Still Too Many - 12 Days of Christmas

Have you ever studied Judges?  I certainly hadn't... until 6 weeks ago.  Our youth group (that I've technically graduated out of but the college & career group scares me so here I stay) started a new group study.  On Judges.  Which I was equal parts wary of and excited for.  I mean, Judges doesn't have the greatest reputation.  It's the R-rated book of the Bible, the one we skim over other than picking out the best stories.  It's the one that has the story about Ehud, who stabbed a fat king, and Jael, who drove a tent spike through her enemy's skull.  Yeah, not exactly something we learned about in Sunday School as a kid.

And you're probably thinking, "Abby, why in the world are you talking about Judges in a 12DoC post?" 

(I don't blame you, I had to work my brain to figure out a connection, but boy howdy, I think God gave me a good one.)

Today, we're going to be talking about Gideon.  One of the few Judges stories I learned about as a kid.  Though, to be honest, I'm still unsure of how his story ends because we're taking a break from the study for Christmas and I haven't read ahead because I'm nervous - I'm pretty sure it ends badly, and I'm sad already.  But anyway. 

Gideon.  We tend to think of him through the lens of judge.  The warrior, the conqueror, the faithful.  But this guy was a coward. 

When we first encounter him in Judges, he's threshing wheat (or attempting to thresh wheat) in a wine press.  That's not really a great way to thresh wheat.  But he's down there because he's afraid of the Midianites, scared they'll take the grain he's trying to get.  And God sends an angel to him who says "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."

Now, we might look at this situation much like Gideon did.  "Uh, I'm sorry?"  Glancing over his shoulder as if there could be anyone else hiding threshing wheat in this wine press.  Seriously, Gideon's response is "the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian." Meaning, "if God's calling me a mighty warrior, why am I so scared of the Midianites that I'm trying to thresh wheat in a wine press?" 

"Why is He just now coming to save us?"

"And, more importantly, why is He choosing me?"

And God just says, "Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian.  Am I not sending you?"

oh. snap.

(Anybody else reminded of Moses?)

And Gideon, like the little introvert he is, raises his hand and says, "Uh, God?  Yeah, uh, I'm just the youngest son from the weakest family in the weakest tribe... are you sure you have the right address?"

God, in His infinite patience, repeats His point - "I will be with you.  You will strike down Midian as if it were one man."

I mean... what a promise!  "Stop worrying, I've got this."

"Be still and know that I am God."

To make a long story short, it takes a lot of coaxing and quite a few miracles, but eventually Gideon goes.  He gathers what troops he can scrounge up and rallies them to prepare for battle.  30,000 men.  Not great odds against the 100,000-strong Midianite army.  That's 3-on-1, if they even make it that far.

And God says, "No, it's too many men.  Send some home."

Too many men?  Gideon's probably really confused.  "God, you know we're going up against one of the most powerful armies around, right?"

God's point in this is that if there are this many men who win the battle (that He's already given over to them, remember), they'll claim it was their own strength that saved them.  Even though that couldn't possibly be the case.  But man, we humans are masters of justifying things to ourselves.  They would take God out of picture entirely and take credit for their own salvation by saying that they were good enough on their own... sound familiar?

Anyway, Gideon sends two-thirds of the men home.  Now he's working with 10,000 and says to himself in a mildly panicked voice, "We can still do this... no problem... everything's totally fine."

And you know what God says?

Still too many.

"Still too many?  Now it's 10-on-1 and we're not trained to fight a professional army!"
- Gideon, probably

But he does what God asks, and ends up with 300 men.  Three. Hundred.  And then what's even more insane: they go to battle with a torch covered by a pot in one hand and a trumpet in the other.  Does that seem to leave any room for a sword-holding hand?

What is God doing?  This seems crazy by our human standards - no one goes up against 100,000 men with 300, especially without weapons.  But this isn't based on our standards (that's kind of the point).

God is setting up for a miracle. And of course, because He's God, it works.  The Israelites smash the pots and wave the flames and blow the trumpets, the Midianites freak out, thinking an army is surrounding them, and start to run, which turns into killing each other.  And this, God (through the Israelites) wins a battle with Midian without lifting a weapon against them.

Now, this has all been well and good, but I'm sure you're wondering: "Okay, Abby, great story... but what about Christmas?"

Well... don't you see the parallel?

I don't know about you, but the holidays are when I get the most stressed.  I do so much (or I try to, at least).  Between the parties and the church events and the presents and this blog and YouTube... it's a lot.  I'm sure you have the same struggle.

