Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The wise person values the Giver more than the gifts!

It's easy to be grateful for the "good" gifts in our lives. However, some gifts come disguised as challenges and heartaches. But no matter what our day may hold, that very day is a gift from God. And the greatest gift of all is the presence of God in our lives - no matter where we are or what we are doing!
  • First, though, we must take the time to accept the gifts that we are given.
  • Next, we must give thanks to the Giver of all good gifts.
  • Then, we must show our appreciation by using the gifts we're given for the glory of God.
God is good - all the time! All the time - God is good!

What gifts have you been given today? Have you taken the time to give thanks to the Giver? How are you using those gifts to glorify God through your life today?

I hope you have a heart of gratitude today (and here's a hint... you can create a heart of gratitude even if you don't always feel it simply by asking yourself, "What five things am I most grateful for today?", or "Who are the five people who love me the most?" or "What are my greatest strengths or talents, and how can I use them to benefit others today?"). I'm afraid I don't always take the time to acknowledge and give thanks as I should, but I am so grateful for the gifts in my life. What an amazing God we serve who continues to give, even when we don't recognize or willingly accept His gifts! I pray that the Lord will always find me (and you!) worthy of His gifts - especially the gifts that come disguised as challenges, because those are the gifts that seem to bring us even closer to Him.

If you're reading this, you too are a gift in my life! Have a blessed day!

Monday, July 20, 2009

SUMMER BLESSINGS!

Wow! I cannot believe how quickly this summer is flying by! It seems like just the other day that the kids were getting out of school, and now there's just over a month until they go back to school. Anyway, I guess I've just been feeling the need to kind of "dump" some of what's been going on and what's been on my mind.

When the summer first started, we didn't have anything on the calendar, but it quickly filled up! Let's see... we had a church sports camp (I worked, and my five year old, Kevin, attended); Kevin also went to a multi-sport camp with soccer, basketball, and baseball; Kevin has been playing on his first t-ball team (very cute, if I do say so myself!); my almost 17 year old son, Walter, has been having cross country practices every morning and weight trainings or other practices in the evenings; Walter has also been doing work to prepare to complete his Eagle project for Boy Scouts (he has finally decided on a project to fill in all of the cracks and holes in the church driveways and parking lots - a pretty big job, but I'm glad he picked a challenging project to earn his Eagle rank); my daughter, Kelly, has been home this summer from college, and is working almost full-time at a Christian day care; she loves her job, and has taken a particular interest in a little girl at the day care who does not have the best of home situations (she spent the weekend with us last weekend); Kelly has also been taking an English course two nights a week in order to make up for some credits that she lost by transferring colleges; our entire family all went to Hershey Park for a few days this past week (Kevin was a daredevil on all of the rides - he even rode the Super Dooper Looper roller coaster twice- a feat that his older brother and sister didn't tackle until they were 16!); my husband, Jeff, and Kevin and I will be going to my in-laws' house in North Carolina this Friday (however, Jeff will be leaving us Sunday through Friday to go to Texas for work) and we will be returning on the 3rd of August; Walter is going to cross country camp the 26th-29th of July; he will then be going to National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience (NAYLE) in New Mexico from 31 July - 8 August; Walter's 17th birthday is August 10th; Kelly will be staying home through all of our travels (she needs to work and earn some money!); Walter had his "official" senior pictures taken (the ones for the yearbook) and he will be having his other senior pictures taken when he returns from New Mexico; and I'm sure there will be even more going on before the summer actually comes to an end! Just as the summer is flying by, the kids are growing up so quickly - I'm afraid that the family trip we took to Hershey Park could be one of the last trips we will be able to take with our entire family together (although we did tell Kelly and Walter that when Kevin is their age, they could very well be taking their own kids to amusement parks with Kevin! - Kelly will be 32 and Walter will be 30 when Kevin graduates from high school!).

Besides being busy, the summer has been a great time of growing in my relationship with the Lord, and witnessing the many ways that He is working in our lives! It has been so exciting to me to see how God works in all of the smallest details of our lives.

The church sports camp was one of the first venues to see how awesome our God really is. There were so many ways that we saw Him work.... First of all, we went from having 70 kids registered on the Saturday before the camp started, to having 95 show up on Monday morning! This was my first experience working this particular camp, and I think I learned as much that week as the kids did. I saw attacks from the enemy try to derail workers with everything from plain old discouragement to flat tires - and I saw God overcome every one of those attempts! Personally, I experienced the Holy Spirit first hand in many ways; one of the main areas that He showed up every single day was during the coach's time with the kids. We, as coaches, were to share a personal story every day that related to the lesson of the day. No matter how much I thought about it in the days before, I never had a story going in to that day's coach's meeting - but miraculously, literally less than five minutes prior to that session each day, the Holy Spirit brought just the right story to my mind and helped me convey that story to the kids in my group. The day we were to present the Gospel to the children, it was obvious that the evil one was alive and active throughout the entire day. Not only were there a lot more challenges and minor injuries throughout the day, but the kids were just a lot more distracted and fidgety that day. But guess what? The evil one is no match for our God, and He not only overcame the challenges of the day, but He turned each and every one of those for good! A particularly exciting highlight for me during the week was hearing my five year old tell me the specifics of the day that he had accepted Jesus! Being fairly new in my own spiritual journey with Jesus, I wasn't quite sure how to know if my son was old enough to understand what it meant to accept Jesus as his personal Savior. I thought he understood, he gives of himself quite often in amazing ways, and we pray together often (many times it is Kevin who reminds us that we need to pray about a situation when our "adult" minds are busy trying to deal with things in our own strength!), and I thought there was a time that he consciously accepted Jesus, but I really wasn't sure if that was real or just a mother's hope for her son. The day the children heard the Gospel, though, Kevin told me that he "didn't need to say that prayer at the end because he had already done that before" - and then he proceeded to tell me about the details of the day that he had done that, probably about six months prior (I remembered the time he was talking about, and it was actually months earlier than the time I was thinking of!). Not only did he know that he had said that prayer to confess that he was a sinner and that he needed Jesus to come into his heart, but he remembered all of the details about that glorious moment in his still young life! What more could a parent ask for?!

