"Chase the Lion"

I love this!

I read a short article in a Charles Stanley publication the other day. Author Mark Batterson wrote about the "risk of taking no risks," and stated that social psychologists have said "over the short term, we tent to regret actions -- things we did that we wish we hadn't. But over the long haul, we tend to bemoan inactions -- things we didn't do but wish we had."

Wow!

He encourages us to remember there are sins of omission and we should do some things in obedience and faith. He pointed out that Jesus didn't get in trouble with the people of His day because He did nothing. By contrast, Jesus was "too dynamic to be safe." He was gutsy!

And Mark Batterson challenged us by asking "what lion is God calling you to chase?" Hmmm.

Great timing for me and Andrew.

And then I got an e-mail from my friend Leslie who mentioned in her devotions ... well, I'll just copy it here:

My devotions are in Exodus right now, and God says in Ex. 14:14,

"The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace." And He did! Great,

miraculous victories, won by God, not man. But at the same time (and this is where

I got so excited this morning : ) in the next verse He says, "Why do you cry to Me?

Tell (them) to go forward..." God wants us to move forward in faith.

Yes, we need to walk with Him and talk with Him, but also, we need to have faith,

and MOVE FORWARD. Don't sit around waiting for a sign: when we know it's God's

will, go for it! Trust Him to work!

Another wow for me! I am often most fearful of DOING something! Ahh! It's like I want God to send me an e-mail with instructions on what to do! So Mark's article and Leslie's e-mail were a wake-up call for me.

I remember being at church one Wednesday night listening to my preacher speak on Ecclesiastes where Solomon talks about the vanity of a life lived for self. How that one day you get to the end of life and think, "What did I do that is of any value? What did I do for God?" I was so sad. I thought, "Oh my goodness, that is going to be me! I am going to have good intentions all my life, but DO absolutely nothing." Instead of being encouraged by Brian's message, I felt so much sadness.

So I need to do something and, Lord willing, I'm going act in faith and chase that lion!

(By the way, we ordered Mark's book.)

Experiencing God -- chapters 12-15

These chapters were fantastic! I jotted down many things I simply wanted to quote from the book. GREAT stuff!


Chapter 12 - God Speaks Through the Bible

Some thoughts that stood out to me:

"A person cannot understand spiritual truth unless the Spirit of God reveals it. In fact the Holy Spirit is "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17). When you come to understand the spiritual meaning and application of a Scripture passage, God's Spirit has been at work. . . . When God speaks to you through the Bible, He is relating to you in a personal and real way." (pg. 103)

"The Spirit of God knows the mind of God. He knows what God is ready to do in my life. The Spirit of God then begins to open my understanding about God and His purposes and His ways." (pg. 104) -- This happens through reading the Scriptures. When the Spirit reveals truth to you, adjust yourself to God's revelation and obey. Also watch to see how God may use that revealed truth in your life during the day.

Chapter 13 - God Speaks Through Prayer

"The Holy Spirit reveals truth. Truth is not just some concept to be studied. Truth is a Person. Jesus did not say, "I will teach you the truth." He said, 'I am . . . the truth' (John 14:6). . . . [The Holy Spirit] is leading you into a relationship with a Person. He is your life! When God gives you eternal life, He gives you a Person. When you became a Christian, Jesus didn't give you some thing; He gave you Himself." (pg. 109)

"Prayer is two-way fellowship and communication with God. You speak to God and He speaks to you. It is not a one-way conversation. ... Prayer includes listening as well. In fact, what God says in prayer is far more important than what you say. Prayer is a relationship, not just a religious activity. Prayer is designed more to adjust you to God than to adjust God to you." (pg. 109)

"You have to decide whether you are going to do what you want and ask God to bless it, or go to work where He is working." (pg. 113)

Spiritual concentration -- "Our problem is that we pray and then never relate anything that happens to our praying. After you pray, the single greatest thing you need to do is turn on your spiritual concentration. When you pray in a direction, immediately anticipate the activity of God in answer to your prayer. I find this all the way through Scripture; when God's people prayed, He responded. Here's what happens if you pray and then forget about what you have prayed. Things start to happen during the day that are not normal for your day. You see them all as distractions and try to get rid of them. You fail to connect them with what you have just prayed." (pg. 113) Pray and immediately watch for God to work. Prepare to make adjustments to what God brings into my life.