Yesterday, we started the final set up for our annual church's live nativity.  And guess what happened?  It rained.  Off and on, for the whole day.

It's hard to set scenes up when it's raining, let me tell you.  And the crew was getting a little frustrated.  Things have seemed to be going wrong the whole time - the animals weren't confirmed, the wind tore down some of the flats and scaffolding, and everything was falling apart despite our best efforts to keep it together.  Everyone was on edge because we didn't know why everything was going wrong.

And I heard a voice in my head say, "Still too many."  Shivers ran down my spine, y'all.  Because this phrase has been running through my mind for weeks now while I tried to piece together.  And here it was in front of me, laid out plain as day.  We were trying to do it in our own strength.

Obviously, you can't just drop everything and not move and expect God to miraculously make it happen.  You do have to keep striving to do the best you can do, but then you have to give God the rest. 

And hey, if you're getting overwhelmed, take a step back.  God didn't shove Gideon in unprepared or unproven.  He gave Gideon time to see His goodness and go into battle completely sure of God's faithfulness.  That's the beautiful message that keeps coming up in the Bible: God will fight for us and with us.

Ultimately, we can do nothing in our own strength, and that's what God was showing Gideon.  We have to be humble enough, small enough, to leave room for God to work. 

Hopefully this came across like I wanted it to.  Putting something in words that is so close to one's heart is hard.  And to be honest, it took a completely different turn than I assumed it would.  God's good like that, isn't He?  My hope in this is that you'll see that you don't have to struggle your way through this holiday season, you have a Righteous Avenger who fights for you.  *sends you all hugs and hot cocoa with extra marshmallows*

What's something that God's been showing you lately?

~ Abby

(Oh, and be sure to check out all the awesome 12DoC posts today!  Who else is having as much fun with this blog party as I am?)

The Least and the Lowest {The Greatest Story} - 12 Days of Christmas

They inhabited one of the lowest rungs of society.  They were thought of as good for nothing more than keeping sheep.  They were haggard, grumpy, and probably smelled pretty bad.

And they were chosen to see God first. 

The story would have been very different if the wise men had come first.  If the rich and the brilliant had been the first to see Him. 

But God didn't just come for the wealthy and the wise.  He came to save all of humanity from itself.  And to prove that, He sent messengers to an open field, a small spattering of unwashed men, and dozens of sheep. 

It must have been terrifying.  The angel's first words are "Fear not", which tells me that the shepherds were doing the exact opposite of that.  One minute you're sitting next to your makeshift fire, looking up at the stars and trying to ignore the growl in your stomach.  The next, the sky is split open with blinding light and a voice that seems to come from everywhere is telling you not to be afraid.  But what else can you do?

And then the voice is speaking words that your humble Jewish heart had given up hope of hearing.  "The Messiah has come.  God is here.  Go and find Him!"  And just like that, the night is dark again.  The sheep keep grazing as if nothing happened.  You look to your companions, still noticing the faint glow of heavenly light on their faces.

The whole group jumps to their feet, pulling at each other as they race into the city.  "We have to find him!  We have to see what God has done!"

Mary must have been startled to see a group of unshaven shepherds standing at the stable entrance.  Joseph moved so that his body shielded his wife and God incarnate from these strangers.  But when the first man caught sight of Him, and fell to his knees, and began to cry, they relaxed.

They probably didn't expect to see the least and the lowest standing in the presence of the King.  Who would?  But I suppose, taking into account that the birth had taken place in a stable, they might have figured out that this wasn't going to be anything like anyone had expected. 

The beauty of God calling the shepherds first doesn't lie in the men, it lies in the manger.  The beauty is the fact that God not only sent Himself to Earth, He sent Himself to a young family who had to go on a long journey to fulfill a prophecy, and introduced Himself first to a group of shepherds.  Not to the kings, not to the wealthy, not to the religious... to the poor and the lost and the hurting.  What a beautiful picture that is for all of us who come to the manger, and come to the cross, in much the same way.

This was a continuation of a series I started last year, so if you want to see my posts on Mary or Joseph, you can click this link right here!

And, of course, check out all the other blogs participating in the 12 Days of Christmas fun!  Here's a link!

~ Abby

When It's Too Much

Lately, I've been tired. 

Just plain exhausted.

Physically, emotionally, let's just say that Sleeping Beauty's situation of sleeping for a hundred years sounds pretty fantastic. 

