I'm troubled about something.

And the thing that is troubling me leaches onto me like some sort of parasite. Sucking. me. dry. No matter what I  try, I cannot seem to shake it loose. So, that means, it is, for this season, my "thorn in the flesh."

I recently had a conversation with a dear friend - still aggrevated about this relentless thorn. I was frustrated and I told her about this thing that is troubling me. And, for the life of me, I cannot understand why someone else's decisions about how they choose to live their life haunts me - except for maybe this reason - we are to help our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

My friend reminded me of just that. 

None of us deserve God's grace - His unmerited favor, but He gives it to us freely. He has extended it to us such that we can have access to everlasting life. God sent His Son - He didn't have to. But He did. God's Son, Jesus, lived a holy life; taught us the way that we are to live; and then He laid down His life for us on the Cross. Thankfully, He was resurrected from the dead and ascended back to Heaven. It's all part of the Master's plan to redeem us and make us His own. But the choice is ours to make. We don't have to choose light. We can choose dark. But in the process of living our lives, those of us who have found the light are charged to share it with others.

And that's why this troubling thorn haunts me. It nags at me. So this is what I've decided to do... I commit to pray for this thing that is troubling me. The Bible clearly shows me and the "thorns" that what's going on is wrong. This "thorny" decision that my thorn-inflicting friend is making is unholy. So, I'll pray. Not that my will be done, but instead the Lord's will be done. I'll pray that the light of God's truth cast itself over that situation. That's what I am supposed to do. I will tarry with it in prayer and wait to see what God will do.

Truthfully, my flesh is not excited about it right now. My flesh says "You've tried, they didn't listen. Leave them be and let the chips fall where they may." But I know that this is the direction that I must take. Following the will of God will take you to places that you never imagined. You just have to be obedient and willing to go. I don't know where this journey of intercession is going to take me. But, I'm willing to launch out on the journey of prayer for my "thorn in the flesh" and know that God will get the glory when His will, not mine, is accomplished.

I tell you this today because I want you to always obey God. There may be a situation in your life that is akin to a "thorn in the flesh" that you want removed...right now...but tarry - hang on in there, (even if your flesh screams) - until God removes the thorn. And if He decides to let the thorn remain, know that in your deliberate obedience to His will and His way, you've done your part and God will get the glory.

Hey everybody,

Thanks for hanging in there with me while I've been away. I had some ground to cover with some coursework. One word - discipline. That's what it has taken for me to get the assignment in. Now that I have, I can relax just a tiny bit. I am also working on a talk that I will be giving soon. I've been given the topic by the conference organizers and I'm working with it. I just need God to do what He does when I speak and then it will be okay. I'm trusting Him to do it. 

Part of what I am preparing for the conference deals with obedience. I know that just reading that word makes some of your flesh scream out to just go to another blog. And, if that's you, it's okay. My flesh has pulled that on me before too. One thing the flesh hates is obedience. It wants to do things in its own way, sans rules and order. And if we factor in obedience to God, then the flesh really wants to have a thrown-down pity party.

That's to be expected. But obedience to God is required if we are going to be His kids. I know and can plainly see that parenting rules are much different than they used to be. So many parents want to be friends with their kids and have abandoned even what the Bible says about discipline. But know this, even if you decide to parent in lax ways, God has not taken the same route. So many times throughout the Bible, we see the fruit of disobedience when the "children" went against Father God. There is always a cost to it. And there will always be a bill to pay for it.

So, let's just get it set in our minds now that we are going to be obedient to God. It takes the shape of doing His will in His way and in His time. It takes the "but I want" and turns it around into "what does God want me to do."  It becomes more intimate and personal when we look at it from the perspective of "how can my actions appease God?" It becomes closer to our hearts when we will ask ourselves "how can I obey the Sovereign Lord of the Universe?" And it's more personal when we say "God sees me. God knows me. And how then might I serve Him through my obedience today?" You see, when we want to obey, we will obey. But if we want to see things as what we can't do instead of what we can do, we remain locked up in our own self-will.

It's time to step out of that. Step out of the self and into a relationship with God where obedience is the banner. You're never going to thrive the way you could if you do not do what you should. Obey God.

