Let's talk ...

Delight yourself in the LORD ... Ps. Psalm 37:4

2012-02-21T11:50:00.003-08:00

What comes to mind when you think of the word DELIGHT?

My mind brings me pictures of my kids, memories of the best vacations and fantastic food! I think of mountain top views and warm sandy beaches. I think of visiting my best friend and laughing about times we have shared. I would be delighted to find my favorite jeans fitting a bit looser.

Delight is more than just okay; more than happy. Delight is an extreme pleasure. So how is it that I can delight in the LORD?

The Psalmist says that if I do, he will give me my heart's desire.

If the LORD brings me delight, wouldn't HE be my heart's desire? Is this really God saying, "learn to totally enjoy me and I'm all yours"?

Hmmmm. Doesn't sound boring or like a chore.

I'd like to know what times you have had just flat-out great times hanging out with God?

Like he was real or something

2012-01-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

In conversation with one young adult recently I noticed that she seemed to be looking right into my brain. Some folks keep casual eye-contact, others let their eyes dart around and only connect with you every 20 seconds or so ... but this woman just didn't look away. We were talking about faith and the difference between what Jesus has actually invited us to experience and what other people have set down as the ground rules. She had a ton of questions!

After about 10 minutes (or longer) I needed to move on and we wrapped up our chat. I said something deep and meaningful like, "It was nice talking with you," and she countered with, "You talk about Jesus like he was real or something."

Well what do you know? And have you ever run into this kind of thing before? This conversation happened in a church ...

Pray continually?

2012-01-16T11:49:00.000-08:00

I used to think this was a ridiculous little bit of advice by Paul.

(1Thes 5:17) "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Think about that in light of this ...

"Prayer at its simplest and in its most complex form is simply inviting God into the conversation."

If a person gets into the habit of including God ... imagine the impulsive messes that could be avoided. "God, I'm angry ... please add your 2 cents worth." "I really want to tell a story that isn't my news to share. What do you think?" "Jesus, I'm so lonely! What can I do?"

It's a compelling thought, but it must be handled with care. We need to care enough to investigate what Scripture says about God's character so we know how to listen ... who to listen for.

Paul had a good idea here. It makes far better sense NOT to just

say, "don't sin" ... but instead to counsel, "before you do that ... ask God his advice." Makes sense to me.

EZER ...

2012-01-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, sisters and occasional visiting brothers in Christ! 2012 holds such possibility for Christians to own up and represent God in ways that offer hope and life change to a really needy world. Let's start off with a little thinking ...

We talk a lot about the importance of having "appropriate attitude for a child of God." I find it key for discerning what our next steps should be when making even day to day decisions. Before this makes sense and before we can define "appropriate" it is imperative that we take a look at God's account of the how, the who and the why of creation in Genesis 1&2. In 1:26 & 27 we begin getting a picture of human beings ... "Let us create humankind in our image, in our likeness ... So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."

ALL humanity has a creational design, and that is to be an image bearer of God. So what does that look like in my situation? This is my life's quest; to get to know God in a way that informs my decisions and actions.

Some translational issues have complicated things for women.

Look at Genesis 2:18. "The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

The word that has been translated as helper is the Hebrew word EZER. Please take a few minutes to listen to this wonderful conversation and see all that is implied by the word ...

Enjoy ... and comment!!

http://discovertheword.org/2011/12/28/find-out-how-“warrior”-is-a-descriptive-term-used-for-women/

2011-11-24T08:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!!

What is one blessing from this past year that has taken you completely by surprise?

For me ... I have two boys and they are each expecting a son this year! That's pretty amazing.

What is GGW?

2011-09-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is Jan ... I want to tell you about GGW.

Grasping God's Word is a text written by Duval and Hays, and is used in colleges and seminaries to teach the basics of biblical interpretation. I have been teaching it for 7 years, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and to small groups of interested Bible students, and I keep watching it change lives!! I LOVE seeing people who have depended on others to tell them what Scripture means learn to use the proper methods and tools to do the work themselves. It is truly life changing. Mine is changed each time I teach it! Here's a comment from a student. Others will be added as they come in. Classes run almost continually at the FH offices. (Thinking of offering it

on Sunday morning, for those who don't have a class between services at their churches. Maybe we should include guys in that one? Hmmmm!)

