More than Food

“If you can’t find it on the inside you won’t find it on the outside.”

Thanksgiving wasn’t always about the food.  It began with what you might expect by the name; a day to give thanks and prayers.  In 1789 President Washington wanted to institute a “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”    It wasn’t about the food, it wasn’t about the decorations, it wasn’t about the house, it wasn’t about anything but thanks.  Thanks isn’t something you find in the things you think you might, because if you don’t find it inside of you nothing on the outside will sustain it for you.  We spend so much time focusing on looking put together and a good presentation that we miss what we are really searching for in those things...contentment.  We want to feel good about who we are and the direction we are headed.  We look all over for it but it’s not an outside-in process.  It only works inside-out.  Stop looking for what you already have...the capacity to be thankful.  Acknowledge and never stop that which you have to be thankful for and as you keep acknowledging you will find a new way of seeing, a new way of being...content...it starts with thanks.  

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are--no more, no less.  That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”

Matthew 5:5 Message

The blessing is not in the receiving but in not needing to.  God calls us to be thankful and content because He knows how that will bless and shape our lives.  He knows we have every reason in Him to be thankful and how much we need to be thankful.  It protects us from the destruction and harm of envy, jealousy and discontent.  It provides us with joy even in the hard places.  Thankfulness brings us back to Him the giver of all we have to be thankful for.  So you see it’s for us.   If you are searching for blessing ask for contentment and keep asking.  You will find more than you ever wanted on the feet of thankfulness.  

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering.  

Cultivate Thankfulness

“Our lives grow that which has been planted.”

Loren Thornburg

I hope some day to have a backyard like my parents.  Yet I know all the hours of work it takes to make that happen.  I am fully aware that in order to have a backyard full of trees, flowers, fruits and vegetables it takes the work of planting each of those seeds and plants into the ground and the work of cultivating them.  I would never expect my own backyard to look like that without time and work being spent to plant and maintain it.  Yet, somehow I do that with my own life.  I look and wonder why it doesn’t look more fruitful when the reason is that those things have not been planted or cultivated.  It takes work and time.  So then the question becomes what things do I want to grow in my life.  What things do you want to grow in your life?  Start planting now, keep cultivating, and let those things grow up in you.  It’s never too late to cultivate.  

“...And cultivate thankfulness….And sing, sing your hearts out to god! Let every detail in you lives--words, actions, whatever--be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”

Colossians 3:15-17 Message

Colossians 3 is a listing of what it looks like to follow Jesus.  One of the key things mentioned is thankfulness.  Paul says to thank God every step of the way.  Now that seems like a very difficult task.  It seems a tall order for a life filled with difficulty and obstacles to thank God in each step through the trials.   Yet we are called to cultivate thankfulness.  Cultivate means to promote or improve the growth of something by labor and attention.  It is a process that requires time and work.  It doesn’t happen overnight as I would prefer that it would.  I have to plant seeds of thankfulness in my heart and mind in order for them to grow up and out of my life.  I have to be intentional about remembering what I am thankful for even when I don’t feel thankful.  I have to because God calls us to and He calls us to because He knows how much we need this in order to walk through the trial before us.  Our lives grow that which has been planted.  Cultivate Thankfulness. 

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering.  

More to Come

More to Come

“Be present where you are with a present awareness that there is more life to come.”

Loren Thornburg

Life is so interesting and full of ups and downs.  This weekend on the same day that I celebrated the wedding of a friend I also found myself saddened as other friends lost their house to a fire.  As I engaged with people at the wedding I found more losses going on of health, of joy, of dreams all mixed in between other celebrations of the same.  Somehow I left thankful.  Thankful because I began the day in the midst of seeing only my own frustrations and losses and found as I entered into the lives around me I have much to celebrate even in my losses.  Now I don’t mean because someone else has it worse I should be thankful, although I can’t help but think that too.  I mean regardless of looking around me I have life and I have much to be thankful for.  It is the losses that remind me that the gifts I have are not guaranteed to stay.  So while they are here I want to enjoy them.  There is a time to grieve and mourn what was lost, but now is always the time to be presently aware of all I have been given that brings me life.  