My sister is injured, my brother is going through his "I'm a teenager so I know better than Mom does" phase (and my big sister self is trying to keep him out of trouble), Mom is going through a lot, and my health still isn't great. 

It's a lot, you know?

For 8 weeks now, my Sunday School class has been doing a study on 1&2 Thessalonians.  It's been fascinating and so insightful.  It's one of those curriculums that has the main Sunday lesson and then daily studies for the rest of the week.  (those are super helpful in getting into a schedule of reading your Bible, I highly recommend them)

So the other night, as I was thinking about how tired I was, I decided to do the daily reading (which I usually do at night because it helps me sleep).  And this was the verse it studied:

And that's when it hit me:  That's my problem!  I've grown weary in doing good!

As many of you are aware, I'm sure, Easter is quickly approaching.  And like the brilliant person I am (sarcasm here, folks), I'm involved in a whole lot of stuff surrounding our church's Easter musical program.  I'm in the praise team, I'm in both the youth and women's ensemble, my sister and I are dancing in the finale number, I'm helping Mom with the stage settings and the cues and the video and it's a lot.  

Add to that stresses about school (like college and the question of whether I should be doing college now and if so where), about health (and whether or not I'm actually doing as well as I think I am), about dance (and the recitals and competitions that are rapidly approaching), about writing and about reading and about reviewing the things I read and the bajillion other things I have to do. 

It's a lot. 

None of it is necessarily bad.  I'm shining His light everywhere I can, I'm waiting for His voice on the things I can't control and don't have an answer for.  I'm leading others in worship, I'm praising Him with all I'm worth, and I know God has put me in this place at this time. 

But that doesn't mean I can't be tired.  The Bible is chock full of people who got tired, who grew weary under the weight of living in this world. 

One I've been thinking about a lot lately is David.  As y'all may know from my recent post, I've been reading through the Psalms, and the same night I came across that Thessalonians verse, I came across this:

That last part made me cry, because I realized that I wanted it.

I want the joy of salvation restored to me.  I want a willing spirit.

I want to remember what I'm doing it all for. 

So Psalm 51:12 is my prayer for when it's too much.  For when I'm weary in doing good.  For when my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak.

And I'd like to pray that prayer over all of you, too.  That you find the joy of salvation, and if/when you do grow weary in doing good, you'll go back to the rock that is higher.  <3

~ Abby

The Faith of the Carpenter {The Greatest Story}

How different would the Christmas story have been if Mary hadn't been betrothed to Joseph?

Really, think about it.

Mary very likely would have been stoned, and then where would we be?  It takes a special man to listen to an angel from a dream. 

Joseph is someone I've really started thinking about just over the past few years.  My dad basically did a whole sermon on him at one point.  (Well, him and one other character... for Father's Day... yeah).

As many times as Mary must have wondered why she had been chosen, Joseph must have had those thoughts tenfold.  I mean, Mary was great, her faith was strong and her heart was pure - of course she'd been chosen to bear the Messiah.  But Joseph?  He was just a carpenter from Nazareth trying to make an honest living and provide a good life for Mary and their future family. 

And then those hopes were smashed when she told him the news - she was pregnant.  And it wasn't his baby.  More than that, she claimed that God was the father, of all things. 

Now, I like to think that Joseph really wanted to believe her.  He really did.  But the idea was so ridiculous that surely there was a lot of inner turmoil trying to figure out what to do.  His sleep the night of the dream was fitful, as he turned the problem over and over in his mind.  If he does let her live, her reputation will be destroyed.  If he marries her, his will be.  And the only other option is for her to die. 

But when he finally slips off into slumber, he's awoken moments later with the answer.  She's telling the truth.  Of course she is.  She's never lied before.  And he knows what he must do.

Maybe he concocts a story, claiming that the child is his, he seduced her.  Or maybe he just lets the gossips of Nazareth decide what happened.  It doesn't really matter, does it?  He knows the truth.  He lets her go to her cousin Elizabeth while he stays behind to start building them a life together, attempting to make one befitting of a young Messiah.

Obviously, then, nothing goes according to plan and he has to take her with him to Bethlehem by order of a Roman who had no clue what was at stake here. 

And to Joseph's horror, the only place he can find for the Messiah is a stable.  One that didn't come with a complimentary midwife.  Where it was just him and Mary to try and go about bringing God into the world.