From Diane:

Comments on Grasping God's Word class: The study of this book took my mind from merely reading the Bible to examining the Bible in a way that took me from "milk" to "solid food". It is so important for us to read God's word in context and with the right perspective. The GGW book provides an in depth study of the Bible and how to read God's words as they are intended to be read. Jan was the perfect teacher for this class because she LOVES the Bible, and she LOVES studying it; what better teacher than one who wants us to study it correctly? I thoroughly enjoyed the rigor of the course, and it is the type of class that one would benefit from taking more than once. Hhmmm, might be time for a refresher.

Yeah, but what about today?

2011-06-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

Graduations are happening all over. College acceptance letters are out. Vacation plans and summer organization plans are consuming all of the "lazy days of summer" and God's daughters are gasping for air. There are game schedules and practice schedules and volunteer schedules, and some days are just flat out spent going from one thing to the next. We seem to be proud of our busyness and are passing on frantic expectations to the next generation. Here's the bad news. IT'S NOT GOOD.

Want to know what you and the generation after you will remember as FORMATIVE? Time invested in unhurried conversation and meaningful connection; Laughing together

and taking a walk; stopping off to sit by a lake or get ice cream.

This post is a warning to all of you who have the tendency to say yes to too many things. Your kids, your family, your friends and your own relationship with God will benefit from you learning to stop committing your precious time to things that just eat up your precious time.

Yeah, but I'm planning for my future and my kid's future ...

BUT WHAT ABOUT TODAY?

Today is all you've got. Tomorrow is out of reach and yesterday is gone. How are you living as God's child THIS DAY?

Take the time to make eye contact with a stranger and wish them well. Give a bottle of cold water to someone begging on the road. Bring cookies to a neighbor. Just sit in your backyard and thank God for everything you see and hear ... really paying attention to what you normally overlook. God wants your today. What's that going to look like?

oceans

2011-05-09T14:40:00.001-07:00

I got to spend a day and a half at the ocean this weekend.

What is it about the waves that is so overwhelming? I came home with a sense of the ocean rhythm deep in my soul. If I close my eyes I can bring it back ... the sound and the smell and the peace.

Thank you God for oceans!

Roughly 1,984 years ago ...

2011-04-19T05:56:00.000-07:00

Woke up singing "A Mighty Fortress is our God" (well done Sunday, Rachel) ...

What was it like to wake up on Tuesday morning in Bethany, as the only One who knew it was Holy Week some 1,984 or so years ago? Was Jesus' heart filled with anticipation and praise, or was he thinking about his trek into Jerusalem? Was he planning the whole lesson with the hapless fig tree? By that time he knew the whole plan, and he knew it as 100% human. Seems to me that would be the hardest part. Having 100% divine at his disposal and yet counting the days as a man.

Reading and re-reading the gospels this week has built this week into an event I watch with increasing awe. Like watching an excellent athlete in the Olympics push the envelope ... I hold my breath, hoping and waiting and unable to look away. I see what has never been done before, and the complete, amazed JOY and ANGUISH on the face of the athlete as the crowd rises in praise ...

Yeah. That's Holy Week. I imagine the training, the planning, the emotions of the MAN who would be my Savior ... who allows me to call him friend and brother ... and I see the struggle and I am whispering encouragement from my spectator's seat. I am cheering! I am watching and listening for "It is finished" and I am seeing with the eyes of one who already knows what Sunday holds ... realizing that the finish is not the end, and certainly NOT DEFEAT. Never was.

In respectful, awe-filled, holy anticipation I wait with the growing crowd of spectators who join over the millenia to see him crowned VICTOR, SAVIOR, CHAMPION, FIRST PLACE, GOLD MEDAL WINNER ... in that moment we all join together,

hands raised in victory, or perhaps clutched over our enlarged and exploding hearts, in a tearful and totally ridiculous chorus! Our anthem: "A Mighty Fortress is our God! A sacred refuge is his name! His kingdom is unshakable! With him forever we will reign!!!"

