Choice: 1 Peter : Prayers and Poetry

                Choice

                Humility often a

                difficult choice

                especially when

                confronted publicly

                with lies and 

                Disdain.

                Yet

                Blessings restore

                dissolve ongoing 

                anger to wash away

                within and without

                now able to resist the

                Deceit.

                Yield.

Psalm 89:17: "For Thou art the glory of their strength, And by Thy favor our horn is exalted."

                 

                

Trust: Purpose: Prayers and Poetry

                                                 

                                                 Trust

                                               

                                                Excellence defined

                                                by the Lord so

                                                different from our

                                                expectations.

                                                Our response so weak

                                                yet the invitation,

                                                the promise still

                                                given, to action to

                                                yield in trust.

Psalm 18:4, “The cords of death encompassed me, And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.”

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Reflection: Choice: Purpose: Prayers and Poetry

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Reflection Questions

1. How different is our interpretation of excellence from scripture’s insight?

2. What causes us to falter from the Lord’s version?

3. How does this promise give us hope when weakness overpowers us?

Share: What word of insight have you experienced this week?

Choice: Purpose: Prayers and Poetry

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Philippians 1: 9-10, “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and be so pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

Choice,

Lord, please guide us into Your message of knowledge and discernment as we learn to navigate this so very unknown road we are on.

We ask that we may only walk where You lead.

And if we falter, or turn to a wrong choice or assumption, that You will please stop us before we go further.

We ask for ears to hear, a commitment to obey, and a heart to fully trust in action. No matter how dark the path seems, or when we feel blind.

Your thoughts,

Reflection: Choice: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     For whose life purpose do you feel you step into each day?

2.     Is it to face a battle, or a challenge, or survival? For whom?

3.     How willing are we as Christians to be a “sheep for slaughter”? How willing are you to have your life destroyed to follow Him?

4.     In what way could you perceive being killed for His sake a positive blessing?

Share: What loss have you experienced that turned into a blessing?

Choice: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Romans 8: 36

“As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’”

Since nothing can separate us from the Lord, are we then willing to be used in any way possible that others too may know Him? To be slaughtered? Not a word or action we normally chose to embrace. But a reminder perhaps that each life costs dearly—first in physical birth, then in life daily, and finally into eternity.

Sin and suffering are common ground for everyone.

What might be the extra cost to choose to follow Jesus’ way? Freely chosen.

What false baggage might we learn to discard in order to live with authenticity from the inside out? Winnowed into a more truthful disciple ready to serve wherever called?

Choosing to live our faith openly in truth and trust with hope and integrity can mark us as a target. To challenge—to ridicule—to attack. But also as witnesses to His salvation.

Counted among His sheep. Cared for by His love. Committed to His will. Life.

“And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”  1 John 5:14

Lord, please give us the boldness to willingly be used by You each day for Your purpose, regardless of the circumstances.

Psalm of Worship: Proverbs 8:35

“For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.”

Decision: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

                       Decision

                        Law now fulfilled

                        choice now to accept

                        live each day either

                        by flesh or by Spirit

                        leave self cravings

                        that manipulate

                        larger instead of

                        restoration by

                        love’s eternal caress

                        crossroad decision

                        leaves permanent markings.

Reflection: Portal: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     What significance does the position beside the gates imply for wisdom waiting?

2.     What heart actions do we need to take to choose Spirit living?

3.     How does sin continue to harass in spite of the Spirit’s presence?

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Share: What gate are you trying to enter today?

Territory: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Joshua 19

“…distributed by lot at Shiloh before the Lord, at the entrance of the house of meeting.” Joshua 19:51

Before the Lord, at His tent of meeting, the lots were drawn. Some were tribe general and some were tribe specific. Judah had a higher portion but as the share was too big for them, the tribe of Simeon “obtained an inheritance within their inheritance.”

And by the Lord’s command Joshua was given a town, which he chose, in the hill country of Ephraim, and then he rebuilt and settled there.