He never runs low on compassion.

Jesus touched the man with leprosy and healed him. He showed him compassion with his touch. He made the “unclean” clean. And when He did this, He commanded this man, with a new lease on life, to keep this to himself and go show himself to the priest.

But, that is not what the man did.

This man, having escaped the loneliness of leprosy was joyful and happy and straightway went to tell everyone that would listen about what Jesus had just done for him. He disobeyed a direct commandment from the Lord. He disregarded what he had been told in favor of what he wanted to do. Oh, we must be so careful to always obey the command of the Lord!

Now, before we go and get all up in this man’s Kool-aid, we need to be reminded that we do the same thing.

I don’t know what miracle and/or healing has been performed in your life and I don’t know what instructions have been given to you from the Lord. But I do know this, many of the times when we are given instructions, we do not obey them. We do not follow through. All I have to do to prove this point is to watch television, look out the window, answer a phone call and if I’m really brutally honest, I can look in the mirror.

Why don’t we obey? Is it because we think we know better? Noodle on that.

Obedience is better than sacrifice.

I cannot imagine it. This is to say that my mind cannot form the mental strength to wrap itself around the reality of God’s love. He shows us such compassion that we do not deserve. No, we don’t deserve it. He gives us His grace and mercy.

So much grace and mercy!

I would that we would take a few moments to consider everything that He has required of us collectively as His children and individually as His servants. Now, with those assignments positioned in the forefront of our mind, think about obedience.

Where you and I have been weak, I pray that we would do better.

Where you and I have been strong, I pray that we will continue.

Obedience is key - it’s very existence, a subset of faith and trust.

If you say you love the Lord, have faith and trust Him then obey Him.

You know, God is so faithful to us. Even when we would be hard-pressed to demonstrate our faith, God is there. Even when we are hard-headed, stiff-necked, and downright defiant, God is still there.

His chosen people, the Israelites, provided evidence of His faithfulness when they were faithless.

Deliverance out of Egypt. Done.
Destination Promised Land. Done.

God is so faithful to us, full of mercy and grace – and we can do nothing to deserve this treatment.

Those same Israelites, whined and complained in Egypt; whined and complained in the wilderness. Their disobedience cost them 40 years. And only their descendants made it into the Promised Land. In our worldly eye view, some would say they didn’t deserve an opportunity to live past the wilderness because of all they had done. But, praise be, we serve a faithful God, that keeps His word.

Now, don’t get too comfortable. God keeps His word but He wants us to honor our commitment to Him when we gave our lives to Him. God is looking for our obedience. When we are faithfully obedient, we are walking with the Father. Some would say that we are lock step with Him if you can imagine that. I believe that God is pleased when we obey Him – afterall, obedience is better than sacrifice. He wants our obedience. He does not want us to be hard-hearted, stiff-necked and downright defiant. In other words, He wants us to be faithful.

I wonder just what would happen if the believers of God all became faithfully obedient. I believe that we would have an opportunity to glimpse Heaven on Earth.

Sometimes, in order to be in complete obedience to Christ, we have to make tough decisions. These decisions are tough not because we desire to do the wrong things, but they are tough because we desire to do the things that please others. We want their approval and we do not want them to be hurt in the process. But, we have a decision to make.

Will we do what the Lord has commanded, or will we step in and try to save someone else’s feelings?

While, in our nature, it is easier to try to step in to save someone from hurt, we have an obligation to do God’s work first. We have an obligation to be obedient to Him. So, we must do the hard thing.

Sometimes the hard things are letting that loved one go to find their own way and to experience the things that must be experienced if they are to grow in God. Let’s take a look at our biblical examples set before us. Abraham had to do the hard thing.

He decided to be obedient to the Lord. The Lord told him to sacrifice His son, Isaac. You know the story. In obedience, early that morning, Abraham set out to do the Lord’s bidding. And because God saw how willing Abraham was to do His will, even as Abraham reasoned in His mind that God had given Him a promise and that God would be able to restore His son, God stopped the sacrifice. He told Abraham not to harm his son.

