JURY DUTY

I had Jury Duty for the months of July - Sept.  2010 I wrote a letter to be excused for Aug and Sept hearing nothing I assumed I asked too late.  July we were called in and I ended up on the Jury.  We heard the opening statements then adjourned for lunch.  When we returned they had us wait in the jury room for about 45 mins.  Then they brought us into the courtroom and told us the case had been settled.

This gets me thinking about my own guilt.  My own sin that I take to my judge and who then takes it and covers it with His blood.  He puts it as far as the east is from the west.

On the jury I was called to be impartial to hear the facts of the case and then render a judgment guilty or innocent.  I believe in the judicial system and even though I had my thoughts from the opening statements I was wondering what the defense was going to do to give us evidence or a cause to say he was not guilty. 

My not guilty pardon from my Heavenly Father is so clear in:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not parish but have everlasting life. 

God loves us so much that He came down to earth and died for us!  I marvel at that love.  His love for us is so real and so tangible that if we believe in Him, he gives us eternal life.

God knows everything there is about me - the good, bad and the ugly.  Yet, He forgave me.  He continues to mold me and to shape the future.  How amazing is that.  

I got called into Jury duty again in September only to find out that I had been excused for August and September.  It would have been nice if someone would have told me.  I never thought to ask if I had been excused.  

It is the same with God.  He has excused everyone who believes in Him and the work that was done on the cross.  That the debt for our sins has been paid by Jesus Christ. 

I ended up showing up to a place I didn't have to because I never thought to ask.  I never called the Court and asked if the judge had excused me.  I ended up showing up to a place I never had to go to.   If I would have asked I would have found out that I was forgiven.  

There are a lot of people who are going to be showing up somewhere when they die that they don't expect because they never asked if they had been excused.  If the "pardon" had come through.  They never went to the judge and told Him that they believed He had the power to forgive them.  They end up taking the penalty on themselves because they just thought if they were good, nice and didn't hurt anyone they would end up being not guilty.  

Confess with your Mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe....

I ended up staying that day of jury duty and then called to see if I was now still excused or if I had now lost that.  They said I didn't need to report for jury duty any more.  By that time I was kind of frustrated because I had resigned myself that I was on jury duty and I kind of liked it.  This may be a bit of a stretch but, isn't that the way sin kind of is in our lives.  We know it is wrong and yet we continue to return to it again and again. 

I have been freed from my sin, but yet the world offers so much of it to us on a platter.  We need to take each thought captive and flee from sin.  I used to tell my neice to keep her running shoes on.  I thought of Joseph when he was being suduced by Potiphar's wife and how he ran.  

That is how we need to be with sin - we need to know when to run from it.  We need to be active in capturing each thought and responding to sin with the word of God ready on our tounge.  The only way that happens is when we are in right relationship with Him.  

If we don't pray, if we don't talk to God, if we don't read his word are we in relationship with Him?  If our life is all about ourselves and the things we want to do and the places we want to go then have we truly trusted God with anything?

There is a video my husband showed to me once - of a guy and a girl that are walking and they come upon a stagnet stinky pond  - they are disgusted by it.  Then a guy pops out of the middle of it and is shouting happily.  They ask him what is he doing in there.  He looks around and realizes that he is in the middle of this yucky pond and then doesn't know what he is doing there.  So they tell him to come out but he is unable to get out of the pond.  So the guy goes to help him.  He gets him out of the pond and all three of them are standing on the shore and the guy that they got out of the pond thanks them - then goes back into the pond and dives under again.  The girl tells her friend to come on come out of the pond he says yeah I will then turns around and dives back into the cess pool.  She can't believe it.  They say the don't want to be in the middle of all that "yuck" but they keep jumping back into it.  Sin is like that - we look at it and say gross but when it comes time to really give it up we just don't want to.

The last day to call in for jury duty was Sept. 28th.  I had set my phone for it and when it went of I called just to see - not planing on going in but wondering what was going on.  The call in report was that our term of jury duty was over. 