The tribe of Danites lost their territory and so fought against Leshom to take possession there. And there they settled in. None of these lots were wrapped up in a completed package. Each required a choice to settle the land. Their inheritance needed to become a lived in experience.

We also have received from the Lord an inheritance, actually a double heritage, to be lived within another’s inheritance. We receive our physical inheritance into a life of cultural heritage and family, and we receive our gift of spiritual heritage by Jesus’ cross of sacrifice. Each individual’s gifts and talents and boundaries unique and yet a portion of His whole. If we accept them.

With choices for each distribution how much we are to settle in and build, or resist and rebel.

Jesus is present. His door of meeting is always open. Are we living in the lot He has given or seeking a different portion? Does our faith continue to grow and expand with new opportunities?

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 139: 10, 16

“Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

“Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.”

Reflection Restraint: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     What is the difference between the Lord ‘building’ your house and you building your house with the Lord’s help?

2.     In what areas of your life do you find yourself chafing against God’s directions or boundaries?

3.     Forbidden spoils may be different for each of us in our relationship with God. In what ways can good things become blind to our promises?

4.     Self-centered choices almost always affect others. In what ways has a choice you made badly affected those you love, or how has someone you love hurt you by their actions?

Share: How has the Lord restored you when that restraint broke?

Commit: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Joshua 5

“On the day after the Passover… The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.” Joshua 5: 11-12

The generation before them had enough faith to leave slavery behind and follow the Lord’s promise. Then in the wilderness their trust faltered and prevented them from reaching their new land. Yet, God did not forsake them, or leave them to perish, but continued to provide for them every day until they reached a natural life span, except for Caleb and Joshua who had stood in faith all along, now as then ready to obey whatever God said.

This next generation had to make their own decision based on their own experiences. Whatever they chose would be their new path: to remain bound in limitation as did the generation before them, or to trust the Lord’s Promised Land and step into a completely new experience.

First they too had to let go the past and step out in trust. They needed to choose to grow in their faith and act upon it, not even fully understanding what that would look like. All they had known was daily manna.  Would God continue to sustain them spiritually and physically?

And the choice required a cost: circumcision. A permanent act of obedience and commitment. For each man a personal decision. An act of trust to pass on to the generation to follow them.

Lord, please keep us from fears that reduce our days to mere existence and instead keep our hearts grounded in a living faith that sees each day as a new opportunity to walk in trust and fellowship with You.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 125:2

“As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the Lord surrounds his people,

from this time on, and forevermore,”

Territory: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Joshua 2

“According to your words, so be it.” Joshua 2: 21

Have you ever been thrown into a new responsibility with almost no warning and no ‘to do’ list of guidelines? You have no idea what your reception will be but are expecting hostility, so you approach with caution. Or perhaps barrel on it taking a firm grip of authority.

Joshua sent two spies across the Jordan river into hostile territory with a brief mandate, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” That’s all they had. To them fell the responsibility to gather critical information. So they took lodgings in the house of a harlot, probably hoping to stay under the radar and unnoticed.

Instead, because she had heard, she immediately witnessed to them her belief in God and His intent to take the land. And boldly asked for refuge for herself, her family and their kin. “Swear to me by the Lord,” she said.

Perhaps the spies expected a possible confrontation with the men in the city, or perhaps captivity, but did they expect a woman, a harlot, to demand confirmation that God not only was who she believed He was, but were these two spies were confidant enough as well to trust His words for themselves and for this foreigner. Did they wonder if they could make that promise?

All three of them had to choose to accept whether they believed God’s words would bring hope and life or destruction. The decision required concrete action and not a generic maybe. And the spies gave their word in the middle of enemy territory. And Rahab accepted with trust. “So be it.”

With so little history they all agreed with confidence Rahab’s affirmation that. “The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.”

Lord, we have both Your spoken words and Your written words and too often we forget to stand on Your protection in enemy territory and/or forget to share that trust when in the midst of a conflict. Whether confronting a misunderstanding or facing down a monumental challenge, please help us to listen and act upon Your truth in faith.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 122: 7-8

“Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.

