Saturday, August 2, 2014

The Ripe Tomato



My friend Debbie Hayden saw a great raised bed on Pinterest, and talked her husband Durick into building it for her. Little did she know, but I had been pondering raised beds and an easier way to garden. For two decades, I had huge gardens, spending innumerable hours canning and processing the vegetables I grew. The last few years, however, I've skipped the vegetable garden because of the work involved. I missed having my own vegetables, though. I didn't have time for lots of hoeing and tilling, but something easier might work, and I pondered it so long that I finally realized I was "too late" to plant a garden. 

I was too late, that is, until Debbie and Durick made their raised bed. When Debbie posted pictures on Facebook, I began to think I might have a garden after all. When she posted pictures of the seedlings growing, I was sold on the project. 

The old white farm truck was loaded down with concrete blocks and garden soil that early Saturday morning. Bill the Magnificent took one look at the load and said, "What in the world are you up to now?" Before long, he could see for himself. The raised bed was a reality. I planted my seeds and an heirloom tomato plant and started watering and watching. In no time at all, I had seedlings of my own. 

In Blue Springs, gardeners plant with the idea of having a ripe tomato by July 4th. Of course that date came and went with the only ripe tomatoes coming from someone else's garden. This week, however, there's been just enough from the garden: one squash a day, plenty of herbs, and lovely cut flowers, but no tomatoes. Yesterday, one of the tomatoes was finally red. After one more day to ripen on the vine, it was part of supper tonight. Yum! Home grown tomatoes!  It turns out that I wasn't too late after all!

You may not do this, but I have so much going on that the most pressing things get done first, leaving some of the less pressing but most desired things undone. That ripe tomato reminded me that second chances are worth seizing. 

Are you putting off something you'd really like to do (or really should do) because of more pressing matters? Why not take advantage of a second chance and get it done. After all, there's truth in the old adage, "Better late than never".  My ripe tomato is proof of that! 

(PS - I know that's a picture of squash, but I'd already eaten the tomato!)

Excitement in the boat, part 12: where is your faith?

And He said to them, "Where is your faith?" They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, "Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?" (Luke 8:25 NASB)

Jesus asked the disciples an interesting question. "Where is your faith?" When the hurricane/storm threatened to swamp their boat, they were badly frightened and finally turned to Jesus for help. He moved closer to them, spoke to the storm, and calmed the seas. 

The disciples were as frightened of the power of Jesus as they were of the storm. "Who is this man?" They were asking. They had been with Jesus nonstop, heard Him teach countless times, heard Him claim to be the Messiah. They had proclaimed their faith in Him. When the hard time arrived, however, that faith in Jesus was in short supply. 

They had enough faith for listening, but not for living. When they needed their faith in Christ to see them through a crisis, they didn't seem to have enough. Why not?  Where was their faith? Their faith was in their own ability to deal with the trouble they faced, not in Jesus and His power to see them through. 

It's a good question for us, as well. Where is our faith? In ourselves or in Jesus?  

Pray today that we and our loved ones will place our faith securely in the One who has power over any storm we face, rather than in ourselves. 
-------
Link to last night's blog post: http://leannahollis.blogspot.com/2014/08/friday-night-with-friends-whose-want-do.html
-------
The terrorist prayer focus this week is Hamas. Pray that they will begin to value life, that their efforts at terror will not prosper, and that their social welfare programs will be more important to them than their costly efforts at destruction. Pray for the kind of Damascus road experience that turned a Saul into a Paul. 

Friday, August 1, 2014

Friday Night with Friends: Whose Want do I Want? By Sam Pennell

Our Friday Night with Friends guest blogger is Sam Pennell. He is a fireman and will be heading to Antarctica soon to work for six months. He is also my very dear nephew, and a wonderful writer. He shares from his heart on a very pertinent topic. Be sure to share some love with him. 
-------
Today I am going to touch on a subject that is, well, touchy, and it is one that has affected me recently. I am going to talk about prayer. This is a touchy subject with many of us because we simply don’t do it enough, or we don’t do it like we should.

My problem was that I wanted something, but I didn’t know if it was God leading me to want it or not. Even though we don’t like to admit it, the Devil can do great and powerful things to lead us astray. That is why we must maintain our prayer and focus on God. 

One thing I learned from my upbringing was that though the Scripture says, “Ask and ye shall receive,” asking God to make your plans come true is not what is meant. I am not saying that doing so won’t get you the results you seek, but you may find it’s not really what you wanted. I was taught to ask God to guide me along His chosen path for me and to seek His will on the problems I had. This is the key to the “Ask and ye shall receive” verse.  If you seek His will in your life and you want what He wants for you, you will find it. Our focus should be on God and His plan, not on our worldly wants, and then we can trust that He will provide for us the things we need.

Perhaps you are in a situation like I was in and feel drawn to something, but you aren’t sure that it is God leading you there or not.  In that case, what do you do? I did what I was taught. I sought God in prayer, opened up my heart, and told Him everything I felt about the situation and where I felt I was being drawn, then I asked Him to guide me according to His will in this situation. If it was what He wanted me to do, then remove all doubt and make it known to me, and if this was not the path I should take, block my path there.  Turn me away from it. 

Now, I am going to put this out there because I was stupid and thought I knew it all, but when you ask this of God, be ready for any possible outcome. I was not ready for what He did in my life, and I allowed myself to get hurt. I eventually realized what was going on, and accepted it as His will and stopped bucking it. 

