Spirit to lead people to contact me if they want to catch up?  Could I DARE give that a try?  That would feel SO freeing!

But what about all the exhortations to ‘one another’ and love brothers and neighbors?’

God encouraged me by bringing Philippians 2:13 to mind. You know that statement Paul makes where he writes that it is God himself who gives us the desire to work for his good pleasure.

I looked up ‘desire’ in the Greek.  Glancing down at the various meanings, I dared to hope that this was the answer.  Desire can also be expressed as:

  • being gladly inclined toward something
  • taking delight and pleasure in doing XYZ

With mounting energy, I asked, ‘What excites me?’ I didn’t have to think.  The answer flooded my heart:

  • Writing! Having time each day to write energizes me.
  • Learning Spanish fills me with joy

You know, that line in Philippians clearly teaches that it is God who plants desires in us that conform to his purposes and good pleasure. ‘Could it be that simple? To follow my God-given desires, especially this urge to write?  Is my craft, my calling to express myself beautifully in order to connect and encourage others? Is that why the Holy Spirit daily brings me fresh ideas that link his word with my life?

And the Spanish, well that’s clear. The absolute joy and pleasure of growing more proficient. For years, I taught French to adolescents. Now, I get to expand my areas of fluency, giving me entrée into a different world with fascinating people. Describing my language acquisition process and what I feel inside as a second-language learner thrills me.’

I put my pen down and closed my journal to get ready for my exercise class. Throughout the day, I have been letting these ideas sink in.  I think I’m on the right track, for not even three weeks ago one of my friends reminded me that the Holy Spirit corrects with gentleness.  He doesn’t condemn.

More than just a solution to ‘what do I do with all the people from my past’, God confirmed what he has called me to do.  Satan apparently likes to suck away our joy and burden us with duties that God maybe hasn’t appointed. I’m quicker to recognize Satan’s ploys, that shame-producing condemnation together with distracting thoughts.

Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you! Psalm 116:7 Berean Study Bible.

I’ll let you know what happens, as I leave to the Lord my other friends and acquaintances. I believe I can trust him to let me know when I should engage.

First the heart, then the actions

June 17, 2021

Maria Heart, Pain, Prayer, Psalm 51, Sin, Wisdom , , , , , , 1 Comment

Create in me a pure heart, O God, Psalm 51:10 NIV

Let’s face it.  Relationships are hard!  No wonder, since we live in a sin-saturated world.  After all, our perfect world Eden didn’t last long. Eve and Adam disobeyed God, breaking our world’s order and harmony forever. But instead of fix our world at that point, he set about fixing us, with the promise (future – dated for a set kairos event to come) to give us a new world, a renovated earth 2.0.

Back to difficult relationships and today’s focus on the heart.  Like you all, Mike and I live with some regrets and painful sadness about how our interactions with others have gone over the years.  Thinking about an upcoming visit with some family members caused me to worry this morning. I turned to a fresh page in my journal as I started scribbling down my thoughts.  I wrote in clear declarative sentences:  I feel anxious thinking about what we can do differently to reduce the awkwardness we feel around this couple. Even writing this down caused more angst.

I continued: How am I going to have the wisdom to know just what we should change in our interactions? And if God does bring something to mind and we agree about it and then attempt to implement it, that might make us feel even more uncomfortable resulting in us looking ‘pained’. Likely we’ll be so focused on monitoring our behavior and their response that it will appear like we are NOT enjoying them! 

I now felt worse than when I started to identify my worry. But the sweet Father gifted me with wisdom from above. He sidestepped the ‘what should we do, how should we act’ aim of my worry and presented a new and different approach.  What would happen if Mike and I directed our prayers not to relational tools, but instead asked God to purify our hearts?

I stepped further into this new idea and started to write, Father, you who swap out dead hearts for living hearts that incline toward you, YOU know how to get rid of all the junk in our hearts. It’s no big deal for you to drain away impurities such as: regrets, past hurts, memories of visits that did not satisfy, mindfulness of having to ‘walk on eggshells’, fears about what they think of us, disappointments, and unwelcome feedback that we didn’t see coming.

What if you really removed all that ‘yuk’ and replaced it with a heart totally filled with delight and love toward them? Wouldn’t they notice and respond in kind? Wouldn’t we all feel more natural?

All of a sudden, lightness flooded my whole being and the heaviness and sense of being weighed down vanished.  I realized that it’s not first a matter of deeds and actions, but the heart.  Out of the heart flow our actions.

We wouldn’t even have to game plan our responses and actions. What a concept!  We might actually be able to sit back and enjoy their visit AND look forward to it, as well.

I bet you have relationships that perk along quite naturally.  You feel comfortable with a friend or family member.  You don’t TRY to act a certain way.  You simply are who you are and it all works.