Silences of God -- "Sometimes God is silent as He prepares to bring you into a deeper understanding of Himself. Whenever a silence comes, continue doing the last thing God told you and watch and wait for a fresh encounter with Him." (pg. 115)

Chapter 14 - God Speaks Through Circumstances

The author uses this summary of how to respond when we face difficult or confusing circumstances:

• Settle in your own mind that God has forever demonstrated His absolute love for you on the cross. That love will never change.
• Do not try to understand what God is like from the middle of your circumstances.
• Go to God and ask Him to help you see His perspective on your situation.
• Wait on the Holy Spirit. He may take the Word of God and help you understand your circumstances.
• Adjust your life to God and what you see Him doing in your circumstances.
• Do all He tells you to do.
• Experience God working in and through you to accomplish His purposes.

"Remember God is sovereign. You may face a situation like Job experienced where God does not tell you what He is doing. In those instances acknowledge God's love and sovereignty and depend on His sustaining grace to see you through the situation." (pg. 121)

"The most difficult part of your relationship to God is being God-centered. If you were to record a whole day in your life you might find that your prayers, your attitudes, your thoughts, everything about that day is radically self-centered. You may not be seeing things from God's perspective. You may try to explain to God what your perspective is. When He becomes the Lord of your life, He alone has the right to be:

• the Focus in your life
• the Initiator of your life
• the Director of your life.

That is what is means for Him to be Lord." (pg. 122)

Remember that Truth is a Person! "You never know the truth of any situation until you have heard from Jesus." (pg. 123)


Chapter 15 - God Speaks Through the Church

We are interdependent on fellow believers just as the head, ears and feet are interdependent on each other in the physical body. "All the members of the body belong to each other, and they need each other. You can and should depend on God to speak through other believers and the church to help you know what assignment you are to carry out in the ministry of the kingdom." (pg. 132)

By sharing what God is doing in our lives, we may help others encounter God in meaningful ways. I can vouch for that. God often speaks to me through Christian authors, publications and friends. That has happened to me a couple times this week while reading things others have written. One was from my friend, Leslie, about moving forward with faith and the other was from a Charles Stanley magazine where an author wrote about sins of omission. He challenged us to "chase the lion," and what a needed lesson that was to me and Andrew both this week! (We liked this guy's challenge so much, we ordered the book. :-) )

Interesting thing from this chapter: "One of the problems evangelical churches face today is that they have so emphasized the doctrine of the priesthood of believers they have lost their sense of corporate identity. . . . Christians think they stand alone before God and that they are not accountable to anyone else, including the church." (pg. 129) Hmmmm.

Experiencing God -- chapters 10 & 11

Chapter 10 -- God Speaks to His People

I will quote from the summary the author provides at that chapter's end.

God has always been speaking to His people. Today, He speaks by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will use the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and other believers to speak to you. The method, however, is not the key to knowing God's voice. You learn to know the voice of God through an intimate love relationship that He has initiated. God may choose to speak to you in a way that is unique to you. You can be assured, though, that He will be able to convince you that you have heard a word from Him.

When God speaks to you, He will do so with a purpose. When He speaks is God's timing for you to begin adjusting your life and your thinking to Him. He will be working in you to develop your character for the assignment He has for you. Let God take all the time He needs to prepare you (pg. 96).

Chapter 11 -- God Reveals Himself, His Purpose and His Ways

From the author:

"His goal always is to reveal Himself to people to draw them into a love relationship with Himself. His ways are redemptive. He acts in such a way to reveal Himself and His love. He does not simply wait around in order to help us achieve our goals for Him! He comes to accomplish His own goals through us - and in His own way" (pg. 100).