What would have happened if Abraham decided that “no way, now how” was he ever going to sacrifice his son. Things would have been much different.

But, Abraham did the hard thing.

Obedience costs you something but the dividends you get in return from the Lord far outweigh any sacrifice you may have had to make.

Do the hard thing.

Whatever the situation, if God is requiring that you leave it alone – then leave it alone. If God is requiring you to take action, then take action.

Do the hard thing, and you will see that God is yet in control. Your obedience will be rewarded.

I cannot believe it’s October. It’s October and I’m still not wearing a coat to work in the mornings. What’s really going on people!?! Global Warming? End-times? What?!!

Okay – on to my point. I had a conference call this morning so that’s why I’m running behind in posting (plus the fact that I slept past the time I was supposed to get up so that I could post early. Sorry! Wink, wink…)

Yesterday, I nearly lost my cool. It’s like that when you birth something and somebody else tries their level best to take it away from you. I was crying and upset and couldn’t understand it (and I still don’t ) but like Patti LaBelle said … ou oou ou ou oooooouuu I’ve got a new attitude.

I spent a rather significant amount of time receiving wise council. And, well, now I’m set to do what must be done. With my face set towards God, I will step back and give God room to work the way that He intends.

You see, what happened to me yesterday is not a surprise to God. He’s seen it done before at the hands of the same people. God does not like "ugly" behavior. God sees, He knows, He cares. And, He handles folks too – He will repay. So, therefore, why should I get in His way? He is going to work this thing out in a way that gives Him the glory. And, I’m not going to interfere with it.

Now, knowing me, you recognize already that you are going to have to keep me in your prayers, right? It’s hard to turn something loose that means so much. But, whether it be at the hands of a thief or at the hands of God, when it’s time to let go, we’ve got to do just that. Let go and let God have His way in our circumstances and situations. We say that from time to time, and now here is the test.

If God intends for me to receive it again – since He’s the one that gave it to me and allowed me to prepare and present it, then I will have it. But, if this is the end of the road per the intentions of God, then it’s the end of the road. It’s really that simple. Somebody else cannot keep what belongs to you if God ordained it for you. So, please pray for me as I walk in faith, trusting God that He will restore me during this time. I grieved yesterday for the thing God allowed me to birth and now I have to trust Him, NOT man, with the growth of it.

Compassionate people really dislike hurting other people’s feelings. In fact, some compassionate folks that I know would sacrifice their own lives just so that they could spare somebody else’s feelings. I know of one such person that has invested a lot of time and effort into a something that they are not sure that they want to be a part of, but refuse to remove themselves from the situation because they cannot bear to hurt the other people involved.

It’s a tough situation. But, sometimes we have to do the hard things in order to move towards the easier things. For instance, we have to do the schoolwork to meet the graduation requirements (the hard things) so that we can sail across that stage and get our diploma (the easy thing). It does not take much work to walk across a stage, shake a hand and receive a diploma (at least for most of us). But, it does take a heavy amount of effort to get to that point – and a lot of money too if we are talking advanced degrees.

When you realize that you are in a situation where you do not desire to be, and you have prayed about the situation and God tells you to move out of that situation, be obedient. When you know the direction that God has ordained, but you refuse to move, or are slow to move, because you are trying to spare someone’s feelings or a group of people’s feelings, it’s time to do some self-examination. It’s time for a reality check.

If God required your life right now, would you be comfortable standing before Him and telling Him the reason for your disobedience. It would go something like this…Lord, I know that I disobeyed you – but it was because I was trying to spare this person’s feelings. So, in order not to hurt them, I hurt You by my disobedience.

Somehow, I don’t think God is going to be “all-good” with that. When we disobey God, we put our desires before His, we put other people before Him and we put our knowledge/our way before His. And, well, we know that this is not the proper order. If we are going to be His children, then we must act like children and listen to our Heavenly Father.

God knows best. Stop dilly-dallying and messing around. If He told you to do it, rip that band-aid off!

Abraham had a choice to make. He would either obey God or disobey Him. He would either take this child, this promised heir to the place of sacrifice or either he would flee in disobedience. Abraham reasoned in his heart that even as he would swing the instrument that would end his son’s life, that God would indeed restore life to his son. He reasoned that if God had requested this thing of him, in obedience he would comply. Abraham chose obedience.