“There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.  In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.  Quite the contrary--we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

Romans 5:3-5 Message

Paul knew the secret to praising in the midst of trial and loss.  He is reminding the believers here in Romans that thankfulness in these challenges is possible when we remember there is more to come.  With this in view we can shout praise even when troubles surround us.  In keeping our eyes on Him, beyond the troubles we can stay alert to what God is doing and will do next.  We don’t feel “shortchanged” or bitter from the hand life has dealt us, but rather we see how much we have been given that we don’t deserve and how much more there is to come.  It says, “we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit.”  Do you see how He has done that and is doing that?  And He doesn’t stop there, there is more to come.  There is more life than what we find here.  So whether you are celebrating or mourning you can be thankful that there is always more to come when we walk with Jesus...more joy, more life, more freedom.  It’s coming, He’s coming, He’s here.   

2012 Devotional Books are available for purchase.  The proceeds helps raise money for Competitive Edge International.  Email me if you are interested in ordering (thorny424@hotmail.com). 

Unshakable

“Let nothing stand between you and unshakable.”

Loren Thornburg

Since living in Colorado I have had the opportunity to explore the mountains with some amazing hikes.  With hiking also comes scree.  Scree is the accumulation of rock fragments formed by weathering and erosion.  The presence of scree on the trails makes for a slippery surface.  Even just a few small pebbles can create the possibility of slipping no matter how stable the foundation underneath.   Even as I become well versed on traveling through the scree and even if I have poles and all the right tools, I am still more at risk when my foundation is altered.  It makes me wonder what kind of scree I have in my life that presents the possibility for slipping and falling.  What things have I allowed to become that which I am standing on that aren’t a true foundation?  Am I standing on the opinions of others, or my accomplishments, or relationships, or financial status or anything that can be shaken?  I can’t just sweep it away on the trails of a mountain, but I can begin to clear it away in my life as that which gives me my hope and security.  Step off of the scree and onto that which is unshakable.  

“Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God.  For God is not an indifferent bystander.  He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed.  God himself is Fire!”

Hebrews 12:28-29 Message

God is unshakable.  He is a foundation that can’t and won’t ever be moved.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  When we settle in Him we get His sure foundation based on truth that never changes.  Yet, even one small pebble on that foundation can cause a fall when stepped on.  It only takes a little scree to create a potentially unstable surface.  God knows that and in His love is trying to remove it.  He is cleaning the places of our hearts that are standing on all that isn’t Him.  He won’t quit because He loves us.  In the removing process it can feel unsettling, but that’s until you see what God is doing and what He is building in your life.  He is clearing the stage for you to walk free from the scree onto a foundation that is unshakable.  

Son Exposure

“It’s in the light we can see.  It’s in the light we find life.  It’s in the light there is joy. Find the light.  It makes all the difference.”

Loren Thornburg

I am so thankful for a warm weekend in late October and the chance to be in the sun.  There is something about the sun that makes things better.  There is also something about the lack of sun that takes its toll on me.  I can’t deny the affects it has on me.  I find myself like a lizard drawn to bask in the sun.  It appears it is more than just me, but there is something biological about the ways our bodies were made.  Even more than the needed Vitamin D that we get from the sun there is something that happens when we are exposed to the sun that causes are brains to release endorphins that increase our overall feelings of well being.  There is something about having light in our lives, even more than the sunlight that brings life to our lives.  You were made for light.  Are you basking in it?  