How terrifying must that have been?  To know that the best you can offer God is a borrowed manger and a few ragged cloths.  To know that you have to raise Him with no experience and not much money.

And then, to save his life, Joseph had to take God incarnate to a pagan land, even farther from relatives and the safety of the Promised Land.  Carrying nothing with them but the gifts of the wise men and faith enough to move mountains.

I sometimes wonder if Jesus looked like Joseph.  If people saw Jesus and thought, "Wow, he's growing up to look like his father."  Not just in appearance.  I wonder if he picked up his mannerisms, his quirks, his terms for things.  His skills, his personality.  I wonder if Joseph was his hero.  How often did he think, "I chose the right man."

We don't see Joseph again after the fateful day in the temple at Passover.  I hope his death was peaceful.  Maybe he spent his last moments in the arms of his son, who would be his savior.  Maybe Mary was there, crying, begging Jesus to save him, knowing that he could if he willed it.  And Joseph looked into the eyes that had seen the dawn of time and were full of tears, and knew that his time on Earth was done.  And he touched the face of the one who had spoken everything into existence, and trusted that He would take care of Mary and the other children.  That everything, somehow, would be alright.

Joseph was incredible.  And he's so underappreciated.  Being the step-father of the Savior was no minor feat.  I can't wait to meet him in heaven and ask him about Jesus as a child.  To ask him about the flight into Egypt, the visit from the Magi, Jesus' first steps and His first words and His first laugh.

Won't that be amazing?

~ Abby

Her Son, Her Savior {The Greatest Story}

In order for any story to work, it needs characters.

And boy, did the Great Author pick out an eclectic cast to tell His Greatest Story.

I've been thinking about doing a special series of blog posts for Christmas.  Christmas is, after all, one of my favorite times of year.  And every year, God shows me something new in the Christmas story.  And this year, I thought I would share them with you.

So get ready to dive into the Greatest Story, where God proves His love for mankind in a most unexpected way.

And we begin with a young woman, who unexpectedly became a key player in this plan, despite being inexperienced, unmarried, and from a backwater town where not much happened... ever.

 

Mary is fascinating to think about. 

I mean, here you have this girl, who is probably younger than I am now, who is preparing for marriage to a man she probably doesn't know all that well, and is innocently gathering water or preparing for a meal when she is suddenly not alone.  And this intruder is so terrifying that his first words to her are "Fear not." 

(Mini side note here, I'm fairly certain that angels are really, really scary.  Because every single time, their first words are "Don't be afraid.")

This stranger, this glowing warrior, is telling her that she has been chosen by God.  Now, just the angel would have her freaked out.  But telling her that God has a job for her?  To a Jewish girl from a small town, that must have taken her breath away and left her silently gasping for a moment, only hearing the rush of her blood in her ears.  Her first thought, trying to wrap her mind around this declaration, comes out in a small-voiced question: "How can this be?  I am a virgin."

But then a voice whispers, "Mary, you know it's true."

And she lifts her chin, takes a deep breath, and knows the truth behind the words she speaks.

"I am the Lord's servant.  May your word to me be fulfilled."

Can you imagine carrying that kind of encounter in the forefront of your mind?  Feeling the change in your body, knowing the change in your heart, wondering when to bring it up to your family, when to say something to Joseph.  Having the knowledge that once this secret is out, it could not just ruin your life, it could end your life. 

She must have prayed about it on so many nights, when she was sleepless with fear, listening to her family's steady breaths, sensing that she could never go back to the way things were.  Picturing Joseph, his face hard and his eyes heartbroken, turning away and leaving her to the mercy of her neighbors.  She must have cried out to God, asking why she had been chosen, knowing, in her heart of hearts, that it would be alright because God was in it, but still wondering.  Still doubting, if only a little.

Mary's faith is something I aspire to have.  Because clearly she had a lot of it.  Not only was she hand-picked by God for this task when certainly (to human understanding, at least), there were other, more qualified people He could have chosen.  People who had a secure life, people who were older, people who knew more, who had more.  But God chose a humble Jewish girl from a humble Jewish town to carry out the most incredible plan He had ever put in motion.

One of my favorite Christmas songs asks the question of whether Mary knew what she was getting herself into.  Most people answer "Yes, of course she did", but I'm not sure about that.  Gabriel didn't really give her details.  Just that she had been chosen, that honored by God, that she would bear His son, and that son would be mighty.  But as for the actual miracles?  I can't help but think that she had no idea that those were coming.  I mean, she watched Jesus grow up.  She watched him go from a snotty-nosed toddler to a quietly curious child to a devoted teenager taking up his earthly father's job.  It's really no wonder the people of Nazareth rejected Jesus when he returned to them during his ministry.  They knew him as a child, not as Messiah.

