Our church is having Vacation Bible School this week, and I’m learning the same thing God seems to tell me through VBS every year — it’s a lot of work and you’re exhausted by the time Friday rolls around (I’m really tired and it’s only Wednesday!), but it’s always worth all the prep time, logistics juggling and craziness along the way.

There’s nothing like being around a group of excited kids for 3 hours to remind you that faith is supposed to be fun and that God wants us to have joy in our worship! I’m not an official “teacher” this year because I wasn’t sure how my work schedule would pan out. It felt strange to help decorate but not plan out lessons and such, but the good part is I get to be a floater and help wherever they need me each day. It’s been a great week so far.

If your church as VBS sometime this summer, try to get involved. I highly recommend it for a trip down memory lane of your own years as a VBS kid and as a refresher for your adult views!

                                                  

One thing I love about flowers is that they’re an instant reminder to me of how creative God is. So many colors, shapes, textures, sizes, scents … And that’s just the flowers themselves, not the leaves and branches or stems! It blows my mind.

My godmother passed away last weekend after a hard-fought battle with cancer. She loved her flowers and even though she hadn’t been able to get out in the yard and work in them for quite a while, she was surrounded by beautiful flower arrangements that friends and family sent each week.

I took a few pictures of some arrangements so wanted to share them here. Don’t you just love how God makes them all so beautiful and then gives people the gifts for arranging them into something you’ll treasure? He’s so cool that way.

 

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’” (Luke 13:31-32)

These verses were part of my devotional reading this morning and seem like a good way to start the week. The Pharisees thought they were doing Jesus a favor by advising Him to leave Jerusalem. They probably didn’t expect Jesus’ resolute determination to stick to God’s plan and keep doing the job despite the dangers. He didn’t worry about Herod or the other leaders who wanted to get rid of Him … He didn’t try to sneak out of town to continue His ministry where He’d be less noticeable … He didn’t plead His case or ask others to put in a good word for Him with the authorities. No, He had a goal and knew He would work toward it every day until that goal was accomplished.

What kinds of goals do we have? Or — more importantly — what kinds of goals does God have for us? What work does He want us to do, and how do we respond when people or circumstances try to keep us from moving toward it?

I’ll admit to being rather frustrated these days because I’m trying to work on something I think God wants me to do - a devotional writing project, actually - but life and other work keep getting in the way. I’m in the middle of several weeks jammed with “real” work (read: client projects that help pay the bills) that keeps nudging everything else to the sidelines. By the end of the day I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone string coherent thoughts together on paper. God has cracked a door of opportunity for me and I really want to get this work done before the chance disappears. And I know I will, if I ask for His help and His strength … because I don’t get very far on my own in these situations.

My challenge to myself this week is to stay focused on that goal He’s set for me and keep doing my best every day to take another step toward it. The rest is up to Him.

I’m working my way through Jesus: 90 Days with the One and Only by Beth Moore. It takes bits of Jesus’ life each day with a Scripture reading, questions to get you thinking, a devotional, and a prayer response. Some days the reading might be 2 or 3 verses; some days it might be a whole chapter. Either way, it’s making me stop and think about things in some new ways … which I suppose is the point, isn’t it?

Today’s Scripture was Luke 12:35-40, where Jesus tells of the servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet. Then He compares it to waiting for His return, saying, “You must be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once. … It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night.”

In the devotional, Beth talks of how we need to always be ready for Christ’s return, always anxious to see Him, always preparing for that time. Then she writes, “Christ’s desire is that we live in such close involvement with Him that all we lack is seeing Him face-to-face” (pg 285).

So there’s the nugget that has me thinking today. How close am I to Christ every day, every moment, every second that I’m breathing? Do I know Him so intimately and watch for Him so eagerly that when He returns I’ll already know everything but how His face actually looks? I would love to shout, “Yes!” and know it’s true … but digging deeper shows the truth that I always need to draw closer to Him and get to know Him better. I don’t have a perfect relationship, but that doesn’t mean I can’t move in that direction. And I can’t think of a much better goal to build my days on than that.  

