Where is my treasure hidden in my home?

In my home where is my heart? Where is my treasure?

"For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

I had to ask myself last night these questions after listening to a convicting sermon on the Centrality of the Home. Where have I hidden my treasures? Under my search for joy, peace, comfort... between the opinions of others, the expectations of the world... behind good behavior and a perfect home? Is that where my treasure is hidden... why my heart is tightly found wrapped around?

I realize that storing my treasures under, between and behind all these things only sets me up for failure. I am doomed to a life of frustration and emptiness.

So where is my heart? Where is my heart in disciplining my children? Keeping my home? Responding with respect to my husband?... for my own personal gain? So I can lay my head snuggly on my pillow at night free from guilt and shame? To impress? or is it to ultimately glorify God and give Him praise and honor that He deserves? To display Christ? To give a glimpse of the invisible God? Tor raise children to love the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength and to walk in all His ways?

My treasure should be buried deep with in the eternal glory and supremacy of Christ! Hidden in Him... in the gospel of Christ... no where else! Hidden anywhere else and the goal of righteousness is lost... Christ is not honored and glorified as He so deserves... eternal souls are lost... homes are destroyed little by little over years of daily destruction... unity of marriage is desinigrated... hearts are all ultimately left in a constant state of dispair and discontenment as the kingdom of God is lost in our minds and hearts.

The value of our treasure being in heaven is everlasting and incorruptable!!

Oh God, please bring my heart and mind into the constant subjection to Jesus Christ... hiding my treasure daily, daily in the cross of Christ! Father guide me into your holy and righteous will... shine Your light upon my path today in my home. I pray that my treasure is hidden in Christ and that I will exhaust myself for it's eternal, everlasting and incorruptable value. Oh, in the moments when perspective is hard to see, where everything seems upon my head and I can feel the weight of sin on me may I remember where my treasure is hidden... not in temporal fleeting things and opinion but in the eternal... in heaven, with Christ.

JOYfully in Him,

Being Still, Waiting for the Lord

We are back from our Youth Trip... and I have so much I want to share but first I have something on my heart that I want to share today:

I was very encouraged from a section in a book I am reading titled Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot and I want to share it with you: (this is in honore of a beautiful friend of mine)

The section is titled Waiting...

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord" Psalm 27:14

Waiting requires patience-a willingness calmly to accept what we have or have not, where we are or where we wish we were, whomever we live or work with.

To want what we don't have is impatience, for one thing, and it is to mistrust God. Is He not in complete control of all circumstances, events, and conditions? If some are beyond His control, He is not God.

A spirit of resistance cannot wait on God. I believe it is this spirit which is the reason for some of our greatest sufferings. Opposing the workings of the Lord in and through our "problems" only exacerbates them. It is HERE and NOW that we must win our victories or suffer defeats. Spiritual victories or suffer defeats. Spiritual victiories are won in the quiet acceptance of ordinary events, which are God's "bright servants," standing all around us.

Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has ALL things safely in His hands. "Peace I leave with you; I do not give to you as the world gives" John 14:27. What sort of peace has He to give us? A peace which was constant in the midst of ceaseless work (with few visible rsults), frequient interuptions, impatient demands, few physical comforts; a peace which was not destroyed by arguments, the faithlessness, and hatred of other people. Jesus had perfect confidence in His Father, whose will He had come to accomplish. Nothing touched Him without His Father's permission. Nothing touches me without my Father's permission. Can I not then waith patiently? He will show the way.

If I am willing to be still in my Master's hand, can I not then be still in everything? He's go the whole world in His hands! never mind whether things come from God himself or from people-everything comes by His ordination or permission. If I mean to be obedient and submissive to the Lord because He is my Lord, I must not forget that whatever He allows to happen becomes... for me... His will at that moment. Perhaps it is someone else's sinful action, but if God allows it to affect me, He wills it for my learning. The need to wait is, for me, a form of chastening. God has to calm me down, make me shut up and look to him for the outcome.

"Trust in the Lord with ALL of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe." Prov. 18:10

As we all sit in the moment of His will for us may we all like Mary say with boldness and deep conviction "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." Luke 1:38 and may we be enabled to be more closely united with His will as Jesus "...not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39. May all fear and worry be drowned out as we safely trust in His will for our lives knowing that His is best.

JOYfully in Him,

Encouragement and Thankfulness

Lately life has felt more like death, light has appeared more like darkness and softness has felt more like sand paper against my skin. Yesterday and today has been a deep time of reflection in my faith. Where I am right now I find little security and little joy as my emotions continue to struggle with seperation and bitterness. I desperately want to embrace my Father's will as Mary but find little strength from with in to grip her kind of faith. I love the Lord and long to be His consecrated servant.