For the sake of my relatives and friends, I will say, ‘Peace be within you’.”

Opinion: Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

Opinion

Click clack confidence

beats a path across

the room, up the stairs

matching inner hum.

Footsteps in sync

catches glimpse of a frown

step falters slightly,

shrug, resume, then a repeat.

Halts for a moment

takes stock

resumes pace now as

unobtrusive shuffle

confidence pierced.

Reflection Expectant Joy: Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     Make a list of the most challenging experiences of your life: physically, relationally, and spiritually.

2.     Next to each category write the characteristics that got you through. For example: determination, commitment etc.

3.     In each trial how much did your spiritual faith take a role either positively or negatively?

4.     When you look back at each in what ways has your perspective changed from then to now? Why?

Share: Have you experienced a sense of joy through a difficult season? How did it change the circumstances?

Expectant Joy: Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

Hebrews 12:2, “who for the sake of the joy that was set before him,”

Athletes, musicians, and dancers are known, along with several other professions, for facing grueling schedules, as well as physical, emotional, and spiritual tension. The pressure has been known to make or break a career despite talent.

Yet for each one the initial choice is made to endure hardship for the hope of the prize or success. A choice to commit—yes—but how often with a sense of joy in the process?

Then there are so many who face daily struggles just to face the physically, mental and emotional needs of themselves or a loved one. Not a choice—but still a commitment. How often with joy when fatigue saps strength moment by moment?

Yet none of us come close to the cross—to the plan Jesus chose to endure—for each of us.

His faith vision looked beyond the immediate pain, beyond the devastation of sin’s legacy, beyond the present futility, towards goals that encompassed the imperishable. His ability to choose a higher value than immediate needs leaves us an example to follow when crisis of any kind debilitates our lives.

He continues to go before us and prepare our paths. He continues to stretch our thinking beyond survival, or hope in the end, to the experience of His joyful Presence now.

Yet how often do we truly look for His joy?

Lord, please enable us to mirror Your values in all circumstances, so that we can focus on the imperishable regardless of how difficult a season we are in.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 126:5-6

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.

He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed,

Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”

Riches: Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

Ephesians 1:18, “so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.”

When devastation of any kind hits we tend to shut down. Acute stress response according to medical experts can be reactions such as fight, flee, fix, freeze, or faint. And stress can happen on a daily level within relationships. All of these reactions touch our emotional core and usually the next step in a pro-active choice is to fix it or repair or make a plan to re-build. Not emotional—logical.

We look with our eyes at the damage both short term and long term and initiate plans with determination and will power. And often skip over the heart because the immediate pain may be too difficult to face.

Yet that is exactly where the Lord wants us to begin—with the eyes of our heart. To first recognize that His love and mercy never end and are just as present today as yesterday and will be there again tomorrow.

Then to first choose love and mercy in healing before building new foundations that could still harbor anger and bitterness and hardheartedness within the core.

Nehemiah is well known for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and confronting severe opposition from enemies, including those within his own countrymen. Yet before he even began the vision he spent long months in prayer seeking God’s word first. Seeking God Himself. Trying to see through his own heart so as to match with the Lord’s version of inheritance.

A few months ago I heard a speaker give a church family of faith the same version of reactions to stress as the medical field did, but he added the most important other option: FAITH.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 94:14

“For the Lord will not abandon His people,

Nor will He forsake His inheritance.”

Wandered: Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

 Wandered

Constantly alert to danger

sounds of pursuit

drummed a march in their ears

continuously moving

backtracking

setting false trails

 adept animal mimics

 held

faith in heart

a conscience hold on reality

despite cave dwellings.

Wilderness: Faith Seeds: Prayers and Poetry

     Wilderness

     Without hesitation

     they fled

     to hills, to deserts,

     leaving behind possessions

     choosing destitution

     not running away from

     but toward desire,

     longing to live

     in righteousness

     and justice.

     Wilderness a haven.