This morning I took time to go through several weeks’ worth of church bulletins tucked inside my Bible cover. One of my notes from our pastor’s sermon a few weeks ago really jumped out at me so I thought I would share it as a mindset to start the week:

We’re not called to success - we’re called to obedience.

It’s easy to think that if we hear and follow God’s call on our lives that we’ll be successful in whatever that job might be. Not so, my friends. Just look at Isaiah - God told him up front that people would reject him and not listen to the messages he brought, yet he followed God’s direction and shared the messages anyway. Not an easy job by any means.

What about us? When does God call us to something that we don’t want to do because it will be difficult … or we’ll look crazy … or we’d rather be called to do something else? God’s directions come in big and small ways, in things that seem successful in the world’s eyes and in things that the world might look down on. Let’s work toward focusing more on our obedience this week and less on what we want for ourselves or think is best. If we slow down enough to listen and obey, He just might have some wonderful surprises in store for us.

Two friends and I went to a writers’ conference in Atlanta last weekend. It’s a long-running conference that usually brings some great speakers to town, but there weren’t really many attendees. I’m sure that seeing smaller crowds could be discouraging to the organizers or the teachers, but they gave us their all anyway. And in a lot of ways, going to a small conference has advantages because you can usually have a better chance to connect with people - including the instructors.

In the span of only two days, I learned that a well respected agent in Christian publishing is willing to look at one of my devotional book ideas (just gotta write 8 more devotionals and send the proposal to him) … I got a heads-up on a possible job lead that could be a dream come true … I met a wonderful lady who lives in my town (!) and needs someone to help edit her book manuscript … I reconnected with two friends I met at previous conferences and haven’t seen in a couple of years … and the leader of our local writers’ group scheduled one of the conference teachers to speak at one of our own meetings next year. And that doesn’t even touch on all the other education and surprises along the way!

But I’m not telling these things to try and brag or look special. I’m telling them because it shows me that we just never know when God might plan to make divine connections for us. I had planned to attend this conference but postponed sending in my registration because it looked like something at church would conflict. That roadblock disappeared a couple of weeks ago so I had just enough time to register and get some things together … and now I look back and see all sorts of wonderful things that happened because I was there. We never know when God is busy laying the groundwork for His plans.

Wherever we are, whatever we do, God can use it to further His kingdom or send us in the direction He wants. Scripture teaches that where two or more are gathered in His name, God is also there. He was at a small Christian writers’ conference in Atlanta last weekend, and I’m so very thankful.

But how about you? Are you opening yourself to whatever connections God might have in mind for you today? Let’s pray about it and ask Him to take us wherever He wants … and then praise Him for the surprises along the way!

Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” (Luke 10:23-24)

How badly do we want to see Jesus? It’s easy to say that we do and to even go through some of the motions that seem like we’re moving in that direction. But are we really seeing Him? Do we really notice the reality of Christ bursting all around us? Or are we so caught up with our lives, worries and responsibilities that we miss Him all along the way?

I wonder why the prophets and kings Jesus spoke of wanted to see and hear Him, but didn’t. Was it because they were so hung up on their own ideas of who they expected Him to be or how they expected Him to work that it clouded their views? Were they so used to being self-sufficient that they couldn’t let go and ask Christ to take over everything for them?

Let’s not let that be the case with us!

Just a few verses above these, Jesus thanked God for revealing things to little children that were hidden from the “wise and learned.” A few chapters later in Luke 18 Jesus says we must be like little children in order to inherit the kingdom of God. And that lesson still holds for us today. My children hear and see things around us every day that I don’t - because they’re more tuned in to the beauty around us and I’m more worried about getting us where we need to be on time.

This week, let’s put ourselves on Kid Time and Christ Time instead of Mom Time. Let’s ask God to help us slow down and see Him all around us, and watch what a difference it makes. And if you see or hear God in some great way, please come back and leave a comment so we can celebrate it together!

I subscribe to a daily joke from a website called BeliefNet. I like them because they’re clean jokes I can tell my kids or sometimes use when I’m speaking to groups. This is one I got a couple of weeks ago that I thought you might enjoy (it’s more a ‘food for thought’ kind of thing than a real joke, but it’s still pretty good).