And I highly doubt that she ever truly thought about the fact that he would die.  She knew the prophecies, of course, everyone knew the prophecies.  The Messiah would die for his people.  But standing at the foot of the cross, watching her firstborn's struggle for breath and watching the blood dripping from his broken body, she must have wondered again why she had been chosen.

Surely she didn't see the cross reflected in the eyes of a boy who had been born in a stable.  She didn't see the power to heal the blind in the little hand that held hers on the way to market.  She didn't know that the little boy who stumbled over his own feet and cried when he fell would walk on water.

And yet... she must have seen it.  In little things he did.  How he could calm conflict between his siblings with a single word.  How he had a kind word for everyone who came through the shop, even when they were there to complain.  How he lit up when he prayed.

Mary was amazing.  She really was.  But I doubt that she had the whole picture.  She was, after all, only human.  And that's the most amazing thing about her.

 

~ Abby

The Mercy in the Madness

My life has been absolutely insane recently.  I'm partially writing this as an excuse for where I've gone.  Sorry.

Last week, we had to put our dog down.  It was very dramatic, and could not have come at a worse time.  This past weekend, we went to Fort Myers and performed for our first paid dancing job.  And now, we've been in Georgia for 3 days, helping my Grandma move.

All this to reiterate - I've been living in complete madness.

Last night, I was asking God, "Why would you let all of this happen to us, right now?"  I've been going through health issues, my grandparents are deteriorating, I don't have a job and I don't know what I want to go to college for.  All of which people are asking me about constantly and I don't have answers.

I was focusing on everything that was wrong.

But then I heard Him whisper, "Abby, if you focus on what's wrong, you're going to drown in all the reasons you aren't okay.  So stop looking at that.  Look at me."

And then He gave me this title:

Here's the thing: It's so easy to ask why.  Why is this happening?  Why to me?  Why now? 

Why so much?

Maybe it's simply because, as Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." {Mark 2:17}

Unless you admit you need help, it's impossible to get it.

The same goes for God.

So maybe that's why it all seems to happen at once.  Because I will tell you this: I have been closer to God in this storm than I was in the calm.  I can tell.  It just feels different.

My situation has come to the point where I have to say "I trust that He's got it" and keep going.  I can't sit and dwell, or I won't move.  There's no way I can handle everything by myself.

And it's only when I let go that I can be held.

No one can hold your hand if your hand is full.  You can't put new books on your bookshelf until you've removed some of the old ones.  It's scary to change, but you have to change to move forward.

You have to release your hold on the cliff's edge before God can catch you.

So this is the mercy in the madness: that even though I'm floundering and trying to do it myself, I can't.  And that realization forces my eyes away from the problem and onto the One who can fix it.


{Have you ever seen the mercy in the madness?  Where have you seen God in your life this week?}

~ Abby



The Instant Life

Since time began, humans have been obsessed with figuring it out.  Setting out weeks, months, and years.  At the beginning, the amount of time in the day was dictated by the sun.  The sun went down, humans went to sleep, the sun woke up and so did the people.  But then came the oil lamp.  Then the gas lamp.  Then the electric lamp.  And now, we can have light for as long as we need it, even carrying flashlights smaller than a finger that are bright enough to illuminate an entire room.  And this has changed the way we live.

Our culture is one that is based around the idea that everything should take the least amount of time that it can possibly take.  Microwave ovens were designed so that food could be prepared in a matter of minutes rather than hours.  The same for washing machines and dryers for our clothes.  The industrial revolution meant that machines could make goods at rates faster than a human could ever dream.  The internet allowed for the international market to keep moving, each country in time with one another, even though one is at two in the afternoon and one is at two in the morning.  And it didn't stop there.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a video game on the PlayStation4 (yes, I play video games.  and yes, I am very happy with my purchase).  Once I'd clicked all the right buttons and gotten a confirmation, I selected the "download now" button.  But alas, to my dismay, the "now" on that button was a misnomer.  The bar on the downloads screen clearly read "Estimated time: 1 hour".

An hour??  How was I expected to wait that long??