We all are appointed one time to die and then comes judgement.  Have you truly trusted your life to Christ?  Have you went to the Judge and asked him to pardon you.  The truth is it is already granted but if you don't go to Him and ask to see it and trust your life to Him it won't be granted to you.  You will pay the price which was already paid for you.  Is anything worth that?  

Breaking the Borrowing

Have you ever borrowed something because you didn't want to buy it and then break what you borrowed so you just ended up buying it anyway?

It is strange how you feel when you break something you own yourself and when you break something you have on loan from someone else.

I would have been upset had we just bought it and broke it but some how it was worse that it belonged to someone else who took the risk to lend it to you.

That is the risk isn't it when you loan something out that it might not come back in the same shape as when it went out.

When I let someone borrow some thing of mine I do expect them to take good care of it.  To watch over it to treat it with care.  When I get something back in worse condition I think ill of that person.  I don't trust them, I think how could they borrow this and give it back in this condition?

We can almost perceive that if they treat my stuff like that - then they must view me that way?

Okay maybe not.  Sometimes people don't think they just use something not considering how it looked when they got it.

My daughter at the age of 4 was allowed to wear someone else's outfit.  It was a special kind of outfit.  It was a little bit big and by the end of the evening the cuffs were muddy and the material was of such that I was afraid to clean it myself.  I ended up giving it back via a third person who said not to worry that she would explain.   I still think of that and hope she did explain and that I would have washed it, if I had known how to wash that kind of material.

The Bible says to be not a borrower or lender.  It also says to give when someone asks, in fact to give more than they ask.  Is this a contradiction?  I don't think so.

Ultimately the Biblical message is - don't lend something out to someone without being willing to actually give it to them.  If someone asks you for something they are in need of give it to them freely not expecting it back.  In this way you are giving them more than they asked for.  If they give it back to you take it back as a gift or say no it is yours.

I am not saying this is easy and I still say if I borrowed something I should give it back in better condition then it was given to me.  So if I break something that was 30 years old then I should go buy a new one as close to the original as possible. This isn't always possible, but it should be our goal.

The influences of life

I have all these thoughts rattling around in my brain that I want to get time to blog, but the days keep slipping by!  I can't believe how fast this summer has gone.

I've been thinking a lot about "Influence."  It is a theme that keeps popping up in my head and one that I plan to write more about in the future.  So much of the accounts in the Bible have to do with influence.  The influence of God, the influence of a mother, wife, husband, people in general.  Each book of the Bible could be a study of this word.  Who is influencing who in this book, chapter or verse.

As a wife, mother, friend, sister, daughter - I influence those around me.  Am I influencing them for good or for evil?  Am I influencing myself for good or evil as well?  How is God trying to influence me - change me, mold me into something He sees!

This topic of influence will come up more!

I am working on my third devotional about God and the 5 Senses - Taste.   I haven't settled on a verse yet, but it is interesting to note how much the word honey comes up when looking at our taste.  Honey is truly a wonderful creation!  Taste and see how good!  I'm excited to share what God reveals to me.

I am also in the middle of trying to read five books!  Three of them are about American Sign Language interpreting.  One is about raising global nomads.  The last one is a devotional for kids.  Thankfully a few of them I can keep almost a month since they are inter-library loan.

I also have more stories from South Africa I want to share.  Though we have been back from South Africa a year already - there are still more fun stories to share and information.  We learned a lot about HIV/AIDS - that I want to share about.  Also just world faiths and how to share with people from other faiths.

Stories from Africa: Rural South Africa - Lessons learned

This will be my last post about my outreach to Rural South Africa.

It is always interesting a year after the fact to look back and see how something changed you or grew you in some way.