What I Learned From Noah

1. Don’t miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit. When you’re 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.
5. Don’t listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.
6. Build your future on higher ground.
7. For safety’s sake, travel in pairs.
8. Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
9. When you’re stressed, float a while.
10. Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs … the Titanic was built by professionals.

It’s so easy to ignore the boat God sends for us … live in the moment instead of thinking about the future … let other people’s criticisms get us off track from where we think God wants us to be … to think we have to handle everything ourselves instead of letting other people help.

Noah stood out from the crowd because he was different. That difference is what sets Noah apart from the rest of the world and was exactly what God was looking for! It’s what sets us apart from the rest of the world too, and God is still looking for it! Let’s try starting each day by asking God to help us stay faithful and to set us apart so the people around us know we’re His. There’s no telling what He might do with us once we get in that frame of mind and keep being obedient.

I’m making my way through a book by David Jeremiah called My Heart’s Desire: Living Every Moment in the Wonder of Worship. It’s slow going because I’m taking it in little bits at a time so I can really absorb what he says, but it’s great so far. Here’s something he says in one of the first chapters:

“We’ve wandered through the emptiness when we could have been wondering at the fullness of the love of God. Your heart’s desire, even if you haven’t come to realize it, is to live every moment in the wonder of worship.” A few paragraphs down he goes on to say, “The capacity to wonder is the built-in channel given to us for encountering God Himself. The capcity to wonder is the open doorway to worship. It is the soul given occasion to take stock of true spiritual perspective. Without wonder we could not see God.”

Wow! I love that … and that’s what I want in my life. I want to see God everywhere I go, in everyone around me, in everything that happens. I hope you get some small tastes of that when you read things on this blog, but I would also love to know how you see and celebrate the wonder of God every day. Where have you seen Him lately that made you just stop and catch your breath? How do you keep hold of that awe to tide you over to the next time? And, probably most importantly, how do you respond to it?

I’d love to hear how you’ve celebrated God’s wonder this week. Enjoy Him today!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Barnabas lately. He keeps popping up everywhere! I read something about him in a book, then a speaker at my writers’ group mentioned him, and he was mentioned this week in an online group as part of a discussion on mentors. Think God’s trying to tell me something?

Who’s Barnabas, you might ask? He was one of the apostles and founders in the early church and left a quiet - but wide - mark for us to follow. The Book of Acts only includes a few short stories about Barnabas, but we learn some important things about him. First, his original name was Joseph. The early Christians changed his name to Barnabas after he selflessly sold a field and brought the money to the disciples. The people must have seen something special to change his name, because that didn’t happen every day. And they changed it to a special name - one that meant “the consoler” or “the encourager.”

Later stories in Acts show that “encourager” was the perfect word to describe Barnabas. He routinely helped others and recognized the gifts and strengths in people when others didn’t. When Saul (Paul) experienced his conversion and tried to talk with the disciples, they were afraid of him - his past as a persecutor of Christians was too fresh on their minds and they thought he might be trying to trick them.

But Barnabas stepped up to the plate. Acts 9:27 says, “Barnabas took him [Paul], brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.” When no one else believed - or believed in - Paul, Barnabas did. God helped him see beyond what the others did. Barnabas did this on other occasions too, helping teach and strengthen various people for God’s work. He had a gift for seeing the potential in someone and helping it come to the surface. That’s why some people call Barnabas “The Encourager.”

So what about you and your life? Who is a Barnabas for you? Who is always there to love, encourage and support you, even when the rest of the world seems to have turned away? Who helps bring out the best in you, even if it means less for them?

And on the flip side - who are you a Barnabas for? Do you know someone who needs encouragement or support or help along the way? Can you share advice or perspective to make someone’s journey easier? Can you walk with someone as a mentor through this phase of their life?

God means for us to love, encourage and lift up each other. Take some time to thank Him for the Barnabas in your life and all that person means to you. And if you feel led to, ask Him who you can be a Barnabas for. You never know how far a little encouragement might go.