I also began my first course in the Ministerial Study Program (MSP) that I am taking. It has been very demanding and way out of my comfort zone, and at times I really wasn't sure if I was going to be able to handle it (to be honest, there are still times I feel that way!). But I had a "revelation" a few weeks ago: This is not something I can do while multi-tasking other things or with the TV on and the family busy around me - I have to be alone, begin with prayer, and rely on the Holy Spirit to help me understand what I am reading and complete the assignments before me - DUH! Once I realized that I need to be in mindset of prayer with my heart open to really hear, the course became much more doable, and much more exciting. It is still very challenging and involves a lot of work, but I am moving forward, and I know that I am moving in the direction that God has laid before me. It's funny... the course I'm taking is an Inductive Bible Study course, and during any one session, it's not unusual for me to go from not having a clue how I am supposed to answer a question to being completely overwhelmed with pure joy and enthusiasm for God's Word! I'm ashamed to say it, but I have never in my life had such a passion for studying the Word of God and wanting to share those words and that passion with others. Obviously, I have a very long road ahead of me and I have only begun to scratch the surface of my courses. But God is using every inch of the road along the way for His glory, and I am blessed to be witnessing and experiencing that.

I never cease to be amazed at God's perfect timing, and how He can take what He is doing in one person's life and interweave that with what He is doing in someone else's life! Several months ago, the Lord put a burden in my heart to begin a prayer ministry for the pastors of our church. Now, I'll be honest, I tried to put that idea out of my head, thinking that I really was not the "right" person to be starting something like this. As usual, God won, and this past week I finally got in touch with our lead pastor about starting this ministry. Not only was he appreciative of the idea and supportive of me going ahead with the program, but it "just so happened" to coincide with the message that he was preaching today (and by the way, I later found out that our pastor planned out this sermon as part of a series he is preaching last December!). The topic of his sermon was how we all need to have intercessors in our lives that have our back and are mentioning our name in prayer, those who are going before God in prayer on our behalf. Do you think that God had His hand in all that was working in and around us, and "just so happened" to work it out so these two things came together at just the right time?! I did have to speak in both services to our church family about what we were beginning, but even through my nervousness I was able to see the Holy Spirit work and bring the right words to my lips at the right time (my husband asked me several times what I was going to say, and my answer was always that I had no idea, I was counting on the Lord to get me through it - I was looking forward to hearing what came out of my mouth!). We received great feedback from so many people who understand that our pastors are under a lot of pressure and who share the same desire for wanting to cover our pastors in prayer. I have to believe that if this group of committed Pastoral Prayer Partners is offering up focused prayers for our pastors, their support staff, and the church as a whole, that we are going to see God doing awesome and unbelievable things in our community through our church! Of course, that will only re-emphasize the importance of covering the pastors and church in prayer, because the more lives that are being changed, the more opposition we are all going to face. But God is faithful and God is good - all the time!

So needless to say, this has been a very busy, exciting, and blessed summer! Of course, there have also been some challenges that have surfaced and things that we still need to deal with, and I'll try and share some of those in a later post. But even in those times, God has made His presence known. Isn't it awesome that no matter where we are or what we are doing, no matter how many mistakes and wrong turns we make, God is always there to see us through and guide our steps if we will only seek His guidance and listen for His direction?!

This has been yet another very long post, probably filled with a lot of babbling; but like I've said before, this has been a great avenue for me to dump some of my thoughts and happenings, and kind of get to step back and see things from another side. From time to time, I hope that a word or two that I share will touch someone else and be helpful to them, particularly in their personal walk with the Lord. But that is out of my hands - I have no doubt that God will bring the right people to this page, at just the right time in their life, to give them a hope for what is yet to come.

I hope that your summer has been filled with blessings - or more accurately, I hope that you are stopping to appreciate all of the blessings that have come your way this summer! No matter what the situation, the Lord is showering us with blessings. If we are not seeing them, we need to ask ourselves - and ask God - why not; then listen for the answer and be obedient to taking the next steps in faith, whether they seem to make sense to us or not. Remember, the purpose of prayer is not to get what we want, but to allow the will of God to take over our life, and fill our hearts with love and peace with whatever the answer may be.

My God bless you and your family, and may you continually seek to know and stay in the center of God's will for your life!

With friendship, prayers, and love,

Kim