And Abraham was rewarded. Once he turned everything over to God in solid obedience, with no intentions on wavering, the sacrifice was no longer required. All was well. You can read the account for yourselves.

This morning, that’s what we must realize. When we turn everything over to God in absolute obedience, everything will be well.

Yes, we will go through trials and things in which we would prefer not to endure, but with that, we can have greater confidence in God. He is building in us, confidence in Himself. We earnestly can say that we have a track record with God. We can say that we know Him, through our studies, yes, but also, more applicably, through our trials – our testimony.

Do not begrudge the time that you are in now – if God has required that you lay your Isaac down, do so, in humble submission to His will for your life.

And just where has the time gone! Whew!

I'm been doing some tangible ministry work this week and therefore, I am behind in my blogging. I do apologize for not writing until now.

I believe now that we are living in the end times. The intensity of demonic forces is stronger than I've ever seen it. This week, I have heard stories of many things - things that break your heart to know. We have to get our minds rightly focused on our God. Too many of us are falling for the lies of the enemy and believing his false report.

Without digging deeper right now, I want to ask you to do something for yourself and for those who identify themselves as Christians. I want you to pray that we all do the following things:

1. Pray that we go to the Lord and ask Him to show us who we are right now - expose the lies of the enemy and the sin that lurks beneath the surface.
2. Ask the Lord that He show us who we are created to be - we are His workmanship - Help us to see how far we are from the mark set for us.
3. Ask the Lord to help us become "A+" students of His Word - we need to know the "Basics Instructions Before Leaving Earth"
4. Ask the Lord to help us become "A+" doers of the Word - we need to apply the principles to our own lives
5. Ask the Lord to help us where we are weak, chastise us where we are wrong, give us discernment where needed and help us to endure in a spirit of obedience to Himself.

I could go on, but then, I don't think you'd read the whole post. My heart desires that you pray, pray, pray.

Hello everyone,

I hope that you had a nice Mother’s Day or were able to share Mother’s Day with someone that you care about. I decided to do something different this year. Generally, I visit with my mom on Sunday afternoon. But, this year, the Lord pressed on my heart to do it differently. I spent the weekend with my mom instead. And, you know what? I had a good time. I put down my busy schedule of activities that had to be done and only did the essential things.

I found out that through my obedience, nothing went lacking. And, that’s what I want to discuss in this blog. God has a plan for our lives but He always offers a choice. We can either do it His way or do it our own way. But, the greater harvest is always found in doing things His way. And, it’s not always “either, or” – sometimes what we want to do lines up with His will for us. I believe that we just have to get to the point where we desire Him more than anything else.

This weekend, I desired to follow the prompting of God on my heart. I wanted to be obedient to Him. I wanted to be even closer to Him. And, as a result of that, I got even closer to my mom. We worshipped God together in church. Generally, we worship the same God but at different locations. But, this year, on Mother’s Day, we worshipped together. That meant something to me. I think it has much to do with my listening to God. I was obedient.

In the book of Joshua, chapter 24, verse 24, it says:
“And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.”

When God presses something on your heart, it is my prayer today that you will heed and obey, for truly obedience is better than sacrifice.

I had to drag myself out of bed this morning. I'm barely awake now! I don't know why I am so tired. I could go back to sleep for at least three more hours. And the sad thing is, last night, I knew I was tired but I didn't go to bed any earlier than usual. That was not a smart move on my behalf because right about now - I'm struggling!

Isn't that familiar though? We know what we should do, but we don't do it and end up paying the consequences for it later. We know what the Bible says because we are good students of the Word, but sometimes we don't do what we know to be the right thing to do. And then we are chastised for our disobedience. We don't have to think too far back to recall an experience where we were disobedient. And, the same applies for our society at-large. Are we not seeing the results of disobedience every night on the news?

So, here's the deal. Let's pray for one another that we will walk in obedience to the Lord at all times and that we will use sound judgment in all our ways. Luke 11:28 captures this request by saying: "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."