Wisdom, Please

I am a mess but why can't I see it? Who put that big log in my eye anyway? Your flaws are highlighted in yellow for me and the enemy tells me I don't have any.

Fill me to overflowing with your Holy Spirit, O Lord.
In Jesus' name I pray.

Where's the Love?

I know I am far too dependent on the opinion of Christian supervisors who train me to teach the Bible. I am not always as quick to listen to Jesus as I am to them. Teaching the Bible lesson with the "facts" supplied to me and minimal emotion is the rule I must follow but just how do you do that? When they show me how to flatten my words and delivery, I ask, "Is this right Lord?" And He tells me my passion for Him pleases Him. Makes it clear He feels the same way for me. Tells me I am His bride. Tells me if He shows me His glory and I am not passionately totally in love with Him then I missed the showing. Because when you get a glimpse it is intoxicatingly lovely. Thank you Jesus.

I read where the daughter of Christian parents, says she saw them believing and teaching Jesus, but never saw them them loving Him. I don't want to hide my love for Him from anyone, although really I know that can get you in trouble.

In my first reading of the day, the day I have to give my new and improved lesson, He shows me this from Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience:

And that woman, she has no pitcher but she has passion, the kind no Pharisee could ever understand and she has no water but she has her heart.

She pours it out. She pours it out.

And with no towel but tresses, no handcloth but her hair, she does the unthinkable, the scorned and the disgraced. When all Jewish women were required to keep their hair done up, less they be seen as shameful and loose, she lets her locks down.

Rabbis, men of the law, said that if a woman loosed her hair in public, let her hair flow mingled down, it was grounds for divorce. Grounds to be shamed and sent away. But there is a love far greater than law.

That Luke woman, she let her hair loose, lets her love loose and she looks loose and there are always Michaels who will scorn David’s dancing before the ark — but Jesus lets her kiss Him. It seems shocking, appalling, too intimate, and this kataphileo, these kisses, this is the same word, katephileo, of the father kissing the prodigal son, a symbolic picture of God embracing, the father falling on the neck of his child and kissing, and doesn’t the whole realm of earth need to be seized with a power of a great affection, “for we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.” (Eph. 5:30).

http://www.aholyexperience.com/


Let us never forget, there is a love far greater than law.

My Favorite Book Is If I Had A Ranch In Texas

"Absolutely not!",I tell Ken. Hilary, our six year old granddaughter, had just left our house. She lives across the street so she can travel alone. Hilary and her Papa had just returned from Saturday errands, which primarily consisted of a trip to Petsmart.She was SO HAPPY, she told me because her Papa had promised to buy her a snake. She had already met this snake and held him. "That's great!", I told her, picturing her tending the reptile in her precious bindi like way. "But what will your Mom say?" "Oh he's going to live here at your house" looking at me enviously. "That's what Papa said." Oh sweet girl, Papa is out of his ever loving mind,I am tempted to say but I don't.. Her papa is an animal lover of the nth degree. Although he freely admits patience is not his strong suit, if any horrible deed is committed by any member of the animal kingdom he laughs it off. I can just see them now at the mega sized pet store, making plans and anticipating wonderful times with their new soul mate.

"Five dogs are enough," I tell him. "I just can't do a snake. Just feeding it will be a HUGE pain. Having to store dead animals and all." In my defense, it should be noted,that we just don't have five dogs. We have five of the worst of the canine species: a paralyzed dachshund named Pearl; Grace,a whippet, who is a nervous wreck and shouldn't be around other dogs; Rico,a street dog so clever we have to put kiddie locks on the cabinets; Freida, a blind Mexican hairless who has a blood disease requiring expensive meds and monitoring and Tutter, her litter mate who was taken from her mother at age 2 weeks and has not developed properly(I'll spare you the details) Yes... that's what this house needs, a snake.

"Hilary I don't think we can have a snake at the house right now"(couldn't shut the door completely, I am so codependent). Bitterly disappointed, she tells me bravely with a sweet smile,"that's okay. maybe mom will let me get him."

This happened about a month ago and this morning I found a homework assignment of Hilary's. The teacher had given them the title: IF I HAD A RANCH IN TEXAS. It was in booklet form and turning the pages I read of Hilary on her ranch,(wonderfully illustrated by her 6 year old hand),how she had horses and all sorts of animals on her ranch. But she also had ponds full of frogs that she sold. One potential customer, Veronica had already bonded with a certain frog, but her mom said no. But Hilary knew exactly what to do, she THREW the frog at the car, as it left the ranch and the frog followed Veronica home to live happily ever after. I felt genuinely sad that Petsmart employees aren't flinging snakes in the parking lot.