BRING ON SUNDAY! (but don't miss a second of what leads up to it. Keep your eyes on the Champion)

SELAH

BBBB ... I DARE YOU

2011-03-29T05:20:00.000-07:00

Beginning April 7 (12:00 noon), we are beginning a Brown Bag

Bible Basics lunch, and you are very welcome to join us either in person or via this blog. Our group so far excites me, because they REALLY want to get the big story ... Genesis to Revelation ... to see how all the pieces fit together.

Sometimes a person can know a LOT about God and the Bible, but what she knows is in pieces. It's kind of like you have all the bits to make a beautiful picture, but you just don't have the picture of what the completed puzzle is supposed to look like.

God wrote his word to be understood. It's really helpful to get the big picture first, and then watch how the individual stories and bits of history fit in.

Questions are mandatory!! This is open discussion with no fill-in-the-blank answers. Your personality and curiosity is just what we need to complete this group. Newbies and lifers, WELCOME! Bring your own lunch and $5 if you have it. (never stay away because you're short of cash. One week you'll have extra to cover somebody else.)

Are you in? We're planning on about 10 weeks.

HIS voice

2011-03-12T06:16:00.000-08:00

What is that feeling when you wake up to news that devastation has once again rocked our world, and people have been lost? I remember 911 ... tsunami in Indonesia ... Haiti ... so, so many mornings when this very television has brought the unbelievable right into my home. And there is this feeling. Of course it's sadness and curiosity. Helplessness. But it's more than that. It's this deep longing for things to be right. It's almost like being homesick.

I got to teach and counsel some wonderful people this week, and found each different lesson in each different situation or group to be the same thing. "There is something better and we have been created for it."

The background music to our prayers this week had these words and they are shouting at me this morning. "Be still my soul! The waves and winds still know ... his voice who ruled them

while he dwelt below."

Watching the news photos of the churning ocean and seeing cars and planes and trains washed away off the coast of Japan, I long to hear that voice. It's a mixture of ache and wonder ... how very odd.

My prayer for me and for all who read this is that we will be woken up daily to the HOPE that is seemingly impossible for this hurting world to find amid the churning. We know the voice that has calmed storms and silenced wind. THAT power is the very Spirit that lives in us. People don't need religion or program or Christian stuff ... they need to know that voice. It's a voice that must be known both in power and whisper, and to hear it in one's soul is as close as one can get in this world to beholding

the face of God Almighty.

Hear. Take time to be quiet enough ... to mute your own distractions enough so that you are able. Then watch for one whom God will bring to you today who will be forever alive when you help him or her recognize it.

God's voice is not absent in tragedy! Why? and How could a good God? ... become less important questions once you realize and recognize the voice that will bring order out of chaos as he has done since Genesis 1. We may not "get" it; we don't need to. We just need to know that voice.

"Who is this man, that even the winds and waves obey him?"

The disciples didn't "get" it either, but they knew the voice.

LISTEN

Grasping God's Word

2011-02-24T05:40:00.000-08:00

If you have taken (or are taking) our GGW classes, will you take a minute to share your experiences here? I could go on and on about intelligent investigation of the Word of God ... but then I've got a bit of a bias! GGW scholars ... are you out there?

(past students are welcome back to current GGW classes for a little mental exercise now and then! Those who took the Journey class last year ... especially welcome!

Have a great day! -jan

BE STILL

2011-01-11T07:16:00.000-08:00

It is SO STILL today! The clouds are thick, the air is breezeless, and the ice is keeping everybody inside. No birds. Nothing.

The whole idea of quiet keeps coming up in things I read today. I flipped on music and got Stephen Curtis Chapman

singing "Be still and know ..." One of my favorite scriptures (Psalm 47:10). In this verse the word translated as still means

to wait ... to not do anything ... stop trying. How are you at being still? My brain gives me trouble when I try.

Oswald Chambers says that "we are so filled with our own disposition that we often cannot hear God, even when we try." So true. Most of my time is spent in planning and writing and teaching, in listening to other people and trying to help them find their next step ... It takes me some time to stop my brain from being the only voice I can hear! "STOP that, Jan." THAT is what I hear today! Be still.