Lesson I've learned -- The love relationship with God is important! It's the key to everything else. It's like the roots of a plant. I need strong roots - the love relationship - so I can be pleasing to God and used by Him. Instead of focusing on doing something for the Lord and trying to figure out what that is, I should focus on Him, fall in love with Him, abide in Him. Let Him accomplish what He wants to do through me.

Experiencing God -- chapters 8 & 9

God Takes the Initiative -- The author gives examples of those who lived God-centered (Joshua and Caleb) vs. self-centered lives (the ten spies), and urged us to focus our lives on God's purposes not our own plans. We should see things from God's perspective instead of our own distorted ones. When God wants to do something in the world, HE takes the initiative and comes to talk to somebody. Look at the examples of Noah and Moses, Gideon and Paul. "You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him." This is helpful to me: I don't have to figure out what to do for God. I can abide in Him and wait for HIM to instruct me if He chooses. Since God is God and we are not, we should adjust our plans to suit Him instead of thinking that God is going to adjust Himself to suit our desires. We will only be fulfilled when we get this straight and follow His ways.

We should look around and see where God is working. When He opens our spiritual eyes to recognize this, we should assume God wants us to join Him. Don't start getting self-centered, but ask God to reveal what HE wants you to do. Be careful to distinguish God's initiative from our selfish desires. "A selfish life will have a tendency to confuse its selfish desire with God's will. . . . In seeking God's direction, check to see that prayer, the Scripture, and circumstances agree in the direction you sense God leading you." Keep in mind that the Holy Spirit's leading will never be contrary to the Word of God.

From George Mueller we learn things that helped him distinguish God's will: sincerely seeking God's direction, waiting patiently on God until he had a word from God in the Bible and looking to the Holy Spirit to teach him through the Bible. The things that lead him to mistakes in knowing God's will were lack of honesty of heart and uprightness before God, impatience in waiting for God and preferring the counsel of men over the teaching of Scripture.

The author suggests we should get our hearts into such a state "that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people generally is just here. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the knowledge of what His will is." Next he doesn't "leave the result to feeling or simple impression," but seeks the will of God in connection with the Bible and takes into account providential circumstances.


God Invites You To Join Him -- The author reminded us that God is at work around us and reveals Himself to us when He is ready for us to join Him in His work. He tells us not to fret because sometimes God takes years preparing our character and developing our love relationship with Him. Because we often want to DO something, we get impatient, but God is not in a hurry. I have a hard time waiting so this was a good reminder.

We should remember things that only God can do and identify those things happening as God working around us.

Things Only God Can Do -- draw people to Himself, cause people to seek after Him, reveal spiritual truth, convict the world of guilt regarding sin, convict the world of righteousness and judgment.

Remember what God initiates, He completes.

Some Thoughts

Experiencing God has been around a number of years, and I remember when it was wildly popular as a Bible study, but I never bothered reading the book ... until now. Andrew had a copy at his parents' house so he brought it home knowing I'd been reading a number of spiritual books the last few months and more recently been wondering out loud to him what - if anything - God wanted me (us) to do in life. Was this all there was to it? Or was there something more? I wanted to be content, and I am, but I also felt this longing for something more. So, I saw the book lying around the other week and thought, "Eh, maybe I should read this one so I can let Andrew take it back to his mom's house." I wasn't overly-enthusiastic, but willing.

WOW! Has it ever spoken to my heart! First off the thing about spiritual gifts from the other day was awesome because I never have really been able to identify mine and I felt kind of inadequate because of that. It seemed most everyone else KNEW they were gifted to teach or preach or help or whatever. I never quite fit any of the molds. And I felt some underlying frustration from that ... what was I supposed to do??