Of course, we can still hurt those who are this easy to love.  That’s why good friends still need to practice forgiveness.  We’re going to step on others’ toes because we’re sinners. Genuine friends aren’t afraid to say with soft and gentle directness, ‘ouch….that hurt when you said/did that just now!’.

Thank you, Father, for providing your wisdom from above.  Please, we ask you, do this supernatural work in us.  It feels like it’s impossible, but nothing is impossible for you.

My words were NOT full of grace.

June 10, 2021

Maria Proverbs 15, Wisdom , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

A soothing tongue [speaking words that build up and encourage] is a tree of life, But, a perversive tongue [speaking words that overwhelm and depress] crushes the spirit. Proverbs 15:4 Amplified

God recycled an earlier lesson. Obviously, I had not internalized his teaching in previous versions of the training. To my shame and with some pain, that is.

It happened like this.

Before I dump some details on you, you have to know that I often indulge in prideful practices.  My go-to reflex is to assume that I have the scoop on the best way to do some things.  And I don’t hold back from letting you know.  What works for me, I assume will work for you. I also take it as a given that you actually want to hear my solution for your particular problem.

Anne, my daughter-in-law, has been softly saying otherwise. By nature, she doesn’t try to solve anyone’s problem.  She just listens and absorbs. In that way, we are very different. I probably want solutions, so I have believed that everyone else does, as well.

I recognize in Anne a better way.  And I need lots of repetition for this and every truth to sink in and for new practices to take root.

I have a young colleague where I volunteer.  We see each other one morning a week.  Gradually, over time, she has shared a huge source of sorrow in her life.  Each time we served together, she has told me more of the context and story encompassing this painful issue.

I made some assumptions.  I took her on as ‘an encouragement project’ and started sending her bits of scripture and prayers from others that I thought might help.  And I think they did. So far, so good.

But then I stepped on her toes.  I wrote a blog piece with her in mind.  Then I sent it to her and said that her situation had inspired it.  Ouch!  How little did I reflect ahead of time about how my frank words would make her feel, would wound her?  Not for one moment did I put my feet in her shoes.  I let fly, confident in my ‘diagnosis’ and ‘remedy’.

By God’s sovereign grace, she had the guts to text me last week and let me know that 40 % of the time my ‘advice’ has harshly wounded her, that I have gotten her wrong.

Immediately, I felt shame, sorrow and regret. It has taken me a week to process what happened.

When I read her text, though, I absorbed her criticism humbly and immediately fired back an apology.  I affirmed her response to question my assumptions and discard what she didn’t think was true about her.

Here’s some humor, though. Three days prior to this sobering text, Mike and I had sat under one of our teaching elders as he led a class from Proverbs about having a humble spirit. That’s an attitude which accepts ALL criticism with a meekness that prayerfully sifts through it to find truth.

My colleague had been speaking truth to me when she wrote to set me straight. 

The day after her pride-bursting announcement, I asked for Anne’s perspective. Again, by grace, God provided a good hour with her in person.  She admitted that she almost never gives advice unless someone asks for it. What she DOES do is ask gentle questions as she carefully listens:

  • Can you explain what that has looked like in your life up until now?
  • Walk me through what led up to your decision.
  • What most frightens you in this situation?
  • How does that make you feel, that you can’t seem to ‘X’?  
  • (and for someone who is a believer, ‘What is it you are asking Jesus to do?’)

Nowhere does she offer advice or a solution. Until or unless they pointedly ask.

Wow!  What a novel concept for me!  Not really, though.  Anne explained all this seven months ago on an earlier visit.  She described a distinction between people who share burdens. Some people unload a problem WANTING a solution, but that most (she included) don’t want someone to fix them or the situation.  They just want a safe place to explore their thoughts with leisure.

Although I was intrigued then, I never attempted to change my ways, to adapt to this possible distinction regarding counsel.  I saw it as intriguing, rather than something I should implement.

I’m so glad my friend had the courage to confront me. Yes, it hurt, but it intersected with a growing desire in my spirit to BE gentle, mild and humble.

Something she wrote convinced me to WANT to steward my words, listening twice as much as I speak. About herself she shared, ‘The Holy Spirit always corrects me gently, never harshly.’  She’s so right!  Jesus treats me that way, too!

So, here is my plea.  Knowing I will fail again to change my natural thought-less response of ‘How about trying X?’ I pray daily:

“Father, keep conforming me to Christ, no matter how much it hurts.  I want to be gentle with others and listen more. Please help me.  For the blessing of others and for my own good. And to please you!”