This morning He spoke to me through His word... comforting and encouraging me to remember and faithfully walk...

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:55-58

His words are a balm to my soul...

Today I must share how greatly thankful I am for the stronghold in my life that He sent to me many years ago. My husband is for me a constant reminder of His grace, His love and His sacrafice as I watch him serve the Lord and take daily walks through his heart as we talk and as he constantly encourages me to be a faithful servant of Christ. For me my husband though he doesn't see it truly represents Christ to me in so many ways. Thank you, for always being so honest with me and pouring your heart out over me in love and just for you being you.

JOYfully in Him,

Oh, faith where did you go?

I am taking the time to share some thoughts...

I found myself wondering where my strong unwavering faith I once held went away to? At this place in my journey of life I find myself holding a very frail, weak and wimpy faith that crumbles at any tribulation that is set in it’s path. I worry of gripping it to tightly in fear of breaking it in peices. Life is as I have said chaotic. I have fallen into an emotional hole unable to climb my way out at times deglecting so many responsibilities in the day. I have thrown myself many pity parites and cried out to God on more than one occasion "why?", throwing all His faithfulness and goodness out the window shattering His loving soveriegn presence. I am tired and simply fed up with where my faith stands and how I have wandered so far from His love.

I have decided that each morning before I officially begin, I will take the time to not only pray but dedicate myself to His service, to recognize my stubbornness, my uselessness and weakness with out His power working in my heart and mind. I will every morning even though I may not be able to feel His presence give my heart, mind and soul to Him and recognize who I am, which is a speck and lowly creature, and who He is, the Almighty King and Creator of all things. Every morning I will humble myself before my King only lifting my eyes to receive His grace that He undeservedly pours on my head. I will praise Him and choose to walk in faith and in love through each valley and over each mountain leaning on Christ through prayer and His Spirit.

I commit myself to trust my God no matter what, and to stop fighting His will. To not just hold tight to His promises but to believe them as they are carried in my heart. I will praise Him and give Him thanks for not only the obvious blessings but the blessing in disgise that I so often miss. Join me? Be still... know that He is God Almighty.

Praise God for His faithfulness... have a blessed day.

JOYfully in Him,

Lord of All Seasons

Why is it so hard to surrender all in the midst of such fleshly struggles? I am always so amazed at how deep and dark and hopeless my fleshly struggles can be and usually are. My faith doesn't seem to equip me with the tools to pull myself out... this morning as I read from a book I just began reading a few days ago by Elisabeth Elliot called Keep a Quiet Heart I listened as she relayed this message from the Lord to my stubborn sometimes unwilling to conform heart...

"If I can't give thanks, trust, and worship the Lord in every "season", in the face of any set of facts which may touch my life, I am not really a believer. It is here, in my corner of God's earth, that I am assigned my lessons in the School of Faith."

Does the gospel have anything to do with the little struggles we face everyday? The little battles that we pick up our swords and fight? The gospel has everything to do with those. I sinfully and naturally only include the gospel to the BIG things in my life and leave the gospel out of the small things. Small things like difficult people, children who push the boundaries of disobendience, computers that refuse to copperate, days that don't go as planned and fits in the middle of the school supply isle at Walmart. In those moments of seemly insignificant struggles that the gospel of Jesus Christ need not be apart of, that we find ourselves daily struggling to have perspective remember this...

"...Jesus died for me! He's risen and coming again! He ahs given me an inheritance that nothing can 'destroy or spoil or wither' (1 Peter 1:4, NEB) and a Kingdom which is unshakable (Hebrews 12:28). That's the gospel."

And it has everything to do with children, people, computers and unplanned days... so let's include Jesus Christ... His death, His burial and His ressurection in our small fleshly battles all through out the day, they are significant to God and to our sanctification. Those deep, dark and hopeless fleshly struggles I face become shallow, lit and hopeful when Christ is seen as Lord of ALL and then I am able to surrender ALL.



Let us surrender ALL as we seat Christ as Lord of ALL, small and large, significant or insignificant. Have a truly glorious day.

JOYfully in Him,

His Will

Have you ever feared what the Lord's will for your life was? I am at a place where I fear selfishly what His plans are for me personally... am I ready? am I strong enough... mentally... physically? is my faith where it should be? I don't fear that His will is not good, for I trust that His plans for my life whether I agree or accept them right away are good and perfect and better than mine could ever be! I just fear that His will for me is going to be hard...

I long to say with my whole heart what Mary said to the angel in Luke 1:38 "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." Oh the JOY of complete surrender to His holy will.. how I long to throw my hands up in the air releasing all my plans and ideas up into His hands.

In this moment where my inner flesh cries out in pleas of mercy from the possibility to come of the hard work that will cause sweat and tears... I pray that the Spirit will grant me peace and faith in whatever His plans of hard work for my future may be... only to Him be the glory!!