Recently at church my pastor talked about Ecclesiastes and how Solomon came to the end of his life and talked about how life apart from God was vanity. Brian told us that if we didn't use our lives wisely then one day we would look back and realize how we wasted our time doing nothing for our Lord. I remember how sad I felt because I could see ME being that way. Always having a desire to do something, but never knowing WHAT exactly. I feel as if I am willing to go somewhere, do something for the Lord, but WHAT? and WHERE? I want to have faith like Abraham and just leave home not knowing where to travel, but, unfortunately, I have neither Abraham's faith or freedom to go since I AM married and since flying requires purchasing tickets and sometimes visas!

When I read the chapter the other day about our spiritual gift being God Himself working through us for the task, I felt liberated from having to identify my gift so I could find work that fit it. Instead I need to simply abide in Him, yield to Him and allow Him to work through me! He will supply whatever "gift" I need for whatever task He chooses for me. Quite possibly my spiritual "gift" then could change! He may want me as a teacher at one point and as a minister or administrator at another time. I love the example of Moses. God called him to do a task and Moses said his speech wasn't good enough. But GOD worked through Moses so that GOD got the glory. If Moses had been a brilliant speaker, people may have credited Moses for talking Pharaoh into freeing the children of Israel. As it happened, God used the "weak" things -- Moses' lack of good communication skills -- and worked through Moses to accomplish His will. The Bible tells us clearly that God uses the foolish things to confound the wise and He uses the weak and despised things so that He will get the glory.

This really spoke to my heart, and I have found it to be true just within this past week when God called me to disciple someone. I've never had much discipling experience ... probably none actually, and I really felt inadequate for this task! (Still do quite often, to be honest.) But God showed me that if I submit to Him, that HE will teach through me. He will give me the words to say and lead me in what to teach about Himself. Wow, how wonderful and freeing is that?!

And then I read this chapter on love, and how God pursues that love relationship with us. It spoke to another need I'd had lately of feeling useless and without purpose. Now I know to focus on abiding in and strengthening that love relationship with my Father to find fulfillment.

I am really joyful when I remember these things and live close to God. I am so happy He pursued me and loved me enough to show me these things. He has made me glad.

Experiencing God -- chapter 7

God Pursues A Love Relationship With You


This chapter focused on the love relationship that God pursues with us. He is always the initiator since none of us seek after God on our own. This chapter made me stop and ask if I really love God. I want to love Him, but how do I do it?

The author points out that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength. Everything else in my Christian life really goes back to this love relationship with the Father. This relationship will satisfy and fulfill our longings to DO something for Him. As we nurture this love relationship with Him, He will call us to obey whatever He has for us to do. If our relationship is strong, we will trust Him and obey without question just as we trust our earthly parents will not give us something to do that will harm us. I really liked this:

We are a "doing people. We feel worthless or useless if we are not busy doing something. The Scripture leads us to understand that God is saying, "I want you to love me above everything else. When you are in a relationship of love with Me, you have everything there is." To be loved by God is the highest relationship, the highest achievement, and the highest position in life.

That does not mean you will never do anything as an expression of your love for Him. God will call you to obey Him and do whatever He asks of you. However, you do not need to be doing something to feel fulfilled. You are fulfilled completely in a relationship with God. When you are filled with Him, what else do you need?

In the Biblical examples of Adam and Eve, the prophets, the Apostle Paul -- God always took the initiative. He sought out these people for fellowship and to use them.

I think I may write a post now of some ways these last couple of chapters have spoken to recent situations.

He turned my tears into joy ... just like He said He would!

Sunrise in my neighborhood
December 2007

I wanted to offer this post to God since my joy is overflowing! I thank Him for answering prayer this week. He gave me those verses mentioned in my Tears post, and was gracious and kind to turn my tears into rejoicing! I never expected this, but He is faithful and good. Even when we doubt, He is loving to provide encouragement which He did through His Word.

Thank You, Father, for this great gift!

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5


When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul. Psalm 94:19

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Psalm 95:1

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. Psalm 126:3,5-6


The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17


For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, Romans 14:17



May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13



But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23