What are the odds? – God’s big interventions in my life

June 3, 2021

Maria Deuteronomy 4, God's gifts, God's Purpose, Prayer, Romans 50 , , , , , 1 Comment

So, keep and do them…….in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him?’ Deuteronomy 4:6-7 NASB 1995

When I read and lingered over Moses’ words above, the Holy Spirit convicted me of my need to point to visible evidence of how the Lord has worked in my life.  People sometimes need to SEE tangible proof of how God comes through in this life, before they are ready or interested in hearing about how the Father changes one’s eternal future through Jesus.

All people, not just those who have yet to see Jesus for who he is, but believers as well need evidence of God working in lives of those who belong to him.

So, with this passage in Deuteronomy desire bubbled forth, causing me to want to make a list of at least 5 big divine provisions from our kind Father. I saw so many possibilities, but I’ve selected the following to encourage you.  

  1. The first time God directly answered a specific prayer request in a way that I knew it was him, was my second day at Airborne School in May 1978.  I was a 20-year-old ROTC cadet pursuing some army training at the end of my junior year in college. Much to my horror, I had failed the pull-up evaluation on the initial day of week one. If I didn’t pass the re-do, I’d be cut from the three-week class.  I wouldn’t earn those Airborne wings that I wanted. Not yet a believer, but knowing that prayer was my only recourse, I pled with God for help.  He came through.  A female airborne sergeant took me aside for the redo and passed me, with merciful leniency.   That was God’s unmerited favor for sure!
  2. His next rescue took years of prayer, interspersed with lots of despair and tears, before he gave me what I begged him for.  I had fallen into bulimia at 16. This eating disorder relentlessly pursued me.  Nothing I attempted worked. During the 9+ years I suffered, I was converted to Jesus.  Certainly, I had prayed for years before my second birth, but God waited.  About two years after coming to Christ, he provided the answer I wanted in a very creative way. He used the long months of my first pregnancy to break that binge-purge-remorse-resolve cycle.  Knowing I was carrying a baby provided a compelling reason to care for my body.  Even though I feared returning to that old pattern post-partum, God liberated me fully.
  3.  This next marvel from God surprised me.  I had to wait several years to see his divine and good plan in hindsight.  As a lieutenant, a full-colonel ‘fired’ me due to not meeting his standards. In my mind, he treated me unfairly. No amount of behind the scenes ‘Maria manipulation’ worked. A mere lieutenant has no influence! With one signature, he dispatched me back to a subordinate unit from which I had felt relief when he had brought me to his headquarters staff the previous year.  Here’s what is meant by ‘he planned it for harm, but God planned it for good’ (Genesis 50:20). Back at my old unit, my boss assigned me the ‘additional duty’ of managing the MP battalion’s million-dollar budget.  With no finance background, I learned a lot.  My follow-on army assignment added to that knowledge.  What played out after I resigned my commission stunned me.  I needed a job to support our family of three, for Mike worked a sales job on a 100% commission basis.  The recently constructed Monterey (California) Sheraton Hotel offered a job-fair.  With my budget background (but no accounting or business courses under my belt), I applied to be the Credit Manager/Accounts Receivable Supervisor.  They hired me, because no one else applied.  Pure God. I remarked to Mike, ‘So THAT was what being fired and being assigned budget duties was all about!’
  4. Further evidence of God’s goodness occurred when our marriage ruptured. Many tears, many prayers, godly counsel from biblical older women kept me trusting God and his ability to restore us, to change us. Six months later, we were still together, headed in the right direction, and learning about God’s best for how husbands and wives treat each other with love and respect.  Now in 2021, 41-years into our ‘adventure of one flesh’, we are more content, more joyful together than we could have ever imagined.  God has certainly used our sin and our suffering to grow us more into a godly and HAPPY couple.
  5. My final example today of God working marvels in my life is how he removed a physical affliction that dogged Mike for years. A sales position in his late 20s caused his body to go ‘wonky’.  Neither doctors nor meds helped.  This condition often ‘sombered’ our family life, as it drained good cheer from Mike.  One day, after about 27 years living with this ‘unwelcome member of our family’, my hairdresser suggested an anti-anxiety medication that had helped her. Mike’s doctor okayed it and miracle of miracles; Mike found relief! We knew this was a gift from God, in answer to years of prayer. We praised him heartily. Yet, 8 years later when Mike started a new job here in Huntsville, stress triggered the same condition.  We were dumb-founded. ‘Really, Father? What is up with this!!!’  We renewed our prayers, this time from a much deeper place of confidence in God.  A year later, slowly and in fits and starts, God began providing relief.  Today, Mike has been freed from this condition!  We often sing God’s praises, for he deserves all the credit. And he could bring it back if he deems it good for us.  We are learning, through suffering, to trust him more and more.

So, what about you?  What are your top 5 evidences for God, Ebenezers that you can point to, for strengthening your faith anew and as a tool to assist you confidently to communicate the good news about Jesus Christ?  Have some fun taking time to reflect and come up with a top-five list. Then share it with others.