JOYfully in Him,

Our week in pictures

Last Friday we, as a family enjoyed a local highschool football game. The littles of course loved it. It had been 2 years since our last appearance as a family to a football game. I enjoyed the thrills of watching the game and my children.

Here is a little peek into our week along with some quotes that encourage and express the struggles of my heart right now:

Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment;....but trust in GOD, and you are never to be confounded in time or eternity.

Dwight L. Moody

If I cannot hear "The sound of rain' long before the rain falls, and then go out to some hilltop of the Spirit, as near to my God as I can and have faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told "There is nothing', till at last there arises a little cloud out of the sea, then I know nothing of Calvary love. (Read 1 Kings 18:41-45)

Amy Carmichael

"Stand still" - keep the posture of an upright man, ready for action, expecting further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice; and it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said it to the people of Israel, "Go forward."

Charles Haddon Spurgeon





Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

Psalm 37:5-7a

To Know Him

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the ressurection from the dead.

Philippians 3:8-11

My husband spoke to the youth last night about believing with the heart. Thoughts filled my mind and heart of what exactly that means and what it has meant for so many in the past in the present. I realized that to believe with the heart is for Christ to become such a reality in your life that He consumes your every thought and directs your every step, decision and word with out compromise and with out any limitations. When your heart believes in Christ, the gospel, it overflows and spills out thorugh our hands, our feet, our eyes, our tongue and we are incapable of living in other way. My thought is why am I not so consumed to the point that I am incapable of living such a radical life for Christ? Some of my family would say I am but when I compare my faith with others such as Paul and others who have litterally died for Christ or suffered persecution I find that I lack severely in my persevering as a saint just in the simple life as a mother, wife and homekeeper. I realize that my calling has a lot of sacrafices and that my faith my believing from the heart is being used tremendously or can be used tremendously in the lives of my children. One of the questions that my husband asked last night was what is your number one concern right now, I said my children. They are, my concern for them is that they will have a faith so strong that Christ is so real to them that it transforms their life in all areas and that they have no choice but to serve Him, love Him with all of ther heart, mind, soul and strength.

This morning while I was taking a bath I reflected on all of these truths and it occured to me as I prayed that I can not produce such belief, belief that is willing to sacrafice my time, my energy, my every word and action so radically as to exhaust me or lead me directly to death, only God could give this faith to me. I look out my window at the earth and all it's glory and ask myself: Why am I here walking day to day on this green canvas of life? Why am I given breath each morning? Able to speak? What are these hands for? These feet? My thoughts... why do they exist?

Listen to a song that has been keeping my thoughts company for the past few day.

Jars of Clay with scenes from the Passion...

JOYfully in Him,

Faith

"Go forth today, by the help of God's Spirit, vowing and declaring that in life----come poverty, come wealth, in death---come pain or come what may, you are and ever must be the Lord's. For this is written on your heart, 'We love Him because He first loved us.'"
Charles Spurgeon

Each day in our personal lives we face many different obstacles that have the tendancy to cloud our Christ centered vision. For me it is mostly the small things that build upon eachother that tend to be my darkest clouds provoking my unfaithfulness, barricadeing my love for Him and suffocating the breath of His glory from my heart and lips. The Lord has been continually good to me and my family, He has never given us anything that we couldn't handle and trusting in His promise He never will. i will say that some things in our life have been seemingly unbearable but He has stayed close by us all the way. I fear for my faith in a life altering circumstance. I have faced many life altering circumstances such as the death of my mother when I was 11, my adoption when I was 12, my first borns conception and birth along with my marriage and so many others, even before Christ in my life He has always been with me, otherwise I do not know how I could have made it through some of my inner struggles. Now, as I am aware of His presence in my life and as I give Him recognition for my paths I wonder and I guess in a deeper way... fear where my actual faith is knowing that we come face to face with it in the deepest pains that He ordains into our lives. I say and breath that He is my Lord and that I would die for Him but I wonder what the reality of this is. I know that I will never know until I stand before it in battle with my faith. When thinking about where my faith is right now I find myself unsure. I don't think that my faith is as strong as it was in the begining of this ministry journey 2 years ago.


I understand and have accepted that God is in complete control of my life, which means of everything that comes into my life whether... poverty, illness and even death. Everything that has happened in my life, I trust that God has meant it for good. Everything I have experienced has brought about a deeper faith in my own life causing me to lean on Him ever more. When thinking of the future I pray that He will give me the grace and faith to endure what is coming for I can not see His plan folded out but must trust in His unseen will.


I say all of this for a reason that I will reveal later, I would ask that you would please say a special prayer for me and my family today for I am feeling a lot of pressure from a certain uncertaintity that is amongst us.