When you ask, be sure you are ready to receive. He gives us nothing but blessings, whether we recognize them as blessings or not when we get them. I can name so many instances in my life and all of my friends lives that we thought at first were horrible things, yet they all turned out to be wonderful blessings. 

Now is just the time for me to wait and see what great blessing He has given me that I can’t see yet. It may just be time till the time is right or it may be a whole different set of possibilities I can’t even fathom at this moment. Just remember, pray often and honestly, and when you are truly lost, it is best to fully humble yourself before God and literally get down on your knees and talk to the Lord. I hope this shines a bright light into someone’s soul today. 

Excitement in the Boat, part 11:

They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. (Luke 8:24 NASB)

There is a lovely bit of truth left to glean from this verse, and we come to it at last!

  You will likely remember that Jesus was taking a nap in the back of the boat while his disciples (including several professional fishermen) were in the front of the boat. Suddenly, they encountered a terrible storm (essentially a hurricane) and the boat was about to sink from all the water it had taken on. Just in the nick of time, the disciples awakened Jesus, who commanded the storm to stop. As all nature is compelled to do, the storm instantly obeyed. It is what we should do in response to Christ's commands but, all too often, we do not. 

As soon as the storm stopped, a wonderful thing happened. 
Calm. 
Everything became calm. The sea. The boat. The disciples. 
Total calm was birthed by instant obedience. 
 Perhaps if we understood this truth a little better, we would be quicker to obey. 

Certainly, storms and calm are not generally considered a part of the same continuum, but it is clear from this that, as soon as the command of Christ was obeyed, peace came. Perhaps part of the reason is that instant obedience to God's command puts the responsibility for the outcome squarely in God's hands.   There is great comfort in having One who is filled with wisdom directing our steps. 

The word translated as "calm" is galēnē and it comes from a root word meaning "to smile".  How about that? When we obey instantly, it not only fills us with peace (and calm), but the calm of Christ is evident on our faces. When people look at us, they should be able to see the evidence of our obedience on our faces, and be drawn to it. 

What do people see when they look at our faces?  Worry or calm, confident peace?  Pray today that our faces would reflect the calm that comes from obedience in such a way that both our loved ones and all we encounter would be drawn to Jesus. 
-------
Here's the link to last night's post. It's a guest blog I wrote for bottleofwineandabible.us and worth the read (even if I did write it): http://leannahollis.blogspot.com/2014/07/starting-uprising.html
-------
The terrorist prayer focus this week is Hamas. Pray that they will begin to value life, that their efforts at terror will not prosper, and that their social welfare programs will be more important to them than their costly efforts at destruction. Pray for the kind of Damascus road experience that turned a Saul into a Paul. 

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Starting an Uprising.

I'm so excited about being a guest blogger for bottleofwineandabible tonight!  You can read my blog on Starting an Uprising there, and you should! I really am super excited, so please click here to read the post:  http://bottleofwineandabible.us/easyblog/entry/staging-an-uprising-by-leanna-hollis.html

Be sure and look around on their site while you are there!

Thanks for clicking! 

Excitement in the boat, part 10: Prompt Pbedience


They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. (Luke 8:24 NASB)

The amazing thing about this passage is not that Jesus took a nap, that there was a bad storm, or that the disciples were frightened by the severity of the wind and waves. It is not even that they turned to Jesus and He rebuked the storm. The demonstration of His power is in this one little word: pauō. This is the word translated as "they stopped".  The near-fatal storm stopped abruptly when Jesus commanded it to stop. How amazing is that kind of instant obedience? Very!

The thing we often overlook is our responsibility to obey in like manner. Jesus said that, if we love Him, we will obey Him. 

"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. (John 14:15 NASB)

Just as the cessation of the storm in obedience to His command demonstrated His great power, our quick obedience also demonstrates the power of God in our lives. Our lack of obedience says something about His power in our lives, as well. 

The commands of Christ were not meant to be merely red letters in a leather-bound book. They are life words, and were given for us to obey. In no way are they considered optional, at least by Jesus. Things like loving our enemy, fasting, turning the other cheek, and sacrificial, suffering service are not popular today. They may not be popular, but neither are they optional for those who love Jesus. 

If prompt obedience to the direction of Jesus demonstrates not only His power in our lives but also our love for Him, what does our own obedience demonstrate? Can the world see the power and love of God in us by the way we obey? 

Pray today that we and our loved ones would be so compelled by our love for God that it is evident to all by the quality and promptness of our obedience. 
-------
Link to last night's post is here: http://leannahollis.blogspot.com/2014/07/window-seat.html
-------
The terrorist prayer focus this week is Hamas. Pray that they will begin to value life, that their efforts at terror will not prosper, and that their social welfare programs will be more important to them than their costly efforts at destruction. Pray for the kind of Damascus road experience that turned a Saul into a Paul. 

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Window Seat

This article first appeared in Physician, a FOTF magazine in the March/April 2004 issue
-------

As the plane lifted off, I looked out the window at the freeway below. I could see a huge traffic jam. Certainly, the drivers were under the impression that they'd be late getting to their destinations. From my vantage point, however, I could see that the road abruptly cleared just ahead of the jam. I could see the commuters' present situation; it wasn't nearly as bad as it must have seemed to them. 

That's how God sees. He looks down at us in the midst of our struggles and sees clearly all that lies ahead. 

He sees the beginning and the end. 

He is the Beginning and the End. 

The next time you find yourself in a tough spot, remember that the Alpha and Omega has both the present and future firmly in hand. Neither takes Him by surprise.