The Rural Outreach by far was the most physically challenging for me with three kids to take care of, ministry to accomplish and our first team to learn to live with and love. (Picture at Right - Trust in God Church in Mabarhule, South Africa)

I look back and really only remember that - "The Family" made it.
We survived for 17 days with all 5 of us in a tent. (Our tent was the one on the right side of the photo at left.)
We did ministry - and made an impact on the people around us.  Could we have done somethings better, or differently - yeah.  Was it hard, yes, was it fun, yes, was it interesting yes.  Would I do it again - yes!  Wow I don't know if I would have said that the day we left.

We left by the way on my 8th Wedding Anniversary - waiting for the base van to come pick us up.  We had all the tents and camp packed by 10 am and then proceeded to wait until 6 pm and the pitch black night before we got ourselves into the van for the 6 hour ride back!   That was a frustrating day.

Now almost an entire year later - I look back at that whole experience as such a time of growth, uncomfortable as it was - it really showed me that we could endure through anything.  Is that my ministry of choice?  I don't think so - I would rather live in a two bedroom cabin then a tent full time.  But cooking over a fire wasn't too bad - of course I did have a team to help carry the load.  Alone as a family might be a different story.

I am curious as I look into the future what I will see as the benefit of the waiting we are doing right now. The changes we are facing the new direction we are going and the ministry that seems to be waiting for us.

God is so interesting in how he challenges our perception of what he wants us to do with our lives.  How he calls us to obedience and then just asks us to trust Him through it all.

Are we willing to be sent?  If so are we willing to go where he calls us to go.

I am a planner by habit - I like to see my life stretched out before me and kind of have a good idea of how it will all play out.  I can change, but I don't really like change to happen to quickly and I like a bit of a warning.  God continually calls me to stop that planning to put my trust entirely on Him and if I can trust him here in comfy Aberdeen, South Dakota then I really should be able to trust him anywhere.  Out of comfort in Rural South Africa,  in comfort of the expected path of ministry, and "Oh," in the unexpected detours that will ultimately lead us to where He wants us to be in ministry.

So what does this have to do with Rural South Africa - As our first Outreach with our Mission Organization it taught me to go with the flow, stop trying to control everything in my family, depend on the team.  Team life isn't always easy - different people have perspectives on life that are in direct conflict with your own - even though they too love the Lord.  It was hard being the mom and I think for Tony being the dad - because we never got the down time that our teammates enjoyed.  Though they probably enjoyed less of that down time because we "The Family" were on their team.   I can honestly say that I don't think we would have made it without the team.  Not then, not under those circumstances.  We needed the team.   I guess I do hope they ended up needing us in some ways too.

I know they learned something - even if it was only how to change a diaper.

The Rubber Band of Faith - Ouch!

Do you ever have times when the amount of faith you have seems so small that it feels like a rubber band about to snap back at you at any moment?  I have those times.

Lately, I have those times a lot.

Raising support is about the hardest thing I've had to do.

I've been praying for God to release the funds for us to be able to go to our field assignment in Moldova, but I know that for whatever reason I have something to learn in this waiting.

The positive things from waiting have been complete dependency on God for everything, a lot of time spent together as a family, and as a couple.

The longer we wait the more we depend on God - when we first got back from South Africa we had a lot of people helping, feeling led to bring us food, we had people help buy our family Christmas presents, and giving us gift cards to the food store.  This is a very humbling place to be.  I was reminded by someone when I said - this is hard to not be the giver but to depend on others - that "The worker is worth their wage."  This is biblical but still hard - is this pride?  Probably.

Then I think, when I am giving out food baskets on the field - will I not understand more when someone doesn't want to take the food but does out of necessity?  I am sure this time of waiting will help me see their need from a more personal place.

God continues to give us just enough and every once in awhile surprise us with a gift.  I just got a free meal at a fast food restaurant  - which I decided to drive through out of speed and convenience not because, in all honesty, I should have or could afford to do so that day.  But God surprised me.  We ended up getting our food for free because their machine could not read the credit card or debit card I had.  It was their machine not my cards.  When they told me to just go get the food and I wouldn't be charged for it I was surprised and as I drove away I offered thanks to God.  He provided what he didn't even need to provide.