There are many things in our lives nowadays that are marketed as "instant".  Instant potatoes, instant soup, instant service.  It's so much so that you could almost say that all of us are living an instant life.

Everything is about immediate gratification.  Veruca Salt's philosophy has become ours.



We want our packages to arrive the moment we click "Buy".  We want to be able to eat as soon as we walk into the kitchen.  And we want God's answer to our prayers right now.

It's easy to fall into this trap.  Society has so ingrained this idea of the "instant" into our minds that often, it's easier to forget about the intricacies of God and just go with the world's fast-paced flow.

But God doesn't operate within time.

This is one of the hardest things for us humans to grasp.  I still don't fully understand it, and I'm pretty sure that I won't until I see Heaven.  Peter summed it up as best he could:

But do not forget this one thing, friends:

With the Lord a day is like a thousand years,

and a thousand years are like a day.

{2 Peter 3:8}

God answers prayer, alright, but it may be in thirty years, our time.  Or it may be in thirty minutes.  He doesn't have the same constraints that we do.  We only get 24 hours a day, and a good portion of that is or should be spent sleeping.  We only have so much time!  We need answers!  We want them now!

One of my Sunday School teachers a few years back said this: "There are three answers that God will give to your prayer - yes, no, and wait."

Wait for the Lord;

be strong and take heart

and wait for the Lord.

{Psalm 27:14}

Let me tell y'all, it's really hard to wait for God.  Waiting for an answer to a question can feel like it's taking an eternity when talking to a fellow human but it may quite literally be an eternity when God's the one you're waiting for.  One example of waiting on God, the first that always pops into my head, is the story of the last good man in the world and how God wiped everything else away.  Noah probably spent years (every one of them rain-less, mind you) building the ark.  Then it took seven days to get the animals loaded.  Then came the forty days and forty nights of torrential downpour while the entire earth got reshaped and wiped out, and then it was another hundred and fifty days of just water.  And then it was another two and a half months before they could just see the tops of the highest mountains.  Then two weeks waiting for the dove to find land.  Guys, it was ten and a half months from the beginning of the flood to the day they stepped off the ark.  Ten and a half months in a boat with only your family and a whole bunch of animals.  I mean, my family can barely stand each other for five hours in the car, can you imagine ten months?  And think of the pressure!  Knowing that your family and your family alone will repopulate the entire world.  Knowing that you'll have to split up and probably won't see each other again.  (Of course, they didn't part ways like they were supposed to... but that's a different story.)

Waiting on God was something that Noah did daily.  And he wasn't the only one.  The Bible is full to the brim with people who waited on the Lord. 

And I don't deny that they had their own struggles with waiting.  Any time they jumped the gun, so to speak, and went before God said to go, they suffered the consequences.  But we can take a lot from their example on how to exhibit the spirit fruit called Patience.

Abraham and Sarah waited for God's promise to come true, for their son to be born, and for a nation to come through him.  Joseph spent two years in a dungeon, waiting for someone to remember he was there.  Moses waited forty years in the desert before God said that the people could enter the Promised Land, and even then, he didn't make it.  Hannah waited for a child.  Gideon, for a command to go.  Naomi waited for God to send her Kinsman Redeemer, and David waited for his anointing as a child to come to fruition.  And Mary, sweet Mary, had to wait for God to tell her what she was supposed to do now - now that she was carrying His own son.  And the list doesn't stop there.

Be still in the presence of the Lord,
And wait patiently for Him to act.
{Psalm 37:7}

In a world that's constantly moving, finding a moment to be still is difficult.  I've always been good at sitting still when told to (being a pastor's kid, it was kind of drilled into me as a child), but it's easier to calm your body when your eyes have something to watch.  It's really hard to wait for something you can't see, especially when you don't know what it is you're waiting for.

But waiting for God to show you something tends to have really cool results.  Starting to read your Bible, with no expectation of what you will find, turns up nuggets of wisdom that you've never heard or that you haven't thought about enough.  Going into it with the prayer, "Tell me something", ends up showing you more than you could possibly imagine.  (and if you need help with that prayer, just pray the words of this song)

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,

and He turned to me and heard my cry.

{Psalm 40:1}

God's never far from His children.  How neat is it that we get a Father who is both instant and infinite?  Have you ever thought about that before?  God is in this moment, and He will be here forever and forever. 

Take a moment (or, take a lifetime) to think about your Instant Life during this coming week.  And thank God that He has us in the instant, and in the infinite.

His blessings on you and yours,
~ Abby