“Everything was created through him; nothing--not one thing!--came into being without him.  What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.  The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”

John 1:3-5 Message

Just as we were made for the light of the sun so we were also made for the light of the Son, Jesus.  We were created to be in relationship with Him.  The same as with the sunlight, when we go too long without Him our deficiencies begin to show.  When we aren’t in communication and relation with Jesus it takes its toll on us.  It comes out in many different ways: short temper, inability to handle difficulties, lack of life, missing joy, and so many others.  We find ourselves searching for something to bring light to that place we know is dark but looking in all the wrong places.  There is only one that brings true Light because there is only one that is true Light.  We need to be with the Son.  We need to sit at His feet and bask in His presence.  We were made for it.  Let’s do what we were made to do...bask in the Son.  

Meaning in the Mundane

“It’s the days that feel insignificant that are significant after all.”

Loren Thornburg

Life is a series of events in the middle of many mundane days.  We are all familiar with the mundane.  Theses are the things in our lives that lack excitement because we experience them as common and ordinary.  It’s in the dishes, the laundry, the meals, the same routine day after day that leaves us longing for something more.  Yet, what if you knew that it is in the mundane itself that gives life deeper meaning.  It is in the mundane that we learn perseverance for the hard days.  It is upon the mundane that the things of joy have greater significance.  The mundane is actually not mundane at all for those who can learn to see the meaning in it.  Each day is building us, growing us for the next thing.  There is meaning in this day, even in the mundane.  

“When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you.  From Jordan depths to Hermon heights, including Mount Mizar.  Chaos calls to chaos, to the tune of whitewater rapids.  Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers crash and crush me.  Then God promises to love me all day, sing songs all through the night! My life is God’s prayer.”

Psalm 42:6-8 Message

It’s one thing to seek God in the depths and the heights but what about the days that seem like just another day.  Here those are referred to as Mount Mizar for this site can not be located, implying it’s seeming insignificance.  This can be representative of our everyday walk with the Lord and the little things God does for us in what we see as mundane.  The food on our table, the wisdom in decisions, the provision in our jobs, the relationships that we have been given, they are all a part of His miracles that may in fact influence more than the big events.  You see it’s not mundane after all because these things happen every day.  So we can do look David and rehearse these small miracles that we know are from Him.  This invites His promises into our souls.  Either way His promises remain true.  He is with us every day.   When we learn to walk with Him and trust His promises there is nothing insignificant about that.  

Gift Disguised

“When you start seeing the gift you stop seeing the handicap.”

Loren Thornburg

Gifts can often go unseen.  Often they are even seen as a hinderance rather than a gift.  A friend reminded me of this recently as we hiked.  Climbing up to 14,000 feet is not an easy task, largely due to the affects that altitude has on your breathing.  Yet, what seemed to be a hinderance to getting up the mountain as fast as we may have liked became a gift that it was hard to breathe.  For what happened in the midst of that was we were forced to stop and enjoy the AMAZING views and beauty that surrounded us.  If it wasn’t for our difficulty breathing we may have kept on without stopping, which means we would have kept on without enjoying and seeing the gift around us.  My friend pointed out it was as if God made us to have limits so that we would stop and see the gifts that are around us.  

“...so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations.  Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees...”My grace is enough; it’s all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness”...I quit focusing  on the handicap and began appreciating the gift...”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Message

I wish I couldn’t relate to Paul here, but I can.  We all can.  We all have limitations.  We were designed that way and it is part of His design. Paul recognizes them as more than limitations, as the opposite of limitations; he calls them gifts.  That sounds crazy to think that our sicknesses, our weaknesses, our deficiencies could be seen as gifts.  Yet, it’s true.  I’ve seen it and I can even say that those things I once saw as “handicaps” I now see as gifts.  Some days it’s harder to see than others, but eventually what I find is that they brings me to the realization that in the weakness I am forced to look to Him for strength in ways I never would have or even thought possible.  It is in inviting His strength that I find so much more than my talents or gifts could have ever offered.  Unfortunately, I don’t look to Him for that if I don’t have to.  If my limitations don’t force my to my knees I forget to seek His grace that is more than enough.  So I find it really is a gift.  When I start seeing the gift I stop seeing the handicap.  

Thanks to Melissa Mullins and Kierstie Cameron!