Monthly Archives: March 2012

Out to Lunch

Posted on by
2

What Do You Think? Wednesday

Actually my break from regularly scheduled activities started well before breakfast and has lasted way past dinner. This now is my life as I care for my family (husband and 2-, 4- and 9- year-old sons), which now includes my 70-year-old mother. My blogging times have been later these past few days, with my new life seeming to crowd my writing space. This is hard, trying to maintain this blog in such a season, but I haven’t heard the Lord tell me to stop. He initially told me to post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and for more than three years I have done that (with the exception of a couple maternity leave days). “Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). Because God called me to manage this site, I will remain faithful to the calling, posting by midnight my three days a week. Lord willing, you will hear from me on Friday.

How have you managed major seasons of change in your life?

Job Inadequacy

Posted on by
Reply

“We are not the Holy Spirit so therefore inadequate to do His job.” This came to mind one day when I was trying to figure out what to do and the how to do of something. It was enormous, way above my head, but I contemplated handling it, taking it on MYSELF. As I worked, trying to finagle a process, my process, those words came to me: “We are not the Holy Spirit so therefore inadequate to do His job.” Grief and relief were my simultaneous responses, revealing the duality of my struggle. Wanting, really, to be God (though I never set out to be) and happy that I was not God. I was upset that I couldn’t handle my God-sized task and comforted that I couldn’t so I didn’t have to. This undoubtedly is a great issue in the life of recovering strong black women, all women (men, too), who have frequently counted on their strength above God’s. Tough work doesn’t easily scare us; we want to tackle the problem, wrestle it down, make it surrender to our will and leave us with arms raised in victory. But we are not always called to this, though this fight is our natural default. Natural default—our fault of nature, the sin nature preset to automatically tackle nature with our nature.
So we are told

  • to operate according to the Spirit so we don’t operate according to our nature (Galatians 5:16);
  • to declare our nature dead so the Spirit in us lives (Romans 6:11);
  • to not snuff out the Holy Spirit in us in preference to our nature (1 Thessalonians 5:19);
  • to remember that when our nature is weak, God is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9); and
  • to know that our fight is spiritual, not physical (2 Corinthians 10:3-5),

so that God can shine boldly through us. The challenge now is to constantly battle my nature, tackle and wrestle it down, keep it there so I can declare victory in the Spirit. I thank God that though my struggle is real, I have supernatural words that can do a supernatural work in me to accomplish what God would have manifest through me. Much more could be said….until another time…

My One Thousand Gifts List

#471-480
Flynn letting me wear his hat because I didn’t have one
Compliments on my new Facebook picture
Flynn loading the dishwasher
The realization that I don’t first greet God in the morning
God waking me up in spite of my sins
Tabitha watching the children in the morning AND evening
Attending Joshua’s Black History Month program
A play date with Nate and Jackson and talking to Kim
Mrs. Fisher waiting with Joshua until I arrived to pick him up
A beautiful birthday card from Nichole

Friday Feature: Food’s Higher Purpose

Posted on by
Reply

Food has a higher purpose than for pleasure. I know some of you don’t want to hear that, especially those of you who say, “But I love food.” It’s okay to love food, but how do we allow our love for food to line up with the word of God? Look at the scripture where food is discussed and see what the purposes were:

for meat (to curb hunger)—Gen. 9:3
for sacrifice—Exodus 30:34
for celebration—Genesis 21:8
for worship—Genesis 29:18
for memorial—Exodus 12:14
for hospitality—Genesis 18:1-8
for dedication—Daniel 1:8-16
for bribery (Genesis 25:30-34)
for pleasure—(1 Samuel 2:12-17, 4:18)

When you read the above scriptures, notice there was immoral behavior and gluttony the times food was used for pleasure apart from God’s sanctioning. God gave us food to eat and taste buds for pleasure, but we have to look to God to tell us how to use our food. As far as I can see, God mostly sanctioned food to sustain and honor life. Emotional masking, boredom, and gluttonous pleasure are things God wouldn’t have us engage in so surely we can’t use food toward these ends. When we do (which I’m sure we all have done at one time or another), we are guilty of elevating food to a higher status than what God intends.

Once we recognize that food has a higher purpose, we can then redefine our relationship with it. Food is neither our friend nor our enemy. It is a tool God gave us to master. Food is our slave and we have to master it. We humans have to understand that God gave us dominion, which means we have charge over anything non-human, and that includes food. We can control, must control, food for our health and not allow food to control us. We are the lord of food, but in order for us to operate like we are lord requires that we submit our lordship to the lordship of our Master. He will tell us what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, where to eat, and with whom to eat. He will tell us when our food program needs to change and how to change it. As we seek God to control this area of our life, our schedules, taste buds, emotions or boredom will have less influence over how we eat. Like with anything in life, God will direct our path regarding food. He wants us to have the best food for our bodies so our bodies work best in the body of Christ and for the Kingdom of God. Truly, having an ultimate working body for the body of Christ and God’s Kingdom is a higher purpose for food. I believe when we seek to grasp that food has a higher purpose than for pleasure, we will see an increase in service to our Lord, better attitudes about and while working with others, and an increase in the spirit of wisdom and revelation for our lives, the lives of others and God’s greater plans. And I believe that these are but a few of the divine impartations we will experience. With Jesus as Lord of ALL of our life, just imagine all the great wonders we will see.

How would you define your relationship to food? How do you believe you would be an increased benefit to the body of Christ and the Kingdom of God with Jesus being the ultimate Lord over food in your life?