GIDEON

Lord, I don't quite know how this is to work. I just know that I want to put this in your hands. I truly want to trust that You will take this whole issue from me and show me clearly what you want me to do. I'm not asking you to do one thing or another today - just to show me what you want me to do. You know the desires of my heart, you know how desperately I want what I want, but I only know what I want. I don't know your timing and plans, I don't know your plans for others! But on this one specific issue, today....I give it all to you. I give it all to you. I don't know all the ins and outs of signs and wonders, and I don't know that you want me to. I do know that I have to love and trust you and that you will show me the direction you want me to go in this.

I love you and want you to be the owner and leader of my life. I want to learn to feel your love and feel your joy. Please guide Gary and David in their work with me - make them instruments of your healing and teaching.

Please continue to warm my relationship with my boys and gentle my relationship with my babies.....I love them all so. Thank you for giving them to me.

Thank you for loving me - I do love you.

Wednesday April 14

Anne Graham Lotz says over and over and over and over “Just Give Me Jesus!”

I keep trying to get “into” that book and I just don’t connect with it. I thought it was about the enemy keeping me from her precious words. I don’t think so, though. I think the “fix” I’m looking for is not about what I need to “do”. I think THAT is exactly my problem!!! I get all caught up in what I need to be doing “works” if you will, andmy focus is shifted back to me and what I do and don’t do. Therein lies my problem.

I don’t think I need to DO A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G. but love Jesus and focus on Him. HE has to make the spiritual transformation happen. If I focus on Him, all those things I tell myself I need to be doing will start showing up. If I look at people and events through Jesus-lens instead of Kym-lens, it will happen. I know it will. It has to! He has to be the strength and power in my life, because I can’t!

And at night when I do my inventory (10^th step for us alkies) I see where I failed and ask HIM to help me be more focused on HIM, more like HIM, more broken and submitted to HIM and HIS will. That certainly doesn’t relieve us of responsibility for our actions, I still have to confess and repent. But I don’t think that repenting doesn’t mean I need to line out a new set of actions for myself – because I have proven for many years that my actions don’t work. I have to submit to Him. “…and all other things will be added unto you”. My actions and reactions to other people will be in obedience, if my constant focus is Jesus.

Whew – no small task, that.

Saturday, April 10

Ah……something so basic and simple it’s almost embarrassing. Again.

I spend so much time thinking about my sin and disobedience and how hard it is to avoid those things. And how much I hate to keep being in that spot?

I was listening to Tim Kellers sermon on another topic and the answer is in the Gospels….of course. “If you love me, you will obey me”. I always heard that as judgement – “if you don’t obey me once, you don’t love me every” kind of thing. So I didn’t focus on it too much because it was unattainable, and I didn’t like the resultant judgement that I don’t love Jesus (since I can’t possibly be totally obedient). Am I making sense so far?

What I heard on Saturday was “if you sin, it’s because you are not loving me in that moment”. Because we can’t sin when we are loving Him. If we deliberately disobey, we either do so knowing that we will break His heart (thus not loving Him) or we don’t give Him a thought (thus not loving Him).

Bottom line: when I sin, it’s because I’ve taken my eyes off Him. Keeping Him first and foremost in my mind all-day-every-day is the goal. I’m going to add that to my list of things Jesus is to me: Brother, spiritual spouse, moment-by-moment companion,

Same song, 999^th verse. =) You know the one….

Keep your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face…..

And the things of life will grow strangely dim

In the power of His wonder and grace.

Longing for More

....and I do. Tim Keller says that when we long for more of Jesus, that means He is near. That is so comforting and encouraging.

Gary gave me good stuff yesterday. Please gift him and empower him to speak Your truth into my heart. Help me to remember his teaching of yesterday and to employ it. Not just to share it with Justine or to mouth it to someone else, but to USE it in my life. I caught myself trying to use it in the dark this morning, so I know you are in the midst of that whole process. I wouldn't be doing that on my own.

Please bless Rob in his life - bless his parenting and husbanding. And his soning. Please help me to mother and not "friend" or anything else. I want to live a life that honors you and blesses my kids.

Above all today, please help me to draw all my peace and comfort from you. Free me from the bondage of reading minds, as only you can do. Help me to ask the question and listen to the answer and NOT try to ascertain what people are thinking - but to live with what they tell me. Please help me to stop telling people what they should do. Especially Justine.

Please bless Justine in her life and with her pain....please give her one day's respite from the chronic pain, and Lord please help her to find a resolution to the pain in her body and her hands that has kept her from enjoying her life and now her grandbabies.

I love you; and want to and pray that I a live a life that honors you and brings glory to you and your kingdom.

In Your name I pray...

Sacred Rhythms

I am blown away by the movement of Jesus in my heart in the last 10-12 days. By the stirrings I know that do not come from myself, but are evidence of the presence and urging of Jesus. I'm comforted to know that they are the sign that Jesus is near....that He longs for me and is calling me to transformation. I can't go get that desire for Him, can't learn it, can't find it, all I can do is create an environment whereby spiritual transformation can take place in me. Develop "rhythms and practices" that keep me open and willing before a loving Savior. HE will do the work, I just need to be open and willing.

Ruth Haley Barton has an amazing book, Sacred Rhythms. I've read the first chapter, and will clearly need to read it again (and again, probably) before I move forward. I'm astonished and amazed at seeing the hand of Jesus in my life.

Thank you, Jesus...

Tim Keller

Very interesting sermon I listened to today. Tim Keller, Redeemer Church in NYC. Preached a sermon entitled on the prayer of Paul from Ephesians 3. Super lesson for me. We should expect to feel the joy and presence of Jesus from time to time. Some churches just teach the emotionality of spirituality, and some just teach the intellectuality. He suggests that we need and can have both.

Three steps to having the Joy of Jesus in our lives:

1) prayerfully seek it

Starts with recognizing that we have to ask for it - it's a gift. We can't go get it or find it or learn it or earn it. First be passive.

2) Aggressively wrestle for it

Meditate, contemplate, pray scripture. Second be aggressive.

3) Communally(a) and christocentrically(b) pursue it.

(a) pursue it with the Saints - not alone

(b) keep Jesus as the focal point of study and pursuit. Not God, not Holy Spirit, but Jesus.

Sweetest of all is the quote "If you are wanting relationship with Jesus, the wanting is a gift. Jesus is near to you in that wanting."

Nat's Parents

So much sadness this morning - Nat lost his Dad on Monday and now his Mom last night. What devastation and what joy! To know that they are together, and walking - LITERALLY walking - hand in hand with Jesus is just unimaginable. And to face a future without them.....but eternity with them. Mercy, sweet Jesus.

Trying to think outside the box I've been learning to think INSIDE of - to make sure nothing is lost or forgotten......

Today I purpose in my heart to be loving to all I meet. Big job.