Yesterday my MAC told me that my systems weren't running well because there were 6 necessary upgrades I needed

to download. It took a long time and my computer needed to just be idle and then shut down and reboot. I've been noticing

changes today. Certain icons are different and certain programs are working better. What a bother, but apparently necessary.

So I'll make a clumsy attempt to pass that on to you as an analogy. To become new in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) means that his character is being formed in me. I've already got my character as my default ... so it makes sense that I'd need to shut down and let God reboot with the new program, one piece at a time until I'm a bit more caught up in how I should operate.

Is that really lame? I don't know, it's speaking to me.

My prayer is for me and anyone who finds this page ...

I'm asking God to upgrade our systems. :)

I dare you. BE STILL.

Nothing is wasted ...

2010-12-15T09:33:00.001-08:00

You know the story (if you don't, it's in Genesis) ... Joseph's brothers pretty much trashed his life, selling him into slavery and then telling everybody he was dead. What followed was an incredible account of a good guy being dumped on again and again for no fault of his own. BUT it didn't defeat him. When things finally get to be resolved for Joseph and he meets up with his family again he says, "You meant it for harm, but God meant it for good!"

That right there is the secret to godly attitude. When difficulties invade your life, just hold on ... and try to snag onto this truth: God can sanctify anything.
Pain doesn't have to win. While you're struggling is not a very good time to look for the positive in your situation, but HOLD ON to God's truth. WHEN you come out the other side (and you will), that's when you get that amazing
"ah ha!" realization that what you have come through has prepared you very uniquely to help someone else. Don't waste your suffering. Give it to God as your own unique offering and expect him to make it a great gift.

Have you seen this in your own life?

2010-12-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

The Bible is ONE story, illustrated by individual lives and communities ... HISTORY tells God's story in these pages. Sometimes we get lost in all the little stories and forget to see how it all fits into ONE story.

Beginning Sunday, January 9 at 10:45am, join with others to just lay out the basic story line. Big brush ... basic timeline. Great time for discussion. Would you come with someone who might benefit from some talk about the basics?

Just wondering.

How would you answer?

2010-11-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

I don't think women are used to hearing three questions from the church:

1. What do you want?

2. What do you need?

3. How can we meet that need?

Church culture has changed much and it has become nearly impossible to meet the needs of everyone, BUT ... if someone were to ask you those big three, how would you answer?

FINISH THIS SENTENCE ....

2010-10-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is the day that the LORD has made ...

2010-10-02T16:46:00.000-07:00

MENTORING

Have you ever been in a mentoring relationship? What experiences have you had?

Answered prayer????

2010-09-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Can you remember a day when you realized God was answering a prayer? I had just such a weekend!! I have prayed for 26 years for a partner for my youngest son ... and this past weekend, he married her! I look into her face and realize that THIS was the 3 year old and the 8 year old and the teenager I prayed for, and now I know her and love her. OH MY!!

What are you praying for? What have you prayed for that you long to see? When have you realized an answer?

Comfort Ye My People ...

2010-09-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

What is your ultimate comfort food?

Gifted women

2010-09-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Certain conversations I've had this week have left me thinking about what it means to be gifted. I love to be gifted. At Christmas I am gifted by my family. Frequently I am gifted by my husband. Unfortunately many Christians have changed the word gifted to mean "what I am" instead of "what I have been given." God gives gifts as he pleases to whomever he pleases.

Being gifted simply means that a gift has been designated for me. My name is on the gift tag. What the Giver desires is that I open the gift, love the gift and use it. Each of us have been gifted.

What's yours? This is not the same as what needs to be done in the church. This is totally different. Let's say you have been given the very specific gift of teaching. It makes no sense to say that if you work in the kitchen you are using your gift...unless, I guess, if you are teaching something in the kitchen.

Today I'd like to stir the pot a bit. What is something you have been gifted with? Do you use that gift, or have you completely insulted the Giver by putting it back in the box...on a shelf. FIND a place to play with your gift, that's the reason it was given!

What do you think?