As a family we have spent more time all together then I can ever remember.   There are times when I look at my husband and have said, "Just go."  Not always in the nicest tone of voice.  Does that surprise any of you?   But for the most part we have realized how much of a family we are.  My husband truly is my best friend.  We share everything together and as we learn more about each other - trusting each other our relationship is deeper because of it.  This will most certainly help us on the field.

Our children are enjoying time with Daddy in a way that they wouldn't have if we had gone right onto the field.   We have through this last year and half learned more about each other's strengths and weaknesses.  We are learning more how to love each other and live together.  There is no way that this could be seen in the negative.

Then why do I say that I struggle with faith?  Sometimes I get caught up with how long something is taking to happen.  I truly believe that God is in control - but sometimes I think that if God is behind something there should be no waiting involved it should just happen.  There should be a time limit.  That if we really belong on the field then we should already be there.  I know that my husband has had at least one person say that if we were meant to be on the field we would already be there.  I struggle with that.  If that person is right - then why do we still feel so strongly that we are not to stay but to go.  If this is true then why does our house seem to stay rented.  As I pray and ask God where the rest of the support is to be found - why do we continue to feel that perseverance is what He is asking of us?

I am reminded of Abraham and Sarah as they waited for their promised son.  They knew what God had told them, they knew that God would be true to his word - they knew this.  Then why did their faith waiver?  Why did they struggle with how long it was taking?

God clearly - wanted them to know it was him doing it not them.

They tried to speed it up and go around the mountain in their way.  Sarah - like many women - felt that maybe it was her.  I know that many times even myself I see Sarah as a women who made a suggestion that was against God's plan.  She offered her handmaiden to her husband,  I say to her why - why are you doing this!

What do you think as a human, as a women, Sarah felt like.  Maybe she felt she was the problem.  She never could have children, in a culture where not having children was always the women's fault.  I am sure she felt desperate, she influenced her husband.  To remind you of this conversation here it is:

Genesis 16: 1-2 ESV

[16:1] Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. [2] And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

I wonder if there was more discussion on this - or did she say it and Abram was like - "Hot dog!"  Some how, I think there might have been a bit more dialogue about the whole thing.


So what does this all have to do with me?  I think this account shows a fundamental problem with being a sinful human.  We get in front of God.  We think we see all the answers, that we know best, that if God just gave it over to us and followed our lead that we could do it better than Him.

But going back to Sarah the moment her plan was put into action was probably when she first regretted it.


[3] So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. [4] And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. [5] And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!”
(Genesis 16:3-5 ESV)

Do you think that maybe Sarai - secretly hoped that she was forcing God's hand.  That She not Hagar would conceive and that God would be given the glory?  But God didn't do that, but his plan had not changed.


[Isaac's Birth Promised]
[15] And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. [16] I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” [17] Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” [18] And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” [19] God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. [20] As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. [21] But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”
(Genesis 17:15-21 ESV)

13!

Thirteen more years passed - it says in Genesis 17:25 that Ishmael is 13 years old.  This story both encourages me and scared me.

I want to be on the field ASAP - but God's timing is the best timing.  I want to get in front of God and make it happen.  I know what I do in my own strength will not work.  God's hand must be in it!

I know on the field I will need to trust God's timing.  I know that this waiting period will make complete sense.  I know that God has put in us this desire to do his work overseas.  So many confirmations in our lives about this.  My conflict of faith always comes when I take my eyes off of God and His plan.  When the noise of the world and the voices of the people around me that want it to happen in a timely business manner.  When I get asked the questions:

"Your still here."  "When are you leaving?"  "When do you think you'll have a departure date?"

I would love to answer those questions with this answer:

"We leave next week."  What joy will be in that statement!

Just as Sarah finally held her baby boy - named laughter!

If I continue to trust in the promise that God gave us and trust that his timing is perfect my faith won't waiver.

Pray for me that I would continue to trust God's plan for my family.
That I will trust in God's perfect timing.  His - Will, Way, and Time.